April 2019 McDougall Weigh In Thread

[OOnaOwl]

Good morning MWL People,
I may have needed a little vent last week, but this diet is working and it's a lot easier for me to stick to it than Joel Fuhrman's 'Eat to Live' diet. Fuhrman's diet needs to be renamed to 'Eat to Live While Suffering.'
Glad I found MWL!
I've got a little over a month left to go to hit my goal weight. Once the weather gets nicer an I'm able to start cycling, my main sport that I've been doing for decades, the weight will come off a lot easier. I'm looking forward to getting back into my favorite shape that allows me to ride (peloton/group ride) with fit people.

I've got a little over 5 lbs left to lose, but at this rate and if the weather gets better, so I can start cycling outdoors, I may even reach the weight I got down to when I did Fuhrman; 102. That'd be cool. I'm pretty unstoppable riding uphill at that weight.
Please forgive the bragging, but I'm excited. Being lean and fit again is well within my reach.
Weight: 110.9
Total loss: 1.5

Congratulations! So great you are almost at your final goal! I tried the ETL 6WP & also hated it.

[landog]

Moonlight - I noticed your question about food volume in Jeff’s forum and I can give you one of his links: Daily Food Volume and Satiety.
It’s a great thread and I recommend it to anyone interested in a better understanding of this aspect of why calorie density works. He may suggest a different - more appropriate - thread, I’m not trying to step on his toes, I just happened to remember this one and thought everyone here may get a benefit from your question.

You beat me to it!

Thanks, Amy!

[Rosey]

last week 282.3 lbs this week 290 lbs my swelling is head to toe today. gah... gain 7.7 lbs. I've been bouncing from 265 lbs to 292 lbs with in days of each other it's so frustrating told my cousin I'm going to go down to just potatoes for a bit again and see if I can figure out what's causing this.

[sirdle]

3.1 lb loss.

Monday was moving day... ended up climbing 150 flights of stairs and not eating enough food. Still don't have a microwave, but I managed to eat on-plan... even though it was light on volume.

On Thursday vendors showed up for a meeting at work and brought everyone In'n'Out burgers and fries for lunch. I was able to turn it down because I had just eaten a huge salad and I still had 4C of Mexican Rice and Beans in my cooler.

Today was the first day of a Family visit at an Air BnB. Last night I spent several hours chopping enough food for a double batch of Lentil Stew. Tonight, I cooked it up for everyone. It was a big success. Breakfast we ate out at a restaurant... but I managed Oatmeal with cranberries, apples and cinnamon and a huge fruit salad. Dodged a bullet with that one!

Overall, it's been a very, very tough week, but so far I've been hanging in there, food-wise. Tomorrow should be a rematch of today, except I'll probably eat more volume.

Whew.

Cheers,

[Ellen N]

I weigh 157#, down 2#, i this hunk, from last week.

[amandamechele]

Moonlight - Congrats on getting a couple of great days in; more of those will lead to even more of them... LOL. I’ve been doing what you are suggesting for a few years now. Attempting to follow MWL and using the regular program as my slip-up plan. It’s been pretty good for weight-loss maintenance but not so good for getting more weight off. Your banana blueberry cream sounds delicious and if that’s what you are eating during a craving, I think you will do just fine. They can be so strong, I agree. Have you ever been in what Dr. Lisle calls a deep groove? A time when adherence has been high enough for a long enough period of time that is does begin to feel easier? I have visited that wonderful fairy-land a few times and can tell you it is worth the effort to keep trying to get back there. Hee hee. When I’m in that zone the world actually feels right and I wonder: is how most people feel all the time? It’s a calm, content and stable place, but to get there I pretty much have to be doing all of the things right. No coffee (my current downfall), no regular program extras, no dried fruit, exercise daily, no alcohol and severely limit my eating out because the added sodium and whatever else restaurants put in the food (even when oil free) can stoke the cravings fire for me if I’m not careful. I haven’t found consistent motivation to get and stay in this place, but I will keep hunting for some and send any info I glean your way. I don’t know if you’ve ever read this, but I did a 10-day Mary’s Mini and photographed it and weighed and measured all of my food to quantify my average weight of food consumed per day. Here is a link to my Mary’s Mini if you want to check it out. I determined that I eat approximately 4 pounds of food per day. I have periodically tested those results and it holds up. With regards to your question about whether the restricted diet will change your consumption levels; it may. When I did my thirty day challenge I noticed that I very slowly ate less oatmeal over the course of the month once I no longer added sugar to it. It makes sense, of course, less stimulating. Really all these challenges point in the direction of continuing to attempt to have exceptionally good adherence if you aren’t reaching your goals with not so great adherence. Now, that is so much easier said than done. I so understand this and am personally in the same boat as you. We can only just keep manipulating all of the variables until we find the right combination for a time and then hope to keep riding that wave. XO.

