Discussion Board

I'm 100% ready to switch from the Standard American Diet to McDougall.

However, I don't cook and I'm used to eating take-out or drive-through. (Hence, my being 50 lbs overweight).

Does anyone have any tips for how a newbie can dive head-first (or feet-first, i'm not picky) into a McDougall lifestyle and still have close to the ease and simplicity with which I was eating before??

I appreciate any help and thanks!

Rollo

Perhaps you should wait until your health becomes a priority, and then you will take the extra time to find and prepare good food.
I don't have sufficient "short cuts" that will do much more than allow you to fool yourself into believing that you are following a healthy diet.

Often eating healthy becomes a priority right after diagnosis or a visit to the emergency room.
In others it can be the magical "100 pounds" overweight.
So you may still have 50 pounds to gain, or visit to the emergency room, to establish just how important it is in your life.

You might start by making a list of all the other things in your life that are more important than your health, that you find time to devote many hours to.

Perhaps you're not 100% ready. Make your list and report back where health ranks.
I know, I'm harsh, but "refreshing"

That wasn't harsh, nor "refreshing". It was definitely unhelpful, though.

Well, I'm sure several others will reply with suggestions you'll prefer.
Thats the magic of the internet.
Better to get several points of view, even if some aren't what you want nor are helpful to your particular needs.

Frankly I don't know of a single "take-out or drive-through" that fills the bill.
Perhaps Subway has a few items. Thats where I'd go in a pinch.
Otherwise its items brought from home, most of which require preparation time, which you say you don't have.

Not sure of the easier answer you want.

You also might be able to order a baked potato with broccoli (hold the butter hold the cheese) from Wendy's. You might also be able to get a salad with just veggies, but not sure.

You also might get sick of only those options and realize home made will taste better, be cheaper and much healthier.

We trade fast for health today it seems. Like Purdy says, it's your choice. I just think you will be more successful if you can find a few minutes to steam some rice and veggies and bring them with you.

It probably all seems rather overwhelming right now. But with a little practice, you will develop a routine in no time. Some of us use the weekends for cooking and freezing stuff so that weekdays are simply pulling something out of the freezer and throwing it in your bag to heat up at work (if you work in a place with a microwave). A little bit of investment (time) will go a long way to promoting and maintaining good health.

Purdy's response is totally accurate, and I think is helpful.
If you want to start the program, you are going to go through a number of big changes. One of the changes is changing your priorities. Purchase and preparation of your food requires a lot of thought and changes. IMO opinion, you will need to learn to cook, or have somebody do it for you. Reading labels is important. Avoiding old habits is important.

You can definitely find a lot of tips to make transition easier, but it is not realistic to think that you can do this as easily as just looking for the golden arches.

For me, as Purdy says, it was a diagnosis (clogged arterial artery) that motivated me. Once my wife and I started this, it was very hard at first - change is always hard at first. Now is it not hard, but one of the things we had to give up was eating out very much. It is possible to eat legal foods on the go, but they are usually not very tasty, and I doubt you would be able to sustain this in the long run.

You might be a candidate for the McDougall live in program, which includes a lot of education. But I don't think you are likely to succeed if your idea is that eating well should be as easy as eating SAD.

Here are a couple of tips - keep some balsamic vinegar around, since green salads are generally ok with this. Also, get a rice cooker and learn how to use the timer on your oven for baked potatoes and sweet potatoes. Check Jeff Novick's forum here and his independent website for some quick meal ideas.

When you say you don't cook "at all", do you mean that literally, or do you mean you have a limited repetoire? Are you willing to learn how to cook? Can you afford to have a personal chef or caterer cook for you if not?

I have found out that, where we live, it is almost impossible to eat vegan out, let alone no oil. The Thai place here cooks its veggie dishes in bad fat ie. tastes bad due to it likely being used over and over again! And I am too cheap to pay for food that I can easily make at home - I love eating out, but only if it is worth the cost. At different times, we have lived in cities where one could get excellent vegan food, not necessarily Mcdougal... It is quite easy, however, to learn to bake some potatoes, or steam them, and steam some veggies, and open a can of beans, etc. with some salsa on top, or some fat free salad dressing.

Hi Rollo,
Not sure how literally to take you with regard to not cooking, so here are a couple of suggestions.

If you exaggerated a little, then try the Quick and Easy cook book:

http://www.drmcdougall.com/store_qne.html

If you didn't, then Dr. McDougall often recommends hiring a cook. Try this site:

http://www.hireachef.com/

Trader Joe's? Lots of quickly prepared foods can be gotten at these stores. Breakfast is easy; fruit & cereal with almond,rice or soymilk.There are a lot of canned or instant soups you could have for lunch with a microwaved baked potato.
Tell us more about yourself! Do you have a stove? Microwave? Toaster?

Being "100% ready" means making a commitment to change in whatever ways are required to meet your health goals.

