November 2018 McDougall Weigh In Thread

[moonlight]

To all who managed to lose weight during Thanksgiving week, Congratulations!! That’s such an achievement! I tried but failed on that goal! I made it through the big lunch, even turned down pecan pie! However, I didn’t prepare myself for Thanksgiving evening, going to my aunt’s to watch a football game and just eat leftovers. I took my MWL compliant leftovers (Lentil Shepherd’s pie, which turned out to be very good and a couple of others tried it and commented on how good it was. I can’t imagine the taste being anything but bland when being compared to the SAD Thanksgiving spread,,,). My aunt had all these snack dishes that she’s made since I was a little kid. I had not been to her house for Thanksgiving in probably 10 years. I caved! That broke my MWL compliant goal. I ate a few other things during the weekend. I’m glad to be home and back on my MWL plan. I have a nice pot of soup on the stove now. I didn’t have a way to weigh myself while away. I planned to take my scales with me, but I forgot! That might have helped me stay with my goal! Anyway, I’m sure I’m up a few pounds. I’m not going to weigh until the next weekly weigh-in. I’m afraid it will make me feel really bad. Thank you all for checking in this week. You have made this stressful holiday season tolerable!

Stacey, I love your story about riding the train. Sounds like a great way to spend a break.

Lindsey, that was a great achievement to stay totally McD compliant for Thanksgiving AND manage to lose weight, too! Kudos to you!!

Mark, I hope you feel better soon.

Idgie, a 2 lbs loss is awesome! It should count double since it was Thanks-freaking-giving week!

Arewethereyet, I hope you enjoy your holiday! You can get back on track when it’s over!

Rosey, congratulations on your loss. The bounce down to 260 is awesome. Congratulations! Glad to hear the swelling is easing up.

Kathy Yomom, I read somewhere that one day of letting go for Thanksgiving isn’t a deal breaker. I bet the 3 lbs will drop quickly. It’s probably from sodium. Glad you enjoyed the holiday.

Dea starbright, congratulations on your loss. Isn’t that kind of surprise so motivating!

Svenja, thank you for sharing your experiences with fasting. I bet you are feeling great! Are you at a retreat or going about your daily routine while fasting? How is your energy level?

Amy, thank you for sharing your weight loss journey. I love your pictures! You are such an inspiration. Often you have just the right piece of information to share that keeps me going. Thank you for all your efforts. Congratulations for such an amazing weight loss!! This being conscious of our eating and exercise, making an effort to stay healthy, is a way of life. There’s no finish line to cross.

[Arewethereyet]

Moonlight: Thanks! We did have a nice visit, but I'm happy to be back in my routine.

Amy: Thanks for re-posting your story. I often get stuck at certain ranges, and this gives me hope.


I'm here today because I'm at work, and hungry. Can't do anything about it for another two hours. Glad there are not treats laying around!

[amandamechele]

Svenja - I'm glad to hear that you are doing well. Your energy sounds good. I have fasted at home before (and at True North too) and I become like a sloth...just wanting to curl up with a book in a soft chair or bed. (Admittedly I've never seen a sloth curl up with a good book...LOL...and was surprised to see that there are memes for this imagery too) Go easy on yourself! Looking forward to hearing how it goes.


Moonlight - XO. I bet it was lovely to celebrate at your Aunt's after all that time. What kind of soup did you make? It's rainy and cold where I live so I've been eating soup almost everyday too. It's like a warm hug for my throat and tummy. Today I needed 2 hugs...LOL!

Vee - There is hope! Work at it when you feel ready and you can break out of that range. Until then, keep learning and thinking about it. Treats at work are the worst! Best wishes.

[moonlight]

Hi Amy,

I've made an effort lately to have soup ready to eat. It helps keep me hydrated, increases my veggie intake, and prevents me from going off plan when I'm too hungry to take time to cook. I try to follow recipes but often times I just add in whatever vegetable I have that seems like it might be good. I read recipes to find which spices go with certain vegetables. I generally like to put a little starch in the soup but I refrain from adding very many beans. I might add beans to a serving of soup. If I add them to the whole pot of soup I could get too much protein for the day. Below is a link to a discussion about the value of green leafy vegetables. The studies suggest the thylakoids in green leaf vegetables can help increase satiety and regulate hormones related to satiety. I've been sure to include green leafy vegetables in my soup. I've also been experimenting with making sure I get a large serving of green leafy vegetables at dinner to help me from eating during the night. So far I haven't wanted to eat when I wake up during the night.

