Okay, so not really sure how these are supposed to work, if they are just personal, or I will get a bunch of comments, but I am treating it like a blog
I did McDougall (briefly) while in college, probably about 5-6 years ago. I wasn't very committed to stick with it (didn't really have much, if any, weight to lose,, but thought I did at the time!) and found it hard at that time in my life. This was also before I was a die hard"whole foods' , organic, no trans fat, no MSG, no HFCS, no artificial sweeteners, etc. girl like I am now.
Going through infertility due to PCOS and then turning to acupuncture to get pregnant turned me into quite a little hippie and I've just kept on with that. I was a meat eater until a couple weeks ago when I jumped back on to this, but I always bought local or organic meat and dairy. Anyway...
I still have about 40 lbs of "baby weight" to lose from my, now 13 month old, and it's got to go. I am ashamed to say that I've tried pretty much every whole foods (ie: nothing like nutrisystem, jenny craig crap) diet out there thinking it was "the one" at the time.
A couple months ago I tried Eat To Live, but didn't last more than a few days. I felt it was just TOO restrictive. I like my carbs. I am happy to eat good carbs/whole grains, but just don't restrict them on me!
I picked up Breaking the Food Seduction (because yet ANOTHER diet book would make 40 lbs disappear?!
) and read that while on vacation in New Orleans earlier this month. I had no idea it was vegan at the time I bought it. That of course got me thinking back to McDougall and led me back here, as I didn't like how much he stressed soy products and such.
So here I am. I jumped right in and while I did "cheat" a little my first week with more avocado and peanut butter than I really should be eating at this point in time to lose weight, I lost 3.5 lbs.
I was still losing as of Friday, when my husband (who at this time is still enjoying his animal products
) when we decided to splurge for sushi at my favorite restaurant we never go to anymore b/c it's far away and $$$ for us b/c we order a lot. I decided that I would make an exception for my favorite food ever and we spent almost $100 on sushi.
It wasn't as good as I expected. I felt incredibly guilty afterward and worse yet was the next day we went to PF Changs for carry out as well b/c we had a gift card to spend. I was really good and ordered the McDougall friendly Budda's Feast. It was GOOD! I also stole "dan dan noodles" from DH's box.
I avoided the chicken sauce, but still consumed a good amount of fried egg noodles. Oh, I should add that most of our sushi was heavily tempura-d.
Today I woke up and had gained 1.5 lbs back. I felt like garbage.
I'm so disappointed in myself. I'm armed with cookbooks, and other vegan inspiring books (The Kind Diet) and I still cracked. WTF.
So no more cheating for me, esp b/c I felt so wonderful and thin the past 2 weeks until this weekend's food mistakes. I learned a valuable lesson: IT ISN'T WORTH IT!!!!!!!!!!
IT ISN'T WORTH IT.
The McDougall meal at PF Changs was enough for me.
I would have been just as happy (in the long run) with veggie sushi, even if it does have to be white rice on the very rare occasion we get to go there anymore.
So that is where I am today.
I bought two more vegan cookbooks today that looked like good recipes I could "McDougallfy" and also The China Study to really drive home why I need to stick with this. Not just to lose the weight, but for health in general.
I hope DH can lean more toward this way as I go along and he sees me lose a bunch of weight.
Our son, Lucas is doing this with me (except he gets more fat), mostly by his own choice. He has never really liked to eat any meat or cheese. I can't breastfeed anymore thanks to ITP and since I planned to do that until he was 2-3 at least, we've had to figure out another option, so he gets hemp milk.