Discussion Board

Thanks for posting the excerpt from the McDougall Newsletter on the Maximum Weight Loss Program. It is really good to read and reread the principles of the program. It inspires me to plan right today!

Yay - another whole pound off! This great, happy, happy & more happy

I am amazed yet again with MWL plan - I had a fibromyalgia insomnia bout Saturday night, and only got 1.5 hrs. sleep. I had to get up early and go to Church & 2 meetings on Sunday. By the time I got home I felt just terrible and couldn't drag myself out to walk my 1.5 miles. Usually unless, I sleep well, exercise daily and eat eat perfectly to a diet plan -- I will not loose weight- actually without sleep I often will GAIN. Well, on MWL I still LOST half a pound. I am stunned, as weighing myself after a night of no sleep is like the hardest thing for me to do and I actually lost weight. So with the downward trend here today I am adding on blood pressure to see where that is going. Today I am 124/87 pulse at 66. The pulse rate is lower but that is still a typical BP, let see where this goes

Also added potatoes back into my diet. Other than sweet potatoes I haven't eaten one probably in the last ten years! Like Dr. McD I am Irish of heritage and not having potatoes has seemed like real deprivation! Last night I had my first russett and have bought a big bag of multicolored potatoes at TJ's that I'll be working on today. Fantastic.

Plus, I can't wait to get out the door for my walk. I haven't been able to do walking for years, but frankly my pain is also down and apparently now I can walk for exercise, without the pain being so bad night's that I am kept awake by it. I'd be walking now, but we have mountain lions roaming our neighborhood, so we have to let them do their thing until after sunrise. I guess I'll plan how I will do this morning's potato in the meantime

I am so happy

Also Hi Nancy:

I had to write the program down so I can learn it, I am glad it helps you to see it that way too. Actually, it's thanks to kristykay who got me the link to the MWL program my first day. I add little things to it, like the bean limit, when I become aware of a new thing and then I review it constantly! I have to because I found in past I'll forget a nuance and just keep going thinking I am on target, when in fact I have gone astray, lol!

Hope we are both right on program and getting all the benefits of it, thanks for your post

Got my exercise in too. Lots of energy & thank goodness, good sleep last night too

Eaten today:

B - baked russet potato w/ mushrooms, garlic, onion and Tabasco

S- banana

L- Salad w/veggies and non-fat dressing; steamed red, yellow, purple potatoes w/brocolli

S - two corn tortillas w/ smashed rice, beans & lime

D- baked potato; steamed kale, cauliflower, Italian herbed diced tomatoes with topped with roasted garlic spaghetti sauce.

D- soy yogurt (not MWL, but I got a fridge full before MWL) and pear.

So blood pressure:

10/17 124/87 PR 66
10/18 108/77 PR 81

I guess the difference is sleep and exercise and keeping to the program. Whatever it is - I am happy, happy & happy

I am curious to try this after meditation today too.

So today's weigh in disappointing, I didn't loose a thing. Yet, there are other numbers and I am terribly happy with the huge BP drop. I am still solidly in the obese category and have a BP of 108/77 today - hopefully that's a number I can stay around in future! also just read ETeSelle's Star story - wow if that isn't motivational - what would be! So many of the same issues, like hey it's vegan, err junk food. So hard to stay away from stuff that is stamped vegan. I found a brand of crackers no flour, vegan, non gluten all the right stuff, no added oil but, err the oil was in the whole food content. After realizing those "good vegan" crackers caused me to gain 4 lbs - I became a McDougaller - See the crackers were good after all

Now off to swim

Foiled about swimming. I have not been good about my swimming, I used to go religiously 3 times a week for a 1 hour, high intensity, deep water - warm water class. Perfect for my fibromyalgia. Over the summer it got too crowded and I stopped. All jazzed to get back to it today - I went and found they are on a new schedule, meaning only 15 minutes left in my regular class. It takes me 15 minutes to change and get into the pool! I am being punished for dropping off. Hehehe.

So I grocery shopped instead. I was completely proud of myself for making some good choices, this is by leaving old standbys on their shelves! They may be vegan to someone who is trying to sell them, but they aren't food to me anymore!

I came home and read some testimonials: I am getting so much motivation and knowledge from the folks that write these. Today I read MixedGrain's Lost 88 Pounds and FrozenVeg's & ETeSelle's Stars when they completed their goals. All of them are really inspiring and so honest!

This from FrozeVeg's testimonial, and it is about the sagest thing I can imagine and so timely for where I am right now.

"The chocolates in the jar in the office, the cheese in the drawer at home, the fried calamari on the table at the restaurant, were no longer food to me, any more than the table linens or the candles were food." ~~FrozenVeg

I can continue to say no to the things at the grocery in the pretty packages or the insane Holiday treats - because they are not food. Food is the stuff that fuels me and is my medicine

B - some weird rice pudding thing I made up. I will seek a recipe, hehehe.

