Finding my Groove

[Marla]

LRou, that's so nice of you to say; thank you!

Marilyn, I hope you enjoy your sweet potato To me the white and Japanese ones taste almost like dessert. As for jumping back in, yes! As many times as it takes. For most of us, it's a process....maybe a short one, maybe a long one, but I think it's realistic to expect a few speedbumps along the road to your goals. Just keep going. You're learning and getting better at this all the time.

Marsha, Winco has oat groats for (I think) 62 cents a pound. Give them a try! I can't remember if you have an Instant Pot, but that's how I cook mine. I do 2 cups of groats to 3 cups water, cook on high pressure for 5 minutes, let the pressure release naturally, and then (this is really important) let them sit for another hour before removing the lid. The extra time allows all the water to absorb. Then you get nice soft, chewy oat groats. Some people enjoy them with more water so they are more porridgey; I prefer them more pilaf-like. They keep in the fridge for up to a week and can be reheated as needed. Coffee in chili sounds intriguing....I like cinnamon and cocoa in mine (sometimes), so I can definitely see how the coffee flavor could add a special "something" to chili.

[Marla]

Today's food (pretty much the same as yesterday's food....)



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

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, did 30 minutes treadmill, a 30 minute walk outdoors (more of a stroll, but still...) and 20 minutes of stepping after dinner.

Thoughts:
I had a long lunch at my dad's today; I brought my salad and sweet potato (and my own salad bowl, since I don't think he has a big enough one). He told me I look good, then said "I really hope you don't try to get down to 120-something pounds like before [6 years ago], because that really wasn't a good look on you." I told him that the lower half the normal BMI range is a healthy place to be, and he said "it may be healthy, but it didn't look good." I know this is a really common reaction from loved ones, but it's so unhelpful and demotivating. The normal BMI range for my height is 115-145 pounds. 120-something pounds for a 5"4" woman is not too thin AT ALL. Anyway, I know it was said with love, I just happen to disagree, and I'm the one who lives in this body so his approval is not required. The rest of our visit was great and we took a nice walk by the lake. The weather was beautiful and unseasonably warm, and we saw some iridescent clouds that looked like they had rainbows inside.

[Ejeff]

Marla, glad you had a nice visit with your Dad. It’s a bit baffling why people will say things that are negative even when said in love. If I were you, I would never tell your Dad your weight. If he ever asks just say I decided not to use the scale anymore.

I am at the very lowest end of the BMI scale. Quite often when hugging a relative they will say there’s nothing there to hug. You are so right, we are the only ones that have to live in our bodies and like them. I think because most of our society is overweight, to one degree or another, a thin person is almost shocking to see.

You are doing fantastic with your food and thanks for sharing the photos it’s all so colourful.

Erin

[Marla]

Erin, thank you for sharing your experience, and for the suggestion about how to deal with family. "I decided not to weigh anymore" seems like a wise way of sidestepping future discussions

Today's food:



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

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, did an hour combined time on treadmill and bike plus 20 minutes of stepping after dinner.

Thoughts:

Today, just out of curiosity, I decided to find out how many pounds of food I eat in a day. It was more than I thought! I didn't figure out the caloric density, because that's more work than I wanted to do, but I might do it another time. The breakdown of my meals was as follows:

Breakfast: 15.45 ounces
Lunch: 28.88 ounces (my salad was about 1 1/3 pounds)
Pre-dinner soup: 9 ounces (by weight, not volume)
Dinner: 18.59 ounces
Dessert:4.62 ounces

Total: 76.54 ounces, or 4.78 pounds

Does that seem like a lot of food? I don't know if it qualifies me as a volume eater -- probably not, in the McDougall world But I am definitely not restricting my portions. And I am losing weight eating this way, so.....eat more, weigh less, right? Eat More, Weigh Less was actually the title of the very first low-fat plant-based diet book I ever read and followed, by Dr. Dean Ornish. That was around the year 2002. I found Dr. McDougall shortly thereafter, but the McDougall plan seemed too radical to me when I first encountered it. I couldn't imagine completely giving up dairy, and the Ornish guidelines allowed it in small amounts. So I started with Ornish. I have to say that one of the things that attracted to me to both plans was the abundant amount of food you could eat. That hasn't changed at all for me, obviously!

Tonight my husband asked if he could have the "soup course" too. I think I'm going to be sharing my soup on a regular basis now....