Here's the link to the discussion about green leafy vegetables: Can a volume eater de-volumize?

[amandamechele]

Moonlight - That's a great thread. Thank you for posting it. I haven't read that research paper that abit mentions. Another good reason to eat some veggies with your meals. Romaine lettuce was finally pulled off the shelf in my area, so its been a spinach-y sort of week. I read recipes for the same reason...the spice combinations. Any interesting suggestions? I want to try and make another type of veggie soup in a week or so, once I'm done with the cabbage soup that I made.

Just in case anyone isn't aware, Dr. McDougall will be doing a webinar TOMORROW, at 11am PST. I'm looking forward to it, it's been awhile and I miss his passion and candour. (I'll have to watch the replay because I'm not home then - so no spoilers!! I'm kidding, I'd love to hear what everyone thinks, whether I've watched it yet or not.)

[Mark Cooper]

Thanks to everybody for the well wishes while I was sick! I'm feeling much better now. I just realized that I won't be able to participate in this week's weigh-in, as we are flying to Orlando VERY early on Friday AM for a week at Disney World with my daughter, wife, mother, brother, & in-laws - my daughter's first ever visit and she is REALLY excited. Should be a fun trip. I'm going to stick to MWL while travelling & on vacation, but I doubt I will have opportunity to weigh myself. Thanks again to the whole group for all your support!

Wishing everyone a wonderful and successful finish to November!

[moonlight]

Mark, so glad you are feeling better!! I hope you have a blast on your vacation! Sounds fun!

Amy, I love talking soup! (*Edited - Amy, I neglected to mention spices in this post earlier! I have appreciated using rosemary and thyme in soup recently. Not together but I've been using these spices with various vegetables. I like to use a bay leaf, too.)

Here's a recipe I made about 5 times this summer. It freezes well, too.

Summer Squash Soup with Basil
• 1 1/4 pounds zucchini, crookneck or pattypan squash, roughly chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 6 cups Summer Vegetable Stock
• 1/2 cup julienned basil
• Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
• Juice of 1 lemon
Cook zucchini and onion. Sauté for 5 minutes or until onions are translucent and zucchini is crisp tender. Then add stock, bring to a boil, reduce heat and partially cover and cook for 25 minutes. Add basil during the last 5 minutes of cooking. Remove 2 cups of soup to a blender and puree until smooth. Mix back in to soup.Taste and season with salt and pepper. Add lemon juice and serve.

Here's the next soup recipe I'm going to try. I have modified it to fit MWL guidelines.

Roasted Celery Soup
• 8 large celery stalks cut into 2 inch pieces
• 1/2 bulb fresh fennel cut into 2 inch chunks
• 2 large whole garlic cloves
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 3 medium redskin potatoes, peeled and cut into a 1 1/2 inch dice
• 6 cups veggie broth (I like to use the liquid from cooking beans)
• 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• Salt and pepper for re seasoning if needed
• Celery leaves and fennel fronds for a little garnish
1. Place the cut celery, fennel and cloves of garlic in a 9x13 inch roasting pan. Add the salt, pepper. Roast in a 350F oven for 40 to 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the edges of the vegetables just begin to brown.
2. While the vegetables are cooking, cook the potatoes in the veggie broth until tender... about 10 to 12 minutes. Set the pan aside to cool a bit.
3. When the vegetables have finished roasting add them to the potatoes and broth. Let everything cool a bit.
4. In a blender puree 1/2 of the soup. Once pureed, return the soup to the pot and bring up to the boil. Stir in the lemon juice. Re season if needed and garnish each bowl with celery leaves and fennel fronds if you like.
5. NOTE: For a little more pronounced celery flavor add a pinch or two of celery seed or salt when re seasoning.

[Svenja]

Hey Amanda!
Thank you for your kind words!

I started back with eating yesterday. Slowly of course.

