Benefits of following MWP to the letter?

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Benefits of following MWP to the letter?

Postby SFJ » Wed Apr 29, 2015 6:32 pm

Hi guys!

I've read different ones say their weight loss really took off when they started following MWL to the letter (or even the regular program to the letter vs. doing it w/small deviations), but if anyone has had that experience and could make a quick post here encouraging me to walk the line that'd be great!

Thanks :)
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Re: Benefits of following MWP to the letter?

Postby Mike » Thu Apr 30, 2015 9:43 pm

I'm one of those SFJ! If I follow the regular program I don't lose weight fast enough for my taste (and depending on how much I eat of the more calory dense foods, I even gain weight). But I've been following the MWL faithfully for the better part of 3 months now and it does work for me. For men it's obviously faster than women. For obese people (like me) it's faster than people who just have a bit to lose.

If I snack on what I'd have classed as relatively "harmless" stuff (bowl of cornflakes with rice milk), I don't lose quickly - especially because if I start, it's hard to stop.

Above all, I have found it's not too difficult to adhere to, if you are patient in the first 3 weeks and prepare! I try to always have a bunch of potatoes ready and baked, so I can snack if I need to. I'm still working at it, so it's no proof that I'll eventually not give in, but so far so good, and I'm really enjoying the process! And one more thing: Even though I've chosen to follow MWL, I need to constantly remind myself that I'm not doing this for the weight loss, but the improved health! This is what will keep me on track in the long run!

Take the leap! Good luck!
Mike

Start: 13 Dec 2014, 126.9 kg
Target: XX XXX 2015/6, 73.1 kg (BMI = 21.75)
Current: 104.8 kg
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Re: Benefits of following MWP to the letter?

Postby roundcoconut » Fri May 01, 2015 8:48 am

Well, you've put us in a bit of a quandary by posting this in the MWL forum, now haven't you? :) I feel a bit guilty using the dedicated MWL forum for critiquing the merits of MWL -- but it'll have to do!

Probably the most important thing about establishing a way of eating that's sustainable for your personally, is that you devise something that you feel genuinely comfortable with and happy with. You think of the way you've decided to eat, and you think, "Those are choices I feel good about; that includes foods that I will get a lot of pleasure out of; this way of eating helps my body and mind feel at ease."

So, it may be worth sitting down and writing down the boundaries and guidelines by which you personally have decided to eat and then follow that for this week, and any part of your plan that seems "off" in any way, make a written adjustment to your eating plan starting tomorrow. And "food plan" is a little bit of an OA concept, but it definitely has its use. It's not not not a McDougall idea at all -- neither Dr M nor Jeff Novick mention the idea, as far as I know.

But I think the point of a written food plan is that you are not thrown into the chaos of having to make decisions on the fly and trying to exercise good judgment while hungry or agitated. "Guidelines" is a great word, isn't it? What are the simple principles that you need to embrace in order to guide you away from behaviors that will snowball into unwanted outcomes?

Personally, my eating plan (which is now mostly in my head, but used to be on paper, because I'd get confused as to what I had decided) *does* include the things that make my eating choices pleasurable and satisfying. I do allow myself to drink coffee while out and about -- at a starbucks, or when offered to me at the salon, for example -- but I do not have any coffee in the house, so it never turns into a daily thing. Also, I do buy and eat the occasional avocado, just for variety. Sure, it's like eating light green margarine (I can feel the calorie density!), but it doesn't spark any out of control behaviors in me at all. My eating plan also allows very, very large quantities of food at each meal time -- I prepare a pretty-damn-big volume of steamed vegetables at each meal time, along with a (far less generous!) portion of starch. I also allow myself more-or-less free access to fruit, because this doesn't really seem to get out of hand. Earlier this week, I ate four pieces of fruit in the course of one day. Other days, I don't buy or eat fruit at all.

So, what I'm saying is, be sure that your chosen style of eating gives you room to live life, opportunities to eat in ways that feel most natural to you, and leeway to experience the pleasures that food can offer. Choose lots of allowances that feel good to you and *are* good for you: buy expensive produce if that's your thing (out of season berries, designer fingerling potatoes), eat three potatoes at a sitting, even if you feel you could get by on two; get some pretty bowls, plates and napkins to use at mealtimes -- try to craft a way of eating that feels good, and keep adjusting till you arrive at same.

You also do need to put boundaries on your eating, is my guess. Humans, living in a toxic food environment, given round-the-clock access to foods way more calorie dense than what exists in nature -- we'll eat ourselves into compromised health and reduced well-being.

Are the MWL boundaries really the very ones that you personally need? Probably not. But maybe they are a good starting point if you're not sure!