[Zoey]

Hi Marla, I decided to peek in on your journal today. That is so cool that you took a day and actually weighed your food. I've always wondered, and now I'll have to give it a try. The amount you posted seems reasonable to me! Last night I had a huge bowl of mixed vegetables, and it seemed as though it was taking me forever to eat it, and it made me so happy. It would have taken me all of two seconds to eat that many calories in cheese.

Thanks for sharing your wins and your losses!

[squealcat]

I have a question about your oat groats. When I made them, I soaked overnight and then cooked in the instant pot for 22 minutes. I soaked 1 cup of oats then put those oats into the pot with 2 cups of water. They turned out just fine but wondering about your recipe. Do you soak your groats overnight?

I have also enjoyed other grains. I currently have farro all cooked up. I use as cereal and also use like rice ! Buckwheat is nice too !

-squealcat

[Marla]

Zoey, thank you for visiting! You are so right about how long it takes to eat this amount of food. Most of the time that makes me happy, although there are times when it's inconvenient I often feel like a horse chomping away at my endless trough of greens (it's ok; I like horses).

Marilyn, the oat groats technique that I use came from Nutmeg Notebook: https://www.nutmegnotebook.com/posts/oa ... cook-them/ I don't soak them, and I only cook them for 5 or 6 minutes. But I do leave them alone with the lid on for at least an hour after the cook time ends. During that hour they continue to absorb water. Oat groats are not something you want to be making each morning for breakfast -- they would take too long -- but they're great to batch cook and reheat as needed. I have not had buckwheat in a long time and I've never had farro! I'll have to go on a farro-finding mission soon.

[Marla]

Copied from the MWL weekly weigh-in thread....

Weight change: -1.4

Answers for the week of December 4 - December 10

1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.Yes, every single meal

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, every single meal

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.

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). One day (December 4) I didn't manage to exercise, but I exercised for at least an hour on the other 6 days.

Victories, comments, concerns, questions:
I am proud of myself this week; I really put energy into working the checklist every single day. It occurred to me that if I didn't keep a detailed food log, my memory of the week would be pretty fuzzy by Friday. Keeping a log makes it possible to go back and see exactly how I did.

I have realized that exercise is important. I absolutely know that I can't out-exercise a bad diet, and getting the food right is the main factor in successful weight loss. However it's clear to me that when I am already doing a good job with the food, adding a little more exercise can make a measurable difference.

Staying full and satisfied has been key to helping me resist all the holiday temptations that are out there right now. They do call to me, but not nearly as loudly if I've recently eaten a satisfying MWL meal.

Thank you Wildgoose for continuing to fill in, and for your insightful and compassionate responses, which I love reading.

[Marla]

December 11 Food:



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

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, did an hour combined time on treadmill and exercise bike.

Thoughts:
A good solid day and my routines carried me through a few brushes with temptation! I recently found this on a post-it note stuck in one of my desk drawers:

"Healthy routines are the key to success, and returning to routines is the key to getting back on track and back into your groove. Routines are your insulator." --Dr. Doug Lisle

[Marla]

Today's food:



1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.
Yes for breakfast and lunch, no for dinner because although I had soup prepared, I just forgot! About half an hour before dinner I thought about it, but when I was actually making my food it just slipped my mind.

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

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, did 30 minutes on treadmill and 20 minutes stepping after dinner.

Thoughts:

I was thinking today about exercise, and reflected that all the times I have fallen off the wagon with my diet, I have also stopped exercising simultaneously. Behaviorally there is a strong connection for me between eating healthfully and doing some kind of intentional exercise daily. I can't recall any periods, in my almost two decades of trying to follow a healthy lifestyle, when I either (a) had a great diet but didn't exercise or (b) exercised but ate poorly. It just doesn't happen with me. I mean there might be an odd day when I do one without the other, but not for any length of time. So, note to self: if I find myself getting flaky about exercise, look out! I might be in danger of lapsing into unhealthy eating habits too.

It's been a grey and rainy weekend here and I found myself wanting to wear flannel pajamas. The size XLs that I've been wearing for the past 5 years (and that were really too tight last winter) are way too big now. I tried on some old mediums that had been favorites before I got too large to wear them, and they fit again! So went through my pajama drawer and pulled out all the XL items to donate. I am not keeping any larger-sized clothes. I'm trying to skate by without buying any new stuff until my weight stabilizes in a healthy range. I did have to buy some jeans at Goodwill, but other than that, I've been slowly reclaiming my previous smaller wardrobe. Welcome back into my life, favorite pajamas! I missed you!

