March 2021 McDougall MWL Weigh-In Group

[Mark Cooper]

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.

[Mark Cooper]

taymariekay - Recommitted with renewed focus and starting strong! If you find that added salt causes unwelcome cravings, it does make sense to experiment with eliminating it.

In regard to added salt and added sugar, we recommend buying and preparing food without either and if any are to be used, to add them at the table on the surface of the food. If either one is troublesome and create uncontrollable cravings for you, then leave them out.

Focusing on the fundamental recommendations is always the best approach; keep it up!

CindyD - Wow! 9/10 on the checklist and big results! Solid performance, reinforced by encouraging feedback from the scale, always feel so great, especially during a stressful week. Congratulations on your well-earned victories. I am SO looking forward to the arrival of Spring!

chef16 - 60 pounds! That is awesome, Doreen! You have come so far from where you started this journey 9 months ago, and you are still advancing today (and each week)! to you for sticking with the program through ups and downs. Feeling better is the best reward! Stay focused on the recommended pattern of behavior, adhere as closely to the guidelines as you are able, be patient, and see where this road takes you!

Gimmelean - Give yourself credit for showing up to report and carry on with the MWL program during a time of year that has been a problem for you in the past! That is already some change from previous patterns, right? "Knuckling through" the Pleasure Trap is not much fun, but, as you know, the battle gets easier with time, adherence, and experience. What were the key reasons that motivated you to focus on your health, wellness and energy in the past? What are the most prominent and vivid outcomes you hope to achieve with this lifestyle? Are those aspirations exciting enough to provide a "jumpstart?"

GreenFroG - TEN THUMBS-UP and down 0.6 pounds! I can't ask for more than that! Carry on reaching for excellence and challenging yourself; you are doing great!

texaslil - Don't let a reading from the scale overshadow the positive changes in behavior that you made this week, Laila! Continue to improve adherence each week and you will see results. Keeping avocados out of the house and aiming for a simple, easy menu both seem like appropriate and worthwhile actions to take. Eating non-starchy vegetables first as a preload could basically satisfy point 1, just be sure not to neglect your starches; wildgoose has discussed this a few times (here and here).

You're trying to do two things:

• Lower the overall calorie density of the meal
• "Preload" with very low calorie density foods (soup, salad, fruit), so that by the time you get to the starches, you're not as hungry and you eat less of them

Jeff talks about this and gives some studies to back it up in his post on Salad, Soup and Success.

So to your questions... Do you need to preload with salad, soup or fruit? All I can say is that it has been found that preloading is an effective tool for increasing the effectiveness of the program for weight loss. The purpose of the checklist, and of this group, is to maximize your chances of the greatest success. You get to decide whether you "need" this step to achieve your goals. You may find, as many people have in the past, that you go along without the preload step for several weeks or months, but as you get closer to your goal, your weight loss slows or stalls. At that point, revisiting the preload idea can become very helpful.

Your second question speaks to the same idea. By eating veggies first, you're essentially preloading. I don't know if it affects digestion, but it certainly starts the process of filling your stomach so that the stretch receptors tell you sooner that you're full.

I am not much of a salad eater (unless I can get Subway to make a chopped salad for me, which I don't do these days and never did that often in the past unless I was traveling -- I'm cheap!). Occasionally I will get on a salad "kick" for a few weeks, then not have another one for months. So salad for preload wasn't a good option for me. I love soups, and I do this frequently in the cooler seasons, but soup in July and August just doesn't work for me! So, many times I ended up doing just what you talk about -- eating vegetables as my preload.

I also developed a raw veggie "salad" that I use frequently in the summer. I take my handy pull-chopper and finely chop about 10 baby carrots, some onion, about a third of a cucumber, some raw cauliflower, and a whole chopper full of spinach. (Of course, I do this in batches, not everything at once.) I dump this in a bowl, drizzle a little balsamic vinegar over it, maybe sprinkle some Mrs. Dash seasoning blend (of whatever flavor I feel like) over it, and mix it up. Instant "salad" without too much fuss.

The idea of a preload is to take some very low calorie density food (soup or salad work very well, but raw or cooked vegetables can also serve the purpose) and to have it first, before you fill up on starches.

Chin up! You are heading in the right direction continuing to adjust your behaviors, the weight will follow where the behaviors lead.

