July 2020 McDougall MWL Weigh-In Group

[cmurphy]

Weight loss: 4.0 lbs

Busy week painting my house... so lots of activity!
Staying away from muts and nut products has been hard! Tried oat yogurt, but it was flavored and had added sugars. So only tried that once.

Looking for sauce ideas to add to brown rice, or baked potatoes.

[Mmcg0306]

SW(6/29): 176
7/3: 174
CW 7/10: 173.6
Loss: -0.4

I was 4/7 this week and am a little frustrated with myself. I found I need a better plan for busy days and guests visiting, etc where it was easy for me to go back to my old ways. I did increase exercise this week which I was happy about. I found walking my dog in the evening was a good way to fight the after dinner sugar cravings. Overall, I am hoping for a better week next week!

[Vegeloon]

I’m happy to report a loss of 4.2 pounds this week - Yay! But more important is how much better I am feeling after stopping all the junk crap I had been eating!
Progress on the 10 principles for MWL:
1) Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit. I need to do better on this - about 50% now.

2) Follow the 50/50 plate method for your meals, filling half your plate (by visual volume) with non-starchy vegetables and 50% (by visual volume) with minimally processed starches. I am doing well on this one - about 95%

2) Choose fruit for desert.Also doing well with this - 100%

3) Greatly reduce or eliminate added sugars and added salts. This includes gourmet sugars and salts too. If either is troublesome for you, you can eliminate them. I could do better reducing my salt intake, sugar area is good. 80%

4) Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood). 100%

5) Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy). 95% had avocado once this week.

6) Eliminate any added oil. 100%

7) Eliminate all higher calorie-dense foods including flour products (i.e. bread, bagels, muffins, crackers, dry cereals, cookies, cakes), puffed cereals, air-popped popcorn and dried fruit. 100%

8 ) Don’t drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages). 100%

9) Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don't starve yourself and don't stuff yourself. This is another area I am working on. I tend to be a volume eater - working on portion control - 60%.

10) Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking). Doing pretty well with this - walked 6 out of 7 days 85%.

I am so grateful to be back on this journey!

[Golightly]

Weight down 3 pounds in first week! I’m thrilled!
I successfully accomplished all of the checklist goals, except:
Had nuts/seeds twice
Had 1 ounce of chocolate, once
Had air popped popcorn, once
What I’m learning:
This way of eating works for me. I am satisfied. I never before believed that eating potatoes, greens, and beans would actually help me lose weight.
I have to remind myself that my cravings are psychological and related to the crave cram extinction curve. Knowing this, I can work against it proactively.

My goal this week is to stop eating when I am full and sated. Do not eat until I am stuffed and distended.

[Adriana]

Hi all!
-3 lbs since July 1
Did great this week even though I partook in a little alcohol over the 4th of July weekend. Still managed to lose 1.7 lbs this week. Closed my circles on my watch every day, exercised at least 30 minutes, and ate 50/50 starches and veggies every meal. Feeling awesome and loving the momentum!! Wohoo!!

[MaShellie]

I am doing this by myself. My husband eats what I cook for dinner. I'm not buying noncompliant food do if he wants it, he has to buy it! This week I have lost 5 lbs. Primarily using SNAP. I am doing better starting with salad before the main meal. I have always been "backwards" and ate my salad last, so this feels weird. I think I understand why I should do this but I am only 80% compliant, so I'll work on it. Salt is greatly reduced so I notice when I do steal a few grains as my palate is heightened. I am usually good with no oil. My food Achilles heel is bread especially white flours, but I am working hard to stick it out and was 100% compliant. My biggest effort needs to be to start brisk walking. My dog would love it if I go out after dinner, when the sidewalks cool off! I welcome feed back on how to keep my spirits up while doing this program and avoiding sugar and other junk Husband eats!

[Trish]

Good morning everyone!

Good week, I like the weekly accountability, it really helps me to stay on track but not to obsess in familiar way.

