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Good day today. Skipped breakfast and it was 3/4 through the morning before my stomach growled a little. Was easy to ignore today. Finished lunch at 1pm. I ate 500g of stewed vegies (beetroot, carrots, pumpkin, broccoli) and 225g of steamed potatoes. Felt full but not overfull, just right. 384cal. Then I worked in the garden and it took until nearly 5pm (4 hours) before my stomach growled. As I was in the middle of planting a lemon tree, didn't start cooking until 5.30pm. Ate raw carrots and the broccoli stalks while I washed kale and silverbeet and chopped pumpkin, carrots, cauliflower. Grated carrots and mixed in the last of the Tatsoi with a little cider vinegar, yum and beetroot. I ate a plateful of vegie stew like lunch, small amount of potatoes. My dd had cooked medium grain rice again (it's almost like short grain) and I couldn't resist having some with half a banana and some cinnamon on top. What a dessert, so sweet. Feel full but not overfull but would have been ok without the rice.

I used to eat 1 tsp of ground flax seeds (for Omega 3) and half a brazil nut (for selenium) every day and stopped since the ED. Since nuts don't tempt me, I will start doing that again. That'll fill in some of the lower nutrition values in my day.

I've weighed myself this morning after 2 days of skipping breakfast and most of the week no beans and it's still the same 75.5kg. Looks like I'll have to tackle that extra rice and banana at dinner. I'm happy to eat this way: plain, unseasoned vegies, plain, whole starch, 1 fruit, drink water only, but I would like to see some results for my efforts. I don't really want to start measuring out my starch portion but maybe I have to.

Had a modest amount of potatoes and a little Kumara for dinner with lots of vegies: kale, silverbeet, carrots, pumpkin stewed in water, salad of beetroot and grated carrot with a little cider vinegar, pumpkin soup unseasoned. No fruit today. Forgot to have the flax seeds and half a brazil nut.

I bought a different brand of B12, Source Naturals, as the shop didn't have our usual Solgar one. The Source Naturals are the same dosage but so much bigger than the Solgar and take ages to dissolve which none of us likes.

Wonderful day. Scale jumped briefly down to 75kg (weighs in half kg increments and even though it settled on 75.5kg, I'm on the right downward track.

Waited until I was hungry, until after 10am, and had a bowl of pumpkin soup which didn't fill me up too much so that I was hungry again for lunch, perfect. I'll try that again tomorrow I think.

We had visitors with kids and I cooked wholemeal pasta which they love, chilli beans, steamed vegies: broccoli, carrots and left over kale, carrot, pumpkin stew, plus beetroot salad with vinegar (and a little Bragg's Aminos for the guests).

Dd baked muffins. (1c flour half/half), 1c shredded coconut, 1/2c soy milk, 1 mashed banana, 1/3c sugar.)
I didn't feel like eating any muffin.

Dd made dinner. Baked vegies: broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, garlic, Kumara, yams, Golden potatoes, Buttercup pumpkin. I always used to eat this with a tomato sauce. I now love it just as is. So easy. Didn't feel like fruit and forgot my nut/seeds again.

For the last 6 weeks most family meals consisted of stewed, steamed or baked vegies and a starch. We've had hardly any tomato based meals or corn, so tomorrow I'm making potato corn chowder for a change. My teenager will be in heaven. Her favourite treat is eating sweet corn straight from the freezer !

Good day. Long walk up the hill.
B at 10am: pumpkin soup with vegies.
L: corn stew (potatoes, corn, kale, peppers, broccoli). Tasted very bland.
D: left overs from today and yesterday, raw carrots, pumpkin soup.
Dessert: rice and mixed berries.
1tsp flax seeds, 1/2 brazil nut

B: pumpkin soup at mid morning
L: 225g steamed potatoes. Water stewed vegies: kale, carrots, broccoli, kumara, fozen peas, corn, carrots.
D:same as lunch, plain rice, frozen mixed berries blended with 1 banana. Tried to make ice cream with a stick blender but didn't work.
9pm: 1c pumpkin soup, vegies, a few pieces of potatoes. (PMS eating).