Growing a Pear - Nice loss! Your observation that fruit would be a better choice than dried cereal in regard to weight loss, even in excess of the suggested limits on fruit consumption, is worth remembering; this becomes especially clear when we consider that cereals are typically ~1600 calories/lb or more, 4 times more calorie dense than bananas, and more than 10 times as compared to strawberries. I understand what you mean about wanting to make really good lifestyle choices now, because of uncertainty and anticipation of future challenges; Jeff discusses this in Hedge Your Health. Something I have found helpful in dealing with trepidation in the face of future obstacles is to use the "calm before the storm" downtime to create a "cope ahead" plan - solve the expected problem NOW, while you're not actually struggling in the face of it, and can reason clearly. On those especially chaotic days, would it help to have a specific, established plan for self-care and soothing unconnected to food?

Moonlight - Down another pound! I respect your impression about how this week went, but I think it is worth pointing out that while you struggled with 3 of the recommendations, you succeeded in adhering to the remaining 7. And you are striving to do better and look for solutions. The food environment challenge you present is definitely a difficult situation to manage. My wife and daughter keep a pretty wide variety of non adherent foods in the house; to be honest, most of them don't really tempt me at all. However, there are some specific foods, recipes and dishes I DO find really tempting, and with those I have asked my family to either keep them out of the house, or limit the quantity they bring in (i.e., if they are ordering samosas or pakora, they only order enough for a single meal). I'm not sure if any of that could be applied to your situation, but I think an open, honest conversation with our loved ones and cohabitants about these environmental challenges is a great starting point. Perhaps you husband might even have some ideas about what he could do to help support your efforts. I hope some other participants will have some related experiences to share.

JaBee - Definitely a good week for you overall; quite a few 7/7s! Is the Chubby Chips recipe what you want?

Chubby Chips Recipe

-Take your favorite potato (white, sweet, yam, yellow, etc)
-Slice into rounds, about 1/4 inch thick
-Layer them on a non stick baking pan
(or line it with parchment paper)
-Add Seasoning (garlic, chili powder, cinnamon, curry, etc)
-Broil till golden, turn them over and repeat
(Or roast till golden)

We love to add garlic &/or chipotle seasoning to the regular potatoes and curry &/or cinnamon to the sweet potatoes.

We like them thick and chewy and that is why we call them "Chubby Chips," If you like them crisper, you can just cut them thinner and if you have a mandolin slicer, you can cut them fairly thin and even. We also use a waffle knife (or slices) to make wavy cuts and make "Chubby Ruffle Chips."

Here's a description of his steak fries, which are similar.

"Baked" steak fries - Cold baked potatoes cut into wedges and broiled till golden.

After they are baked, I let them cool down a little and then slice them lengthwise into steak fries. Then I place the steak fries under a broiler and broil the steak fries to golden brown. I have done this with both regular and sweet potatoes.

This gives them a little more flavor and make them easier to carry and to eat.

[JaBee]

Yes, Mark thanks for the recipe which is the one I wanted!

[Noella]

Controlling the environment: Suggestions, please!
We have learned that controlling our environment goes a long way toward success with our diet goals. Willpower will only get us so far. When we are tired, for example, willpower is nil. My husband follows the SAD diet so there is no way I can control the environment the way I would like. We have rearranged a lot of food and the system works great. However, he must cook, eat, and leave his dishes until kitchen clean up time. If I’m triggered too much while he is cooking, I can go to another room. We do like to spend time together while we eat our meals, though. We have the refrigerator to deal with, too. We have separate shelves, but I can see what is on his shelves. He keeps all his different varieties of cheese and lunch meat in the drawer, so I don’t see it. Many times, I can think “Not Food” when I actually look at what he is eating but sometimes the smell of an old favorite, like pesto and pasta, just drives me crazy! I just wonder if anyone in a similar situation would care to share their strategies for how to cope with this. Most of the time I can get past it with self-talk, diversion, or eating something compliant, but other times I cave….

