1.Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit. Yes
2.Follow the 50/50 plate method for your meals, filling half your plate (by visual volume) with non-starchy vegetables and 50% (by visual volume) with minimally processed starches. Choose fruit for dessert. Yes
3.Greatly reduce or eliminate added sugars and added salts. This includes gourmet sugars and salts, too. If either is troublesome for you, you can eliminate them.Yes
4.Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood).Yes
5.Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy).Yes except one meal had tahini and seeds in it whilst socialising (no more lockdown for Melbourne! )
6.Eliminate any added oil. Yes
7. Eliminate all higher calorie-dense foods including flour products (i.e., bread, bagels, muffins, crackers, dry cereals, cookies, cakes), puffed cereals, air-popped popcorn and dried fruit. Yes
8.Don't drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages). Yes
9.Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don't starve yourself and don't stuff yourself. Yes
10.Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking). Yes.
Victories, comments, concerns,questions- Mark, thank-you for your kind words and tips, they really helped.
With which foods do you find yourself eating those excess added sugars? When and under what circumstances has that tended to happen? Sometimes addressing the context that produces challenges can be quite helpful. Try to make a point of only including added sugars within the constraints offered by the guidelines:
I was craving ice cream and it was when I hadn't eated enough carbs. I am getting through the McDougall book on MWL and finding it really helpful.
I was getting a bit confused the previous week about whether I should constrain my eating window as there seems to be so much talk about this being good for your overall health. This just made me ultra hungry and angry So this past week I listened to my body and stuck to the program pretty well.