Most of my dinners are large salads, so I divide the "plate" by putting starches in or alongside my dinner salad --
potatoes, corn off the cob, chickpeas, winter squash in or on the side, etc. Breakfast includes fruit or potato, with half portion tempeh. No oil, no salt (discovered a new spice, Dukah mixture which is a kind of Mediterranean flavor), no refined foods, gave up any bread (my husband has come a baker in this pandemic )

I understand increasing starch and it is for satiety, so working that up but the issue has been that I am not generally hungry eating in this mix of starch and vegetables. This has happened before when I eliminate flour products, though .. why is this I wonder? Anyone know?

Exercised with a walk or run each day.

Down 2.5 lbs. this week, have not seen the scale move for months!

[SaladDays]

For the first full week, my weight is down 2#. I have been able to follow most of the 10 principles, with the exception of getting 30 mins of exercise daily (4 days), keeping fruits to 2 servings daily and keeping starches to 50% of plate- sometimes doing more like 2/3-1/3 - still working on these areas.

[Pattyj115]

7/01/2020 :: 205.4
07/03/2020 :: 203.4
07/10/2020 :: 202.0
Weekly Change: -1.4
Total Change: -3.4 YaY!!


Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit. YES. However, I find sometimes I am full after a cup of soup in the morning. So I eat my starch & veggies halfway to lunch.

Follow the 50/50 plate method for your meals. Yes. I am unable to eat a full dinner plate so I have been using a lunch plate and that is satisfying. I find I am not hungry between meals either.

Greatly reduce or eliminate added sugars and added salts. Yes, just a little sprinkle of salt & pepper on food on my plate.

Eliminate all animal foods. Yes, no problem here!

Eliminate all higher fat plant foods. Yes

Eliminate any added oil. Yes

Eliminate all higher calorie-dense foods including flour products. Yes

Don't drink your calories. Yes, water only except for am coffee

Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Yes, I have been using the MyFitnessPal app to track what I eat during the day and find most days I eat less than 1000 calories, but I am not hungry to eat more. Perhaps that will change in time. I enjoy my 2 fruits a day and wish I could eat more, but I want to lose weight more than I want more fruit.

Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily. Yes, I exercise about 3-4 times a week as I have bursitis in both hips, very painful and lower lumbar arthritis. I use the walking pool 2x week, and when the gym reopens, I will go back to the elliptical and recumbent bike, 10 mins on each. And I count my PT exercises as "exercise" because that is to build/strengthen muscles.

I am so thankful I was invited to join this group! I enjoy reading the posts and I have picked up a few good pointers from some of the long term folks. I have reviewed the recipes and printed out some I can do, so I look forward to the variety it will bring to the table!!

[Joannasophia]

Good afternoon everyone.
I started this diet for the first time on 1 July. My weight last Friday was 141.2 lbs and my weight today is 137.4 lbs. Wow! This works! Losing this 3.8 lbs was really enjoyable and I am certainly eating more volume than I was before. I exercise everyday for at least an hour, usually taking one day off. I've been doing this for over a year.
My trangressions - nut butter and nuts a few times when I was in a hurry. However, It looks like the exercise makes up for that.
I love this diet and never realized how easy it is to cook without oils. This is a revelation.
I am looking forward to getting down to 130 lbs and reassessing. I'm 5'4".

[Hope410]

Hello Everyone,

Weight Loss this week: -1.8 LBS

Points 1-6, 8-9 were all 100% this week but had a few glitches on points 7 and 10.

Point 7: 65% because I had bread 2X for a veg sandwich, but was able to nip that in the bud after remembering the weight gain from last week. Thank goodness.

Point 10: Only walked 4X due to a combination of hot and/or stormy weather. Plus one day it was due to just plain laziness. Will do better this week.

Have a great week everyone. Now I'm going to read everyone's post. So interesting!!

[wildgoose]

Looking for sauce ideas to add to brown rice, or baked potatoes.

Sauces/gravies/toppings are a very individual thing, but I can tell you what we do and see if anything resonates with you.

