April 2018 McDougall Weigh In Thread

[amandamechele]

I have lost 1 lb! Down to 186 again. Yeeha!

I hope everyone has a good week. I'm out of town visiting family. I'm real pleased with my food choices. I brought a few pre-made items with me. I think making the effort to bring compliant food has helped me stay focused on my new lifestyle. I'm not craving forbidden food. The only drawback is not getting enough exercise... I'll go back home on Sunday so hopefully I'll get back into a good exercise routine.

How did the rest of your week go? I hope you enjoyed your visit and came home feeling refreshed and ready for a good week!

[amandamechele]

Good morning!

I lost one pound (almost two ... but not quite ...).

I am still exercising 6-7 days a week and I started running again ... just very slow and short distance, but I was surprised how well it worked. I will see if I can slowly increase it. Just difficult to fit into my week.

Amy ... to come back to your questions ... I honestly don't know the name of these flowers, I picked them because they won't die with a little bit of frost at night. Would post a picture, but don't know how to do that.
I hope that today or tomorrow I can get my herb seeds out.
Finally bushes and trees are starting to get leaves ... there is hope for summer!!!
But it is rainy and cold-ish today ...

Have a great day everyone!
Svenja.

Hi Svenja,

I'm inspired by how well you've managed fitting in the exercise and how diligent you have been about it since the new year. Ah-mazing! (That's valley girl talk for amazing)

Its still rainy in my area too, but flowers are coming up and many trees are flowering too! Someone told me they are cherry and apple trees. I am going to try and confirm that because where I used to live apples were always a late season fruit. But...who knows...maybe this is just something new to me.

Best wishes this weekend.

Amy

[amandamechele]

Landog - What a difficult week, and you still managed to come prepared. You must feel so grateful to have such a supportive spouse at your side.

I am grateful each and every day! She came along with this way of eating so willingly and cheerfully. I doubt that I could have done it alone.

As for the game...there's always tomorrow! Does that picture indicate that you went today? I'm so jealous! We are considering going to a Mariners game because that's the closest the Jays will ever be to us now.

The picture was from a lunchtime walk. I did go to the game on Friday night. We were up 4 - 0 when our pitcher couldn't get his off speed stuff over for strikes. A few walks and he switched to nothing but fastballs. Seems like the Blue Jays are very good at hitting fastballs! I hope that you enjoyed the W and that you get to Seattle for a game!

Lucky man! I'm sure she feels exactly the same way.

I did enjoy that win... but now have to wait for that doubleheader May 3rd to see if its repeatable.

[landog]

I hope April 20th treats you kindly!

I'm down 2 pounds this week.

Happy Friday!

[victw]

Down 1 lb for the week.
Interesting - if I look back a month it's only 2.6 lbs.

Things are going well.
Take away for the week was that might fruit consumption dropped off. I had some treats this week which wasn't horrible by itself - but I want the fruit to come first.

More broccoli this week which was good.

We've introduced ground flax seed. But since I'm not an oatmeal for breakfast gal - it's not obvious how to fit it in.

I'm reading The Economist's Diet. They recommend weighing yourself everyday - so I've gone back to doing so. Recording twice a week. I've gone through more than one phase where I've continued to weigh myself daily while the weight went up and I made no changes. That's the place I don't want to be.

Vic

[galooop]

Gained 0.6 LBS

still vacillating on a weight plateau

have a great week!
Chris

[Jobet]

I'm up 0.2 LBs this week.

Hello Everyone! Hope you're all doing great!!

[SonjaK]

I have gone back and forth on the daily weighing and whether it is helpful or not. It helped me for awhile but then I realized that I started using it as an excuse to eat more or higher caloric foods. i.e. I won't be gaining weight this week if I eat this since I lost weight... and I can always get serious next week.

I'm currently using my SIL's suggestion of using "skinny jeans" to measure my progress. I got some pants the next size smaller and one a couple sizes smaller. For the former, I could get into them and fasten them but they were uncomfortable. For the smaller pair, I could pull them up but there was a couple inch gap in fastening them.

Since I got those, I'm comfortably in the larger pair and making progress towards fitting in the smaller.

i weigh myself once a month and I'm lighter than I've ever been and definitely inching (pun intended!) towards the thin side of HWP. Feels good.

Sonja

[moonlight]

I'm still at 186 - so, no loss or gain. I was out of town for more than half the week and I've eaten at restaurants more than usual since I've been home. I'll consider this week a success in that I can maintain while out of town and eating at restaurants (plus not much exercise). I don't want to make a habit of no exercise and restaurant dining, though. I feel a shift in my attitude about what I eat. I wait until I get home to eat if I can, even when hungry, because I like the choices better. I'm making better choices in restaurants.

