The Behavioral Path to MWL Success - August 2022 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: The Behavioral Path to MWL Success - August 2022 Group

Postby Noella » Sat Aug 06, 2022 12:13 pm

Hi Mark, Wildgoose, Jeff and all MWL Participants joining in August,

It's wonderful to hear about everyone's commitment and involvement in their self-development. Restoring our health is a process in which we steadily learn/grow, make changes, become more knowledgeable, and advance. It requires us to be active through our daily efforts, one meal at a time, one day of exercise at a time. This morning, I again listened to Dr. Lisle on the importance of maintaining progression or 'flow' by removing the tiny 'channel-blockers' or obstacles that get in the way. He reminds us to be aware of the tiny details that make us stumble or procrastinate. He says it's not the big things that inspire and create change; it's more often the small, day-to-day practical things. To get organized...being organized with all the little details that lead to positive progression. I recommend listening to it.https://youtu.be/aH1CWfgNFaE
1. Start each meal with soup and/or salad and/or fruit. :-D
2. Follow the 50/50 plate method for your meals. :-D
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 stop them. :-D
4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood). :-D
5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy). :-D
6. Eliminate any added oil. :-D
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. :-D
8. Don’t drink calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages). :-D
9. Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don't starve yourself, and don't stuff yourself. :-D
10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking). :-D --I'm trying!


While travelling, I found prepping for meals, grocery shipping and figuring out healthy choices at restaurants quite challenging, yet daily exercising was much more accessible. It was so much fun to walk for miles while exploring the seaside city we were in. Now that I'm back home, the exact opposite is true. The meal planning, batch cooking/prep, and grocery shopping are all much easier, but my desire to get out and walk in my neighbourhood is challenging because it doesn't seem exciting enough. I realize that this is a poor attitude on my part and that I need to see walking as such a positive activity that I do it no matter what. But, I want more fun, so I need to find ways to add more adventure and exploration to my daily walks so that Walking around the neighbourhood inspires me again.

I hope everyone has a great first week of August! I'm thankful you are here, sharing your experiences with us. It gives our efforts at self-efficacy momentum and power. Thank you, everyone!

Best regards,
Noella

Drew - Welcome back! I wish you the very best in the weeks ahead as you prepare for your upcoming surgery. Fifteen pounds - YOU can do this! Enjoy eating lots of vegetables, whole grains, and legumes and as you said, stay away from processed and ultra-processed vegan foods.

“What I am about to tell you is so utterly simple and true that it may deceive you: Health feels better than sickness. You will be happier at your ideal weight than you are overweight. You will be proud of yourself. You’ll have confidence. You’ll feel so many good things that right now you cannot imagine, and I cannot describe. But the net effect is that you’ll like yourself a lot more. You’ll look in the mirror and actually like what you see; you may even love what you see. You will have honored the person within yourself who longs to be healthy, beautiful, and free of all those burdens that being overweight brings. Life will not be perfect, but it will be better.”
― excerpt from The McDougall Program for Maximum Weight Loss


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Last edited by Noella on Sat Aug 06, 2022 2:24 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Reporting for August 5 Assessments is now CLOSED

Postby Mark Cooper » Sat Aug 06, 2022 1:00 pm

The window for reporting this week's behavioral results has officially closed.

My replies and the weekly summary will follow.
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Mark's Replies for August 5

Postby Mark Cooper » Sat Aug 06, 2022 1:00 pm

BambiS - How exciting to be approaching that auspicious milestone! Keep up your diligent focus on maintaining the recommended pattern of behavior, and you will get there by and by. :)

Rebecka22 - Kudos to you for putting principals into practice with the situation at that first restaurant, and for making an effort to navigate the overall situation to the best of your ability at the time. As you observe, there is room for improvement, but it also seems like you are learning how to apply principals situationally and capturing strategies you can use to be more successful in the future. These experiences give you a clear idea of where to focus your attention to spur further progress. Have a good week, and keep evaluating, learning and adapting!

