September 2021 McDougall MWL Weigh-In Group

For those wanting to learn about and follow the McDougall Maximum Weight Loss Program. You can also join our monthly weigh-ins.

Moderators: JeffN, f1jim, carolve, Heather McDougall

Re: September 2021 McDougall MWL Weigh-In Group

Postby Noella » Sat Sep 25, 2021 11:36 am

Noella wrote:Weight Change: - 0.3
Current weight: 151
Starting Weight: 240 lbs
Goal Weight: 140 lbs.

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. Exercise daily for thirty minutes (brisk walking). Yes.

Victories: Feeling very pleased with my weight, my health and energy! :nod:

Challenges: none this week, which is wonderful …full steam ahead to October!

Noella
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Re: September 2021 McDougall MWL Weigh-In Group

Postby VegSeekingFit » Sat Sep 25, 2021 11:53 am

Hi to the Group! Happy last weigh in of September! Can't believe the month has gone so fast!

Weight change - - .6 lbs. loss
Current weight - 132.6 lbs.
Last Week weight - 133.2 lbs.


1 Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit. Sometimes. I am trying to get back to compliance level before I got sick. Going to have this one as a more secondary focus for now.

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, most of the time.


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, of course. :D

5 Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy). Yes

6 Eliminate any added oil. Yes! I do not add oil and only have this if eating out.

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. Mostly. Had post-dinner snack of pretzels a couple of times.

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. Maybe need to go back to having a 50/50 ish soup / stew prepared in case I have later evening snack attack.

10 Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).
No. I will be focusing to get back into this habit this week. I have a walk planned for Sunday with my friend. This week was much busier than normal and I did not successfully "re-start" this habit.

Victories, comments, concerns, questions:

For next week I will focus on these 3 things: 1) get 50/50 plate consistently, 2) add exercise back to daily life, and 3) no off plan snacks (will have soup prepared if snack monster :mrgreen: hits).

The prep work that I did last week was great. It was the first time that I froze rice -- and that has worked out well. Made for a couple of quick lunches!

Yesterday I made a comforting for fall chili in the slow cooker. 2 quart recipe is: 1 c. red lentils (Masoor Dal), 1 14.5 oz. can NSA crushed tomatoes, 2 T. chili seasonings, garlic minced, a few handfuls chopped red onion, a few handfuls chopped bell pepper, a few dried tomatoes (no oil). Just throw it all in the cooker, fill to the top with water, and let it rip. Is really good if you have other peppers to add (i.e., jalapeno, poblano).... but I had 0...

Will be making a big pot of veggie rice or veggie barley soup later today.

Question: For the 50/50 plate, does the volume of fresh vs. cooked veggies matter at all? Or, can you still use visual volume for both to determine compliance? I tend to like a mixture of both - and sometimes like salad as the 50%.

Hope that everyone has a wonderful week!!

Cheers,
Stephanie
"Just put one foot in front of the other and don't worry about the length of the path.
Once you get on that path, and the longer you stay on it, there eventually will come a time when you will not turn back." - Martina Navratilova
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Re: September 2021 McDougall MWL Weigh-In Group

Postby Belana » Sat Sep 25, 2021 12:42 pm

Weight change +/- in lbs: -1.04 lbs

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

Victories, comments, concerns, questions: I've lost an additional 1 lb, which brings my total weight loss since I began doing MWL again to 8 lbs.
At a minimum, I hope to continue losing 1 lb/weekly.
Unfortunately, I'll be on this diet for a long time, if I want to be back to where I was when I quit doing it a few years ago.
I think keeping weight off is just as hard if not tougher in some ways than losing it.
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Re: September 2021 McDougall MWL Weigh-In Group

Postby Health 1st » Sat Sep 25, 2021 12:58 pm

Hello Mark + Everyone, 

You'll see that I definitely still haven't had my act together, but then again that's what this Group is all about...the journey, not perfectionism; if we had our acts together all the time, we wouldn't need it!  I just wanted to be upfront that I still wasn't always fully committed to MWL like I was in the past, should be, + will be within the next day.

