March 2020 McDougall MWL Weigh-In Thread

[Mark Cooper]

A very warm welcome to the March 2020 Weigh-In thread for Dr. McDougall's Maximum Weight Loss Program!

This is a weekly weigh-in group for those wanting to follow the Maximum Weight Loss (MWL) program. MWL is a minimally processed starch-based diet that is low in fat, low in calorie density and low in added sugars and salt. MWL is the simplest, easiest, most effective path to achieve your weight management and health goals.

Please familiarize yourself with the MWL Guidelines and the MWL 10-Point Checklist. These serve as the textbook for this group, and represent the program we will follow exclusively within this group. The accountability and support we provide is in understanding and implementing these guidelines. If there is any confusion or question on any issue, just ask and Jeff, Lyndzie, Wildgoose, or I will answer.

Regarding the book, The McDougall Program for Maximum Weight Loss; while the book is helpful, it was updated with the guidelines provided in the January 2005 newsletter and has been further condensed into the MWL 10-Point Checklist, which together provide the most current program information. You do not need to buy the book.

Weight loss is an outcome contingent on behaviors; to change that outcome, it is necessary to change those behaviors. The most effective behaviors for achieving healthy, sustainable weight loss are outlined in the MWL 10-Point Checklist. In this group, our focus is on bringing our behaviors into adherence with the MWL 10-Point Checklist, not just our weight change from one week to the next. While we do recommend participating in the weekly weigh-in and reporting your weight change (up or down), the MWL program is not about rapid weight loss, but rather establishing a pattern of behavior and a way of living that produces steady, healthy, and lasting weight loss.

Weigh-ins are on Friday; participants have until noon PST on Saturday to report your result for that week. If you choose to participate in the weekly weigh-ins, please post your report in the following format -

Weight change +/- in lbs
Points from the MWL Checklist where I succeeded this week
Points from the MWL Checklist that need greater attention
General impressions & observations / resources to share / sources of excitement / requests for input & support

Please post a new report each week. All group members are encouraged to post regardless of whether they have a gain, loss or no change to report.

Our goal is for you to learn the program, enjoy the food and change your lifestyle. The average weight loss at the McDougall 10-Day Live-in Program is 3.5 lbs in 7 days; the first week is when the majority of people have their largest weekly weight loss. The average over time is about 1% of your current weight.

This thread is intended for the mutual support of all who wish to participate. We encourage members of the group to converse openly with each other.

To anyone considering joining the group -

THERE IS NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT!

You are very welcome to jump aboard, just be sure to review the information in this introduction, and post below to introduce yourself. For all our returning members, give yourself a pat on the back for continuing to show up and put in the work! I can't promise that it will be easy, but I DO promise that it is worth it. I will do my very best to be present here periodically throughout the week to welcome new members, respond to questions, and share resources; thank you so much to Lindsey and Wildgoose who have volunteered to help out and jump in when they are able.

Our continuing focus for March is on taking action in accordance with the following ten points -

A 10-Point Checklist for Maximum Weight Loss

1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.
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.
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.
4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood).
5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy).
6. Eliminate any added oil.
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.
8. Don't drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages).
9. Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don't starve yourself and don't stuff yourself.
10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).

Your plate should look like this - For example,


I strongly recommend using the MWL 10-Point Checklist on at least a weekly (or daily) basis to bring to your attention the areas that may hinder your progress. The more you are willing to use it in your own life, the more success you are likely to have.

An essential resource for everyone to review is Jeff Novick's presentation on the principle of calorie density -

Calorie Density: How To Eat More, Weigh Less and Live Longer

Watching this video is one of the best ways to come to a clear understanding of the concepts embodied in the MWL program, and it will likely answer MANY questions and help alleviate confusion.

In addition to participating here, I would highly recommend you all consider starting a journal in the My Daily Menus & Journals forum. These journals can be really helpful in keeping track of your progress over time and they also help other members to learn from your experiences.