Hopefully I'll lose more weight this week. I went down to 185 but didn't stay there.

Good luck to everyone this upcoming week.

[Sundog]

Weight 223.5 lost 0.5 lb!
Hi everyone,
I weighed this morning and have been busy all day. I am trying a seven day free membership at a local gym. I went on Thursday and today. I am meeting a few friends to try the Zumba class tomorrow at 0900! It feels good to get some exercise in the form of an exercise bike and the elliptical.
My leg that just had the laser ablation seems to be doing well. I just have to wear medical support hose when I’m going to be on my feet all day.
I’ve been compliant with my food. Trying to eat more veggies but getting a little sick of eating salad.
I know that it is a must so I will just keep doing it. I’ve been slicing up fresh baby Bella mushrooms and soaking them in pepperoni spice mix for 24 hours then dehydrating them in my oven. They are so flavorful and crunchy and a nice addition to salad. I’m going to try a barbecue spice blend soon!

I hope everyone is doing well on their journey to health.
Best, Sundog

[amandamechele]

Landog - Happy Friday (and now Saturday) to you too! Wow, your consistent losses are very inspiring. Would you care to share with the group a couple of days worth of meals?

Vic - That's a wonderful loss for the week and month. It's not only 2.6 pounds...it's 2.6 POUNDS! Sing it from the roof tops. That's around a 9100 calorie deficit without feeling deprived and hungry. Woo hoo! I'm so glad to hear that things are going well, and that you're finding a groove with regards to food patterns and weighing patterns. I have tried to think of some ground flaxseed ideas for you that don't include oatmeal/hot cereals or baked goods. (I even searched the recipe area of the site and it didn't provide any ideas either.) Google gave me this Fat Free Flax Salad Dressing recipe. Also, maybe it could added to bean stew as a thickener. If ground finely enough I wonder how that would taste? Best wishes this week!

Chris - Let's consider this plateau in another way, which is darn good weight maintenance. You are re-grouping your efforts and hopefully enjoying how you are eating. XO

Jobet - Thank you for checking in! I hope you are doing great too. Good job holding steady this week.

SonjaK - That's a great non-scale strategy to gauge if your weight is moving in the right direction. Thank you for suggesting it. Feeling good makes this so worth it. I'm always hopeful that people give eating this way a true shot - by following the guidelines very closely - for awhile. Then there's a chance they will keep coming back because they know what its like to feel better, brighter, leaner and lighter...physically and mentally.

Moonlight - Your shift in attitude sounds like a wonderful win. Its what will help keep you going strong during challenging weeks where all of your regular patterns are in disarray. You are doing so well and I'm really really happy for you. Keep walking the path, one step at a time!

Sundog -Congratulations on your dedication to getting the food right.
Yum, those mushrooms sound delicious. Great idea, thanks for sharing! If you need a break from salad, there are so many veggies to choose from. I'm a lazy salad person and just eat a few whole romaine leaves here and there. How about trying asparagus or brussel sprouts...raw green beans, or sliced bell peppers. Carrots, broccoli, or Swiss chard. I really really love Swiss chard. (Its darn expensive though, so I keep meaning to grow some). All the best to you too!

[Svenja]

Sorry I am late ... I was invited out for breakfast.

I gained one pound this week. I am ok with it ...

Thanks Amanda for your kind words! I am trying hard with the exercise. But I am trying to get more and more into a mind shift ... exercising because of selfcare not because I have to ... eating well and moving my body to flourish and not to drag myself through life.

Have a great Sunday everyone!
Svenja.

[amandamechele]

Hi All!

Congratulations on your efforts and your losses this week.

I've been thinking a lot about motivation lately. Within the monthly threads our group numbers wax and wane, people come and go, and often it is without achieving the weight loss goal that they were hoping for.

I was talking about this with some new friends last night. This couple is a pair of high-achieving individuals, very good at self motivating. One is an alternative medical practitioner, who is also a former Olympian - I mention this only to try and paint a picture of my friend - a very highly motivated individual. The discussion moved in a direction that I have found common with people who have had much success with achieving goals. They don't understand why everyone is not as capable of doing it with the same speed and consistency as they are. It went something like why can't people just follow through on the decisions that they make? They're not trying hard enough or they don't want it enough.

It's uncomfortable to feel like the odd one out in any situation, and I definitely felt that way last night. If only in my own head (these are nice people, our discussion wasn't contentious in any way). But, I was gently persistent in pointing out that there is much more to goal attainment than desire and that people are not a colony of bees. We may be driven by the same motivational factors, but how those factors drive our behaviour is quite variable based on our individuality, our identity, our genetics - choose the word you like best.
I have a long history of being the person/people they were pitying...heck, I still am that person but I'm not wearing my vice as obviously as I have in the past. Thankfully, I've learned to manage myself better and more consistently, understanding that what comes a little more naturally to each of them is going to take a bit more effort in myself...that's what brought me to and keeps me in Dr. McDougall's world.