But if, for whatever reason, you still choose not to cook, my suggestion is, Plan A: Don't cook. Continue to "take out." If you can't find 100% acceptable items at Wendy's or other take-out, then go to the ultimate take-out: a big grocery store.

Take out: fresh or frozen vegetables and fruit that can be eaten raw; frozen or canned starches already cooked (rice, potatoes, beans, peas).

Plan B: Hire a cook.

Both plans are very easy, which seems to be your only requirement. (You don't mention taste or cost.)

P.S. -- As I understand it, the McDougall Program includes not only a healthy diet but also exercise as an indispensable element. That will take time, ideally every day. You will need to develop a program for gradually increasing the time or the intensity or both. As with diet, the transition is the tough part. Once you are in the new, healthy routine, life will be easy again.

ok, not sure where you live since you didn't fill in the city. Around here in my metro area it is possible to mcdougall and grab and go, but it would also get tiring. You do need to broaden your cooking abilitys some. Can you microwave? I mean a potato isn't rocket science. If you have a Trader Joes or Whole foods, there is brands of brown rice in the freezer section all ready to nuke. But try and learn how to cook the real stuff it's better and cheaper. Canned beans can be added too.

Many of the frozen veggies come in their own little bags to throw in the microwave and steam. My grocery stores have salad bars too, or the bagged salads. After a while though, I think they taste terrible and I prefer washing and doing my own mix.

Many restuarants have salads. But again that will get boring.

I tend to cook up my starch of the week on the weekend, a bean of the week which is usually chickpeas, wash my lettuce and my fruits and prep them all on a sunday evening. Then I go all week. I do this in the basement of a house. I have no stove. I do have a toaster oven, microwave, and rice steamer, and crock pot.

I throw together vegetable soups by pouring in the broth, adding frozen mixed vegetables, throwing in cole slaw mix, and my herbs in the crockpot and letting it go.

Things don't have to be complicated, but to make it interesting you do need to expand your horizons from McDonalds.

Thanks to everyone with suggestions!

To answer a few questions:
I live in LA.
I'm not independently wealthy [yet], so I will not be hiring a chef.
I am NOT - and I certainly didn't try to imply that I was - looking for a literal drive-thru way of eating McDougalls.

What I was hoping to find - and I did among the posts - was some ways of eating McDougall that were quick and easy and required minimal time and effort. This way, I can get started!

While I am 100% ready...and I don't care who wants to question that percentage, feel free to...I have neither the skills, the experience, the tools, nor the time to start spending an hour a day cooking. So, to get me started, I need some ways I can change how I eat and what I eat to live a healthier life.

And here's what I got:

Baked potatoes
Steam rice
Steam veggies
Can of beans
Salsa or fat free (and I assume oil-free) dressing
Prepared foods from Trader Joe's (or Whole Foods, and I've got both in LA)
Fruit & Cereal with rice milk (I'm gonna skip the soy for now for MWL)
Canned soups
Fresh or frozen veggies and fruit that can be eaten raw

In addition, I've got the following recommendations:
Use weekends to cook and freeze
the Quick and Easy Cookbook (something I can try on the weekends).
and some great suggestions from "Faith in DC"

So, I found a lot of great suggestions for me to get started! Thanks!

Rollo

Rollo,

It looks like you have the ideas to get started. I find that the simpler I keep my food the better it is for me. I love to cook, but have no time as I am a full-time work out of the home mom and grandma and part-time (at night) college student. I started the program a little less than a month ago and have found that my whole body, including mood is improving daily. It is a long road ahead but totally doable and I am feeling better than I have in years. I wish you much success on the program and keep coming to the board with questions and to read as much as you can. I find that it really helps to udnerstand the nutrition behind the lifestyle not just blindly follow. This will help you when people question your choices.

DON'T WAIT TIL YOUR HEALTH BECOMES MORE OF A PRIORITY -- START NOW - HERE'S WHAT YOU DO:

Since you live in LA you can take advantage of Trader Joe's prepared brown rice that you can microwave for 3 minutes -- their frozen veggies are aces as are their prepared fresh veggies: asian combo, greens (mustard, spinach and one other) , cut up veggies for grilling (portabello mushroom, zuchinni, asparagus, red onions, etc) and other pre-packaged fresh veggies - you can steam, pressure cook or microwave any of these and throw some mustard on to give it some zest - if you're near a costco you can get their pre-packaged organic greens for salad -- the same greens you get when you order a salad at an LA restaurant for $14.00.
And for breakfast, buy trader joe's or any supermarket oatmeal - 2 1/2 minutes in the microwave. if you want to get fancy, throw some trader joe's pre-packaged pomegranate seeds into the oatmeal after it's cooked for some nice texture and taste. once you get into it, you might find yourself going to the local farmer's market for the amazing and amazingly cheap fresh strawberries. but take it bit by bit at first by making this as easy on yourself as possible vis a vis "preparing" food.
That's really all you need -- takes as much time as waiting in line at Wendy's.
Good luck --