JULY 2019 Maintenance Thread

[Lyndzie]

Welcome to the McDougall Maintenance support group! Let’s join together for support and camaraderie while we strive to maintain our successes.

Many of us have lost weight and/or reached other health goals. We’re ready for that next chapter, maintaining the gains we’ve accomplished.

This group will have Friday check ins, where everyone can touch base. Weigh-ins are optional, and will not be tracked. Please feel free to share your non-scale victories (NSV) as well. Each week I plan to post some “food for thought” also, either some helpful information or just a little motivation for the week ahead.

In order to foster group participation, we do ask that only participants post, so please do join! You can join at any time simply by hitting the “post reply” button and saying something along the lines of “I’d like to join.” As they say, the more, the merrier.


Hello everyone!

It is July and everyone in the northern hemisphere is experiencing summer, with it’s variations of heat (hot, hotter and oh heck) and holidays with cookouts. Happy Canada Day to my friends up North, and Happy Fourth to those of you in the States (please let me know if I’ve missed any holidays, I’m always looking for a reason to party).

While celebrating events from the past, I’ve been also reading some past writings from Dr. McDougall. Recently his first book Making the Change was made available for free. It is amazing to see how well his advice as stood the test of time, and stayed consistent throughout the years.

Dr. McDougall wrote a monthly newsletter continuously for over 30 years as well, ending with his last issue in September 2017. While I miss getting new emails covering a variety of well-researched topics and strong opinions, we are fortunate that three decades of newsletters are available to search through online through this website.

Recently the old printed newsletters were uploaded and are available as pdf’s to view online. This month I’ll go through and find some interesting ones to post. The best place to start is the beginning with Volume 1, the very first newsletter.

You can also search the newsletters by topic, covering everything from aging to, well, I’m not sure because the list was so long I couldn’t get to the bottom. It’s quite exhaustive!

Have a great rest of your week, and “see” you on Friday!
Lindsey

[Mark Cooper]

I had a MUCH better week for pain management - much more mild than last week. I have not been able to narrow in on any specific triggers, apart from stress. I'm still following the 10-pt MWL checklist strictly. I hope all those celebrating the holiday had a great time - we just spent a relaxing day at home.

[Starchyme]

Good morning. I am now on maintenance for 7 months. I am a pound lower than I set. But I'm keeping it! Really want to release 4 more pounds and remain there. Hope everyone is doing well.

[Ejeff]

Good for you Starchyme! Glad your pain was better this week Mark. I am up a pound this week. I’m eating too many sweets that’s for sure. I made a nice lentil loaf this week. And my hubby cooked up a big batch of mashed potatoes with turnip, cauliflower and broccoli blended in. It’s handy to have those ready for o grab. I will make some hummus today as I haven’t made that for a bit. My planned recipes seem to be lemon ginger sauce and onion soup. So I will make those 2 things. I have a couple other sweet recipes I want to try, but I will delay making those for now. I am still trying to resolve my shin split pain and it is hard to sit when I just want to go all the time. I shall stay patient. I was finding the salt thread interesting. Cutting back on salt is something I think about and then don’t do. I do believe I eat more when I salt the food, so perhaps just cutting out using the salt shaker would help me not to over eat. I will try that this week, cut back on the salt see how it goes. Hope everyone has a good week.

[Suey51]

Thanks Lindsey for sharing those links.
Great news Mark about your pain being better this week. Your adherence to MWL is impressive
Congrats Starchyme on 7 months maintenance and being 1 pound below
Erin - I feel for you with the shin splints and wish you a speedy recovery. Love the sound of mashed potatoes with the other veggies! Good luck with your salt-reduction challenge. Look forward to hearing about that next week.

Weight this week: 6 days of being at goal weight or 0.4 above and then Friday boom! up 1.4 pounds compared with previous day and previous Friday. Putting it down to Indian restaurant food the night before. Went for the best choices I could but suspect there was lots of salt as well as a little oil. The scales are finally starting to tilt down this morning. Planning a week of close adherence and my husband is planning to get back to his normal mostly McD eating after a few weeks of meandering off the path. When we both eat this way it really helps me stay compliant.

Belated Happy Canada Day and 4th July to anyone celebrating!

Best wishes xx

[Mark Cooper]

Good morning. I am now on maintenance for 7 months. I am a pound lower than I set. But I'm keeping it! Really want to release 4 more pounds and remain there. Hope everyone is doing well.

Way to go!

Glad your pain was better this week Mark.

Thank you so much!

I am still trying to resolve my shin split pain and it is hard to sit when I just want to go all the time. I shall stay patient.

I feel for you! Shin splints are terrible - ugh! Take care of yourself - patience and time are definitely important in healing.