Weight change +/- in lbs:   Not sure how this will be tabulated, but here are my stats:
Last MWL Entry 9/3/21:  258.40
Highest weight since then, 9/17/21:  278.90 :shock: :cry:
Weight yesterday, 9/24/21:  271.10

1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.----No.
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) th minimally processed starches. Choose fruit for dessert.----About 60% of my meals this week were 50/50.  About 90% of me meals included vegetables.
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.----Since I obviously was totally off MWL, even McDougall, for some weeks, this week I have reduced sugar + salt consumption compared to those totally off weeks.  But will improve!
4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood).---Again, improved from last couple weeks, but still did have some dairy + items that included egg whites.  Have not eaten any kind of meat for decades.
5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy).----Did have avocados once + fake meat that contained soy once.
6. Eliminate any added oil.----Again, much more improved this week, but definitely room for improvement.
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.----Same reply as to #6.
8. Don't drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages).---One time had a small juice box of 100% juice lemonade. Otherwise no calories from drinks.
9. Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don't starve yourself and don't stuff yourself.----Got too hungry a few times because of a very busy week.  Over-ate 1 time.  Otherwise doing good with this #.
10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).----7/7!  "Lol", the only # I did 100%.  I'm still experiencing some pain + discomfort, so I sometimes only get about 25 minutes in + I cannot walk briskly yet but have increased the speed as lack of pain allows.

Victories, comments, concerns, questions:

Well, I am definitely not the poster child of success!  And this really all has been a mind game.  I don't necessarily feel a physical pull towards eating non MWL items.  I think it's the inner spoiled child wanting that supposed freedom to be able to eat a few potato chips or a cookie.  But I have learned a lot + even though my weight has gone up + my health has declined (absolute worst part), I feel like I am better off now than I was all the years I succeeded but then failed for months + months on end. I'd write more but I have 2 minutes to post this. Not proofread.  I truly plan to get 100% back in the game within the next day.  It's like I'm clawing my way back.  Thank you for your patience + understanding!!!
Last edited by Health 1st on Sat Sep 25, 2021 1:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Reporting for September 24 Weigh-In is now CLOSED

Postby Mark Cooper » Sat Sep 25, 2021 1:01 pm

The window for reporting this week's weigh-in and behavioral results has officially closed.

The remainder of my replies and the weekly summary will follow.
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Mark's Replies for September 24 - Part 2

Postby Mark Cooper » Sat Sep 25, 2021 2:02 pm

texaslil - Pretty solid week, excepting the cereal during those evenings, Laila! Do you have a plan for tackling these after-dinner cravings? I might suggest having an adherent 50/50 "snack" prepared and ready to go, so that you can reach for that when hunger hits. Prepared oatmeal mixed with fruit keeps nicely in the fridge and is quite easy to heat up (personally, I really like it cold - to me it tastes like pudding). Keep aiming for the recommended behaviors!

cmcavazos2 - Nice loss and you're down 2 lbs for the month, Christine! I think your intuition that steady adherence to the recommended pattern of behavior over time delivers increments of progress that accumulate, and ultimately show up on the scale (sometimes all at once) is right on target. Carry on!

Gimmelean - Seems like solid progress maintaining the recommended pattern of behavior this week to me! From my perspective, eating only the recommended foods, and successfully eliminating the "wrong" foods is important progress, even if it felt like too much of a good thing. Stick with the recommended foods, eaten in the recommended fashion, whenever you are hungry, and your appetite is likely to settle down with time. I do think your suggestion to "head out of the kitchen after mealtime" and purposefully find a substitute activity is a great idea! Let us know how it goes. Onward!

Noella - Awesome week! FULL STEAM AHEAD! :D

VegSeekingFit - Nice progress, Stephanie! Glad you are feeling back up to par after your illness. :)
VegSeekingFit wrote:For next week I will focus on these 3 things: 1) get 50/50 plate consistently, 2) add exercise back to daily life, and 3) no off plan snacks (will have soup prepared if snack monster :mrgreen: hits).
Excellent plan! Your chili sounds wonderful to me.
VegSeekingFit wrote:Question: For the 50/50 plate, does the volume of fresh vs. cooked veggies matter at all? Or, can you still use visual volume for both to determine compliance? I tend to like a mixture of both - and sometimes like salad as the 50%.
I don't think it should matter too much, except perhaps in the case of foods like spinach or other greens, where the volume is substantially reduced by cooking. As long as you are eating the recommended foods whenever you feel hungry, there is no need to overthink things, just aim for an equal visual volume of starches to non starchy vegetables (and/or fruits :-D ). Have a fantastic week!

Belana - Solid progress! I agree that keeping weight off can be just as challenging as losing it, sometimes more so. :nod: I think sometimes a person may hit their "goal weight," feel quite gratified, and gradually become less attentive to their overall pattern of behavior. Little "treats" here and there start to accumulate, with the expected effect. In my experience, the pattern of behavior needed to maintain a given weight (around equilibrium) is quite similar to the pattern that allowed one to attain that particular weight in the first place. Fortunately, we know what to do, right? Keep at it!

