Discussion Board

Just wanted to say thanks for all the informative posts you are placing into your journal! I'm sure a lot of us find it valuable.

Thanks for that link, I don't remember that post. I've often had people ask me if I am tanning. I love not looking pasty anymore in the winter. I also don't wear foundation anymore. I just use a little pressed powder. My skin is also much smoother.

I also love your Mary's Mini's post. Even though I've know about them it never occurred to me to try this to get rid of these last few pesky pounds. I also would love to be at my goal weight by my birthday next month. I'm gonna give it a try and see where it takes me.

An Even Snappier SNAP

I love Jeff's SNAP (Simple Nutritious & Affordable Plan) meals:
viewtopic.php?t=10519

But I wanted an even faster meal that didn't require cleaning a big cook pot. I live in a mobile home with a VERY shallow sink. I've worked out a way to make my SNAP lunch without messing up the kitchen, and in less time than it takes to boil my tea water in the morning. Everything is pulled straight out of the freezer or refrigerator. I use a microwave safe casserole dish with a vented lid. You can find a similar set here:
http://www.amazon.com/Corelle-Coordinat ... cr_pr_pb_t

Start with a layer of greens. These are frozen turnip greens with chopped up turnips:



I sprinkle these with some dehydrated onion and then cover with whatever starch I am adding. This week I am doing a Mary's Mini based around sweet potatoes, so the next layer is frozen PictSweet sweet potatoes:



Cooked brown rice, quinoa, or frozen hash browns would work equally well. Next is a layer of frozen vegetables. In this case frozen mixed vegetables, baby lima beans and brussel sprouts:



Next comes some canned no-salt diced tomatoes and 2 TBS of salsa:



Finally I finish it off with a sprinkle of Mrs. Dash and some nutritional yeast:



I add some raw baby carrots and a piece of fruit to complete my lunch. Everything fits neatly in an insulated cooler:



12 minutes in the microwave at work and lunch is served. And because I start with frozen vegetables, I don't need to refrigerate my lunch.

I have no excuses now. I even brought my lunch to a meeting with our plant manager today. Everyone else ate the Jimmy Johns subs, potato chips and red velvet cupcakes. I had my SNAP and an orange. But, on the plus side, my SNAP started an interesting conversation that ended with me talking the plant manager into watching Forks over Knives on Netflix. Turns out he and his wife experimented with a vegan diet last year when she was having gall bladder problems. Once she had it taken out however, they fell back into their SAD old ways. Who knows, maybe they'll give it another try. You never know when a little evangelism can change a person's life.

Kate

Great journal idea Kate and well needed too! I have always appreciaed all the comments you have made here and there in the Forums and suspected a science background - now I know for sure

I am a long way from even thinking maintenance, but since your experimenting with weight loss approaches again --- this is going to be meaningful to me too.

Thanks for posting this new journey and the pictures as well. I still remember the holiday meal pictures and got some good ideas for my next year's holiday's from them!

Michelle

P.S. Before I finished my post you'd posted your SNAP with pictures. FANTASTIC. Going to Amazon now to order the corelle and can't wait to try this concoction. Having a bit of trouble finding any frozen greens besides spinach in my stores, so I am really impressed with the type of greens in your SNAP! I live in California you'd think we'd have at least a s good a selection as you do in Michigan, sigh....

I posted the following message over on The Lounge when I got an announcement of the upload from Chef AJ:

YouTube has just posted what appears to be a legal upload of Doug Lisle giving his How to Lose Weight without Losing your Mind lecture on the ForksoverKnives channel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAdqLB6b ... ature=plcp

I watched last night on my iPad while walking on the treadmill. All I can say is Wow! What a relief. I was beginning to think I was something of a freak because I CAN'T eat all the bread, pasta, potatoes and rice I want and will actually gain weight if I eat more than 1500 calories a day. Eating a 'normal' starch heavy McDougall MWL diet (no bread or pasta) with 25% 'green and yellow' vegetables I lost 150 pounds and stabilized my weight at 155 pounds for the last 10 or so years. Not bad. That puts my BMI at 23.5 - not overweight, but at the high side of normal.

Over the last three months I have lost 10 pounds eating a diet that is basically the reverse of what I was eating before: lots of green and yellow vegetables with moderate (1/2 cup servings) of starch at each meal. My ultimate goal is to reach the weight that Dr. McDougall listed as appropriate for a woman of my height in his book The McDougall Plan: 127-132 pounds. This would bring my BMI to 20 where I want to maintain it for the rest of my life. That maintenance is the ultimate goal of this journal - but I have to get there first.

When Dr. Lisle started talking about 'heafty' and 'curvy' genes it was like a cool breeze blowing over my brain. Of course I have curvy genes. My people are half Scotch and half Native American. The whole reason my ancestors immigrated to America in the early 18th century was because they were starving to death in their native Highlands. They went to live in the mountains of Kentucky and North Carolina because it reminded them of home and then proceeded to intermarry with the Native American population. Life was hard, and survival always 'iffy'. My grandmother on my mother's side had 12 children - five of whom lived to adulthood. I come from hard stock.

When I look at the chart below I see why I've had to design my diet plan the way I have. Because I am of 'hefty' stock I need to eat low on the calorie-density scale to reach my desired weight. I can't compare myself to other Star McDougallers that can eat 2500 calories a day of white potatoes and end up with BMI of 18. That's not me.



