The McDougall Program is an Ad Libitum Starch Based program. I.e., you eat till your comfortably full of any and all the recommended foods. Essentially, starches, veggies, fruits, and water.
Some foods are restricted a little, like beans to a couple servings and 2-3 pieces of fruit a day, etc...
But the important point is never to be hungry, thus the recommended food amounts are what ever keeps you comfortably full till the next time you eat. The reason this works is because the calorie density of the recommended foods is so low that its nearly impossible to eat too much. The fiber and water and bulk of the whole foods will fill you easily before you over eat.
JeffN's Healthy Plate is a good example to follow if you really need something closer to servings. Just take a plate fill it half full of starches and the other half full of veggies/fruit. Then start the meal with a bowl of soup or salad or both! Follow that with the main plate and then finish that off with a piece of fruit if you want desert. Your drink should be water.
Thats it. eat what you serve yourself. If your still hungry, have another round! Just eat till your comfortably full, NOT STUFFED. Then eat again when your next hungry. There's no time table to follow or certain number of meals to eat a day. You can eat one or two meals if you want or a dozen meals if thats what keeps you comfortably full (satiated). Just don't over eat or stuff yourself.
This is just way so easier than other programs that tell you to eat so much of this and so much of that because those serving sizes are ment for who? a 120 lb woman or a 250 lb man? Theres just no need to go down that road of complexity.
One last thing I would recommend is truly focus on your hunger. Give yourself time to eat (20-30 mins or more) so that your stomach stretch receptors will have time to react to a comfortable full stomach and your brain will tell you thats enough. Eat mindfully in other words and don't just shovel the food in your mouth mindlessly while watching tv
Take time to enjoy what your eating and experience the new flavors and textures of the food. (they will be different as your taste buds get back to normal after eating hyper-palatable foods most of your life). Yes the food may seem a little bland at first, but within a couple weeks you'll be back to tasting the real flavor of real food!
Give it a try, you've got nothing to lose (well maybe weight) and everything to gain (your health):nod: