Help--dont know what to do

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Help--dont know what to do

Postby Sweet potato11 » Sat Feb 28, 2015 8:49 am

For some reason this program is not working for me and i am very sad because i feel like this is my last resort. Last year i went on this program and i weighed 135. I liked the fact that i could eat until i was full. Well after 3 months, i gained 5 lbs and it never came off so i stopped doing it. I decided to go on diets to try to lose the 5 lbs i gained on the Mcdougall MWL program. After 3 months of failed diets, I decided I have to make this MWL program work because this it is the only diet where I don't have to starve myself. I have done the MWL program for the last 7 days and have successfully gained another 5 lbs. I am now 145. I am female, 41 years old, 5 foot 9 inches tall. When I saw the numbers 145 this morning I cried. I have been trying to up my green and yellow vegetables and decrease my starchy carbs like Dr. McDougall says for increased weight loss but it has resulted in weight gain. even my body fat tracker says i have gone up a percent so it can't be all water. Another bad part of this is that I wake up in the middle of the night and can't sleep because Im so hungry. What gives? I am afraid to keep eating like this because of what the scale will say tomorrow, but I am so fearful of eating any fat now that I don't want to go back to the SAD way of eating. If you are wondering about exercise, I run 20 miles a week and just did a half marathon last week, so i know I'm getting enough exercise. I want this to work for me so badly because I believe that this is the healthiest possible way to eat, and i want to recommend it to my friends but I hate to tell them I've gained 10 lbs on it. I eat oatmeal and green smoothie for breakfast, sweet potato and zucchini for lunch and baked potato with salsa and beans for dinner. i have large servings of these because if not I am always starving. How is it possible that everyone is losing weight on this except for me?
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Re: Help--dont know what to do

Postby scooterpie » Sat Feb 28, 2015 1:51 pm

Were you restricting calories at all before eating the McD diet? How do you feel otherwise? Is your running suffering from the weight or is it just the shock of putting on some pounds?

In spite of everything your BMI is still great. It's not 19.9 like it was for you at 135, but it's still good and healthy.

Losing or gaining a bunch of weight in a short time is shocking and can really mess with one's head. Keep in mind that you're 41 and menopause is over the horizon--well probably in 9ish years, but the changes take place differently for all of us women.

Do you do any weightlifting at all (body weight exercises like pushups count as weightlifting too)? That will help to stave off muscle loss that begins in our mid-20s. It will also help you burn fat and perhaps get back to a weight you can live with.

Good Luck!
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Re: Help--dont know what to do

Postby Emily » Sat Feb 28, 2015 8:28 pm

Well, I see a couple things: if you're eating a lot of bulk, you're going to weigh more until you...process it, so to speak. If you're eating 5 pounds of food a day after a diet of much smaller portions, it's going to look like weight gain if you haven't pooped it out yet. (Not to be graphic, but I wanted to make sure you knew what I meant.)

Also, if you're coming from an environment of calorie restriction and are suddenly not limiting food intake, chances are you'll be RAVENOUS all the time because you're actually letting feelings of hunger dictate your eating, possibly after years of restrictions. Of course you're going to be constantly hungry for a while if that is operating with you.

I also think the lowfat way of eating leads to an increased feeling of hunger at first. Part of me thinks it is not true hunger, but a weird light feeling you have while you adjust physiologically to a different dietary composition. When you do adjust, the drive to eat so heartily diminishes. I suspect what is going on for you is an adjustment period, and that maybe you are having a somewhat misleading sensation of "hunger." For people who have a lot of weight to lose, this sensation doesn't make a difference because the low calorie density means they lose weight anyway on enormous portions.

The last thing is that lots of people are in love with green smoothies and will defend them to the death, but Dr. McDougall recommends against smoothies and juicing because they decrease satiety. He says to chew your food. So smoothies aren't even a part of the regular program, except as an occasional treat, and they are definitely not a part of MWL. And I don't care whether you follow the program or not, but you mentioned feeling hungry, and Dr. McDougall has recommended avoiding smoothies for maximum satisfaction.

If you're really struggling, Jeff Novick's forum is a good place to look for guidance.

I hope this helps.
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Re: Help--dont know what to do

Postby roundcoconut » Sat Feb 28, 2015 9:15 pm

Hi SweetPotato,

I saw your post this morning, but I knew I needed to write when I had a little bit of time to give you. There are many important issues all going on, and I want to help you make sense of them if I can! This all can be figured out -- it is do-able, and it will make you very happy to come to a place of peace with your food, with your eating, with your body.

To even have the ability to look at difficult matters, I think there needs to be a basis of goodness from which to consider. So, if I may, I'd just like to think for a second about all the things that I like in your situation. I'm happy to see that you're here, and you're still able and willing to make an effort. You're honest. I like that, and I have a lot of respect for that. I think you can feel good about yourself -- you're here, you're honest, and you're trying. Those are the things any good human does.

And because you're here, you're honest and you're trying, you have a certain strength. From there we can look and see:

You don't yet have a solid or a trusting relationship with eating, or with your body. But you *can* have a good relationship. It takes practice, and I can tell that you are the type of person to make the effort, as long as it gets you to a better place. You will do what it takes.

