Expat in NZ — A loss is a loss indeed, even a small one! You may be reacting to your new weightlifting program, but the next week or so will tell. My experience has been that potatoes or sweet potatoes tend to be more satiating, and I tend to eat less overall when I’m using them for my main starch. That said, I still eat a lot of brown rice as well. It will be interesting to see how your experiment goes.
PonysPlants — Nice loss this week! Doesn’t look like those nori snacks hurt you
It’s easy to eat something like that because it’s plant-based and then think “oops.” As for Christmas dishes, you could do something like a wild rice stuffing that people usually use to stuff squash (minus the squash). Or a festive hearty soup with lots of sides. The Gander and I usually are pretty non-traditional for holiday meals (one year we had pasta and marinara!), and I’m not much of an adventurous cook, so I’m not the best to respond to your question. Hope you get other suggestions from the group.
josietheschnauzer — Congrats on 26 pounds down since March! That’s fantastic progress. Soy sauce isn’t usually high in fat, but it’s very high in sodium — that’s where it can cause problems. If a little added salt isn’t a problem for you, this may be OK. but it’s easy for condiments can go from a “slight amount” to a hefty serving of you’re not vigilant. However, the extra sodium may be contributing to some water weight, so it might be worth cutting it out and seeing if you see any results.
Wfpb2020 — A lot of my exercise is indoors. I have an exercise bike, but for walking, I will sometimes do a Leslie Sansone walking video. If you have weights, you might think of doing a day of resistance exercising to intersperse with your walking days (and time those days around the weather forecast). My next-door neighbor is an intrepid walker and goes out in any kind of weather. She purchased a rain suit (the kind that “breathes” so she isn’t uncomfortably hot) so she can still walk, even if it’s raining. She loves to walk. hates to miss a day, and just can’t stand exercising indoors.
squealcat — One noncompliant takeout meal, particularly if it wasn't prepared the way you wanted, can cause so much trouble! Been there, done that, I don’t know how many times. As you figured out, it can take a good 5 days or more to start feeling “normal” again and not want to eat everything in sight. But you were able to climb out of the trap and get right back on track, so high praise to you for that! Good plan to make some veggie soup. Having that around can go a long way toward diluting the calorie density of your overall eating. I think soup works better than salad in that regard (in addition to the fact that I like soup much better than I like salad
). Jeff has written a good post on this as well:
On Salad, Soup, and Success.
NancyNancyR — In the battle of you vs. the avocado oil, you didn’t let the oil get the upper hand! Good for you to banish that bottle. Just don’t let it call to you from its hiding place. The rest of your week looks really good, though, and your results were excellent. Hope getting back to the Y makes you feel better. Sometimes exercise increases your energy level.
CindyD — Another great loss! Looks like potatoes as your main starch is really working for you. That Bengal Spice herbal tea sounds wonderful. I’ve never tried that particular flavor, but I can see where it would be a great weapon against those office treat-pushers.
The fragrance is probably as nice as the taste.
Rebecka22 — It’s easy for a little bit here, a little bit there to add up. That’s why the 10-Point Checklist is so useful — it lets you see your behavior as a whole. You should indeed feel good about managing your holiday temptations and gaining confidence in being able to get through the season successfully. The success builds on itself, too — the more you succeed, the more you know you can do it and the less stressful the holidays become.
cmcavazos — You’re doing two things that I’ve found to be key to ongoing success at MWL — keeping meals/food prep simple and planning ahead (both in having compliant food available for fighting temptation and in having a strategy for dealing with celebrations or social activities). Good job! I like your commitment to “enjoy the company, not the food.”
I’m not sure what ticker you are using, but it looks like you managed to turn it off (you can do this by either erasing the link or turning off your signature, both of which you do from your User Control Panel). For the ticker I use, I can update it just by double-clicking on it from any of my posts here. It requires a PIN to update, which I occasionally forget
. In that case, I just create a new ticker, paste the new link into my signature file in my User Control Panel, and hope I remember the PIN next time.
GreenFroG — Congratulations on posting a loss even with family visiting. Yes, those salty snacks will trigger cravings. I’d have a hard time staying away from them too. Would your family consider putting them in a room you don’t go into as much, rather than leaving them out where they’re always visible and easily accessible? Sounds like they’re being great at supporting you, so maybe this is something you can brainstorm with them. And when they leave, I hope they take the snacks with them!
wstokes — You may be right that you’re just in a fluctuation stage in the 5-pound window you’ve been in since August. You get to decide whether to stay in that range for a while or press onward. Plus, you’re getting to within 11 pounds of your BMI 24 goal, which means that further weight loss is going to require more diligence than it did when you first started 45 pounds ago (which is outstanding — congratulations!). It probably means that 75% on checklist point #4. 70% on #7, and 90-95% on #5 and #6, especially all together, isn’t going to give you the results you’re looking for. You could try an experiment where you went all-in and aimed for 100% compliance on the checklist for a few weeks, just to see what happens. You might be surprised.
Marla — Great job! Particularly
every single meal on checklist points #1 and #2. I agree that keeping a food log helps. It’s impossible to remember everything you ate and did all week without some kind of record. I still journal everything I eat. I tried letting it go after I achieved my goal weight, and I found I wasn’t nearly so successful without it. You’re also right about not being able to out-exercise a bad diet, but exercise does help, not only in weight loss but in overall health and mental well-being. And staying satisfied with healthy MWL food can go a long way toward keeping those holiday goodies from leaping into your mouth!
VivianS — Glad to hear you’re back to your end-of-November weight, and that your husband is doing better. Your adherence to the checklist is very good. I don’t know how old you are, but I found that my waist didn’t go down as much or as fast in my most recent episode of weight loss as it did when I lost a lot of weight 15 years ago. This time I stayed at a 35 inch waist for a long time. Eventually, I got my waist down to 31 inches, but I weigh 20 pounds less now than I did the last time my waist was at 31. I chalk it up to the effects of age on changing body shape, particularly in women.
louie3084 — I translated your 0.6 kg to 1.3 pounds. Could you please report your weight changes in pounds in the future? We’d really appreciate it.
You’re really close to your weight loss goal, so reducing the jam/sugar in your oatmeal may be something you need to do to take off the last bit of weight. You’re right, stopping eating earlier in the day (or any form of intermittent fasting / restrictive eating window) isn’t part of the McDougall plan. I think breaking an evening / before-bed snacking habit, if you have one, can be useful, but consciously moving your last meal of the day earlier isn’t recommended. It never worked for me anyway — I found I was just hungrier earlier the next day!
Noella — You sound like you’re really enjoying your skiing. Nice that you live in a snowy climate! Working up to a level that you want to achieve is a good idea, particularly for your knees. I’m not surprised that you’re eating more as you’re increasing your exercise. As for the salt, if you’re not eating anything that’s higher in sodium to trigger salt cravings (look at this one carefully — sodium can sneak in in the most unlikely places), you may be losing salt through extra exercise and wanting more as a result. Love your Christmassy name — “NOEL-la.”
Goose
It was fat free & low in calories, but that was an odd addition. 
