Heather Goodwin reaches her goal 300 pounds lighter

[Risto]

Many here follow Heather Goodwin's Butterfly Effect channel on Youtube, but I figured I'd post a link to her short video she made on her weekly weigh-in where she reached her goal of taking off 300 pounds. She's 5'1'' tall and now weighs 136 lbs. It's difficult for me to imagine her weighing more than three times that, even though we see people in that shape.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8BLKd_00_I

[viv]

I checked out the link and loved it! Heather seems such a lovely person and her story is simply amazing. Seems like she follows Furhman's "Eat to Live" with all those veggies, but she makes it work. She looks amazing and her face is radiant with health and happiness. A great find, I will be following her as well!

Viv

[VeggieSue]

I checked out the link and loved it! Heather seems such a lovely person and her story is simply amazing. Seems like she follows Furhman's "Eat to Live" with all those veggies, but she makes it work.

Way back in her story she did strictly raw veggies, then dallied with E2L, MWLP, and settled into Chef AJ's UWL. Eventually, a number of people on AJ's support group, including Heather, took the sequencing of foods quite literally and ate only raw greens first, then some cooked veggies in the afternoon, and at the end of the day, a bit of starch. Her more recent "What I Eat . . ." videos show her making her daily salad, using around 1 1/2 pounds of raw greens, another pound or more of other raw vegetables, some hummus, some fruit, and a bit of starch, like a grain or potato. She chops this down with an ulu knife to get it to fit into the gigantic greens container that she takes into work. After this is eaten she'll have about 2 pounds of a cooked vegetable, like cauliflower, a small serving of a soup, grain, or chili dish, and it looked like 2 pints of berries. She said that was her food for the entire day.

The latest videos mention of Dr. Fuhrman and his G-Bombs comes after Chef AJ did a webinar with him the day his newest book was released last week, in which he again pushed them into everyone's consciousness. I've read a number of people lately all mentioning "getting their G-Bombs in."

[Risto]

Her more recent "What I Eat . . ." videos

She also recently made a video about stopping night time eating, with a challenge to her viewers. The idea was stop at six in the evening or at least three hours before going to bed. So there's an element of intermittent fasting / narrowing the feeding window also.

I've found that that has huge effect on myself. I was very much conditioned for the longest time on eating in front of one kind of a screen or another at night, and cutting that out seems to be very effective in managing weight, more so than you'd expect just from the number of calories.

[Daydream]

That's awesome news. I'm so happy for Heather.

[viv]

I really admire Heather the way she has totally committed to saving her own life. She says that she gets all her veggies from some discount place (can't remember the name). But to be honest, for many people (including me) that diet is difficult to follow with all the buying, prepping, chopping, carrying giant containers around etc. It would seem to take over your life, socially must be very difficult as well. How easy is McDougall Diet in comparison? Just pop a large potato in the microwave, add an apple or some raw carrots and call it lunch!

Not to take anything away from Heather, she is wonderful and I will continue to check in with her.

Viv

[VeggieSue]

She says that she gets all her veggies from some discount place (can't remember the name).

I think it was a produce liquidator. Everything she buys is only $1 - the gigantic OrganiGirl boxes of spinach and kale, the 2 gallon (or more?) bags of shredded carrots, etc. That one box of OrganiGirl alone is $7.99 in my local stores! I envy her prices!

But to be honest, for many people (including me) that diet is difficult to follow with all the buying, prepping, chopping, carrying giant containers around etc.

And she has to cart all that on a train every day, especially on the days where she teaches in the evening and has all of her meals at work.

It would seem to take over your life

She used to do one video a week, her Weigh In Wednesdays, but a few weeks ago decided to "step it up" and do at least one video a day, each day with a different theme. While I appreciate her commitment - and the Friday Foodie recipes - she must be thinking of food - and eating - almost every waking hour. That salad alone would take me hours to finish! I'm a really slow eater. She's lucky she has a job where she can eat like that. When I worked full time I was lucky if I even got to lunch twice a week, and when I did, all we were allowed was 20 minutes! Not even enough time to get down to the cafeteria and back, and we weren't allowed to keep food in our lockers or eat in the break room.

How easy is McDougall Diet in comparison? Just pop a large potato in the microwave, add an apple or some raw carrots and call it lunch!

I finally got the whole family eating this way - oatmeal for breakfast (Even though Chef AJ is now referring to oatmeal with fruit Oat Cake and advising against it), either a potato or rice - or on whole grain bread, in hubby's case - and veggies for lunch, and dinner is as simple as rice and veg, potatoes and veg, sweet potato and veg, and once a week, whole grain pasta and veg. Add a simple McDougall gravy or pasta sauce and done. We're finally eating like Mary McDougall shows in the Meal Planning video in the Quick Start Guide above:
https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/programs/mcdougall-quick-start/

Not to take anything away from Heather, she is wonderful and I will continue to check in with her.

I could never do what she does, that's for sure.

She seems to be thriving doing it this way, but that's also a lot of weight to lose in so short a time, almost 200 pounds in less than a year, averaging 4 pounds a week. She already said she had to see someone (therapist?) because she had lost so much weight so fast she didn't recognize herself in the mirror.

I hope she has the strength to avoid all the temptations this holiday season. Last year she didn't and regained 60 pounds form Halloween to New Years. I noticed in her last few cooking videos she's been nibbling on everything she cooks - a cookie here, a handful of veggies there - instead of making the food and just displaying it. That's a dangerous habit for a self-proclaimed food addict to get into.

She is now 16 pounds from her final goal of 120. All that excess skin probably adds up to that much or more, so unofficially I would say she's there already. But I'll continue to cheer her on.

[Risto]

She seems to be thriving doing it this way, but that's also a lot of weight to lose in so short a time, almost 200 pounds in less than a year, averaging 4 pounds a week. She already said she had to see someone (therapist?) because she had lost so much weight so fast she didn't recognize herself in the mirror.

For the record, she has explained that she deliberately lost the weight quickly because of specific health issues, even though it may not be ideal for avoiding loose skin or psychological issues. She has tumors in her lungs of a very rare type, which are apparently not progressing, and they're rare enough that there's no conventional cancer treatment for them. She said in a recent video that she's determined to get rid of them by staying on her diet.

[VeggieSue]

She has tumors in her lungs of a very rare type, which are apparently not progressing, and they're rare enough that there's no conventional cancer treatment for them. She said in a recent video that she's determined to get rid of them by staying on her diet.

I knew she had a *past* history of cancer and didn't know she was *currently* battling it again. Thanks for the info.

[viv]

Thanks for all the updates.

Well if Heather currently has a form of lung cancer and has a history of cancer that changes everything in my mind. She is a hero for going all out to save her own life. If I got a recurrence of breast cancer I wouldn't have to change a thing, I would just continue doing what I am doing. I am so grateful and confident in knowing that I can't do one thing more than I am doing to ensure a long, healthy life.

Viv