Hi Team Time & Adherence,
Happy 2023! Hope everyone is enjoying getting back into their regular routine after the long holiday season.
Welcome,
Joe!!!! As
Holly mentioned, this is an awesome group! Glad to “meet” you!
Here is my week:
1 Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.
No; still maintaining. 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. Choose fruit for dessert.
YES. Lots of potatoes and sweet potatoes! A huge pot of Mary McD Mexi soup (from this website) with brown jasmine rice added – delicious and easy! Oatmeal and fruit for breakfast. Split pea soup, sloppy lentils --- still up there in my favorites. Scored some Sumo oranges and Envy apples – love these. Lots of delicious salads and roasted vegetables with lunch and dinner. 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.
Yes. Reduced, not eliminated. 4 Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood).
Yes.5 Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy).
Yes. 6 Eliminate any added oil.
Yes. 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).
Yes. 8 Don’t drink your calories especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages).
Yes.9 Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don't starve yourself and don't stuff yourself.
Yes –no starving or stuffing. 10 Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).
Not a full yes yet --- but PROGRESS!!! 5/7 outside brisk walks over 30 minutes is getting me back on-track here. [b]Gimmelean’s comment last week on the weather conditions she’d walk in motivated me out the door (and reminded me that I have earmuffs too!!). [/b]
Victories, comments, concerns, questions:
Comment #1 – Awesome,
Rebecka for asking Mark the question last week on how he handles MWL now! I greatly appreciated and am encouraged by Mark’s answer and by WildGoose’s post as well. If anyone missed it, check out those posts and Mark’s links! EPIC!
https://www.drmcdougallforums.com/viewt ... 75#p633376Comment #2 (sorry, LONG) -
Mark, thanks for sharing Dr. Lim’s list of “top mistakes in behavioral change”. Great way to get discussion rolling for 2023!!! In considering this, interesting to think that we are all different --- have various backgrounds, environments, taste preferences, challenges… So, I expect that Dr. Lim’s list would be holistic across a diverse group and some may or may not pertain to each of us. A few of them were n/a for me; others were YES!!!
I will say that I had “Unrealistic expectations” in that when I decided to just totally follow MWL for lifestyle / on-going (started May 2021), I was thinking that with my mind in the right place that it would be a “flip the switch” change and henceforth, compliance would come… Ha!!
Did not work that way for me, but I do know that there are other folks on the forums that have had that experience (where they just change --- PERIOD --- and more power to them).
I struggled a lot with emotional hoops… (at times discouraging) --- with a couple of foods in my environment that I kept eating (for months) and was discouraged with removing myself from Pleasure Trap.
Once I got that under control, I also felt emotionally challenged with feedback from folks (like that I was “too thin”), when I was progressing to healthy weight, but not confident in how to maintain weight (as opposed to lose weight) on MWL foods. I will only add here that ONLY 1 person ever commented when I was GAINING weight… make of that what you will.
Currently working through feeling confident about embedding the behaviors. So, this is my “Missing Piece” that is in progress… but I feel pretty ok about it.
Solutions that have helped in my on-going quest to embed the MWL behaviors (obviously, my own experience, background, challenges --- Your mileage may vary):
1) Framing change as a learning experience. Learning how to remove self-judgment and focus on using mistakes to analyze approaches for improvement and try these (to then be evaluated and adjusted as needed – in sometimes a circular fashion). HA – patience is a virtue!!!
2) Keeping a (primarily) positive mindset. Loving what I am doing and why – enjoying the journey and the open highway of other possibilities that become unleashed by re-gaining health. Finding joy in eating real foods (colors, tastes, textures) and how eating the right foods makes me feel fantastic physically and mentally.
3) Seeking / engaging in opportunities for support / accountability. For me, this was something that I had not leveraged in the past. I am grateful beyond belief for all the support that I have “found” --- many people are amazing and I appreciate them beyond belief.
a. This group itself and the wonderful moderators and information / resources shared. Also, the focus on behaviors --- truly incredible!!! Mark, Jeff, WG have built a community here --- love the sharing and support. Also, appreciate everyone who participates here!!!
b. The McD 12 Day Program – the McD team is amazing and the support framework is incredible!! I engage in every opportunity that I can fit in schedule and it has been phenomenal. If I ever find anyone that is willing to do / interested in this program, I will do this again with them. Seriously. Also, if anyone is thinking of doing this --- I recommend 100% -- life-changing.
c. A few family members / friends who aren’t doing this (and who think I am crazy in that) will actively support me. This helps tremendously in certain situations to have an advocate to get others off my back. I do take the Doug Lisle / JeffN approach with folks, and mostly all is fine.
4) Firmly staying with MWL recommended foods in maintenance (maybe maintaining weight, but still optimizing health). Yes, “a little bit” is likely not ok for me. This also goes to “environment”. Have not actively “quit” before but have drifted in the past to “Veganland”. This one has been a bit touchy with a few folks telling me that I am “too restrictive” (like I have a problem). I have really “re-thought” this at least 2 times and come to the same conclusion!!! I do know myself!!! Also, I eat foods that I like and I do eat as much as I want of the recommended foods (which can be a ton) – I do eat when hungry, not starving or stuffing. Not feeling deprived.
a. I make easy recipes using recommended foods. These are quick for me!!! I make what I like!!! Mostly this is throwing ingredients I like on a plate.
b. I regularly make Jeff burgers – easy. No need for crap. These are pull out of freezer and heat / eat.
c. I batch cook all kinds of very simple things!!! Have tons of recommended foods to take out of refrigerator!
d. I do some label reading detective work. Just to see how far off the ranch some choices are. I use JeffN guidelines and evaluate products. For MWL, this is minimal / condiment for me, but I do like to understand the broader situation for saying NO NO NO, not good… For instance, I checked out Trader Joe’s site for “vegan” products (maybe “featured”). There were maybe 60 --- and of that ONE would comply fully – Jicama wraps (just jicama) and ONE would comply except for ridiculous sodium (but now I won’t accept that --- It was Organic Split Pea Soup). The remainder are hard fails - crazy.
5) Understanding how to handle some of the mental battles (Logical vs. emotional brain or Superego vs. Id, etc.). I realized that I didn’t understand individual change much and have sought further information to help. Read two books that were amazing to me --- each with one key concept (that I was seeking) that I keep in mind.
a. “Atomic Habits” by James Clear --- the idea that making your habits part of “identity” makes you fight to keep them.
b. “Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard” by Chip and Dan Heath – this is organizational change focused but can be applied to the individual. I was able to learn from / leverage concept of the Rider (logical) vs. Elephant (emotional) --- thoughts on how to get them to work together (and understand the dynamics).
I would fully go with that “flip the switch” change… just not how it is happening for me. So, I try to stay on the straight and narrow and just keep going!!!
Holly – Awesome how you handled just moving right on forward after that 1 meal. Thinking you should order sometime for your friend a totally MWL compliant meal… (or is that passive aggressive??)…
Wishing everyone an amazing week!!!
Best,
Stephanie