Shelley - Aw, I love hearing how well you are doing. Your efforts are proving themselves well worth it.

Dan - Nice loss and I hope you have a great week as well.

Oonaowl - Yay for non-scale victories! Yay for high satiety! Keep at it, I have no doubt you will see some fat loss, its just hard to predict when.

Belana - I’m glad you have found MWL and are having good success. It really is a great plan and works so well when followed. What kind of cycling do you do? Long distances? On road or off road? Sounds fun! And... bragging is always allowed here... we just change its name to CELEBRATING! A big congratulations to you.

Landog - Great minds...LOL... nice to hear from you.

Connie - Keep up the effort. Figure out your worst deviations from the plan and pick one or two of them to work on this week. If you were to choose, what would they be? (Please only share if you want to, I’m just curious). Jeff’s 10-point list is currently a popular way to keep track of how you are doing. Previous MWL participant Mark Cooper has a nice example.. If that feels like too much work (sometimes it kind-of does to me) then maybe just type the #1-10 and add comments beside them about your adherence on a particular day for that particular guideline. I feel so badly when I know you are suffering. XO.

Sirdle Whew! Great job this week. Your prep work is saving you here. Overeating of healthy food can be a good strategy if you end up feeling tempted to go off plan. You may end up feeling a bit blah afterwards but you wont re-ignite any cravings and this way you will have no issues getting right back into your groove once the visit is over. Let us know how tomorrow goes!

Ellen - Congratulations on a good week. Slow and steady wins this race.

[moonlight]

Moonlight - Have you ever been in what Dr. Lisle calls a deep groove? A time when adherence has been high enough for a long enough period of time that is does begin to feel easier? I have visited that wonderful fairy-land a few times and can tell you it is worth the effort to keep trying to get back there. Hee hee. When I’m in that zone the world actually feels right and I wonder: is how most people feel all the time? It’s a calm, content and stable place, but to get there I pretty much have to be doing all of the things right. No coffee (my current downfall), no regular program extras, no dried fruit, exercise daily, no alcohol and severely limit my eating out because the added sodium and whatever else restaurants put in the food (even when oil free) can stoke the cravings fire for me if I’m not careful. I haven’t found consistent motivation to get and stay in this place, but I will keep hunting for some and send any info I glean your way.

Thanks, Amy, for bringing this up and stating it so nicely. Yes, I have been in that groove. Like you, I can't seem to stay there. I am hoping to get back there with this current MM challenge.

... I don’t know if you’ve ever read this, but I did a 10-day Mary’s Mini and photographed it and weighed and measured all of my food to quantify my average weight of food consumed per day. Here is a link to my Mary’s Mini if you want to check it out. I determined that I eat approximately 4 pounds of food per day. I have periodically tested those results and it holds up. With regards to your question about whether the restricted diet will change your consumption levels; it may. When I did my thirty day challenge I noticed that I very slowly ate less oatmeal over the course of the month once I no longer added sugar to it. It makes sense, of course, less stimulating. Really all these challenges point in the direction of continuing to attempt to have exceptionally good adherence if you aren’t reaching your goals with not so great adherence. Now, that is so much easier said than done. I so understand this and am personally in the same boat as you. We can only just keep manipulating all of the variables until we find the right combination for a time and then hope to keep riding that wave. XO.

I really appreciate these links to your journal. Your journal entries on the October 30 day challenge were especially inspiring. That's a lot of work to post! I admire your commitment to sticking with the challenge while on the road, moving, and visiting family! It is very inspiring!! I'm considering joining Flicker and starting a challenge with pictures to help keep me accountable. Thank you

Also, since I am posting in the Weigh-In thread... I'm reporting no loss still... I think I was losing but yesterday I ate off plan and had lots of sodium, then this morning I was so hungry when I woke up that I ate potatoes before I had a chance to weigh myself. So, 0lbs for my first week of April.

Best to ALL!! I hope you have a great week!

[amandamechele]

Hello!

Thank you to each of you who have checked in this week. Many congratulations on your successes and efforts.

Yesterday I shared links with Moonlight that had me travelling down memory lane, remembering how wonderful it feels when I’m doing a very good job at the MWL plan, not wiring myself up with caffeine and doing a little bit of exercise each day. These are memories I want to keep making!
Since the group has slimmed down quite a bit this month (I’m so punny...hee hee) I thought that the inspirational story I would re-post is my own. Some of you will have read it and others may not have. I hope it, and all of the other success stories posted on the McDougall website can serve as a reminder that great changes are possible over the long term if you just keep at it.