[Marla]

Today's Food:



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

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, did an hour combined time on treadmill and exercise bike, plus 20 minutes of easy stepping after dinner.

Thoughts:
Yellow split pea soup was another one I hadn't made since committing to reduce sodium. I added a can of tomatoes, and to my individual bowl I added a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkle of Benson's Table Tasty. With those additions it was fine, yay!

I'm going to be traveling by plane later this week. I have some family business to take care of that is unfortunately essential and needs to be done in person. I'm already thinking about my travel food.....potatoes, raw veggies, and fruit, mostly.

[Marla]

Today's food:



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

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).
I missed my morning exercise window. I did do 30 minutes of easy stepping on a step bench in front of the tv after dinner.

Thoughts:

I had a lot of...not exactly cravings, but thoughts and urges around "treat" foods today. It wasn't comfortable. I think it's just the season with its memories of having those foods at this time of year, plus a bit of extra stress in my life right now. Many things can be a trigger for wanting to indulge -- weather, events (like putting up decorations), external cues (especially advertising, but not only that), seeing certain people and places (Starbucks with its memories of peppermint mochas).....the list goes on. Everyone has their own way of dealing with this situation, but for me the only thing that works is not to give in. Just wait it out, keep eating good food in sufficient quantities, and know that the desire to eat certain foods is transient, but the desire to have a healthy body is lifelong

You know, I do wonder if I felt more turbulence and pull toward off-plan foods because I didn't exercise in the morning? Maybe just a coincidence, but something to take note of.

[Marla]

Today's food:



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

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, did an hour combined time on treadmill and exercise bike, plus 20 minutes of easy stepping in front of tv.

Thoughts:
I didn't have as much trouble with unwanted thoughts about treat foods today. Still enjoying my same old breakfast and lunch. Dinner had yummy white basmati rice which I have to admit, both of us prefer over brown (which we eat 90% of the time). The kidney bean curry was tasty too.

Exercise was good today. I keep meaning to do some outdoor walking/running, but it takes more time to (a) get presentable enough to go out in public, put sunscreen on, gather up all my stuff, and (b) drive about 3 miles to the nearest park. So I keep doing the expedient thing, which is to walk/run at home on the treadmill. The climate here in Northern California's central valley is not that cold in the winter and usually not wet, so I should take advantage of that. It's the summers that are brutal .

[Marla]

This is a catch-up post. Food from December 16:



1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.
Yes for breakfast and lunch, apparently no for dinner (I don't remember why, and in fact I don't remember what I did or didn't eat for dinner, but the pictures don't lie)

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

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, did the minimum 30 minutes brisk walking on treadmill

[Marla]

Food for December 17 (travel day):



1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.
Yes for breakfast and dinner, not really for lunch.

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

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.
The "muffin," while it contained no flour or sugars, is a higher calorie dense food. Mixing dry oats with things like bananas and applesauce, and then baking it, results in a pretty calorie dense product. Plus the muffin had a small amount of raisins in it as well, which are not part of the MWLP. However, they are great for travel and are healthy; it's just worth noting that they aren't as weight loss friendly as whole, intact starches, beans, veggies, and fruit.

8. Don't drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages).
Yes. Starbucks either had a long line or was closed in the three airports I went through. Otherwise I probably would have had a soy latte.

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, I actually took a 45-minute brisk walk through the terminal at Sea-Tac and found some stairs to walk up and down as well.

Thoughts:
I was up at 3:30am this day and was on the go all day long, traveling from Sacramento to Phoenix to Seattle and back to Sacramento. I had all my food with me, and didn't purchase anything. I also declined the pretzel mix they distributed on the flights. I was happy with my choices for travel food; everything was easy to eat and was satisfying. It didn't need to be kept in a cooler and was fine at room temperature for 12+ hours. I still had some of the veggies and fruit left over when I got home late in the evening, and I was hungry, so I just heated a small bowl of soup and ate them with that.

As I mentioned above, I really wanted to, and in fact planned to, get myself a coffee drink at Starbucks (old travel habit), and the only reason I didn't was that the line was too long in the morning and Starbucks was closed in the afternoon. I just got lucky there, I guess.