When I first explored cronometer, I looked up the main starches. I saw a similar post in Letha's journal, which gave me the idea.

For 300cal you could eat:
(all cooked)
1500g pumpkin
400g Kumara (NZ sweet potato)
350g potatoes
270g brown rice
245g whole-wheat pasta (2c loosely filled or 85g dry)
80g uncooked rolled oats = 3/4 c
3 slices bread

Hey Erbse,

Thanks for posting the 300cal list, it's a handy reference.

M34

Still the same weight of 75.5kg this morning so I've decided a change is needed. The long time McDougallers say that they maintain on the same diet that they lost so any changes I make will have to be long term which is why I don't want to cut out the 2 fruit. So that only leaves the starch portion.

I haven't measured how much starch I eat at night apart from roughly eyeballing it to 1/3 starch and 2/3 vegies. That works at lunch time but I eat more starch than that at night which is why I've cut it out for breakfast to compensate but it looks like that's not enough.

Today I measured out 300cal of starch at lunch and again at dinner. It worked fine at lunch time but after dinner I was not satisfied and ate 2 bowls of pumpkin soup and 2 apples. I always leave the fruit allowance for night time. I'll try this for a while and see if it works.

B: 10.30am pumpkin soup with left over vegies. I'm very happy with this.
L: 300 cal of potates with unlimited vegies. (cauli, broccoli, brussels, kale, carrots, small amount of Kumara for taste).
D: 300cal wholemeal pasta, same vegies, homemade tomato sauce, (chopped tomatoes, mushrooms) pumpkin soup, 2 apples.

Woke up too early at 5am and was hungry at 8.30am so had breakfast then: pumpkin soup and left over vegies.
Early lunch as we had to go to town. When I weighed the lunch potatoes I noticed that I was weighing out 250g, like yesterday and that 350g (which is 300cal) is too much for lunch time. So yesterday I actually had around 200cal for lunch, not 300 like I logged at night. Vegie stew: kale, carrots, pumpkin, broccoli, French beans.

Did my long hill walk today.
Mid afternoon I was hungry and had a big carrot and a bowl of pumpkin soup. Worked in the garden.

Dinner: 350g potato, steamed vegies: carrots, broccoli, brussels, pumpkin. Beetroot salad with cider vinegar. One apple and a big carrot.

I'm quite pleased with this routine. I can eat more at night and still have a low daily calorie intake. I feel quite full but not stuffed.

Well, the magic happened. From 75.5 to 75kg, enough to make the scale shift. My next scale will weigh in smaller increments ...
BMI from 24.1 to 23.9

B: pumpkin soup with vegies.

I lost weight well when I ate Kumara exclusively, so today I've started to eat 165g potatoes and 105g Kumara for lunch (223cal) and 200g potatoes and 100g Kumara for dinner. I nearly served myself more at dinner just out of habit, when I realized I needed to weigh them.

Dd made a salad from our garden produce: snow pea shoots, rocket, cress and parsley with grated carrots and beetroot.
Vegies: French beans, pumpkin, carrots, brussels.
D: Same, except broccoli instead of brussel sprouts. 1 apple.

Had enough to eat after dinner but felt like something nice, so had some frozen mixed berries. In the bad old days I would have had rolled oats with fruit and soy milk and ruined my day's weight loss, not that I ever tried to lose weight. Stuck on 80kg for 20 years ...

My dd is very happy now because she has found a soy milk replacement ( I don't keep soy milk anymore, so I'm not tempted to drink tea) for her hot cocoa. She uses 1tsp finely ground flax seeds, 1tsp org. cocoa powder and 1tsp sugar. She says the flax seeds make it taste nice and creamy.

Good day but had trouble feeling satisfied at dinner.