Health 1st - Kudos to you for continuing to show up, report, and be accountable, even when it is tough! To quickly explain how I've recorded this month, I went back and updated my entries for the previous weeks (although I'm going to leave the weekly summary posts as they are, just to make things easier on myself :-D ). So 9/3 = -4, 9/10= +10.5, 9/17= +10, & 9/24= -7.8. Make sense? Recovering from a significant lapse can definitely feel like "clawing" your way back at times. :nod: Perhaps the best thing you can do to support your efforts is to arrange your environment so that it is as easy as possible to eat the recommended foods whenever you feel hungry, and as difficult as you can make it to reach troublesome foods (ideally there are no troublesome foods available). Undoubtedly, some planning and prep work will be part of making that happen. Don't give up, keep working, and you can get back to your past pattern of success. :)
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Re: Weigh-In Report Compilation - September 24, 2021

Postby Mark Cooper » Sat Sep 25, 2021 2:18 pm

Please note - I replied to each participant individually in the two posts linked below, provided that their reports followed the guidelines for weigh-ins.

Mark's Replies for September 24 - Part 1
Mark's Replies for September 24 - Part 2

By my count, 9 participants reported for our final September 2021 MWL weigh-in! If I neglected to include anyone, or you notice an error in the tally, please let me know (via PM so we can keep the thread as tidy as possible, or in a post here if you cannot PM).

Here are the results for the final Friday in September:

Week ending 9/24/2021: 9 participants reported a total change of -12.74 pounds
--------------------------------------------------
NO GAINS this week
--------------------------------------------------
Total gains: +0
--------------------------------------------------
NO CHANGE / MAINTAIN/ STARTING OUT
Gimmelean 0.00
--------------------------------------------------
Rebecka22 -0.20
Noella -0.30
Texaslil -0.60
VegSeekingFit -0.60
GreenFroG -0.80
Belana -1.04
Cmcavazos2 -1.40
Health 1st -7.80
--------------------------------------------------
Total losses: -12.74
--------------------------------------------------
Cumulative group loss for September 2021 to date: 18.84 pounds
Average loss for week ending September 24: 1.42 pounds
Cumulative group loss for January 2021: 117.20 pounds
Cumulative group loss for February 2021: 39.40 pounds
Cumulative group loss for March 2021: 73.20 pounds
Cumulative group loss for April 2021: 48.30 pounds
Cumulative group loss for May 2021: 35.90 pounds
Cumulative group loss for June 2021: 34.10 pounds
Cumulative group loss for July 2021: 64.95 pounds
Cumulative group loss for August 2021: 49.30 pounds
--------------------------------------------------

Next Weigh-In is on Friday, October 1, 2021, in the October MWL group thread.

All right everybody, that is IT for September! As Noella said, FULL STEAM AHEAD to October! Keep making those necessary efforts, attending to your pattern of behavior, and giving your best effort!

I look forward to seeing you in the October thread, which I will post on Monday.

Have an amazing week everyone! :D
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Re: September 2021 McDougall MWL Weigh-In Group

Postby Health 1st » Wed Sep 29, 2021 3:34 pm

Mark Cooper wrote:Health 1st - Kudos to you for continuing to show up, report, and be accountable, even when it is tough! To quickly explain how I've recorded this month, I went back and updated my entries for the previous weeks (although I'm going to leave the weekly summary posts as they are, just to make things easier on myself :-D ). So 9/3 = -4, 9/10= +10.5, 9/17= +10, & 9/24= -7.8. Make sense? Recovering from a significant lapse can definitely feel like "clawing" your way back at times. :nod: Perhaps the best thing you can do to support your efforts is to arrange your environment so that it is as easy as possible to eat the recommended foods whenever you feel hungry, and as difficult as you can make it to reach troublesome foods (ideally there are no troublesome foods available). Undoubtedly, some planning and prep work will be part of making that happen. Don't give up, keep working, and you can get back to your past pattern of success. :)


Mark,

Thank you so much for your empathy, encouragement, ideas, and acceptance (not "kicking me out" of the Group when I've gone waaay astray! :-( )!!!!

Yes, thank you; that makes complete sense about how you've calculated the weights. I don't blame you for not wanting to re-work the past enteies! I so look forward to contributing further weight losses than gains! One "funny" thing, I've been so focused on how much I went off-plan + how much I gained that I hadn't even realized it was a 7.8# loss.

I'm really planning on making October a stellar one for my health + in turn the scale! :nod:
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