Discussion Board

What a wonderful walk you had..i love bird watching. I have two bird feeders,bird bath, three suet feeders and two finch feeders. In the spring i have two hummingbird feeders. We did not have as many hummingbirds this year.
I wanted to ask and i know this is probably a stupid question but you add flaxseed to your oatmeal. So that is an ok fat unlike olive oil. Is that because it is a grain. I have flaxseed but i stopped using it. It is the Bob Red Mill one.

Vanessa,The Chihuahua is a fashion diva, adorable pic And wow, I should do my birdwatching in your yard then! I have just two feeders - as Scrub Jays can take over - not to mention squirrels, so kind of have to do my birding away from the house.

I have put flax meal in my cereal, ever since I found out oatmeal & flax meal are Colin Campbell's ( China Study) breakfast. I can't even remember what the flax meal is good for at this point ! I know it has the good oils in it and as it's oils, I am sure that it's forbidden. Yet, it's not so much that it's causing a problem with weight loss. So in it stays - along with my soy creamer (just a bit) in the now fake coffee. I am legal the whole rest of the day - so those are my guilty pleasures I guess. I'll try to find out what the flax meals benefits really are.

Challenge: I have a challenge today, I may have mentioned, which have a Church Brunch and the Environment Committee, our Green Action folks, are springing for three vegan platters. I am participating in this purchase because we will have literature to explain how eating plant-based is a big part of the solution to decrease global warming. A person can reduce his/her carbon foot print by 66% by going plant-based. This is far greater than the purchase of the greenest vehicle which would be about 20%. This decrease in my contribution to global warming is reason number 1 for making this change, my health in a close second. I pretty much have to be here as my career was environmental planning.

So this all sounds cool, except I am dreading it! Reason being is this great food is from a really high end Chinese vegan restaurant and they have catered to the American palate by creating tofu that tastes like pork, chicken and etc. it is very tasty, as are the vegetables - but all are drenched in oil. So I am going to eat at home first and then there keep like three items on my plate and kind of nibble at them.

And then there is Monday Brunch with HS friends, which we always do at a great Western themed eatery. This place is famous in this area for their hearty breakfasts. I am going to try to get their veggie omelet, hold the eggs and oilless hash browns - but some how I think this is a pipe dream.

Luckily, I have lost well the last two days. So if I fail I'll just get right back on doing what I have been doing and be thankful, that Thanksgiving will be the only other challenge this month!

And yay, a pound lost since yesterday! More important I am now in the 31 BMI range which is one step down

LOL..I must be the only person that loves squirrels. I put out corn for them and as long as they share i let them eat from the feeder too

I put soy milk in my coffee. I have to have something since i gave up the regular creamer.

Good Luck at your events. I think you have a good plan in place. I always eat before i go to dinners that i know will not have things close to what i eat.

Wildlife: The walk this AM was good too. I saw lots of deer and a four point buck. I have a doe and two fawns that sleep in my front yard. Actually too much wildlife these days in the yard; deer, squirrels, raccoon got In the house last night, and a possum on the roof night before last. I am looking forward to winter! I wonder about the birds you saw, cranes usually come in gray. Maybe egrets? They are more water waders than the cranes. Funny about the squirrels - science projects have been known to go awry!

Brunch: Well, about the brunch - I stayed away from all the non vegan food. I know you can picture how much food this is, like just think back one week, hehehe. Wasn't really hard. someone made a giant batch of sweet potatoes, how perfect is that and I had some steamed broccoli with that. Then, it got out of hand because our vegan trays arrived late. My girlfriend wanted me to go up and alert folks that there was more food -so I ended up getting more food than I wanted. Still I did really well until I found out she split the remainders and packed half of that in my car!

But before I found them we had a drama at church. It turned out OK, but was really scary at the time. My friends Ellen & Mark just lost his Mom a month ago. They have moved in with his Dad to care for him and bought him to Church today. We were sitting chatting on a bench outside, when their Dad just keeled over.

Ellen just went hysterical thinking he'd had another stroke! He revived fairly quickly and the paramedics came fast, but I stayed the whole time because Ellen was just beside herself. They had so many close calls with the Mom before she died I think Ellen is terribly frazzled. Anyway, they got him of to the hospital and I got a text message he is fine.

