Discussion Board

Just stopping by to say that my number one tip for people doing the MWL program is to have what I call a super salad for dinner. Chop up broccoli and cauliflower in your food processor, grate carrots, chop bell peppers, celery and whatever great salad veggies you have around and toss with some gorgeous lettuce, dress with lemon juice (or vinegar) and seasoning.

Do not eat anything else, and drink only water.

There's something about having this salad for dinner that really seems to promote weight loss, it worked for my husband.

No starches?!?!?!

Nope, none! I should have mentioned that your breakfast and lunch need to have some excellent starches in them though, in order to balance out your diet

Plus, we were only doing it on week-days. Now that my husband's weight is good he only does it if he's overdone it the day before, i.e. pizza night. I would go so far to say that it's even more effective than skipping dinner altogether, and healthier too.

Most people need more starch than that, or they will not feel satisfied and will then overeat. I ate TONS of starches throughout my 90 lb weight loss and continue to do so--nothing but a salad for dinner would have me cheating in NO time!

Thanks for your excellent tip on dinner. I have found that setting specific rules and living by them works for me. A super salad for dinner and nothing afterward sounds like a winning strategy.

I can see how that would work for some, but I've found that I don't sleep well if I forego starches at dinner. To each his or her own!

I'll just add that sometimes, yes, you do feel a bit hungry before bed after the super salad. However, (and this is strange) you feel absolutely great when you wake up, full of energy. It's a sort of mini fast! And then you see the scale, and you just know you're going to have a great day

Well, glad it works for you, but the whole point of McDougalling is to eat until you are full and satisfied, not to have "mini fasts."

It is better to avoid foods like tofu, nuts, etc. (which you routinely add to meals) and eat your fill of plants (including starchy ones) rather than risk being hungry and making poor choices as a result.

Like ETeSelle, I find that a no-starches salad meal leaves me hungry and binging (usually on fruit or something else healthy, but still binging) before bedtime.

However I do fairly frequently have an all-salad meal these days. But what I do is include at least one starch in it. A sweet potato, nuked, diced, and tossed in soy sauce, is my current go-to salad starch.

Good tip. When I was in losing mode I often ate large salads sans starches. There were days in which I would mimic the (Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead) regime... but in whole food form. Kept me averaging about 1 lb loss a day... that and lots of exercise. Definitely not for everyone and definitely not related to anything promoted by Dr. McDougall... but if a person gets stuck and really wants to lose...

Gee Estelle, sounds like you're criticizing my WOE! I currently have a BMI of 19.7, and my husband is 20.8 after losing 47 pounds, so I guess I must be doing something right in the kitchen.

My husband is a diabetic and eating things that most people would consider healthy such as potatoes, bread and some grains and beans will spike his blood sugar to dangerously high levels. That is the main reason we eat more tofu and nuts than other McDougallers. I've had to adapt the diet to make it work for him, because veggies are great, but he needs something else on his dinner plate at night that won't send his blood sugar through the roof. If you have any other food suggestions for him I'd be happy to hear them.

p.s. his cholesterol and trigs were excellent at his last check-up a few weeks ago.

Gee Estelle, sounds like you're criticizing my WOE! I currently have a BMI of 19.7, and my husband is 20.8 after losing 47 pounds, so I guess I must be doing something right in the kitchen.

My husband is a diabetic and eating things that most people would consider healthy such as potatoes, bread and some grains and beans will spike his blood sugar to dangerously high levels. That is the main reason we eat more tofu and nuts than other McDougallers. I've had to adapt the diet to make it work for him, because veggies are great, but he needs something else on his dinner plate at night that won't send his blood sugar through the roof. If you have any other food suggestions for him I'd be happy to hear them.

p.s. his cholesterol and trigs were excellent at his last check-up a few weeks ago.

Hi: I like this idea, especially if I slip. I recently went away to NYC for the weekend and I did admit I ate things that I shouldn't have. Sometimes like that to get me right back on track sounds good to me. Thanks for the idea. Heather.

Nordgirl, is your husband Type I or Type II? And are his spikes in response to potatoes, bread, and beans something you've directly observed, or simply what you/he expects?

I'm curious because as a Type II, spikes in response to these foods are what I would have expected based on my experience prior to eating plant-based. But in fact, I don't experience them, unless there are oils in my diet as well. But here's the catch -- even fairly small amounts of oils (like the oils in tofu and nuts or avocaado) can sometimes be enough to "allow" (mediate? facilitate? cause?) the spikes.

My own completely unscientific "explanation" for this is that the insulin malfunction in Type II diabetics (scratch that and make it: "in me") seems to be more a function of "carbs + grease" than a function of carbs alone.

Of course if your husband is Type I, all bets are off -- that's a totally different deal. And we're not all medically identical, so I can't necessarily expect what works for me to work for somebody else. But this way of eating is still new enough to me that I remember just how world-shaking it was for me to discover that I could eat a plate of potatoes without my blood sugar spiking. So that makes me curious enough that I've got to ask whether the spikes you talk about were an observed phenomenon in the context of a consistent series of no-added-oils meals, or whether (like many Type II diabetics, including me up until a year ago) your husband might have been understandably reluctant to give carb-heavy foods a fair (greaseless) test because of having been taught for years to expect big spikes in response to them.

First, my name is not "Estelle."

Second, what I am criticizing is the way you present your WOE here. You've said that you routinely eat shellfish, so you're not a compliant McDougaller, and you also routinely post recipes that should be considered feast food for most people on this forum (heavy on tofu, nuts, etc.). Then you turn around and post in MWL (which you do not follow!) a suggestion that is more akin to a traditional "starvation diet" than to this WOE.

My concern really isn't with you. You've repeatedly said that you'll just do things your way and you don't care. That's fine. My concern is for the THOUSANDS of lurkers and newbies who are considering this WOE and who will get a completely skewed and inaccurate view of it based on most of your posts.

I'm glad you've had success. I truly am. But you need to consider the fact that this is a public forum and your posts are read by those who might actually WANT to follow the plan as written. IMO many of your posts muddy the waters considerably, and THAT is my concern.