My experience was a bit different this time ... my best time for fasting is summer, cause I am cold like crazy, specially the first 2 or 3 days.
I usually start on a Friday with a late breakfast and then stop eating. I spend then all day at work and in my practice and get through the day. On Saturday I sleep in, have a warm drink and get out the house to run my errands. The rest of the weekend I stay home as much as possible. After day 3-5 the energy level is ok and my brain is back to full function But I took the car instead of the bike to work and apart from some stretching I didn't feel like exercise (in summer I sometimes do). I allow myself to be lazy ... I did a few handcraft things and lot's of youtube (not mindless though ... watched the ithrive-series and a lot of stuff with Dr. Lisle). I try to be diligent with enemas, taking minerals and stuff ...
My colleague at work didn't even notice that I didn't eat ...

I didn't plan for 12 days ... but it went well so I just continued. I started eating yesterday because we have an advent family gathering on Sunday. But I will prepare some compliant dishes and use them as batch cooking for the week at the same time.

I use the BMI calculator that my health insurance provides and I am out of the obese category and "only" overweight
According to their plan I have to loose "only" anther 33 lbs to be at a good weight ... but it is more like 55 lbs. But the numbers get more manageable.

In one of the talks with Dr. Lisle the introduced a kind of 'rating' to evaluate the food of the day. A B C D - days. So I made myself a document what an A B C or D day means for me. This concept spoke to me ... A-days are great but it is ok to aim for a B-day. If I have a C-day one or two A-days should follow etc. So this is my new project.

Have a great week!
Svenja.

[Arewethereyet]

Good morning!

Down 2.4 this week.

[Idgie]

Happy Friday, everyone!

It's so weird. I'm on day 5 of compliance, and I've lost weight this week -- strange, huh?

Anyway, down 2.8 to 276.6, and set to have another good food day. Hope everyone else is doing well. I'll check in again tonight.

[Lyndzie]

Down -.2 this week.

Got caught off guard on Tuesday. We used to go to Indian Buffet after the kids’ dentist appointments and we’ve had a crazy week so I hadn’t come up with an alternative plan, so that happened. Back to it.

[amandamechele]

Mark - I don't think you'll see this, but have a fabulous trip. I hope the whole family has a wonderful time. I, also, would love to hear how you fare with regards to staying on plan. That's sounds quite challenging but doable.

Moonlight - Mmm, those soups sound delish; I'm especially interested to hear how that celery-fennel combination tastes. I love the smell of roasted veggies and rosemary....that may be on my menu this week. XO

Svenja - Congratulations on such a big accomplishment. I am so happy for you. Seeing that 29.9 (or however much lower you are now) must feel great because you know how hard you have worked for this. Keep up the great effort.
I love Dr. Lisle's talks, The Continuum of Evil, is the one you are referring to here, in case anyone else reads your comments and wanted to know more. Your plan sounds like a good one, aim for progress, not perfection. Best wishes transitioning back.

Arewethereyet - Nice! It sounds like you made a whole bunch of great choices this week.

Lindsey - These things happen, and you've done so well. (I would have found that an extremely difficult thing to pass up too - my absolute favourite, other than tomato sandwiches, is Indian food). Best wishes this week getting back to it.

Here's my favourite quote for this week:

[starbright831]

I am up .10 from last week. At least it isn’t more. Hope next week is better. The weather here has been so nice lately that I have been able to resume my walking. Maybe that will help.

[moonlight]

I'm up 3 lbs from before Thanksgiving!! This past week I've had some really good days but I went off plan twice. Somehow I need to make better choices in restaurants. I've done it before... That will be my new goal this week, along with the goals to exercise more and have soup at the ready everyday. I'll be eating out again tonight.

Amy, I want to try the Roasted Celery soup recipe but I can't find fresh fennel. I plan to look for it today. Last week I made a yummy soup with okra, collards, tomatoes, zucchini, and store bought frozen onions and cubed potatoes. It was really good! I added a bay leaf and thyme. The okra made it thick. Yum!

Congrats to Idgie, Arewethereyet, Lyndsey, and Dea for losing or staying steady. You are my heroes this week!! Hopefully I'll join your ranks next week.

[moonspirit]

It's been a bit of a crazy week with school and my daughter return here taking two days due to canceled flights and weather. Just want to post before the deadline: I'm up 1.1 lbs to 156.6. Hopefully, I'll have time to right more later. It's good to be back.