But by the time I got home, I was pretty frazzled myself and when I found the food in my car, I just brought it in and stated munching! I did take most of it over to my neighbor's but I made a pretty big dent! Sigh.. and tomorrow breakfast with my friends. I am not going to weigh until Friday, I swear!

blondie: I'm surprised that the fasting didn't help you loose, you must be in serious plateau. I am glad I didn't pop back to 218 after yesterday. that has been my plateau for years! Well, I thought I wouldn't get on the scale until Friday, but couldn't help myself. I am up a pound, which means I am not back to 218 and I can only think my good long walk yesterday morning saved me from that. There won't be time for a walk this morning, but I will try hard at the restaurant to negotiate with the waitress. I figure I can get their home fries, hold the oil and their spinach omelet hold the eggs & the oil. I am going to feel like Jack Nicholsen, but I am going to try! Good luck to you today too

LOL @ the wildlife. I know all about that around here. My backyard backs up to a nature preserve. A few months ago i had deer eating the sunflowers i had planted behind my fence. I also had two raccoons i had to relocate because they would not leave my bird and suet feeders alone...

Hope you have a wonderful day..i so enjoy reading about your walks.

Vanessa: I so enjoy that you, blondie and I are keeping tabs on each other- and sharing our daily lives too --fantastic. Boy open space right behind you -- also fantastic. I need to relocate the racoons, but I am petrified of getting the kittens and having a Mom outside going starkers.

This is a true story, my neighbor just old me last week! Neighbor's bob and Roseann trapped two raccoon kittens (they were actually after a skunk) and the Mom came and watched, but did not oblige by getting into the second cage. Finally, she disappeared down the street. Minutes later MY MOM showed up at B & R's door with the Mother Raccoon standing on her hind legs behind her, frantically waving her paws. Bob a jet pilot and a completely by the facts guy, said the Mom raccoon went and got my Mom and brought her to their house to make sure they released those babies. They did! The one that was in my dining room the other night is probably the grandchild of those baby raccoons, and my Mom who FED THEM CAT KIBBLES on our back deck way back then is to blame for all of my woes!

So did you personally capture your or have someone do it for you? they charge $400 a raccoon here, so I am not inclined to spend $2,400 to get mine removed! Where are you in the country, it sounds so nice?

My Day: Bummer, so breakfast with friends was wonderful. Our waitress said they'd do anything I wanted - I was completely amazed. I was prepared to beg and had my script ready, but she caught me off guard by being so obliging. Essentially, I got the country fries (CF) and the insides (all the veggies) of a Denver omelet. She was so sweet, she brought me a beautiful bowl of fruit too, no charge. She got a nice tip for certain.

But - I forgot to ask her to hold the oil and make the CF half of the plate. so having ingested the oil already, I made up by eating all the CFs off my girl friends plates. They of course knowing to avoid the carbs at all cost and eat all the egg protein is the healthiest thing Honestly neither of them believed I lost 6 pounds in a bit more than two weeks eating potatoes, they all but argued with me that the way I was eating couldn't be good for me. Later my friend was complaining of her rheumatoid arthritis, I let it slip out that giving up dairy can make that disappear, I just couldn't stop myself - she rightfully pointed out that she is in the wine industry and that would not be happening, as in wine and cheese. Well, she does have to make a living, I'll give her that, but ouch!

Policy and Procedure 1.00 : I no longer enter into discussions on "healthy eating" I sent a quote from one of Esselstyne's books in an email to my book group. We update each other from what we are reading over time, so this is a regular thing. All these folks are longtime friends. In response, one guy told me that my opinion was wrong, I countered it was a quote from a medical doctor! Another guy said his Mom had a degree in nutrition from the 1950's, so he knew what healthy eating was and was not interested in my opinions. I countered again that this was not my opinion but a quote. A third man said he was reading Dr. Fuhrman's book and agreed with what I said to a degree, but that he knew a doctor would never say what was said in my email. I countered that it was a quote from Dr. Esselstyn's book gave the page number again and the page number from where Dr. Fuhrman said the same thing in his book!

