Help! Need advice to get off plateau!!

[Klo]

What can I say? I don't know why I started adding a few non-McD foods (after losing over 20 pounds) and here I am - staying the same. It's been over 2 months now and I've got to get back on the program. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!

[LoriM]

is to treat it like a personal 12-day challenge. I keep a food journal, plan my meals, go shopping and buy lovely produce, and even bottled water. I give myself the gift of healthy food, and eat all my meals on the good china. (c: McDougalling becomes a delight and a pleasure and a gift, instead of a "diet."

Typically, I make a batch of soup, a batch of brown rice, and prep my salad fixings on Day 0. Then I "start" fresh on Day 1, with a weigh in. I start off by exercising only 15 minutes more than "normal" (depending on just how far off track I've been!), and increase that by 2 minutes every day. So, on the 12th day, I'm exercising for about 40 minutes aerobically. (Always include a warm up and cool down...that means it really takes about an hour.)

Anyway, 12-Days is a magic number. (c: It works very very well in reboosting my commitment, reviving my metabolism, and reminding me what's important.

I *DO NOT* do this forever, however. First of all, it takes an inordinate amount of attention and dedication...so it's great for short bursts of focused power to get off a plateau or to return to McDougalling after slipping in some nonMcD foods. But for an ongoing pattern, McDougalling has to be something that fits in your everyday pattern of living without putting onerous demands on it. After a 12-Day recommitment, I just eat, exercise and live as I ordinarily would.

I've been McDougalling for 8 years. I probably do these "12-Day" challenges for myself twice a year.

HTH,

Lori

[Malva]

Do you REALLY want to lose weight?
Do you want to lose it for a specific event?
Do you want to regain your health?
Are you sick now?
Is being overweight causing you to be sick?

These are good reasons to change the way you eat.
Most of our food choices are sporatic and spontaneous, so to learn a new habit you have to plan, plan, plan and be on the defensive of those things that want to derail you.

Journals help you to see what you are actually ingesting. Be honest. EVERYTHING gets logged.

Exercise is very important. Even just walking in place for an hour is a great workout.

Throw the junk OUT, and don't buy anymore. If the other family members buy it, then put it in a "safe place" where you won't see it all the time.

Get two books that were of great help to me.
McDougall's Maximum Weight Loss Program
and
Doug Lisle's "The Pleasure Trap"

You might also consider doing Mary's Mini diet. See McDougall newsletters.

[Sunny]

Plan ahead, have McDougall food ready to eat on hand. Have a goal.
Think about your future and what you want your life to be. Do you want to be dependant on meds Do you want your weight to hold you back from doing fun things
Always rememeber you can find support here, it helps alot .

[Klo]

Thank you for your advice. One of the biggest problems for me was lack of planning. So today I'm planning the menus for the week, including snacks! I thought about what you said, Malva, do I want to lose weight? Well, of course I do.... however, I need to address the part of me that obviously didn't want to. NLP (neuro linguistic programming) says that every behavior has a positive intention. So today with a lot of prayer I'm going to figure out what that is, and figure out how to address that powerful need and still lose weight and get to my goal. Will keep you posted. Thanks to everyone! :-P

[BuffyS]

I was at a plateau also and decided to really buckle down and also to be consistant with my workouts and to increase them. I am going to weigh myself at my sister's office. She works at a cardiologist office and has a real doctors scale so I have a feeling I am at my goal weight, since I dropped pant sizes. We will see...

[Lin]

I think that there are a lot of us who do the same thing. I know I do. I originally lost about 60 lbs. and then I hit a plateau and it was just like running into a brick wall. I've been gaining and losing the same 5-10 lbs. for over 2 yrs. now.

I have to keep challenging myself in all kinds of different ways.
Some good advice has been given here.
I don't know a whole lot about NLP, but I know about EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) and I use it quite often to address my various issues, and I too, use prayer a lot.

Using this board for support is the best resource that I have. I think we all do better when we have others to lean on when we need it, and we can help others in return, when they need it. I have very little support at home, so this board is my McDougalling lifeline!

The recommendation to read The Pleasure Trap is a good one. I probably should read it again myself!!!

I hope you do well on your McDougalling journey.

[Grateful]

I was on a plateau for quite some time. Then I stopped eating white flour and I lost 5 lbs in about 3 weeks!

[Klo]

I really appreciate your notes... and congrats, Buffy! That's great. Yes, I've heard a lot of good things about EFT, and was thinking of getting the videos. It's fascinating stuff!

Update: On Sunday after a lot of prayer and NLP techniques, I planned the week. Got healthy groceries, made some good soup and had 7 lunches and 7 dinners written down. Also ideas for snacks. And it WORKED!! I feel satisfied with the healthy meals and the cravings are going away again like they did before.

It's so nice to be able to "talk" to other people on this board about healthy eating. So few people even want to understand it! It's such a blessing to have the knowledge from Dr McDougall! (Thx again, Dr McDougall)

Thanks to everyone!!!

PS - I don't think you should click on the links above from "groundhog." I think she has a virus from the fake McDougall/Atkins email. If you get an email from "Dr McDougall MD @ gmail.com" don't open it!!

[VeggieSue]

PS - I don't think you should click on the links above from "groundhog." I think she has a virus from the fake McDougall/Atkins email.

Notice that was the "groundhog" with only one "g" - the person who took her username when she tried to register and found out there was already a "groundhog" so the *good* groundhog was forced to use 2 g's in her name.

Most likely it's just a spammer who saw the name on the other board and wanted to get a jump on this one so people *would* think it was her posting those links. Similar to identity theft being used to spam - I see it on Yahoo all the time.

[MountainLady]

Just do it one day at a time. Commit to doing it for the present day.