Hi Moonlight,
When I started this journey I decided that I am one of those people that can’t eat the standard diet and be healthy and fit. It wasn’t working for me, and there was no point in feeling sorry for myself. I had to make some very big changes. Without a 180 degree turn, I was headed straight toward a variety of health problems and LESS of all the important things that make life worth living like having good health, energy, mobility, LESS of everything I loved to do: hiking, skiing, kayaking, travelling. We had just booked a trip to Morocco and Portugal and I knew I would have trouble walking, climbing stairs and keeping up. My husband was worried about how we could travel with my knees hurting me so much with each step. So I made the decision on December 29th, 2019. I was changing. I wanted MORE life not LESS. I had always enjoyed gourmet cooking and baking cookies, loaves cakes, breads and pastries. My hobby of cooking and baking had also expanded into pairing foods with just the right sort of wine, because we live in an area with vineyards and wonderful wines. I immediately shifted my love of gourmet cooking and baking to the MWL way. This was a dramatic shift! I sensed my husband’s worries about how my changes would affect him. I wanted to alleviate his worries so I found ways to make some of our favourite meals leaving certain non-MWL ingredients out of the recipe but putting these in bowls on the table to be added individually. Rather than bake, I bought things in the bakery section for my husband. That way he wasn’t forced to change with me. We like bean burritos with all the extras. I put the bowls of grated cheese, sour cream, chopped olives on the table for him so he could choose what to add. All the other ingredients were MWL approved. I continue to buy his favourite condiments, croutons, oils and salad dressings for him to add to his soups and salads. With pasta dishes, he gets to add Parmesan or other grated cheese to his. I love to set the table attractively, and I love serving two or three courses and enjoy a leisurely dinner together. I have decided my new hobby is to learn how to cook of vegetables, legumes , squash and grains. Last week I roasted a fennel bulb with a lemon paprika marinade that was so amazing! I’m encouraging my husband in his cooking, too, by noticing and complimenting everything he makes that is MWL adherent. I call him my ‘Chef Gary’ when he is chopping veggies for a soup or stew that we share. I appreciate the way he cooks and experiments with oil free salt free alternatives. He still adds non MWL to his servings at the table. That probably won’t change. We are always eating together, and sharing cooking in this new healthier way together is becoming more fun each month as we transition. We get organic veggies delivered from a small local company and our fridge is packed with yummy greens.

The great thing is that over fourteen months of doing this, my husband has started eating the MWL way, too. He has always been healthy but he says he has more energy and he loves that. He knows how to sauté without oil and he makes a wonderful veggie marinara sauce for pasta, great mixed greens salads and makes also hummus from scratch , and chili...all without any salt or oil. My husband has thanked me for emphasizing healthy eating and healthy lifestyle choices. Choosing health is choosing MORE.

So, eating this way is a mindset that develops over time. It is a complete change from thinking the standard foods most people eat each day are nutritious and ‘good’ to thinking that that the MWL sorts of food are the most nutritious and the best for their health giving properties. Once we make the very best decision to eat food for our health, we know that we are nurturing ourselves with our selections and it won’t bother us if others are eating non-adherent foods. These non MWL foods will gradually become less pleasurable until they are of little or no interest to us, whether they are on the table, counter, fridge or cupboard. Just like we might not want to read someone else’s favourite book or magazine simply because it’s not our personal favourite topic to read about, our new food favourites will gradually and steadily become more and more MWL approved and we won’t want those old favourites anymore.

Let’s not forget to be a good friend to ourselves and spoil ourselves regularly by buying the best, freshest, high quality whole grains, squash, vegetables, fruits, berries, mushrooms, herbs, legumes, choosing mainly that we like best. (I like to splurge on fresh berries! Berries are a treat!)As we learn how to cook delicious, colourful, nutritious health-giving food for our family we discover favourites that everyone enjoys eating. Habits and the skills to create them, take time to develop. Be a good friend to yourself and be patient with yourself as you go through the process of learning and growing in your skills and knowledge of healthy cooking, serving meals attractively and eating together with joy.

So, Moonlight, this was a very long winded way of saying one strategy is to be inclusive and serve food that everyone in your family will enjoy, together, allowing the option for all the others to add extra salt, higher calorie dense foods and condiments to their own meal at the table.

Best regards, Noella

[Mark Cooper]

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

Mark's Replies for March 5 - Part 1
Mark's Replies for March 5 - Part 2

By my count, 21 participants reported for our first March 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 first Friday in March:

Week ending 3/5/2021: 21 participants reported a total loss of -25.70 pounds
--------------------------------------------------
Jkcook +2.00
Texaslil +0.80
--------------------------------------------------
Total gains: +2.80
--------------------------------------------------
NO CHANGE / MAINTAIN / STARTING OUT
Gimmelean 0.00
Taymariekay 0.00
--------------------------------------------------
Noella -0.10
Wfpb2020 -0.20
GreenFroG -0.60
Growing a Pear -0.80
HoustonJason -1.00
Moonlight -1.00
birdy birdy -1.20
PonysPlants -1.20
Squealcat -1.30
JaBee -1.60
Rachael -1.60
Chef16 -2.00
Cmcavazos -2.10
Rebecka22 -2.20
PotatoHead1980 -2.70
CindyD -2.90
Bunsofaluminum -6.00
--------------------------------------------------
Total losses: -28.50
--------------------------------------------------
Cumulative group loss for March 2021 to date: 25.70 pounds
Average loss for week ending March 5: 1.22 pounds
Cumulative group loss for January 2021: 117.20 pounds
Cumulative group loss for February 2021: 39.40 pounds
--------------------------------------------------

Next Weigh-In is on Friday, March 12, 2021.