B: left over vegies.
L: salad: grated carrot, pea shoots, cress, rocket, beetroot, a little apple cider vinegar.
(230g) 200cal of potato, vegies: French beans, carrots, cauliflower, pumpkin.
D: 260g (226cal) potatoes, left over vegies plus steamed broccoli.
Dessert: 160g (166cal) brown rice, 1 big apple, 1 tsp ground flax seeds.
Still not satisfied, so I tried my dd's cocoa recipe with flax seeds. Couldn't find any cocoa so used carob powder. After not having any sweet foods for nearly 2 month, it tasted almost too sweet but did the "trick". All happy now and cronometer says only 30cal for the cocoa.
Would have had pumpkin soup but I've run out of pumpkin.

Worked for hours in the garden, digging, transplanting trees etc and then did lots of housework. Free gym

Lots of our seeds are germinating on the plate warmer, incl. Cavolo Nero, which goes by many names incl. Dinosaur Kale. Now I know what the US people on the board here are talking about.

Woke up too early at 3am. Had breakfast at 6am, vegies. Ate carrots/broccoli stalks at 10am while cooking lunch. Made a batch of Jeff's burgers as dd had a music concert where they serve sausages afterwards and she could take some burgers instead to eat with the bread. One recipe made 7 small burgers.

L: usual amount of potatoes and Kumara, vegies: pumpkin, silverbeet, carrots, brussels. One small bean burger.
4pm, early dinner, before concert: potatoes, Kumara, steamed broccoli, one small bean burger.
After concert, 7pm: small amount of Kumara, left over vegies, 1 nectarine, 1 orange, 1 hot cocoa, 30cal (dd's recipe).

Waited for growly stomach to eat breakfast but it never came. Had late lunch: Kumara, rice, vegies: silverbeet, broccoli, pumpkin, cauliflower.
dinner: same leftovers. Half a banana, 1 apple, 1 tsp flaxseeds, half brazil nut. Peppermint/licorice tea.
Worked in garden all day.

It's funny how some habits are relatively easy to change and some bother you for weeks and weeks.

Not eating anything soon after getting up was not that easy to start with but now it doesn't take mental effort anymore. I can wait until 10am and sometimes I skip it altogether and even if I do eat, I know that the pumpkin or vegies just take away the empty feeling without adding much calories. I am really pleased that I went on the ED as it made me change and try things out that I wouldn't have managed otherwise, like eating vegies for breakfast or eating things plain without seasonings.

The hardest habit to change for me though is giving up cups of tea with soy milk. I gave it up in April and it's still calling me. Some days are easy and some not. Today was one of the harder ones. At afternoon tea time I was hanging out for a cuppa. I had read Pinkrose's post about the healthy benefits of drinking tea and it was going 'round in my head, my addictive voice trying to reason with me. In the end I had more potatoes and vegies. Not needed but they got me over the hump but I'm still debating wether to start drinking tea or not. Even with 4 cups/day and the 1c soy milk I would drink with those 4, it would add 108 cal to my day whereas the potatoes and vegies were at least 150, if not more and they were a poor replacement, although I don't know if that cuppa would have been as nice as it was in my memory. I've been let down before.

B at 10am: pumpkin soup.
L: 250g potatoes. Vegies: silverbeet, carrots, frozen French beans, frozen mixed veg (carrots, corn, peas), orange split peas, broccoli, all cooked in a stew. 1 apple.
S: 100g potatoes, veg. stew.
D: carrot raw, pumpkin soup, 3 small pieces of potato, veg. stew, steamed cauliflower. 100g brown rice with 1 big apple.
20 min walk, worked in garden all afternoon. Very tired during the morning.

On Sunday I spent an hour washing a massive silverbeet plant from the garden (the root was the size of a swede). I am now reaping the benefit as I can just cut and toss the leaves into my stews. Normally, by the time I have cut the fresh vegies, scrubbed and cut the potatoes and Kumara, I have run out of time to wash greens.

Ha ha tell me about it.

I like gardening too. Do you have flowers as well as the vege patch ?

M34

Hi Millie,

there are lots of (fragrant) roses and some dahlias here from the previous owner and I brought some flowers from our old place, so I have lots. There are some that attract bees and butterflies and I've bought some more seeds this year to have different flowering times.