I will note that MWL restricts certain foods that I don't personally need to banish from my diet, like avocado. MWL guidelines restrict certain foods that I *do* personally need to banish from my diet, like bread (binge trigger). MWL guidelines fail to restrict two patterns of eating that are most destructive for me -- round-the-clock eating and binge-level volume eating. So, I *do* have a strict guideline that I eat at mealtimes and don't deviate or improvise, for my own sanity's sake. I also have a strict rule that I don't keep ready-to-eat food around (I don't bake off a week's worth of potatoes, for example) nor do I buy eight pieces of fruit at the store (it's too easy to eat all those simple sugars at one go), nor am I allowed to rummage around in the fridge for more to eat once a meal is finished.

So -- that was a ridiculously long-winded way of saying that by-the-letter MWL probably doesn't address the exact restrictions you need to keep from falling down your own personal slippery slopes, and doesn't address the exact freedoms you need and want to keep things natural, light and fun for you.

Hope you can use some of those concepts for your own awesome path forward!
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Re: Benefits of following MWP to the letter?

Postby frozenveg » Wed May 06, 2015 8:18 am

Great post, roundcoconut, and great question, SFJ!

I am one who did quite well on the regular plan early on, and then heard about the MWL by reading more on this site. I was about 5 or 6 months into eating this way, as "to the letter" as I could, and the idea of accelerating my weight loss, since I had so far to go (i had lost about 30 pounds and still had 60 - 70 pounds to go). Adopting MWL wasn't much of a stretch--I gave up plant milks, bread, applesauce and I stopped making the breakfast muffins from the 10-day program.

It's not that my weight loss increased dramatically week by week, but that I continued to lose, as opposed to the plateaus that I always experienced in any weight loss efforts I had been making my entire life. It took me about 10 months to lose the next 50 pounds, so that was a good healthy 5 pounds a month, or 1.2 pounds a week average. Not too shabby.

I still do best staying as close to MWL as I can. I only eat avocado in restaurants, I do have bread occasionally (a few times a week)--I keep it in the house for my husband--and I drink wine, more often than I should. In my case, peanut butter is a gateway or trigger food--I have to treat the jar (again, for my husband) as if it contains toxic waste!!

I do have one comment to roundcoconut's post, about a food plan. It is a really essential part of the McDougall program to have a food plan. Here is the page presenting ideas for planning on the Free Program: https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/educ ... meal-plan/

And at the 10-day program in Santa Rosa, Mary McDougall gives a 2-hour session on planning your week's food, making the shopping list, and it is a real eye-opener for most folks.

Planning is a big part of the program, and is essential! It is so important to know that you have provided for yourself, and that you never get blindsided by circumstance. You asked for encouragement to "walk the line," and I think the line you should walk is planning! Whether or not you stick to MWL to the letter, have a plan! The success comes from acting according to the plan, and not letting life whack you around all willy-nilly like it does all of us.
5'3", 74 YO. Started Jan. 11, 2010
Starting weight: 222.6
Current weight: 148.2.0


Success Story:
https://www.drmcdougall.com/articles/st ... -rockwell/
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Re: Benefits of following MWP to the letter?

Postby sjbell » Fri May 08, 2015 5:51 pm

Love your posts frozenveg
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Re: Benefits of following MWP to the letter?

Postby meligu8 » Tue May 12, 2015 4:39 pm

Hey!, Amazing responses from everyone!. For me personally, I have PCOS, and I've noticed that if I don't follow it to the letter but include many more fruits, eat out (even once or twice in the week), or eat something outside my meal plan, my weight loss stalls.
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Re: Benefits of following MWP to the letter?

Postby SFJ » Tue May 19, 2015 9:43 am

Thanks everyone for your replies.

Mike, Thanks! Good idea about preparing. Being a small person who likes to eat big, I'm trying to get used to making more than enough food but not eating it all too fast, if I want to lose weight. Or maybe I should just fill the fridge and concentrate on getting used to the diet before worrying about quantities, because at the moment, I still end up eating other things off plan.

Roundcoconut, thank you for such a great response. I guess different lines in the sand work for different people, we just have to draw the line somewhere. You're right that if you aren't tempted to eat a ton of avocado, why not. Interesting how you said you don't cook a ton of food ahead, cause you'll just eat it all. I used to cook for the whole day, but now I find I overeat at my first meal sometimes if I do.

Thanks Frozenveg, I was actually thinking of you and a couple others when I wrote my question, I'm so glad you responded. I read your journal a couple years ago when I was following MWL effortlessly and I remembered you said that the little MWL tweaks really helped. I think you said that even less fruit made a difference? When I first came to the forums, I was already doing a sort of elimination diet of my own which was almost like a loose Mary's Mini, 100%MWL and more, so everything I read just confirmed what I already experienced. I got thin effortlessly, ate up, and loved the food. Back then it was easy for me to follow MWL because I really believed in it. Since then I've got a little muddled, my own fault, but definitely a lot of pressure involved; my number one stumbling block has been not wanting to be, or at least not wanting to appear to be, too rigid in my habits and beliefs. But now I'd like to be rigid again and have all my biases reconfirmed by like minded individuals :P

Meligu8, Fruit makes me hungry, and I'm always happy to eat it even when I'm full so limiting it=that aspect of MWL might be good for me too. Less variety is probably the number one winning strategy for me weight loss wise.