If you are in need of recipe ideas, the recipe section of Dr. McDougall's website has a category for MWL, filled with delicious recipes from Alu Gobi to Zucchini Corn Salad. If you prefer something extremely easy and affordable, try Jeff's SNAP meal template. If you would like to share recipes in this thread -

• Please do not post or recommend a recipe unless you yourself have made it and tried it.
• Only post recipes that conform to the MWL guidelines.
• If you have adapted a recipe to meet the MWL guidelines, please clearly list any needed adaptations.

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Environment and habit formation are two areas to which I intend to give some attention this month.

Our physical environment obviously can have an enormous influence on the relative ease or difficulty we experience in following this way of eating and building a comfortable level of confidence in our ability to continue to stay on track now and in the future. Likewise, our social environment can sometimes serve as an important and valuable support in achieving our goals, but just as often acts as a challenging hindrance we may struggle to overcome. Consider taking some time this month to examine your own environment (both physical - your home, workplace, &c., and social - family, friends, coworkers) - how might you best arrange things to support your goals? Are there relationships you can draw on or people you can connect with to provide support, assistance and accountability? Is the place where you spend the most time conducive to furthering your health goals? Are there aspects of that environment you could change or adjust to better serve you? Are there people with whom it would behoove you to spend more (or less?) time?

As we continue to put into practice the behaviors exemplified in the MWL 10-Point Checklist, the hope is for these behaviors to become fully integrated into the routines of our day-to-day life, things we do automatically and habitually. By regularly and consistently repeating these basic behaviors, they eventually become our daily habits. Do certain aspects of MWL feel second nature and easy for you? What areas still require a great deal of attention and effort to make work for you? How are the points that feel easy different from those that feel difficult? What might you do to make the challenges less daunting? What one aspect do you wish you could turn into a habit this month? If that thing was a habit for you, how would you feel, how would your routine be changed? Are you willing to consider applying the energy and attention to make that choice each day, as an experiment?
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This month's first weigh-in is on Friday, March 6, 2020.

I wish you all a successful and health-supporting March!


MARCH 2020 RESOURCES
This section will be updated throughout the month with links to useful resources, as they are added to the thread.

MWL 10-Point Checklist
MWL Program Guidelines
Calorie Density: How To Eat More, Weigh Less and Live Longer
MWL Recipes
SNAP Meal Template

1- 28 oz Can No Salt Added Tomatoes
1- 16 oz Bag Frozen Mixed Veggies (any type)
1- 4 oz Frozen Green Leafy Vegetables (collard, turnip, mustard, etc)
1- Around 200-250 Calories of a Cooked Starch (Brown rice, Yam, Potato, WW Pasta, etc)
1- Seasoning (to your preference)

200- 250 Calories Of Starch options
~ 1.25 to 1.5 Medium Potatoes
~ 1.25 to 1.5 Cups (Cooked) Whole Wheat Penne Pasta
~ 1 to 1.25 Cups (Cooked) Brown Rice

The Road to Success: Creating Healthy Habits
The Pleasure Trap: Dr. Doug Lisle at TedxFremont
How to Lose Weight Without Losing Your Mind with Dr. Doug Lisle
Dr. Doug Lisle on The Ego Trap
Dr. Lisle's Three Top Tips for Dietary Success

[deweyswakms]

Good morning,

I thought I would switch to the MWL Maintenance thread, but I can't find it. ?? Maybe there isn't one.

If not, I'll report back here. thanks, Marsha

[Mark Cooper]

Hi, Marsha! There isn't a maintenance group specifically for following MWL, but both Wildgoose and myself follow MWL and are participants in the regular maintenance group. The March thread is here.

[kirstykay]

I crashed and burned yesterday. Truth be told, I'm having a hard time getting my footing back since I returned from Montana. Coming here for transparency and to get some help. I have started today off well. I am committing to doing my elliptical each morning as well as a mindfulness meditation. I also decided to start my day off with a pound of steamed broccoli before my oatmeal each morning (pr Chef AJ) This won't replace my breakfast, but it will help me with guideline #1 - "Start each meal with salad or fruit."