Also, you don't yet have a solid or trusting relationship with yourself, don't trust yourself to be the one in the driver's seat. You can have *that* part of the equation too, if that would feel good to you, if you would like to experience that. It is a process, but each day you can make small improvements, until after a few weeks, you are much closer to how you would like to feel.

Just this for now, and I'll see if I can get down into specifics in a sec.
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Re: Help--dont know what to do

Postby roundcoconut » Sat Feb 28, 2015 9:28 pm

So how do you begin to have a solid, trusting relationship with food and with eating?

I think this happens through a process of coming to know what kinds of foods, in what amounts, make you feel good about yourself. I know that sounds so abstract, but I really just mean it in a boring, practical way. What foods and what kinds of meals are nourishing and pleasant in a soft, liking way? What foods and what kinds of meals are overstimulating and make you feel ravenous or out of control?

Another question to ask is: What behaviors, and what quantities feel abundant and satisfying to you, and what behaviors, and what quantities feel forced, punitive, or restrictive? Those are real concerns too.

You want to factor your long-term health (and yes, weight and appearance) outcomes into the mix, too. Which food choices produce a weight and appearance that makes you happiest? Which food choices lead to a weight or appearance that you *don't* like?

So, these are questions that you'll want to try out some different answers to, and see which ones you like for now. There is more than one good right way forward for a woman in your shoes! There is more than one right answer!

The only thing I ask, is that you use Jeff Novick's Five Pillars of Healthy Eating, as your framework for considering which options to offer yourself. I interpret them this way:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=47095#p485585

Because you don't need to be considering ways of eating that aren't going to be health-supporting at all -- just consider ways of eating that will be good for your body, and work within those to find ways of eating that are good for you as a person, too. We want you to feel good about yourself, and like your food, and enjoy your meals. It takes practice, but you can be enjoying yourself just a little more, even tomorrow, and even just a bit more the day after that. It builds.

That's probably enough for now. I'll be rooting for you, and I'll help you in any way I can!
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Re: Help--dont know what to do

Postby Sweet potato11 » Wed Mar 04, 2015 9:37 pm

Thank you so much for all your comments. I really appreciate the time you took to help me. That is a true and important service you give others. I have read and re-read all your replies and i have tried to implement some things into my eating habits. I'm feeling better but i know I have some body issues and I think trying to stick to a strict way of eating magnifies them. Again thank you!
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Re: Help--dont know what to do

Postby RiceGirl » Tue Mar 10, 2015 11:27 am

I, too am 5 ft, 9 in, but I'm in my 70's not my 40's, so menopause has already taken it's toll. Needless to say, I don't exercise nearly as much as you do! But I've found that weight is such an individual thing: at 135 I felt good, but looked older than I liked. At 145, I was on the hairy edge of feeling not so good about myself, but happy with how I looked - except for the infamous "tummy". My doc said my body would never look the way it did when I was young, and I just HATE that she was right!

My girls, who are about your age, are an inch taller than we are, both weigh over 150 and look like models.

Your weight, itself, doesn't seem to be a problem, maybe your feelings about it are the real problem? :)
DJ
Height 5'9"

Things are more like they are now than they've ever been - The Elephant Hill School of Economics
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Re: Help--dont know what to do

Postby Jumpstart » Fri Mar 27, 2015 4:46 pm

At five/nine and all that exercise I find it difficult to understand how you can be on any McDougall program let alone MWL and actually GAIN weight. Have you put what you eat in say the Cron-o-meter to determine what you're eating in calories? I'll bet you'll discover you're far from eating even the regular McDougall program when you detail it out. I'm five/eight at fifty-two years of age and don't do as much running at you and still find it difficult to even maintain my musculature and weight unless I eat very starch heavy. List on this thread what and how much you eat. I'll bet the folks and you will see right away what the problem is.
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Re: Help--dont know what to do

Postby vegandrea » Sun Mar 29, 2015 2:59 am

I, too, have had a tougher time losing weight on MWL this time around than I did in the past. I'm 46 and weigh 131 (as of yesterday morning; on Tuesday it was 128, go figure). I even increased my exercise from 45 minutes a week to more than two hours a week. I find that if I do a few things that are seemingly unrelated to the actual food I'm eating, I lose weight (or don't gain).

The first thing I ask myself in the morning if I gained weight is "did I get at least 8 hours of sleep?" I know Dr. McDougall tells his patients suffering from depression to use sleep deprivation, but recent research has shown that not getting enough sleep can can hinder weight loss efforts (this links to a study about it: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3519150).

The other thing I find is that if I eat too close to my bedtime, I don't lose any weight the next day and sometimes even gain, no matter what my ratio of green vegetables to starches was or wasn't. This happened to me the other day. I stuck to the program and made sure I ate lots of raw greens and raw carrots and celery, but I worked until 9 p.m. and ate a very late dinner and the next day I gained two pounds. I don't even know why I weighed myself. Conversely, if I stop eating at least two hours (preferably three) before bedtime, the scale is much kinder to me and my jeans fit better, too.

I gave up smoothies about a week ago when I started MWL, thinking I'd lose some extra weight, but I didn't. While it's frustrating for me, I think there are more tools I can try before I give up completely (and, like Sweet Potatoes, I can't imagine eating the SAD again, even the vegan version of it).
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