Then I had to smile when Dr. Lisle talked about 'The New Religion' because over the last three months his slide exactly duplicated my dinner since October: A large salad, steamed or stir-fried veggies and a starch for 'dessert'.



After watching this video I am more comfortable with my current WOE than I have been for a long time. It's funny the things we find to feel guilty about, but now I no longer feel I need to apologize for not eating enough starch. I DO eat enough starch - I eat enough for ME to stay satisfied while working to reach my ultimate goal weight.

Kate

Thank you for all the information you are sharing, I am learning a lot from you.

I also watched Dr. Lisle's presentation yesterday and now see why weight loss diet and excercise programs have never worked for me. We have to eat a high density, low calorie, plant strong diet to be successful long term.

Thank you for the inspiration.

I don't think that's anyone, is it? Maybe very young, very athletic... maybe! From the weightloss registry results study "Successful maintainers of weight loss reported continued consumption of a low-energy and low-fat diet. Women in the registry reported eating an average of 1,306 kcal/day (24.3% of energy from fat); men reported consuming 1,685 kcal (23.5% of energy from fat)" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9550 ... t=Abstract I wish it said what their bmis were, my guess is they were on the higher end, but I doubt very much they were as low as 18 and although there certainly is some variance to get that average again I doubt very much it's as much as almost double for any of the women!

Frozenveg reposted this from an old thread over in the Star McDougller forum. I'm reposting it here as well, since it compliments the previous discussion:



Original thread: viewtopic.php?t=6032

Kate

Ha! Have you seen ETeSelle's Star McDougaller story? The woman is a calorie-burning machine. In my dreams I wish I had her metabolism

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=20469&start=210

Kate

Kate, see this post viewtopic.php?p=219264#p219264

Nevertheless, and whatever the actual facts, Katydid makes a valid point. Better to face the hard truth...as some know, some of us have to work harder at weight loss, as illustrated by the chart above. Metabolisms do vary. Also, what is "a lot of food" can vary according to the perception of the individual. And calorie counts are notoriously inaccurate.

I just finished watching Doug Lisle's, PhD - recent (January 8 th, 2012) lecture on why people differ in their abilities to gain and loose weight. It's available for a limited time on YouTube and it really unravelled for me the mystery of why we all have different weight issues or lack thereof. It covers the chart above on food calorie densities per pound, but goes much further in explaining why - even though we are eating essentially the same way - we can have different outcomes. Funny that it's available just as this topic hit this thread

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAdqLB6bTuQ

Oops sorry, a repost of your post. But I guess postig it again isn't a bad thing either. Not the speed reader I used to be apparently

The HR department started a contest at work today. Apparently it's 150 miles from one of our factories in Louisiana to New Orleans. So they started a virtual Walk to New Orleans. The idea is that when you sign up you get a free pedometer and you wear it every day and record you steps. You turn in your steps at the end of every week and you can follow on a map of how far you've gone along the route. At the end of 50 days everyone who completes the 150 miles gets entered into a drawing for a real trip to the Big Easy . Three miles a day is a fairly easy 6,000 steps, but that can be a lot of steps to an out-of-shape worker, so good for the company for trying something new. I, of course, joined the challenge. This fits right into my 'get off your @ss and get on the treadmill' challenge I undertook late last year to try and control my seasonal affective disorder (the other SAD). Ah well, time to put on the sweats and get busy. As an added bonus, I've been working my way through the old videos on the Vegetarian Society of Hawaii website while doing my treadmill walks. Watched Milton Mills last night explain why people are biologically herbivores. Well worth a watch if you find yourself arguing with pesky meat eaters:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH-hs2v- ... ata_player

Kate

Jeff posted the release of his new video,

Nuts and Health: What The Science Really Says!

in his forum today, and I whipped out my VISA within seconds of seeing the post

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

This is something I have been waiting for. As a follower of both Dr. McDougall and Dr. Fuhrman, I have never been able to reconcile just how much fat in the form of nuts and seeds is appropriate for me.

Lately it's been a tablespoon of ground flaxseed in the morning and a teaspoon of sesame seeds on some stir-fried or steamed veggies at night. According to MyFitnessPal, that small about brings my fat percentage to 10% of total calories when added to the natural fats in the grain, beans and veggies I eat. I'm anxious for Jeff's opinions and the facts to back them up. I'll report on the DVD when it comes in.

Just a few more weeks till 'The Great Debate' at ASW

Kate

As I posted above, we are having a contest at work to walk 150 miles in 50 days. Well, wearing a pedometer has really opened my eyes to what a slug I turn into in the winter. In the summer I will walk 5-7 miles a day, every day. But in the winter - making a real effort - I'm barely making 8,000 steps. That's only 4 miles . So new goal! My challenge for the next week is to work my way up to 10,000 steps a day consistently. To achieve this, I'm doing to stop at the local mall on my way home from work and walk a mile before heading home. This, along with my regular exercise should bring my total into the 10,000 range.
On the plus side, I lost another pound last week on a sweet potato-based Mary's Mini. I tried on one of the size 8 suits I bought as a 'one day' incentive, and it fit! . It's remarkable what a difference a 10 pounds makes when you are so close to your natural weight. If I can actually get down to my theoretical goal weight of 130 pounds I might actual wear a size 6. Dare I dream?
Kate