Hooray for March and all our MWL group participants! You started the month in style, pursuing a lifestyle aimed at health and wellbeing. Apply your enthusiasm to the days ahead!

Continuing our earlier discussions concerning building self-efficacy, I want to encourage everyone to think about creating the opportunity to have some Mastery experiences this month.

"Mastery experiences are the most influential source of efficacy information because they provide the most authentic evidence of whether one can muster whatever it takes to succeed. Success builds a robust belief in one's personal efficacy."
-Albert Bandura, Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control

Set your sights on a personally meaningful goal, task or behavior adjustment that feels challenging, but achievable. Spend some time putting together a plan for how you will succeed in your chosen endeavor. Practice executing that plan, make any needed adjustments, and try again. Practice builds confidence and success teaches you that you are effective and able to achieve reasonable goals that you pursue with diligence.

“People's beliefs about their abilities have a profound effect on those abilities. Ability is not a fixed property; there is a huge variability in how you perform. People who have a sense of self-efficacy bounce back from failure; they approach things in terms of how to handle them rather than worrying about what can go wrong.”
-Albert Bandura, Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control

I was thinking along these lines last June

In pursuing excellence, mistakes and failures can provide an opportunity for growth; I can learn something each time, surmounting that obstacle (usually not on the first attempt) and be better for it. That feels like the path to mastery - not being perfect or free from mistakes, but navigating situations with confidence and poise, knowing how to apply the fundamentals, recognizing what "doing the best I can" looks like in a given situation, and striving to do even better next time. That may be a goal that is always just out of my reach, but I find the chasing of it inspiring.

As Jeff noted,

Self-efficacy is the extent or strength of one's belief, perception and convictions in one's own ability to complete tasks and reach goals.

I think that may be *the* individual characteristic/trait that makes all the others possible, at least in the current environment because while the program itself is easy, doing it in this world, is very difficult. Without a "greater degree of self-efficacy," it becomes even more difficult if not impossible due to the lack of social and environmental support for this way of life.

Have a great week!

[moonlight]

Controlling the environment: Suggestions, please!
We have learned that controlling our environment goes a long way toward success with our diet goals. Willpower will only get us so far. When we are tired, for example, willpower is nil. My husband follows the SAD diet so there is no way I can control the environment the way I would like. We have rearranged a lot of food and the system works great. However, he must cook, eat, and leave his dishes until kitchen clean up time. If I’m triggered too much while he is cooking, I can go to another room. We do like to spend time together while we eat our meals, though. We have the refrigerator to deal with, too. We have separate shelves, but I can see what is on his shelves. He keeps all his different varieties of cheese and lunch meat in the drawer, so I don’t see it. Many times, I can think “Not Food” when I actually look at what he is eating but sometimes the smell of an old favorite, like pesto and pasta, just drives me crazy! I just wonder if anyone in a similar situation would care to share their strategies for how to cope with this. Most of the time I can get past it with self-talk, diversion, or eating something compliant, but other times I cave….