VegSeekingFit - Cheers, Stephanie! I think you have done a great job of identifying the context and circumstances that contributed to that Monday night "miss;" is there anything you would try to do differently if you found yourself in a similar situation in the future? I'm especially happy to hear that you were so able to offer yourself compassion and kindness, while also getting right back on track. Really well handled, IMO! :thumbsup:

JaBee - It seems like you are off to a pretty excellent start readopting the recommended behaviors! Your spouse moving the tempting, non adherent items to another location is a great adjustment to make in support of adherence. :nod: I'd say chocolate falls into several categories for elimination: it is definitely calorie dense, and also high in fat and sugar. The checklist chart you made sounds like a fantastic tool - I'm glad you have found it helpful. Have a great week!

Gimmelean - Wow! I'm always impressed with your meal prep efforts - those bowls sound great! I'm happy to know you feel like things are improving in regard to the evening lapses. I agree with you that sometimes, with this sort of a semi-conditioned behavior, you just might have to "white knuckle" it for a bit. Using your journal as a tangible, physical reminder and tool to support adherence seems like a worthwhile strategy. If evening continues to present challenges, you might also experiment with slightly increasing your volume of starches earlier in the day, as well. I'm right there with you in gratitude for the affordability of this way of eating. :nod: Have a great week!

Lizzy_F - Woo-hoo! Continuing to "chug along with super high compliance to the diet" is definitely something worth celebrating! As a volume eater myself, I would say keeping a focus on calorie dilution/density absolutely makes sense; including an abundant volume of non starchy vegetables, while not neglecting the starches is exactly the good balance to aim for maintaining. Thumbs-up for successfully eliminating the more calorie rich foods this week! Glad to hear you've been enjoying the lentils. Keep doing the best you can, and attending to your body's sensations of hunger and fullness, and you will work out and hone in on what "comfortably full" means for you over time. I think this discussion of fruit consumption will help answer your question. Onward!

Drew*# - You've gotten started! That can sometimes be the hardest step to take, right? I think committing to not bringing any more non adherent foods into the house is definitely a sensible step to take. It sounds like you have breakfast well sorted out, that just leaves the other two meals to be planned for, prepped and solved. Using SNAP meals for some or all of those is a great strategy. With ~5 of the 10 behaviors under control, bring your focus toward the remaining 5, perhaps tackling those that feel most within reach and attainable, and building from those successes. Enjoy the yoga! :D

Noella - I love seeing all those smiley faces! I completely agree with you (and Dr. Lisle) that REMOVING OBSTACLES from our path, particularly in the context of our daily routine procedures, is an invaluable and sometimes overlooked way to spur change and progress. :nod: Finding some ways to add excitement and adventure to your daily walks seems like a great way to bolster your motivation. There have been many times where I've listened to podcasts, music, or made calls while walking, and it definitely made the time feel like it went by more quickly. Let us know what sorts of adventures you find!
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Summary for August 5 Reports

Postby Mark Cooper » Sat Aug 06, 2022 1:01 pm

All right! August is here and we are off and running! I commend you all for your efforts to adopt, pursue and maintain the recommended behaviors. Your diligent efforts, especially with ongoing self-evaluation and adjustment, will yield remarkable results over time. Persevere towards habituating these behaviors, and if you are already in a good groove, protect your successful routine to the best of your ability.

As August brings us ever closer to the end of summer, this seems like an appropriate time to bring our focus back onto the recurring topic of self-efficacy.
Self-Efficacy Enhancement

Self-efficacy, a component of social cognitive theory, describes an individual's perception regarding his/her abilities to carry out actions necessary to perform certain behaviors (eg, making changes in diet or lifestyle).20 Perceived self-efficacy is a major determinant of performance independent of an individual's actual underlying skill.20 The strength of perceived self-efficacy is particularly important, as individuals are more likely to both initiate a behavior and continue their efforts until success is achieved if their perceived self-efficacy is higher.20 Thus enhancement of an individual's perceived self-efficacy can be incorporated into interventions to improve the likelihood of successful behavior change. Bandura's theory suggests 4 sources of self-efficacy that can be drawn on and incorporated into intervention strategies to enhance self-efficacy.82 The source with the greatest potential for increasing self-efficacy, mastery experiences, entails having a person successfully achieve a goal that is reasonable and proximal; for example, substituting fruit for a high-calorie dessert or being able to walk 1 mile. A second source, vicarious experience, consists of the individual witnessing someone who is similar in capability successfully perform the desired task; for example, observing patients exercise and improve their physical function in cardiac rehabilitation or watching a nonprofessional prepare a healthy meal. A third source, verbal persuasion, entails the provider persuading the person that he/she believes in the person's capability to perform the task. This is the weakest source for improving self-efficacy, but can be implemented via telephone or other electronic modes. The fourth source, physiological feedback, entails interpreting to the individual the meaning of different symptoms associated with behavior change. Examples include explaining that experiencing fewer symptoms with exertion is related to regular participation in a physical activity program or that feeling less fatigued or more comfortable is related to weight loss.20 An extensive body of evidence indicates that self-efficacy influences behavior change across all the behavior domains related to CVD risk reduction.83–92 Self-efficacy enhancements were incorporated into the interventions of several of the studies that yielded favorable outcomes.