I'm going to start another post later about what I used to believe and what I believe now. One of the things I used to believe is that one reason I lost weight so easily on MWL was that, with dietary fat at 2-3g a day, if my body wanted to burn fat it had to get it from body fat :!: even though I often went very high in actual calories. I figured the carbs were stored as glycogen but whenever I did moderate activity or slept the fat must be burning. The carbs would be there if I needed them for high intensity. Whether or not this is strictly true, it was a very motivating belief for sticking to the program.
Nowadays I find myself thinking, food is food a little of this won't hurt, if I have less of something else later. I miss my old mindset.

Other more universally acceptable reasons that the program works might be:
Low calorie density
Reduced choices=reduced consumption
Higher fiber=Lower net calories
Higher nutritional density from more plant foods=better energy

I love McDougalling and especially MWL so I love to here people's positive experiences and why they feel like what they did worked.
Thanks all.
SFJ
 
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Re: Benefits of following MWP to the letter?

Postby Sunflwrgirl » Wed May 27, 2015 8:55 pm

Frozenveg the link that you provided for the free 10 day meal plan, is this part of the MWL plan? I do like allot of those recipes, but am also noticing they have milk and avo as well. Thinking we are not to have these foods on the MWL plan.
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Re: Benefits of following MWP to the letter?

Postby frozenveg » Wed May 27, 2015 10:12 pm

Sunflwrgirl wrote:Frozenveg the link that you provided for the free 10 day meal plan, is this part of the MWL plan? I do like allot of those recipes, but am also noticing they have milk and avo as well. Thinking we are not to have these foods on the MWL plan.

Basically, the McDougall Plan has 2 parts (3 if you count the Mary's Mini plan as separate from the MWL plan). The "free plan" is the "lifetime plan," if you will--it's forever! It is the plan for those who have achieved their weight and health goals, to eat on a daily basis. On the MWL plan, things like avocado, plant milks, bread, etc., are minimized or eliminated, to help those who need or want to boost their weight loss or other health goals.

If you want a list of MWL-only recipes, the Food thread has the link at the top as a sticky:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10076

You can use the 10-day meal plan as a guide, and use only MWL recipes instead. The main point is to HAVE a plan! Sit down on a Friday night or Saturday morning, make a plan of what you're going to eat for the week --seven days, all meals, beverages, etc.--and make sure it's all in the house and ready for you to grab. If you like to cook to recipes, pick 4 or 5 MWL recipes, get all the ingredients, and make them. Keep the ones you like, and don't keep the ones you didn't like. get the hang of what makes something MWL, and make up your own recipes.

If you don't like recipes anyway, make a menu plan that consists of the starches, veggies and fruits you like, and stock those, and eat them! It is sometimes hard to conceive that this way of eating is so simple--but it truly is. Soon, this will be second nature to you, and you won't need that menu plan at all, but you'll still know you are stocked up and ready to have food any time you need it.
5'3", 74 YO. Started Jan. 11, 2010
Starting weight: 222.6
Current weight: 148.2.0


Success Story:
https://www.drmcdougall.com/articles/st ... -rockwell/
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Re: Benefits of following MWP to the letter?

Postby geo » Thu Jun 04, 2015 2:22 pm

I'm a firm believer in strictly following the mwlp. You can see my one year results and my testimonial in my sig below as well as my first year journal where I record everything I did everyday for a year (a long maybe boring read, lol).
geo

My 1 year Journal McDougalling and results Testimonial
My March 2013 Star McDougaller Story
Some Random Thoughts on Successful McDougalling
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Re: Benefits of following MWP to the letter?

Postby ETeSelle » Wed Jun 10, 2015 10:09 am

I followed MWL to lose the weight and I continue following it to keep the weight off. I eat OCCASIONAL (a few times a month) bread, WW pasta, etc. but I'm pretty darn adherent to MWL. I prefer to keep a low BMI and I can't do that when I add back in foods with higher calorie density, esp. as I eat a LOT of food! :-) I love it that I can eat big portions as long as I stick to MWL.
Elizabeth
Weight now: 124 (20.0 BMI)
Weight in 2010: 207 (33.4 BMI)
Star McDougaller Story
Testimonial thread

Trust me on this: One day you'll wake up and realize that it no longer feels like "being strict." It just feels GOOD. :)
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