Amy Lost 100 Pounds and Dedicated Herself to Helping Others Do the Same
(Though this was a taped interview, I was misquoted or maybe misinterpreted, I never worked for Dr. Greger, as it says in the article, I was a volunteer. Like I am here.)

The best advice that I have learned from my experiences is too try very hard not to put your weight loss goals within a particular timeframe, such as: I want to lose 2 pounds per week, or I want to be at goal weight by Christmas. This can set many people up to fail because they feel like they didn’t work hard enough which can lead to becoming discouraged and giving up or procrastinating. How fast you lose weight is not something you can really control. Your body is going to lose at the pace it’s going to lose. What you can control is what you choose to eat every week, every day and every meal. Set goals around adherence to the particular dietary pattern you choose to use. For example, I will eat an oil-free plant based diet when I’m at home for 18 of my 21 weekly meals. This way you have some wiggle room for errors as well as some space to exceed your own expectations!
Mostly I want everyone to know that this is difficult and many people who have not struggled in this way don’t understand. Keep doing your best and know that you are not alone.

Hmmm... who does this sound like...LOL?

Best wishes his week!

Here are the results for the first week in April:

Next Weigh-In is on Friday, April 12th, 2019

Total group loss reported in 2019: 231.27 pounds

April 2019 Weight Loss Group :: Monthly Weigh-In Results
Total group loss in January 2019: 140.53 pounds
Total group loss in February 2019: 78.64 pounds
Total group loss in March 2019: 7.4 pounds
Total group loss in April 2019: 4.7 pounds

Week ending 04/05/2019: 10 participants reported a total loss of 4.7 pounds
---------------------------------------
Rosey - 7.7
---------------------------------------
Total gains: 7.7
--------------------------------------
Shelley Crockett - 2.0
Dpascar - 0.4
OOnaOwl - 0.0
Sirdle - 3.1
Belana - 1.5
EllenN - 2.0
Amandamechele - 0.4
Moonlight - 0.0
Anelson108 - 3.0
---------------------------------------------
Total losses: 12.4
---------------------------------------------

Total group loss in April 2019: 4.7 pounds
Week ending 04/05/2019: 10 participants reported a total loss of 4.7 pounds

[amandamechele]

Moonlight - I find taking photos of what I eat helpful, but posting them here definitely can be time consuming. I just want to mention that because I know how busy you are. Flickr is great, feel free to find me on there and we can follow each other and see each other’s food photos in that format. Same username as here, but I have 2 accounts because I hit their maximum limit and didn’t want to pay so I had to start another one (it is amandamechele2).

[Belana]

Good morning MWL People,
I may have needed a little vent last week, but this diet is working and it's a lot easier for me to stick to it than Joel Fuhrman's 'Eat to Live' diet. Fuhrman's diet needs to be renamed to 'Eat to Live While Suffering.'
Glad I found MWL!
I've got a little over a month left to go to hit my goal weight. Once the weather gets nicer an I'm able to start cycling, my main sport that I've been doing for decades, the weight will come off a lot easier. I'm looking forward to getting back into my favorite shape that allows me to ride (peloton/group ride) with fit people.

I've got a little over 5 lbs left to lose, but at this rate and if the weather gets better, so I can start cycling outdoors, I may even reach the weight I got down to when I did Fuhrman; 102. That'd be cool. I'm pretty unstoppable riding uphill at that weight.
Please forgive the bragging, but I'm excited. Being lean and fit again is well within my reach.
Weight: 110.9
Total loss: 1.5

Congratulations! So great you are almost at your final goal! I tried the ETL 6WP & also hated it.

Thanks for the congrats OOnaOwl. I appreciate it.
I wish I had the wherewithal to post somewhere that was visible enough to make the effort worth it! If there was such a place, I would post my personal experience with both ETL and MWL. IMHO, I believe that folks attempting the ETL diet, need to know there's an alternative. There's not enough contrasting info to the ETL diet out on the net.

[Belana]