In particular, I want to encourage everyone to consider building your experience of self-efficacy by being mindful about creating mastery experiences for yourselves.
The first and foremost source [of self-efficacy] is through Mastery Experiences because they provide the most authentic evidence that one can muster what it takes to succeed. In other words, seeing that one can succeed fuels our confidence that one can continue to succeed; it builds our self-efficacy. Nothing is more powerful than having a direct and positive experience of mastery to increase self-efficacy. And importantly, while success in one domain clearly builds confidence in that domain, it also contributes to general self-efficacy and builds broader confidence. For example, having success in one domain, such as being able to accomplish a health-related goal, leads to success in other domains such as interpersonal relationships. In other words, successes build a robust belief in one’s personal efficacy in a range of domains.



The power of Mastery Experiences to increase self-efficacy depends upon a number of factors, including the difficulty of the task, the pattern of success, the amount of effort expended, the amount of external aid received, and the circumstances under which the task is performed. Tasks where perceived difficulty slightly exceeds the participant’s confidence provide meaningful challenge and promote efficacy beliefs. To have a resilient sense of self-efficacy requires experience in overcoming obstacles through effort and perseverance. The art is to find the right balance between challenge and achievability. Tasks should have just the right amount of challenge to make them difficult but not impossible for the individual to accomplish.

-Neal Kaufman, MD, MPH


Many of you may be implicitly doing this already, as part of your daily and weekly efforts with Time & Adherence. Perhaps consider making these efforts more explicit, by aiming for challenging, but attainable goals, being CLEAR about what those goals are, and taking a moment to acknowledge the successes as you achieve them.

Let's have the most efficacious August we can, right?

Have an amazing week, take care & be well! :D
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Re: The Behavioral Path to MWL Success - August 2022 Group

Postby Drew*# » Sat Aug 06, 2022 4:36 pm

It is great to be here with you all and to move forward step-by-step!

VegSeekingFit wrote:Hi!! :)

Yay, we have JaBee and Drew joining us for August... :D Welcome!!!

I'm in too...

Have a great week everyone!!!

Stephanie


Thank you Stephanie. Good to see JaBee, you, Mark, and the everyone in this forum!

Noella wrote:Drew - Welcome back! I wish you the very best in the weeks ahead as you prepare for your upcoming surgery. Fifteen pounds - YOU can do this! Enjoy eating lots of vegetables, whole grains, and legumes and as you said, stay away from processed and ultra-processed vegan foods.


Hi Noella. It is good to be back. Good to see you and others from before. Thank you for the greetings and mentioning my goal of having a successful operation, which includes weight loss beforehand. Fortunately, I am not in intense pain so can wait a bit. Looking forward to the “vegetables, whole grains, and legumes” and not that vegan processed stuff.

Mark Cooper wrote:Drew*# - You've gotten started! That can sometimes be the hardest step to take, right? I think committing to not bringing any more non adherent foods into the house is definitely a sensible step to take. It sounds like you have breakfast well sorted out, that just leaves the other two meals to be planned for, prepped and solved. Using SNAP meals for some or all of those is a great strategy. With ~5 of the 10 behaviors under control, bring your focus toward the remaining 5, perhaps tackling those that feel most within reach and attainable, and building from those successes. Enjoy the yoga! :D


Hi Mark and thank you for the remarks about not adding the “non-adherent” foods to my grocery list. Breakfast is sorted out and the SNAP meals will help. Will go step-by-step from the 5 to 10 steps. Will do this. Besides yoga on Sunday am going on a hike today! That hike will last awhile!

