Moderators: JeffN, carolve, Heather McDougall
JeffN wrote:First, you have to get this right. So, I want a minimum of 6 months to 1 year of adherence "after" you have achieved your goals. So, not only to hit your target lipid numbers and/or weight numbers but also to maintain them for another 6 months to 1 year. Otherwise, we have people out there teaching something they have not really understood and/or been able to incorporate into their own life (which is a big part of success) and often changing their mind every few weeks or months on how best to do this (ie, one week they are eating more nuts, and the next week no nuts, etc etc). Then, and only then, should you begin to share and teach this message and only with the compassion as I discuss here..
http://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/viewt ... 22&t=42240
This is why I always say, if you want to really understand this, find those who have been successfully doing this for 2 decades or more, and see how they do it.
Jeff Novick,
My husband and I went to the McDougall live in course one year ago. Since that time, we have really tried to follow this way of eating. We have continued eating this way, while travelling in a small camper (Road Trek) and while travelling on a boat. We continued eating this way while on a trip to Spain (a very meat based country) and in England. We continued eating this way while having to stay with family members who do not follow this way of eating (and in some cases are quite opposed to it) My husband has continued to follow a starch based diet while attending business functions where no one else eats this way. The most difficult thing for us has been to avoid oil and salt when eating in restaurants. We do the best we can, but we often find that the food contains at least some salt and oil.
I have seen many of your posts about how difficult it is for people to be compliant. Many people claim to have some kind of awakening, after attending a lecture or seeing a documentary and then a few months later are back to their old habits and I wanted to tell you some of things that have helped us to stick to this way of eating. Becoming convinced of the science behind the diet was only the beginning as you have often noted. Sticking with the diet is the most difficult thing.
First of all, I want to thank you for your help in our being able to stick with this way of eating. At one time I was as confused as most people seem to be. It seemed a waste of time to even try and eat healthy as the constant “news” articles all seemed to contradict each other any way. Now, I ignore all of the news articles, and figure that I only need to pay attention if you, or John McDougall or Colin Campbell or Caldwell Esselsytn say that the article is worth considering. It is an enormous help to feel that I have found mentors that are reviewing the research and trying to give people the best and most useful information.
We use your method of label reading all the time. It is particularly helpful when travelling and when trying to make quick healthy meals that I know what short cuts (frozen vegetables, no salt canned tomatoes, quick brown rice, etc) that I can take and still be eating healthfully. One of the things that you said at the course stands out particularly for me. It was during a question and answer session after one of your talks. And a number of people, including us, were saying “yes, but …” and you finally said something to the effect that there would be times it would not be easy but that if one wanted to do this, with planning, it was always possible. If we weren’t interested in planning, then it wasn’t going to work!
I follow your posts and Dr. McDougall’s on the McDougall facebook group. Awhile back, you posted something about compliance. A woman who was at one of the McDougall live-in courses and who had been compliant for 30 years was asked for her tips. Keeping it simple and not caring what others thought. These two tips have been incredibly helpful for me. At the beginning of following this way of eating, I was complicating things. If I had kept on making the diet complicated, I would have likely given up by this point. I would have just found it much too difficult. Now, I remember that John McDougall said you can be very healthy just eating potatoes for a long time—-and just add a bit of greens and that’s even better.
Also, it is very helpful to understand that you have to give up caring what other people think. A lot of people do not want to change their way of eating and there is no point in arguing or trying to convince them, but I do not have to join them in what they are eating either. I now think that eating unhealthy food because someone else wants me to eat it would be about the same as smoking cigarettes because someone wants me to keep them company and feel better about their smoking habit. At first, I wanted arguments to make sure everyone knew that what I was doing was right. Finally, I have learned that this is useless. We don’t bother to explain any longer. When a close relative (like my sister-in-law) insists on arguing that meat is good if you get the range fed, super expensive and only have a little bit. We simply say, we’re not good at moderation so it is easier for us not to have any..thanks. When someone tells us that we should have something and we only need to watch portion size, we say we aren’t good at determining portion size and prefer to have only things that we don’t need to worry about portion size.
If someone seems to be genuinely interested because they have noticed that my husband and I are both looking a lot better…..I refer them to yourself and to the other mentors that I have mentioned above. I have a number of the dvd’s that support this way of eating and I offer those too.
A couple of people have been interested and are successful. We have seen others who are interested but they give up quickly. Again the ones who are successful, look for ways to keep things simple and refuse to allow others to push them to eat things not on the plan. They also plan to be successful. Our friends that have tried and given up are the ones that decided it was too difficult, (because they insisted on making it complicated) and the ones that worry a lot about what their friends and relatives think of what they eat, and found it embarrassing not to “fit in” with everyone else.
Again, thank you for your help. We have certainly benefited from your advice, and are very appreciative. I wanted to let you know that your help and comments are a big part of what has helped us to stay compliant to this way of eating.
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests