Engineering the perfect lifestyle

[starch_based]

Of course I will never achieve perfection... don't remind me.

Renewing the health vows tonight. I've made decent progress in the last year losing ~40lbs. But how much more healthy have I become? Not sure, I haven't recorded any numbers other than my weight. But I was able to lose the weight in spite of eating roughly 50% McDougall compliance. Slowly over the next few years I want to get that number as close to 100% as possible.

The theme of this story will be how to get back on after you fall off. I will fail over and over again, as I have done up til now, but I will continue to improve as well. This will be a personal lesson in discipline and perseverance that I am choosing to make public because... well I don't know why. I just think documenting it will be beneficial to me, and what better platform than the McDougall forum.

Tomorrow's food should be something like:

oatmeal and brown rice w/banana for breakfast
big batch of brown rice and lentils w/onion for lunch
maybe some fruit at lunch, too
dinner: vegetable soup, rice, beans, fruit, grains, ANYTHING and LOTS of it, otherwise I will get hungry and eat junk

I am a 6 foot tall, 200 pound 26 year old man and I find I really need to consume mass amounts of McDougall-compliant food if I want to stay satiated. This has been a big issue.. I need a few hours per day just to prepare the quantities I need. Perhaps you can enlighten me on batch production?

[f00die]

...
Tomorrow's food should be something like:
oatmeal and brown rice w/banana for breakfast
big batch of brown rice and lentils w/onion for lunch
maybe some fruit at lunch, too
dinner: vegetable soup, rice, beans, fruit, grains, ANYTHING and LOTS of it, otherwise I will get hungry and eat junk
...
I need a few hours per day just to prepare the quantities I need.
...

your meals dont sound complicated
why does it take so long?

[starch_based]

Packed a giant lunch of rice and lentils. Soup and whole wheat bread for dinner. Managed to stay 100% compliant today for the first time in awhile.

your meals dont sound complicated
why does it take so long?

They don't I guess, it's just a pain in the @ss to get everything set up, cooked, cleaned, and put away.

[starch_based]

No slips today. The familiar feeling is starting to set in though: a ravenous hunger for anything oily, buttery, salty, or sweet. Time to think about why I'm McDougalling: to be healthy. To reverse coronary disease. To give my body the healthy, clean fuel it deserves.

But I won't think too hard about it. That never works. Rationalizing why I'm trying to change my eating does not get rid of the cravings for fat. I'm just doing this because I know it's the right thing to do. Period. Just do it.

[Ruff]

How about trying slow cooker? Tip in a can of unsalted tomatoes, one of beans, plus lentils, kumera, carrots, whatever you have. come back 10 hours later, food for 3 nights! Tip over brown rice or a baked potato for extra bulk.

[starch_based]

How about trying slow cooker? Tip in a can of unsalted tomatoes, one of beans, plus lentils, kumera, carrots, whatever you have. come back 10 hours later, food for 3 nights! Tip over brown rice or a baked potato for extra bulk.

Hey, that sounds incredible, thanks!

Managed to stay compliant today. I was surrounded by fat foods today but I’m not worried about it. I just eat a bunch of healthy stuff whenever I feel hungry. Makes it easy to turn down the unhealthy stuff. My go to when I’m feeling extra hungry is the whole wheat bread. It is relatively high in calorie density compared to the other foods but it crushes the ravenous hunger that would otherwise lead me to eat fat junk.

By the way I already feel amazing. I feel lighter and have more energy now that I’m cleared out. I’ll get used to this feeling though. Soon it won’t seem as nice and I will start to eye the unhealthy foods. I am not worried though. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. I am doing the right thing TODAY by eating within strict compliance. I need to heal my heart. I want to heal and be well. Period.

[bunsofaluminum]

Hi there

Batch cooking, then. Bake a 10# bag of potatoes and keep the cooked spuds in your fridge, for snacks. You can heat them for 30 sec in the microwave to take the chill off, and they are yummy with ketchup and mustard. I try to have a bucket of cooked rice around, too. Add some beans from a can, and a cut up tomato, some seasonings. BAM!

But I am finding that it is SO much easier to be compliant when I make a triple batch of something, and divvy it up. some into containers for use in the next few days, and some in a freezer bag in the freezer, for a week or a month down the line. So, on Saturdays and Sundays, most weekends, I take a couple of hours in the afternoon and make two or three recipes in big batches. Last time I did this, I made a batch of not-cheese sauce, a potato based recipe...while it was cooking, I processed a butternut squash. Then I took a break after cleaning up from the not-cheese sauce, and got back up after a while to make a huge batch of butternut ragout, which was a lot easier because I had already prepped the squash. There was already cooked rice in the fridge....there's ALWAYS cooked rice in the fridge... so I had that for "under" the butternut dish. Also, it might be a bit pricey, but you can find processed LOTS of things in the produce section. Butternut cubes, for one so if I wanted that curried Butternut ragout and didn't want to peel and chunk a squash, there's an option!

So, cooking on Sat and Sun, but also during the week if I want food that is NOT what I fixed on the weekend, I have things in my pantry like canned beans, quinoa, salsa, pasta sauce (Prego makes an oil free version called "low calorie" used to be "Heart Smart"), pasta, whole wheat bread, etc. and also in the freezer, stir fry vegs and frozen hashbrowns (no oil added. Check the label) and lately, though they're expensive, the steamables plain veggies. You can just toss them in the microwave and nuke em. Over a baked potato for lunch? Yum!

For those times when you're craving salty/sweet/whatever...pretzels. Snyder's brand have no fat, and the small twists are perfect. They're crunchy, so that's satisfying, and a bit of salt which is good. I make a mustard/honey sauce to dip them in. It's better than chowing down on the SAD stuff, eh? for some reason, crispy crunchy is SO satisfying.

how long have you been doing this? because I promise, your taste buds will change. An apple will become a sweet treat beyond compare

[starch_based]

Thank you for your response. I discovered Dr. McDougall and other starch/plant-based advocates about 2 years ago. Only in the last year have I managed to make any progress. I lost a lot of weight by just adding whole foods to my diet. Over the year I had varying levels of commitment to this healthy eating. Overall, it was probably half good and half bad.

I have been 100% compliant just since Monday (5 days now). This is probably the longest stretch for me, ha. Throughout the day I try not to obsess about compliance (historically, that has never worked).

Pretzels sound very tempting to me but so far I have not had ANY refined foods; I would feel bad if I had some now Also I’m afraid it would trigger an insatiable hunger which would cause me to break. I’m pretty hungry now actually, I think I’ll go have some grains

[starch_based]

Went to the store today to get pureed tomatoes. I will use them as a sauce base. Need to get my sauce game strong. I don't want to get bored of plain-ish starchy vegetables all day long.

The bulk of my diet so far has been brown rice, oats, potatoes, and lentils. The trick is how to make these things really delicious, hence the sauce idea. Need to develop some more toppings for my dishes. An example of one of my dishes so far is just rice + lentils with garlic and onions mixed in. Pretty good but it's definitely missing some kind of sauce / topping / whatever. It is really hard to replace butter and oil (that's really what my body is waiting for).

[starch_based]

Starting to get the hang of this! (Famous last words). I just need to stuff my face with potatoes and rice whenever I’m hungry. I was tempted to try MWL but at this point I am goin to stuff myself and get used to the food and the schedule before I worry about weight (I am losing weight anyway). Cheers

[starch_based]

Something crazy happened last night- I was really hungry when I got home so before bed I had some oatmeal as a snack. Never thought I’d be able to eat something wholesome at night and be satisfied with it. Cool!!

[bunsofaluminum]

Thank you for your response. I discovered Dr. McDougall and other starch/plant-based advocates about 2 years ago. Only in the last year have I managed to make any progress. I lost a lot of weight by just adding whole foods to my diet. Over the year I had varying levels of commitment to this healthy eating. Overall, it was probably half good and half bad.

I have been 100% compliant just since Monday (5 days now). This is probably the longest stretch for me, ha. Throughout the day I try not to obsess about compliance (historically, that has never worked).

Pretzels sound very tempting to me but so far I have not had ANY refined foods; I would feel bad if I had some now Also I’m afraid it would trigger an insatiable hunger which would cause me to break. I’m pretty hungry now actually, I think I’ll go have some grains

Yes, when I went back and re-read that advice about the pretzels...don't do it! hahahaha! because they are a refined flour product. The reason I've been nibbling them is to get some of that salt craving satisfied without potato chips, and some of that snacking urge satisfied. The munchies must have crunchy but yeah, I'd rather not be nibbling pretzels. I'll change that out for celery and carrot stix here next week.

Oh! If you want sauces, a terrific website is Brand New Vegan My favorite "Not Cheese" Sauce is from there, and he also has an amazing creamy garlic alfredo...

Looks like you're doing terrific, btw.

[starch_based]

Yes, when I went back and re-read that advice about the pretzels...don't do it! hahahaha! because they are a refined flour product. The reason I've been nibbling them is to get some of that salt craving satisfied without potato chips, and some of that snacking urge satisfied.

Yes I get that 100%- the salt and snack craving is really powerful sometimes.

Looks like you're doing terrific, btw.

Hey, thank you. I appreciate your observation. Yes I feel pretty dang good. I am getting used to the cooking. And that bread I'd been snacking on? Took a look at the ingredients and tossed it. Went to the grocery store, EVERY loaf of whole wheat bread had the same long list of junk in the ingredients. So tonight I took some time to make my own Tastes way better and is fully satiating. (I've been worried that I'm losing too much weight and getting too hungry--whole wheat bread is helping immensely with that).

[starch_based]

I’ve had a growing hunger for oil or high calorie foods... last night I had a handful of almonds (NOOOOO!!). Oh well. Could be worse. I am disappointed that I couldn’t avoid added fats. Granted, these were the first added fats I’ve had in a few weeks. I guess going from a really high fat diet to virtually none all at once was a bit too much to ask. I will continue to refrain from animal products and straight up oil but I’m afraid I might have to add a small amount of fat going forward in the form of nuts and seeds.

I need to remind myself that it’s not time for MWL yet... I need a lot of time just to adjust to this new lifestyle, no sense in making it too hard—I do have the rest of my life, after all.

I’m worried about freaking out now and diving headfirst back into old habits. Then I would freak out over my weight going up and I would go back to clean eating... the back and forth between these extremes is what destroys people’s metabolisms and bodies...

So what’s the plan NOW anyway? How about this: eat the sparse lunch I packed today. Make it home tonight without eating anything bad out of a machine or restaurant. Bake some bread at home. Eat nuts and seeds at will—I will NOT be restricting myself too heavily here just yet- that restriction is what has caused problems historically. But NO standalone oil/fried foods or animal products.

[starch_based]

I am happy to say I am still compliant. I have fallen into a groove of rice + lentils for lunch during the week and potatoes or wholewheat bread/pasta for dinner. I am down about ~15 pounds since I started strict compliance a month ago. I have just started running again as well. Will need to be careful about getting TOO hungry. May incorporate nuts and seeds depending on how my body reacts to exercise. So far, wheat has been a lifesaver... wouldn't be able to get enough calories in a practical way without wheat products.