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Re: The Behavioral Path to MWL Success - August 2022 Group

Postby wildgoose » Sat Aug 06, 2022 7:34 pm

Lizzy_F wrote:Questions: I’m curious how much fruit other people are eating. I’m also curious to know if there are other non-salad eaters in the group and if so, how do you do your meal sequencing.

I vary the amount of fruit I eat. More in summer, less in winter. Up and down, in spurts. I always have blueberries in oatmeal. Usually fruit for pre-load or dessert at dinner. If I eat more than 2 meals, I will often have fruit at the third meal too. I don’t pay much attention to the amount of fruit I eat, although I might if I thought it was getting excessive. It helps that I don’t snack — I used to eat way more fruit when I ate between meals.

If you’re concerned that you’re eating too much fruit, you very well may be. Mark gave you a great link in his post above — I second his recommendation to review it.

I don’t eat salads very much. My teeth slide on them (hence my need for orthodontics to fix a bad bite). I find that chopped salads, especially finely chopped salads, work lots better for me, so if I get on a salad "kick," I eat chopped salad. That might work better for your braces too — easier to rinse out the small pieces. I also think chopped salads taste way better than regular salads, for some reason.

Otherwise, I pre-load with soup, raw veggies (the softer ones — no raw carrots on tender teeth! :crybaby: ), fruit, or roasted vegetables (I adore roasted cauliflower, even cold leftover roasted cauliflower). The roasted veggies are different from the steamed veggies that I have with my meal, so I don’t feel like I’m on "veggie overload."

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Re: The Behavioral Path to MWL Success - August 2022 Group

Postby Lizzy_F » Sun Aug 07, 2022 8:38 am

Mark - thank you for your feedback and for the link to Jeff's comments about the fruit/soup/salad pre-load conundrum! It sounds like I have been trying a little too hard to be "literal" with it rather than considering the overall goal of utilizing fruits and non-starchy vegetables in enough abundance to reduce overall calorie density. I also appreciate the clarification of the shift from "max 2 fruits a day..." - I love that this program is supported by research and not just somebody's opinion!

Goose thank you so much for sharing your experience and suggestions re fruits and also salads / cold / raw veg. I haven't tried chopped salad. That is a really good idea - and I even have one of those heavy duty bowls and wheely choppers somewhere in the back of the cabinet! :lol: I appreciate your comments about "more fruit in summer, less in winter." I was thinking that one of the main reasons my fruit consumption is so much higher right now is mainly due to watermelon being in season! Once that ends, I suspect my fruit consumption will go back down again without me having to apply a bunch of effort to the task.

Onward to another week of discovery and fine-tuning!
Beth

"Long-term sustainable change is what we are really after." ~Jeff Novick
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Re: The Behavioral Path to MWL Success - August 2022 Group

Postby Wfpb2020 » Sun Aug 07, 2022 10:13 am

To Mark, Wildgoose and Jeff,

Is it possible to come back to the Maximum Weight loss group? I was on it a year + ago and would like to recommit. Do I still just post on Fridays? is there anything else I need to do/ Thank you for your patience with me.

Gina
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Re: The Behavioral Path to MWL Success - August 2022 Group

Postby Mark Cooper » Sun Aug 07, 2022 12:21 pm

Wfpb2020 wrote:To Mark, Wildgoose and Jeff,

Is it possible to come back to the Maximum Weight loss group? I was on it a year + ago and would like to recommit. Do I still just post on Fridays? is there anything else I need to do/ Thank you for your patience with me.

Gina

Sure! Just check out the Orientation Materials for everything you need to know about the current incarnation of the group.
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Re: The Behavioral Path to MWL Success - August 2022 Group

Postby BambiS » Fri Aug 12, 2022 6:13 am

8-12

1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit. Yes, enjoying fresh vegetables and salads.