The point I'm circling around is that some people, through circumstance (such as opportunity or, similarly but not exactly the same, less barriers to entry) and personality seem to have an easier time experiencing self-efficacy. Social psychologist Dr. Albert Bandura defines self-efficacy as an individual's conviction that he or she can successfully execute the behaviours required to produce the desired outcome (Bandura 1977)( (Dr. Lisle talks about Dr. Bandura and self efficacy, self-confidence and self-esteem in a few McDougall webinars, including Stepping Stones to Self Esteem and Dare to Be Lousy).

So I thought let's trawl through the website and find things that can help us attempt to improve our self-efficacy. The many experts here have written and talked about it. Dr McDougall writes about motivation in his newsletter article Empowering Change in Early, Middle and Late Life. Jeff talks a bit about it in the thread Compliance on a Healthy Diet. There is also Dr. Lisle's The Perfect Personality lecture, and Dr. Lim gives a wonderful presentation on the relationship between goal setting and successful behaviour change.


Setting very specific and realistic goals, that you believe are attainable seems to be the bulk of what is predictive of maintaining motivation during the period of time needed to attain a goal. It focuses your effort which influences your persistence. Self-efficacy is improved through reflection and adjustment of your strategies to obtain your goal.

What can we do to specifically improve our belief that we can reach our weight-loss goals (obtained through better adherence to the MWL plan)?

1) Identify how much weight you would like to lose and monitor progress.
2) Understand theMWL guidelines
3) Reflect on where you have struggled historically, and identify situations that will need extra attention.
4) Think about a time where you have succeeded at a goal and what it took to do so.
5) Choose a few recipes you want to make for the week.
6) Shop and Chop. Choose which day you will purchase groceries for the ingredients and chop the veggies and fruit you will be needing for the week that very day. Bake some potatoes, or rice. You can also bulk cook and make individual portions for grab and go lunches. (I'm less structured than that so I just pre-chop for the recipes that I've decided for the week, but don't make them. That way I can go with what I feel like on a given day without too much effort.).
7) Remember that perfection can be the enemy of progress.
8 ) Seek support and camaraderie: here, at home or at a similar self-help group. Have someone you can talk at, talk to and talk with - because we all do a little of each of those in our conversations.
9) As George Burr Leonard says Practice, practice, practice.

This is a bit like the story The Little Engine That Could. Think you can and work at it until you know you can!



Best wishes for the coming week!

Amy XO

Here are the results for the third week in April:

Next Weigh-In is on Friday, April 27th, 2018

Total group loss reported in 2018: 183.2 pounds

April 2018 Weight Loss Group :: Monthly Weigh-In Results
Total group loss in January 2018: 54.7 pounds
Total group loss in February 2018: 49.3 pounds
Total group loss in March 2018: 52.5 pounds
Total group loss in April 2018: 26.6 pounds

Week ending 04/20/2018: 8 participants reported a total loss of 1.7 pounds
---------------------------------------
Galooop - 0.6
Jobet - 0.2
Svenja - 1.0
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Total gains: 1.8
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Landog - 2.0
Victw - 1.0
Moonlight - 0.0
Sundog - 0.5
amandamechele - 0.0
---------------------------------------------
Total losses: 3.5
---------------------------------------------

Total group loss in April 2018: 24.9 pounds
Week ending 04/20/2018: 8 participants reported a total loss of 1.7 pounds
Week ending 04/13/2018: 10 participants reported a total loss of 12.9 pounds
Week ending 04/06/2018: 11 participants reported a total loss of 12 pounds

[amandamechele]

Sorry I am late ... I was invited out for breakfast.

I gained one pound this week. I am ok with it ...

Thanks Amanda for your kind words! I am trying hard with the exercise. But I am trying to get more and more into a mind shift ... exercising because of selfcare not because I have to ... eating well and moving my body to flourish and not to drag myself through life.

Have a great Sunday everyone!
Svenja.

That's a great mindshift to get into Svenja. It will come more naturally with practice. XO

[moonlight]

Amy,

Thank you for such an inspiring and informed post! I always appreciate your links and encouragement. I really agree with the part about reflection. I think once we get our plan in place and start working toward our goals, reflection is the key because we won't be 100% successful. When we get discouraged because we can't seem to meet our goals we may become frustrated and not know where to go next, but just simple reflection may turn us around and help us get back on track. It's a journey. I like Dr. Lim's slide. Especially the "take baby steps". I think of that often. A change in eating habits is a gradual process. If we keep perspective we won't give up, even when it seems we are not making progress.