Great news Mark about your pain being better this week. Your adherence to MWL is impressive

Thanks, Sue!

Planning a week of close adherence and my husband is planning to get back to his normal mostly McD eating after a few weeks of meandering off the path. When we both eat this way it really helps me stay compliant.

Wishing you and your husband a fantastic week of adherence and success.

[Suey51]

Wishing you and your husband a fantastic week of adherence and success.

Thanks Mark

Hope you have a great week on the pain-management front!

[Clarence]

A nice side effect.

I've had (undiagnosed) depression for a long time, and would often eat my woes away. (A local pizza place delivered, and brought ice cream, too!)

I've been having a bad time the last week or so, and today I had my wonderful dog put to sleep.

I'm very sad. But I have no desire to wallow in poison, as I always would have in the past.

Thank you.

[sirdle]

I've been having a bad time the last week or so, and today I had my wonderful dog put to sleep.

Condolences.

I am very sorry to hear about your dog.

[Mark Cooper]

A nice side effect.

I've had (undiagnosed) depression for a long time, and would often eat my woes away. (A local pizza place delivered, and brought ice cream, too!)

I've been having a bad time the last week or so, and today I had my wonderful dog put to sleep.

I'm very sad. But I have no desire to wallow in poison, as I always would have in the past.

Thank you.

So very sorry for the loss of your dog, it can be so saddening to lose a pet. Glad that you are persevering.

[Lyndzie]

Mark - I'm so happy to hear you are feeling better! Relaxing with the fam is one of life's simple pleasures. It's a great way to celebrate.

Starchyme - 7 months! That's amazing!!

Erin - I'm with you on the sweets. Those mashed veggies sound delicious. I've made "cloud fluff," which is equal parts mashed turnips and parsnips, it's quite delicious. Sorry to hear the shin splits are still bothering you. Keep us posted about your experiments with salt.

Sue - Isn't it incredible how the scale can swing up and down so easily depending on food choices. Hopefully this week makes up for the dinner out. What holidays do you have coming up this month an next?

Clarence - I just went through this in April, when my 18 year old cat passed away. I am so sorry. It really hurts. Our pets are such an important part of our lives, and are our constant companions through the good times and bad. We all grieve in our own way. Maybe volunteering or donating to a local animal shelter would help you do something positive during this time of pain, or planting something special to remember your pet? My friends recently lost their dog, Daisy, so they planted daisies in their yard and spread her ashes there. When I was a kid, we had a lilac bush that we buried all the deceased pet goldfish under, so I'm going to plant one in remembrance here. Again, I'm so sorry for your loss.

[Lyndzie]

Hello everyone! How are you doing this week?

I was feeling overwhelmed with juggling the household responsibilities and cooking everything from scratch, and have leaned heavily on convenience foods this past week, with a subpar level of compliance, and my weight is up. Fingers crossed that better choices causes a quick drop on the scale.

[Mark Cooper]

I feel for you, Lindsey! Managing meals for a family and taking care of a household can be really daunting sometimes; I often joke that I work MUCH harder now as a homemaker than I ever did when I was employed outside the home. It feels like a glaring inequity how little our culture values what was traditionally considered "women's work!" Best wishes for a successful week to come.

I had a really good week for pain management, very moderate pain levels all week. I'm also looking into trying float therapy, which has apparently sometimes been helpful for people managing CRPS pain. I had the brainstorm this week that maybe I will just try the elimination diet while I'm on my trip to San Antonio at the end of the month, which would REALLY simplify my eating plan for the trip, while minimizing the impact of the elimination diet on my wife and daughter (since I probably won't need to prepare their meals while on the trip).

[Starchyme]

I think I may be up a pound because I was not a good little girl a couple days this week. But it's all out of my system, literally, and I'm a very grateful McDougaller once again. Wishing everyone a great week to come.

[victw]

Edited because of confusion.

Maintaining - 134.4.
Which is actually up 1.8 from my last post in June. But still within maintenance range.

I did my first multi-night trip backpack trip and managed to include a decent amount of veggies. Mostly freeze dried. Plus some junk food that everyone was sharing. The McD split pea soup cups were good for dinner and breakfast. I added some freeze dried corn, mushrooms, red pepper and edamame to make make them more filling and have veggies. I'm thinking about adding potato flakes to mix them up some.
I also make a no bake oat bar - it worked out well but I will try to modify it for future trips. And as a healthier breakfast bar option.

Looking forward to making some oat/bean burgers this weekend.
I'm also looking forward to more of the summer fruits. If I can find a good watermelon I'll pick one up this weekend. My first cantaloupe was a little disappointing. I hope to get better at picking them out.

Vic