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, or larger salads


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, not an issue here

5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy).
Yes, no problems

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, no problem

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. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking). Most days


Victories, comments, concerns, questions:
I think I am going to start posting my ups and down weekly losses. I did my best when I used to post them before the behavior plan. Although I’m doing ok on the behavior plan, I have found myself taking a bite of bread or a biscuit I’ve made my husband slowing my losses.
-1.1 this week this groups loss -42.8 Total loss since I started watching my weight last Sept -52.3… yeah I made that yearly goal early.
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Re: The Behavioral Path to MWL Success - August 2022 Group

Postby Rebecka22 » Fri Aug 12, 2022 8:33 am

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. NO
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). NO
6. Eliminate any added oil. NO
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. NO
8. Don't drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages). NO
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. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking). YES

I got carried away in birthday celebrations this week and am traveling again this weekend. One thing I need to remember is that high sugar food does not make me feel good. I know this yet I keep trying again. I also know I have made it harder in myself but will get through the cravings I have created. I hope everyone has a great week.
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Re: The Behavioral Path to MWL Success - August 2022 Group

Postby carwex » Fri Aug 12, 2022 8:35 am

The last 2 weeks have been a blur of nervous exhaustion-getting all the details in place before leaving one country and moving to another. Didn’t report last Friday because I was 13 hours in the air getting to Sydney. So I will try to piece together what has been happening to my MWL plan. It’s not a pretty sight.
1. Start each meal with a soup or salad. NO Didn’t really think of this at any meal!
2. Follow the 50/50 plate method, ½ starch and ½ vegetables. SOMEWHAT.
3. Reduce or eliminate added sugars and salts. NO since many meals were eaten on the fly
4. Eliminate all animal foods. YES
5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods. NO there has been some tahini.
6. Eliminate any added oil. Eating in restaurants and airplanes makes this practically impossible
7. Eliminate all higher calorie dense foods. NO, without grains around, bread seemed to fill the bill.
8. Don’t drink your calories. YES
9. Follow these principles whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Really don’t know if I did this or not. But tried to stay on 3 meals day.
10. Avoid being sedentary. YES walking a lot.

Today was the first compliant day of MWL eating in 2 weeks. I have had no place, time or energy to do the prep I usually do. It was my husband who sounded the alarm to me with his comments: “You don’t usually eat that!” I’m glad he cares and is not afraid to reflect my behavior back to me. The slippery slope back to the Pleasure Principle can go pretty fast.
I now have a kitchen and am stocking up on my compliant ingredients. Having food in the fridge already prepped is the best way to ensure compliance.
Today we went out to eat downtown at a restaurant where they have the perfect compliant meal: a jacket potato (big) with chili beans on top and steamed veggies and a salad. The plate was divided exactly 50-50! (A sign from Above?) As usual, my plate was much fuller than anyone else’s. Since I am a volume eater too, I was ecstatic but of course could not explain why to my dining companions. Only you-- my MWL mates --understand. It’s also a restaurant you don’t have to drag people to-everyone wants to meet there. So now I have 2 luncheon dates arranged in the 2 weeks coming.
The exercise problem is made easier since we gave up on running a car many years ago which means we do a lot of walking just getting around. We have already started to look for a residence to acquire and so we do much traipsing into different neighborhoods. I’m hoping to get back to the gym and pool in the near future.

So rather than dwelling on the mess of the last few weeks I am looking forward to getting back on track and relaxing into my new life. I have barley on the shelf and soon I’ll get the pull-chopper at Target. Thanks for the reminder Gimmelean. It’s nice to be back.

Carol
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Re: The Behavioral Path to MWL Success - August 2022 Group

Postby Wfpb2020 » Fri Aug 12, 2022 12:09 pm

8/12/22

1) Start each meal with soup/salad/fruit. 5/7 days Usually fruit at breakfast and salad for lunch and dinner
2) Follow the 50/50 plate. 100%
3) Reduce or eliminate sugars/salts. 80% still coming off of sugar and salt.
4) Eliminate animal foods 5/7 days – cheese still an issue
5) Eliminate higher fat plant foods. 100%
6) Eliminate oil. 100%
7) Eliminate higher calorie-dense foods. 80% had some bread and pancakes for a couple of meals
8) Don’t drink your calories. 100%
9) Eating when hungry and stop when full. 100%
10) 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily. 60 or minutes every day.