• Salsa (homemade — a pull chopper like this is really helpful for making easy salsa)
• Soup, stew, or especially chili. I make a lentil chili with kidney beans and pinto beans, loads of tomato, onion and garlic, in the Instant Pot. The Gander and I really like it, and we pour it over everything, especially as it gets thicker when it’s in the fridge for a day or two.
• Chunky marinara — again, homemade. Took me a while to make this easy. The trick for me was lots of fresh basil. Now the jarred stuff tastes horrible to us.
• Anything starting with my cauliflower base.
  • Steam some cauliflower, fresh or frozen (how much doesn’t matter; I just fill my 2-quart microwave steamer) until it’s very soft.
  • While it’s steaming, water sauté chopped onion and garlic, then add mushrooms and cook till they’re as done as you like them. If you don’t like mushrooms, leave them out (I have to do half a batch with mushrooms and half without, because the Gander is allergic).
  • Take the steamed cauliflower and put it in a blender (do this in small batches — hot food in a blender can build up steam pressure and blow the lid, which is unsafe and very messy), blend until smooth. You can add the onion/garlic/mushroom mix to the blender, or stir it in to the blended cauliflower if you like a chunkier sauce.
  • Add some of the leftover warm steaming water until you get the desired consistency.
  • Season with whatever you like — we use Benson's Table Tasty.
  This can be a base for anything. Add vegetables, spices, herbs — the sky is the limit. The Gander and I like to add chopped broccoli.
• Finely chopped veggie mix (for us, that’s usually something heavy on broccoli, celery, carrot, onions; asparagus if it’s in season), water-sautéed with a lot of garlic, with a drizzle (and I do mean a drizzle — don’t drown the stuff) of balsamic vinegar.
• Anything based on Jeff's SNAP meals.
• Mary McDougall's smashed pinto beans. We totally love this easy way of doing pinto beans. We make burrito bowls with a layer of brown rice, a layer of beans, chopped romaine, chopped tomato, and chopped onion. "Stuffed" baked potatoes are good this way too.

It got easier for me when I stopped chasing recipes and started working with techniques. I learned the technique for the cauliflower base, and that gave me any combination I wanted. I learned a couple of basic soup techniques, which I can change up if we get bored. I’ve been playing with marinara for years.

What is not MWL and/or didn’t work for us anyway:

• Anything with cashews or other nuts. Way too high in fat, way too rich, just made me want to overeat.
• Ditto anything with tahini or nut butter.
• Fake "cheese" sauce or anything with nutritional yeast. Often calorie dense and not that tasty in my opinion. I know I’ll get disagreement here, but to me, nothing tastes like cheese, and anything that gets me thinking about cheese is not a good idea.

You’ll probably get good suggestions from others, or by searching this board, but I hope that at least gives you some ideas.

Goose

[Corey M]

Today is my starting day. I am 5'2 and this morning my weight was 159.0lbs.

Corey

[Gspeech3]

No loss this week. Stayed the same. I am not really drinking enough water and I had leg surgery two weeks ago. I can't exercise and I may be holding onto water. This is a change of lifestyle for me and I have to stay the course. For me, I have to lose last 7 pounds so I expect it to go slow.

Staying positive!

Hope everyone is doing very well.

Gayle

[Beeshell]

Weight change +/- -.9 lbs
points where I succeeded:
3, 4, 6 and 8: don't eat animal products, use little to no salt and sugar, oil. I don't drink juice or alcohol so don't drink calories.

2: plate 50/50. Mostly achieving this. Regularly eat broccoli and some sort of starchy veggies and/beans or lentils.Also have been able to eliminate dessert in the form of chocolate etc and replace with fruit.This is HUGE for me.

7 : Still need to work on eliminating the higher calorie flour products. This is something I plan on working on as I proceed - I was focusing on eliminating dessert this week. I view this as long term change (the program) so am trying my best to comply without getting discouraged or quitting.

Thoughts/observations: Again, I see this as long term so progress in any of these areas for me is a big win. I am viewing this as not just for 30 days, though that is what this program is for. I hope to continue, therefore am working slowly on areas where I need modification. I was actually looking forward to weigh-in in today (when has that ever happened?) and though I''d have liked to see a bigger number, am also working on changing my mindset to a quick fix.

I exercise regularly and have to force my self to take a day off so that is not a problem for me. I walk, cycle, swim and do some yoga almost daily (35 min - 2 hours depending on what I am doing. )

Looking forward to reading others' posts and also doing some research into ways I can do lunch differently as that tends to be where I consume bread etc.

thank you to the McDougall team for guiding us.