McDougall Program Maximum Weight Loss 10-Point Checklist and Recipes
Updated May 15, 2019
If you need a little kick start or would like to add some meals with low-calorie density try some of our Maximum Weight Loss Recipes.
- Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.
- 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.
- 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.
- Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood).
- Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy).
- Eliminate any added oil.
- 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.
- Don’t drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages).
- Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don’t starve yourself and don’t stuff yourself.
- Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).
Any time is a perfect time to add a few more lower calorie density meals to the table.