Victories, comments, concerns, questions: I haven’t been on the forum for over 14 months. But I am recommitting to losing weight. I did put on some but not all the weight I lost in 2020. Although I have tried other things/classes to lose weight with whole foods plant-based eating, I found the accountability on this thread to be the most successful for me. So I am trying again to get to my goal weight. Still working on compliance with checklist. I will be more mindful next week. I always batch prep a salad to use during the week.

Start weight on 8/8/22: 196 lbs.
Current weight: 195 lbs.
Weight change: - 1 lb

Gina
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Re: The Behavioral Path to MWL Success - August 2022 Group

Postby JaBee » Fri Aug 12, 2022 2:04 pm

1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit. Yes, 7/7 days adherence

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, 7/7 days

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, 7/7

4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood). Yes, 7/7

5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy). No, 5/7

6. Eliminate any added oil. Yes, 7/7 days

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. No, 5/7 days

8. Don't drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages). No, 5/7

9. Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don't starve yourself and don't stuff yourself. Yes, 7/7

10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking). Yes, 7/7 days

Victories, comments, concerns, questions:
Didn't do as well this week as wasn't able to batch prep food at the beginning of the new week and found myself eating off plan as evidenced by non-adherences noted in #s 5,7,8 when I ate nuts, English muffin and sweetened beverage a couple of days last week (I typically don't drink any sweetened beverages so this is unusual but shows what lack of preparation can do to eating plan). To get a start on the new week, I took time today to batch prep simple meals for the following week which will enable better compliance since my weekends are sometimes too busy for food prep (which was the case last weekend). There will be improved compliance next week with this change.

Please advise:
- Can someone share Mark's Lentil recipe referenced to in the post?
-Also, is ground flaxseed permitted on MWL as source of Omega-3 or do we need to be concerned about the Omega issue?

Thanks, and have a great week everyone!
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Re: The Behavioral Path to MWL Success - August 2022 Group

Postby VegSeekingFit » Fri Aug 12, 2022 3:20 pm

Hi Team Time and Adherence! :)

1 Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.
:) Yes. Still mostly salad / raw veggies - sometimes fruit. Bought a cut up cantaloupe to save some time - I like to have some melon every day. For the salad, mostly this is just piling raw veggies on a plate. I really hardly ever eat it in a bowl with dressing.

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.
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This was yesterday's breakfast. Delicious - potatoes and smashed pinto beans with marzetti tomatoes and purple cauliflower (that I am still unbelievably loving...)
Rest of meals are mainly potatoes, sloppy lentils, rice, whole wheat pasta, split pea soup. Lots of carrots and romaine and bell peppers.


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. Reduced (not in cooking or product; at table only).

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.
:nod: 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.
:-D 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. No starving or stuffing.
I keep recommended foods in refrigerator ready to snack on (as needed). I didn't do much off-meal snacking this week.


10 Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).
Yes. :)
* 7/7 days walked briskly
I am still loving the walking - the weather is amazing --- except one morning where it was both rainy and windy and I spent a lot of energy fighting to keep my umbrella for going inside out.


Victories, comments, concerns, questions:

Mark, Hope that you are continuing to feel better!!! You asked me in last week's thread about what I may try to do differently in similar situation in future (when I caved on 5/7)... Great question. I think that I should have exercised instead of eaten - probably no need to eat --- I was just trying to stay up. Alternatively, totally could have had more potatoes and fruit... I do expect that this was an isolated type of situation (but, yep it could happen again...) Appreciate your support! Also, looking forward to "efficacious August"!!! :D

BambiYay, congrats on meeting your goal early!!! :)

Rebecka Hi! With your comment on sugar not making you feel good... I realized the same thing last week with the fat food... Was thinking this was good news to stop!!! Have a great week! :-D

Carol I bet you are glad that you have this enormous move behind you! It sounds exhausting. :shock: Wishing you the best as you get settled in and back to the MWL routines!!! I am envious of your restaurant experience. Awesome!!!

Gina Hi, yay that you joined! :) I agree with you 100% on this group being top-notch for accountability and support!

JaBee I find the same thing as you --- that it is so much easier if food is prepped ... Hope you have a great week!!! (I think Mark's lentil recipe is in the July MWL thread in his responses...)

Hope that everyone has an amazing week! Loving this quote: "I gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which I must stop and look fear in the face." - Eleanor Roosevelt

Best,
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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