[wildgoose]

I crashed and burned yesterday. Truth be told, I'm having a hard time getting my footing back since I returned from Montana. Coming here for transparency and to get some help. I have started today off well. I am committing to doing my elliptical each morning as well as a mindfulness meditation. I also decided to start my day off with a pound of steamed broccoli before my oatmeal each morning (pr Chef AJ) This won't replace my breakfast, but it will help me with guideline #1 - "Start each meal with salad or fruit."

@kirstykay, according to Dr. Doug Lisle, it takes about 3 days to get back on track after a slip. Those 3 days won’t be pleasant, but if you can stay on plan and get through them, you’ll be well on your way to a good program again.

I know that Chef AJ recommends vegetables for breakfast, followed by starch. This is not part of the McDougall program or MWL, but if broccoli ahead of your oatmeal works for you, go for it. It could count as "salad," so it would certainly work for checklist point #1. I always have "dinner-type" food for my first meal of the day (if I eat oatmeal and fruit, I have it in the evening), so I often eat a big bowl of broccoli and brown rice, drizzled with a little teriyaki balsamic vinegar, for brunch. Not too far off from broccol and oatmeal.

Your commitment to exercise and meditation is great. Just remember, though, if your willpower starts to wobble and you feel like you’re headed for another crash, back off on everything else and focus on the food. It’s the stable base that everything else builds on.

Goose

[kirstykay]

Thank you, Goose! I will focus in the next three days. I can do that. Thanks for the warning to stay focused on the food as the "stable base" to build everything else on...I like that imagry. I appreciate your help!

[MaryP]

I'm in for March. I'm. Home from Hawaii with all my kitchen equipment and spices I missed in other people's kitchens! I also have my scales. I didn't lose a lot of weight in Hawaii but I am happy that this is the first vacation I've come home from and not. Gained weight.

I'm starting the month out at 211 and hope to be under 200 by the end of the month. Don't know if I'll. Make it, but it is my wish!

[laurag]

Still struggling with eating 50/50 plate if I go back for seconds which I always do after dinner. I went to roundtable pizza for buffet it's always been a place where my husband and I go this is the second time I brought a potato or rice with me and had salad with no dressing , I felt a little cheated when I got home and kept eating something on program finally I just had a potato and was done with it, that worked I love potatoes just thought I would share hi to everyone!

[Mark Cooper]

MaryP - I'm so pleased you are continuing! Welcome home - it can be so fun to travel, but I always find that it is really nice to get back home. I think it is great that you were able to avoid gaining weight while on vacation; what do you feel were the most important things you did this time that led to a better outcome than past trips?

laurag - I'm excited to hear you were able to eat at that familiar restaurant and stay on plan, good for you! I'm curious (if you don't mind my asking) how specifically you felt cheated? I know sometimes when I've been dining with my family at a restaurant that has very little or nothing I would choose to eat, I have sometimes felt like it was a waste of time and money, which can lead to me feeling anxious or grouchy. I've tried to change my mindset around the experience and enjoy it for the quality time I'm spending with my wife and daughter, not the meal itself; do you think that is something that might work?

[Mark Cooper]

If you are in need of some inspiration, check out this Success Story - Ellen Jaffe Jones: Beating the Genetic Odds

When I was five years old my aunt died of breast cancer in our home. My mother and sister also had breast cancer. My mother later died of Alzheimer’s, but she also had diabetes, osteoporosis, and had had several open-heart procedures. Both of my sisters have heart disease, and my sister who hasn’t had cancer has diabetes. In addition, both of my parents and their parents had diabetes.

Given my history, shock and awe transform my doctors’ faces when they discover that I am 54 and am on no medications. All of these diseases, they told me, are genetic and there is nothing I can do about them. But they are wrong. This is my story of how I found great health and beat the genetic odds that were working against me.

Ellen's journey, like so many of ours, wasn't a straight line path to success - after adopting this way of eating, she saw real results, but under various pressures and the din of dietary misinformation she took some detours.

During my first pregnancy I was told that I needed more protein, so I started eating dairy again. When my daughter (who was breastfed) had screaming colic at six weeks old, and nothing else worked, I decided to stop the dairy. As a result, the colic vanished. I also noticed that when I gave up dairy, my sinus issues resolved (I often couldn’t get through a news story without sniffing or clearing my throat).