At this point the second guy called me a Nazi ( not food nazi, just Nazi) and told me to stop trying to tell them what they could eat for dinner. He was seriously angry in his email and since has been nothing but kind and helpful to me - he will never apologize though. Note: None of the woman or girl friends in this group said a thing the whole time.

So, I am real glad we here are pretty much on the same page as to what "healthy eating" is or is not I do note some people here seem to be chastising others for slips and have a pretty rigid idea of how each individual should approach all of this. Personally, I think it's great we all agree to the concept, but how we execute is in my thinking going to have to be person by person. It's fine to point out when I am misunderstanding the McD principles - but I for one will not be chastised if I have made a decision to veer, if need be. I know the values that guide my decisions and I will not be persuaded that my thinking is wrong, when I am the only one who has carefully weighed all the variables that go into making a specific and reasoned choice.

That said, tomorrow I will stick to MWL plan and exercise by swimming, in accordance generally with Campbell, Esselstyn, Fuhrman and mostly Dr. McD

blondie: Thanks so much for sharing that story, it's not just happening to me!! This is the only thing that is hard about this program - the backlash I have gotten over it. I know people sometimes have these conflicts at home and have shared this with us, IMHO, courageously in one case recently. But I'll tell you the really harsh remarks from people, when I tell them TY for noticing the change and why I am doing better, is so unexpected and so exaggerated. Well, with three exceptions, my Doctor (bless her), Nathan and my friend Lorna. I have never said anything threatening, like "I am coming to your house in the dead of night to steal all of your dead animals from your freezer!", but they react just like I intend to take the only thing they love away from them. I now seriously believe that people are addicted to fat, especially men! I believe Dr. Barnard has a video on this subject, but I initially thought that to be kind of an overblown statement. Not anymore!! When people start noticing the weight is really coming off, I may just tell them I got a lap band! Or, I am only eating irradiated,spotted, orange grapes from Bolivia, after midnight. Then they'll say great - I am so happy for you!

I wonder if the psychologist associated with Dr. McD included a discussion in his book "The Pleasure Trap" on this subject?

blondie: I am so happy you've got your DH off dairy, that is HUGE! My favorite guy friend has prostate cancer and I have told him it is linked to dairy intake and still he tells me that his favorite healthy TV snack is popcorn with loads of Parmesan cheese on top! He grew up ranching raising cattle the old fashioned way - they had beautiful ranches winter and summer range high up in spring fed pastures - I think he thinks the meat he is buying at a large box store is raised the same way not in feed lots, full of drugs. He'll push back just like your DH did about the article and a while later he'll tell me a recipe that he made that was all veggies. Your right tread softly and go slow and the butter will not hit the skillet. Good work, good wife

I am rather pleased today. turns out my restaurant food eating choices even though they had oil on them, did not turn into weight gain at all. I would love to tell my girlfriends all those country potatoes they avoided (sure that that's where the bad calories were) -and I ate for all of us, didn't turn into even an oz of more weight on me. I am pretty sure that I kept the ratio of potatoes and veggies right, even if there was oil. So, though I didn't loose during last two days of eating away from home, I only gained a pound from the first day. Today I'll be back on and will swim again. So I think all will be back on track! And I still have a chance to loose my two pounds this week

Well, even after a really intense swim class yesterday , not much weight loss. I kind of messed up my first day on Mike's Excursion too. Not bad though - the menu I did got switched up and I exchanged corn for potatoes, but had the potatoes in place of rice for dinner. I had to do this as I got home late for lunch and was to hungry to even wait 15 mins for the potatoes to steam!

My day was screwy, swim and errands: had to go to Sears, which was way out of the way for me and found out it's been TORN DOWN! It's been there my entire life and yesterday it was just an empty lot with a bunch of heavy equipment going in circles on it.

So, since I was near Whole Foods with time to kill I went in to visit the veggies there and did my weekly shopping too. That place is so expensive, but I did find some things that are not available at my usual groceries - like the Wonder Cocoa Mike recommended for the banana cocoa dessert and also more flavors of the new herbal coffee I am using. Still, I spent 1/2 of what I used to pre- McD MWL menus. I can't believe the money I am saving, even when I am buying all organic!

Weight barely down today, but down is good - so I am happy!