Moonlight - Congrats on getting a couple of great days in; more of those will lead to even more of them... LOL. I’ve been doing what you are suggesting for a few years now. Attempting to follow MWL and using the regular program as my slip-up plan. It’s been pretty good for weight-loss maintenance but not so good for getting more weight off. Your banana blueberry cream sounds delicious and if that’s what you are eating during a craving, I think you will do just fine. They can be so strong, I agree. Have you ever been in what Dr. Lisle calls a deep groove? A time when adherence has been high enough for a long enough period of time that is does begin to feel easier? I have visited that wonderful fairy-land a few times and can tell you it is worth the effort to keep trying to get back there. Hee hee. When I’m in that zone the world actually feels right and I wonder: is how most people feel all the time? It’s a calm, content and stable place, but to get there I pretty much have to be doing all of the things right. No coffee (my current downfall), no regular program extras, no dried fruit, exercise daily, no alcohol and severely limit my eating out because the added sodium and whatever else restaurants put in the food (even when oil free) can stoke the cravings fire for me if I’m not careful. I haven’t found consistent motivation to get and stay in this place, but I will keep hunting for some and send any info I glean your way. I don’t know if you’ve ever read this, but I did a 10-day Mary’s Mini and photographed it and weighed and measured all of my food to quantify my average weight of food consumed per day. Here is a link to my Mary’s Mini if you want to check it out. I determined that I eat approximately 4 pounds of food per day. I have periodically tested those results and it holds up. With regards to your question about whether the restricted diet will change your consumption levels; it may. When I did my thirty day challenge I noticed that I very slowly ate less oatmeal over the course of the month once I no longer added sugar to it. It makes sense, of course, less stimulating. Really all these challenges point in the direction of continuing to attempt to have exceptionally good adherence if you aren’t reaching your goals with not so great adherence. Now, that is so much easier said than done. I so understand this and am personally in the same boat as you. We can only just keep manipulating all of the variables until we find the right combination for a time and then hope to keep riding that wave. XO.

Shelley - Aw, I love hearing how well you are doing. Your efforts are proving themselves well worth it.

Dan - Nice loss and I hope you have a great week as well.

Oonaowl - Yay for non-scale victories! Yay for high satiety! Keep at it, I have no doubt you will see some fat loss, its just hard to predict when.

Belana - I’m glad you have found MWL and are having good success. It really is a great plan and works so well when followed. What kind of cycling do you do? Long distances? On road or off road? Sounds fun! And... bragging is always allowed here... we just change its name to CELEBRATING! A big congratulations to you.

Thanks for the congrats amandamechele.
I've been a roadie for decades...
I also mountain bike, but just socially. I'm planning on getting into gravel riding-a new thing for me. It's the 'in-thing' to do cycling-wise around here.


Landog - Great minds...LOL... nice to hear from you.

Connie - Keep up the effort. Figure out your worst deviations from the plan and pick one or two of them to work on this week. If you were to choose, what would they be? (Please only share if you want to, I’m just curious). Jeff’s 10-point list is currently a popular way to keep track of how you are doing. Previous MWL participant Mark Cooper has a nice example.. If that feels like too much work (sometimes it kind-of does to me) then maybe just type the #1-10 and add comments beside them about your adherence on a particular day for that particular guideline. I feel so badly when I know you are suffering. XO.

Sirdle Whew! Great job this week. Your prep work is saving you here. Overeating of healthy food can be a good strategy if you end up feeling tempted to go off plan. You may end up feeling a bit blah afterwards but you wont re-ignite any cravings and this way you will have no issues getting right back into your groove once the visit is over. Let us know how tomorrow goes!

Ellen - Congratulations on a good week. Slow and steady wins this race.

[moonlight]

Amy, thank you so much for your thoughtful reply. I've decided the Mary's Mini isn't for me. I can scratch that off my list! It actually made me think about food more often and drove me to distraction!! I'm going back to slow and steady MWL planned meals, focusing on the guidelines, and keeping an intention to exercise most days. I forgot how tricky cravings can be! I thought the MM would help me overcome the Pleasure Trap but, for me, it had the opposite effect! I have a pack of index cards with strategies to help me when times are challenging, like a list of suggested activities to try while weathering through a craving storm. I can get back on track! I feel like I need to change the title of my journey to The Weary Road of Grit and Determination... Also, thank you for posting photos of when you started your weight loss journey and now. You are truly an inspiration. Thank you for your willingness to share. It is very helpful. XO

[Shelley Crockett]

Good morning,

So glad it's Friday. It was a stressful and challenging week at work, so I'm extra happy that it is finally Friday!!

Good news, even with the challenges this week I stayed the course and stuck with my healthy eating. In the past, stress would have me eating things I shouldn't. It's a NSV!

I'm happy to report a loss of 3.6 lb. That's a total loss of 11.2 lbs in the month since attending the McDougall 3 day program. Doing a little happy dance.

Hope everyone had a good week

Shelley

[Dpascar]

Good morning all, good week as I lost 1.6 pounds and also got my first A1C results since November 4. I was 6.9 and now I am 5.3!

[anelson108]

Weigh-in today: 194
Last week: 194.6
Results: 0.6 pound loss
Total loss (since joining MWL): 10.6
Goal weight: 150 pounds (5' 6" height)
NOTE: Again, because of little no-meal planning and convenience, I ate some high-fat and high-sugar foods. This included foods from a vegan/vegetarian expo in my city on Sunday 4/7. I did batch-cooking (corn chowder) this past Monday and will do batch-cooking (lentil soup, brown rice, and baked potatoes) again tomorrow. I'm sure the advance planning will be a help to stay on track.