S-banana

L- left over kale, broccoli, tomatoes mix with garlic spaghetti sauce and rice.

S- apple, corn tortilla w/ mashed rice and beans stuffing.

D- Huge green salad and raw veggies & left over kale, broccoli, tomatoes mixture with corn and salsa

Thank goodness the MWL book arrived today with real recipes!!!!

I am 218.5 today. This was a weight I stuck at for a year, no matter what. I was SAD then, but I could miss a day of meals or gorge to make up for lost eating and this weight stuck. This has been the plateau too on vegetarian diets, and one vegan diet too. I got as low as 214.5 once on another vegan program, I got sick and immediately bounced back to this weight and up. So tomorrow's weigh in and the next few weeks will be really interesting to me! But, dang, 3 pounds in 5 days is amazing to me!

I got my exercise in today and it's a big, big thing for me! It's just walking for so many people, but for me it's HUGE. I read FrozenVeg's Star testimonial and she talked about the pain she suffered before the weight was off. I completely felt (literally) everything she described. Especially, the trip up her own stairs. I've been there too. Sadly, I am sure some even have had worse mobility issues than hers or mine. Still, I am so heartened reading her story now, because these weight induced obstacles and pain are a thing of the past for her:)

In my past, I've been in wheel chairs, on crutches and using canes, on bad days I still have to use a cane. That's because I seriously crushed my ankle in my 20's, really badly. I am lucky to have any mobility in that ankle at all. Once I was mended ( that is a year of operations and physical therapy later) I was back to backpacking, day hiking, cross country skiing and all the activities I love.

Then I got fibromyalgia: the weight seems to have come along with that. Anytime anyone suggests, that if I just walked a bit daily, the weight would fall off, it just makes me internally boil. I was never a couch potato, people assume anyone who is overweight is - like we are all lazy and don't want to do any physical activities at all.

I think these assumptions are the hardest thing of all for me to deal with, harder even then the pain. Physically I can walk, mostly unassisted, but the pain during and worse yet in the evenings, when I am in bed trying to sleep is so bad that I can't sleep one bit. So people see me try sometimes, but they really don't know the price I pay for making any effort.

I have been doing non weight bearing aerobic swimming a week, 3 to 5 hours of it, and still the weight remained. That activity out weighs walking by a long shot in calories expended and I have not lost but ten pounds. It does help with the pain though and probably my numbers health wise would be worse without it, but honestly I am an outdoors type and I find this exercise pretty boring.

I have gotten some of the weight off. I was 250 before two years of trying with national weight loss organization. There as often as I lost, I gained the same 10 pounds over and over again. Recently, I did try another vegan diet and did loose pretty steadily another 10 lbs, but I need the support of this program to stick with it. I think taking this 20 pounds off helps quite a bit and I do feel more mobile and like I am experiencing less fibro pain. I hesitate to say this though, because that fluctuates terribly and things like good weather this week could also be a huge contributor to how good I feel.

Yet, I have walked three days this week, not far, 1.5 miles. I used to do 3 before work everyday in the summer and 5 with my best friend fall and spring, moving exercise indoors for the winters though. Even my best friend, nudges me to get out and walk and I just can't get her to understand that it hasn't been possible. Frankly, it's something that has brought me to tears a few times because it's just so awful to be this incredibly limited person.

But today I walked on an actual trail in my town; through woods, horse pastures and along a creek. Not far, but even if it's not something that I'll be able to do -- say next week -- I did it today! This was the first time since probably 2003, that I walked briskly on a trail and didn't immediately experience pain and know I'd seriously be paying for it as the day progressed. Not that the pain has gone away or the fatigue, but it hasn't interfered with my sleep, which is my biggest fear. I still have had insomnia this week, but not excruciating night pain which is much worse for me.

I know it's important for me to put this all down, because I can see in my writings today that I am afraid that I am hitting that threshold of 218 that has been the deal breaker for so long and also the fear that this walking thing is just a blip and won't be something I can do in future.

And I am saying all this because even if I have these set backs, I WILL NOT abandon the program and loose track of the big picture on my health. As long as there is any number going down where it should be - I will be tenacious and good spirited (mostly, hehehe)!

My resolve on that is due, in no small part, to the folks on this website. There are other people who have done it and are doing it and demons were and are fought by all of us, and I am REALLY grateful for the stories I have read this first week

Oh Blondie, you are sooo funny, the 150 lb sack of potatoes is perfect comeback, lol. I have to find someone to challenge me now, I swear I'll steal your line!

And you're totally right about the daily weight taking, I know better! Still I just have to see myself get passed this 218 thing. If I bounce back, I don't think I'll be discouraged like before, because I may have done it in one or two weeks, instead of like 6 months!

Thanks so much for the BIG laugh --now I am going to unload some of my 150 lbs of potatoes and turn them in to dinner, hahaha!