Hello Everyone,
Thank you one final time for checking in this week. This is one of those really tough weeks to want to focus on eating well and I applaud your efforts. All of us have just about graduated from 2019 and will get to see the New Year as healthier and slightly thinner people. Yahoo!
It’s my last day on the job so please forgive the following histrionics and the wordiness of this discourse. This is it for my long, unwieldy and meandering posts.
This really is just me
being myself. LOL.
When I started to type up this post yesterday I initially wrote
the works of Dr. McDougall, Dr. Lisle and Jeff Novick have changed my life. Then I realized this statement was missing a little something.
Me.I CHANGED MY LIFE! I lost 90 pounds (and at one point was down 110 pounds) through hard work and as consistent an effort as I am capable of. I did all of that thanks to taking the time to really study and try to understand the work that Dr. McDougall, Dr. Lisle and Jeff Novick make freely available to everyone. My weight loss is the outcome of following the plan
pretty well for a number of years; with almost predicable times of struggle (ahem...holidays and major life changes) and also periods of extremely good adherence (when I limit tempting social situations, keep my home free of off-plan foodstuffs and most importantly find the time to be prepared). My weight-loss is an example of making enough correct choices to see progress or hold my position.
I have been asked by a few friends why I am not a
Star McDougaller and I wanted to quickly discuss it to clear up any misconceptions about that because I worry others may incorrectly think they need to follow this plan
perfectly and reach a BMI of 18.5 to be considered a success here. If you have made dietary changes leading to weight loss by following the MWL or regular program guidelines and improved your health to a degree that you feel satisfied and feel that you can maintain those changes then you are potentially Star McDougaller material - please go and write a
testimonial right now if this is you!! LOL. I have been asked to submit my story for consideration in the past, but I am just not ready to do so.
When someone saves your life it is natural to feel beholden to them to some degree. To feel so grateful that you don’t know where to direct all of that emotion, to want to repay them in some way. I used to work in emergency services and was a recipient of this type of gratitude on more than one occasion. It wasn’t until I was on the receiving end of life saving guidance that I had the privilege of experiencing these feelings and now truly understand the depth of the emotion behind them. My gratitude to the McDougalls and their whole staff is ineffable. Not that I haven’t tried to make it effable...LOL. That’s part of the reason it seemed like a good idea to volunteer here, because I wanted very much to put that gratitude into words and knew filling their email boxes with thank you messages would eventually get pretty annoying...LOL.
So for the last time this year I will say:
To
Dr. McDougall: Thank you for being a tireless crusader in questioning entrenched health dogmas; For providing information in many ways to ensure all who are willing to listen to your message can understand it and for presenting a bird’s-eye view of the interconnectedness of food consumption patterns and our health and the effect of large-scale food production on the environment using epidemiological data, comparative methods, experimental methods and persuasion. Thank you for providing a place for support and community at no cost so that even people who cannot attend your programs have an opportunity to feel involved with others who choose this path.
To
Jeff Novick: You are how I first found out about Dr. McDougall’s work from your time helping out on a CRON bulletin board long ago. Yes, I was the obese girl reading about caloric restriction for longevity and you were still always kind in your response to my questions. Thank you so much for providing a detailed record of the empirical evidence that support the recommended MWL guidelines through your meticulous analysis of the available research. Thank you for teaching me to try and stear clear of the continuous output of supposedly new ideas that are not actually so. Thanks for banging the drum of simplicity for success and mostly for just being there for me and many others in a very direct and personable way.
To
Dr. Lisle: You enabled me to believe that I could do this after failing to make any long term progress for most of my life. Many people who have never struggled to lose weight don’t understand how much time some of us dedicate to trying to solve this problem for ourselves. (It can really take over my life sometimes). You took up the cause of helping everyone understand the variety of different challenges we face and for that I am extremely grateful. Thank you for helping me to understand I’m not broken but merely acting exactly as designed. Thank you for helping me to understand that personality, circumstantial and genetic differences exist and will make the seemingly straightforward process of losing weight slightly different for everyone; but also that general success strategies exist and can be helpful to everyone. Thank you for all of the interviews, lectures and podcasts dedicated to helping people like me.
Some of the best advise for improving your health and feelings of well-being have been laid out in the many
postsand
webinars and
newslettersavailable on this website from the
program guidelines and important
lifestyle factors for healthy living to the importance of
social dynamics and feelings of individual
purpose.
I recently had the opportunity to see Dr. McDougall give his
new Climate talk (I saw it at a different venue than this link). As I mentioned above, I admire his tireless advocacy. If any of you feel so inspired, take up the torch and light the way for others with your words, your purchases, your votes; but mostly through the actions of living well and leading by example. Everyone wins when we humbly create positive dynamics to learn and improve.
I wish each of you so much success on your quest to discovering your best selves. So very much success. I am sad that my quest is taking me on a solitary path for awhile, but I have determined that it is necessary. I am going to miss the feelings of connectedness through involvement that I experienced here.
To every participant and
lurker of these forums (all of the forums), I humbly thank all of you for your kindness, your time, for sharing your excitements and your frustrations. We learn through a variety of mechanisms, for a variety of reasons, and thus every experience that teaches us something will create an opportunity for better future decision making.
Keep learning my friends!Becoming healthy improves your chance for a long and active life, your chance for more satisfying relationships and your chance to feel content with yourself and your place in the world. I wish all of you progress on your goals and ultimately better feelings of wellbeing.
And now out with the old, in with the new!! Happy New Year! Best wishes Mark and Wildgoose and Lindsey and everyone participating in the Weigh-In threads this coming year.
Until we meet again,
Amy XO
Here are the results for the 4th Friday in December:Next Weigh-In is on Friday, January 3rd, 2019Total group loss reported in 2019: 444.72 pounds
December 2019 Weight Loss Group :: Monthly Weigh-In Results
Total group loss in January 2019: 140.53 pounds
Total group loss in February 2019: 78.64 pounds
Total group loss in March 2019: 7.4 pounds
Total group loss in April 2019: 33.55 pounds
Total group loss in May 2019: 38.2 pounds
Total group loss in June 2019: 13.4 pounds
Total group loss in July 2019: 37.3 pounds
Total group loss in August 2019: 23.8 pounds
Total group loss in September 2019: 19.3 pounds
Total group loss in October 2019: 22.1 pounds
Total group loss in November 2019: 15.3 pounds
Total group loss in December 2019: 15.2 poundsWeek ending 12/27/2019: 6 participants reported a total loss of -1.5 pounds
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AnnetteW - 1.2
Amandamechele - 1.0
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Total gains: 2.2
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Deweyswakms - 0.2
Moonlight - 0.0
Stillcrazy - 0.5
SandySue - 0.0
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Total losses: 0.7
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Total group loss in December 2019: 15.2 pounds
Week ending 12/27/2019: 6 participants reported a total loss of -1.5 pounds
Week ending 12/20/2019: 7 participants reported a total loss of 0.4 pounds
Week ending 12/13/2019: 7 participants reported a total loss of 8.1 pounds
Week ending 12/06/2019: 8 participants reported a total loss of 8.2 pounds