Looking back over the years, my cholesterol numbers tell me exactly how well I was adhering to a good diet (I saved all my test records). From 1999 to 2000, my cholesterol climbed from 135 to 203, which reflected my straying: that was the year the Atkins Diet was in high fashion (for a second time). I foolishly thought maybe the science had changed; that’s what the news stories were saying (the only thing that had changed, however, was the marketing of high-protein diets). I was now working as a financial consultant for a Wall Street brokerage firm. When I saw that people in the office were losing lots of weight, I thought to myself, “All these Wall Street brains couldn’t be wrong, could they?”

What ultimately worked for her sounds pretty familiar.

This return to a low-fat vegan diet also resulted in a 25-pound weight loss. I wasn’t trying to lose weight, I was just trying to keep my uterus. I was never hungry and never counted calories; just sticking to the McDougall Maximum Weight Loss plan did it. I ate only sweet potatoes as my main starch, along with lots of raw and cooked green and yellow vegetables until I reached my goal weight of 122.

Dr. McDougall's comments are quite instructive -

“Why doesn’t everyone do this?” is a question I have pondered for 30 years. The results are consistently excellent. The food is delicious. I believe the largest stumbling blocks are: people do not believe they can regain their lost health and appearance, and they believe they are incapable of changing. Amazing, how much life is lost for invalid reasons.

I think those are two very important questions worth taking a moment to ask - do you believe you can regain your health and improve your appearance? Do you believe you are capable of changing?

[Mark Cooper]

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's posts from everyone who chooses to participate in the weigh-in! Along with your weight change in pounds, please assess your week with respect to the MWL 10-Point Checklist, if you please. I'll respond to reports collectively on Friday & Saturday evening and the summary will post Saturday night. I wish you all the very best!

[rlechols]

Looking forward to weigh in tomorrow. I like reading about everyone's progress.

[Abe]

Weight Change: -4 lbs.

MWL Points Successful:

1. Start meals with soup or salad.
   Had mostly soup this week. I just burnt out on all of that veg prep, even in batch. Opening a box of the low sodium McDougall box soups most of the time. I see that it is supposed to be two servings, but I eat the whole box.
   
2. Follow 50/50 plate volume.
   I simplified my starch choices and cooking this week, and only ate potatoes and sweet potatoes for my starch portion of each meal. All of the cooking and prep was getting to me, and it turns out I am really bad at making rice and ruined an expensive pot. Boiling or baking a bunch of potatoes and sweet potatoes is less of a hassle for now.
   
3. Eliminate sugar and salt.
4. Eliminate animal based foods.
5. Eliminate higher fat plant foods.
6. Eliminate oil.
7. Eliminate higher calorie dense foods.
8. Do not drink your calories.
9. Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don’t starve yourself and don’t stuff yourself.
   My appetite returned to its normal big range this week, down from ravenous last week.
10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).
    In addition to my regular exercise, I went on a two mile, two hour snow shoe hike last weekend. I think that I lost a bulk of this weight doing that. It was tough, but fun for the first half.

[AnnetteW]

Well crap, here I am again. I told myself if my weight was going back up that I would be back, so here I am. I'm even going to suck it up and admit to the weight gain for the month of February. At first it seemed like I was maintaining, but the scale eventually tells the truth.

All through Nov-Jan my weight was consistently in the 147 range, creeping up to 149, not really ever seeing 150. Officially this morning I saw it. I have been weighing occasionally, trying to get off the daily weighing routine, but it has not been to my benefit.

I'm going to post in my journal later

Jan 31 - 147.0 (official weight at the end of January's MWL challenge)
Feb - no official weigh-ins
Mar 6 - 151.2 (+4.2 lbs)

[rlechols]

Today's weight: 159.5 lbs
Loss of 1.0 lb this week

I had a good week in regards to following MWL. No problems or issues to report. My weight loss feels a bit slow at times, but has been consistently going down. I need to reach 150 to be at a "normal BMI" for my height. I'm getting close! I will continue pushing forward next week.