Hi Moonlight,
When I started this journey I decided that I am one of those people that can’t eat the standard diet and be healthy and fit. It wasn’t working for me, and there was no point in feeling sorry for myself. I had to make some very big changes. Without a 180 degree turn, I was headed straight toward a variety of health problems and LESS of all the important things that make life worth living like having good health, energy, mobility, LESS of everything I loved to do: hiking, skiing, kayaking, travelling. We had just booked a trip to Morocco and Portugal and I knew I would have trouble walking, climbing stairs and keeping up. My husband was worried about how we could travel with my knees hurting me so much with each step. So I made the decision on December 29th, 2019. I was changing. I wanted MORE life not LESS. I had always enjoyed gourmet cooking and baking cookies, loaves cakes, breads and pastries. My hobby of cooking and baking had also expanded into pairing foods with just the right sort of wine, because we live in an area with vineyards and wonderful wines. I immediately shifted my love of gourmet cooking and baking to the MWL way. This was a dramatic shift! I sensed my husband’s worries about how my changes would affect him. I wanted to alleviate his worries so I found ways to make some of our favourite meals leaving certain non-MWL ingredients out of the recipe but putting these in bowls on the table to be added individually. Rather than bake, I bought things in the bakery section for my husband. That way he wasn’t forced to change with me. We like bean burritos with all the extras. I put the bowls of grated cheese, sour cream, chopped olives on the table for him so he could choose what to add. All the other ingredients were MWL approved. I continue to buy his favourite condiments, croutons, oils and salad dressings for him to add to his soups and salads. With pasta dishes, he gets to add Parmesan or other grated cheese to his. I love to set the table attractively, and I love serving two or three courses and enjoy a leisurely dinner together. I have decided my new hobby is to learn how to cook of vegetables, legumes , squash and grains. Last week I roasted a fennel bulb with a lemon paprika marinade that was so amazing! I’m encouraging my husband in his cooking, too, by noticing and complimenting everything he makes that is MWL adherent. I call him my ‘Chef Gary’ when he is chopping veggies for a soup or stew that we share. I appreciate the way he cooks and experiments with oil free salt free alternatives. He still adds non MWL to his servings at the table. That probably won’t change. We are always eating together, and sharing cooking in this new healthier way together is becoming more fun each month as we transition. We get organic veggies delivered from a small local company and our fridge is packed with yummy greens.

The great thing is that over fourteen months of doing this, my husband has started eating the MWL way, too. He has always been healthy but he says he has more energy and he loves that. He knows how to sauté without oil and he makes a wonderful veggie marinara sauce for pasta, great mixed greens salads and makes also hummus from scratch , and chili...all without any salt or oil. My husband has thanked me for emphasizing healthy eating and healthy lifestyle choices. Choosing health is choosing MORE.

So, eating this way is a mindset that develops over time. It is a complete change from thinking the standard foods most people eat each day are nutritious and ‘good’ to thinking that that the MWL sorts of food are the most nutritious and the best for their health giving properties. Once we make the very best decision to eat food for our health, we know that we are nurturing ourselves with our selections and it won’t bother us if others are eating non-adherent foods. These non MWL foods will gradually become less pleasurable until they are of little or no interest to us, whether they are on the table, counter, fridge or cupboard. Just like we might not want to read someone else’s favourite book or magazine simply because it’s not our personal favourite topic to read about, our new food favourites will gradually and steadily become more and more MWL approved and we won’t want those old favourites anymore.

Let’s not forget to be a good friend to ourselves and spoil ourselves regularly by buying the best, freshest, high quality whole grains, squash, vegetables, fruits, berries, mushrooms, herbs, legumes, choosing mainly that we like best. (I like to splurge on fresh berries! Berries are a treat!)As we learn how to cook delicious, colourful, nutritious health-giving food for our family we discover favourites that everyone enjoys eating. Habits and the skills to create them, take time to develop. Be a good friend to yourself and be patient with yourself as you go through the process of learning and growing in your skills and knowledge of healthy cooking, serving meals attractively and eating together with joy. My advise is to be inclusive and cook food that everyone in your family will enjoy, allowing the option for others to add higher calorie dense foods and condiments to their meal at the table.

Hi Noella,

Thank you for responding to my post! Your approach to meals and food sounds so lovely. I appreciate your willingness to share. Your point about this way of eating being a mindset was so spot on for me. It is so true. I've been in that place where I'm not triggered by my husband's food. It's been quite a long time though. I guess I'm just fatigued and whiny. I am determined though. I will keep at it. Slowly I think the foods will lose the charge, especially if I don't give in! I have been following James Clear. He's the author of Atomic Habits. I haven't bought the book but I've listened to several lectures he's given. One strategy or mindset that I have kept in my mind this week is "Don't break the chain". Keep the success going day after day after day. And, if the chain does break, don't allow it to stay broken over 2 consecutive days. I'm using that approach along with Mark Cooper's suggestion to pick a goal for a Mastery experience to help build self-efficacy. My goal is to stick with only MWL approved food. I may stuff myself or eat more starch than vegetables at a meal but I will eat only from the approved list of food. So far this is working.

Good luck to you. You have made great progress. I hope you feel healthier and can move around without pain.

All the best,
Moonlight

[bunsofaluminum]

Okay, front loading with soup is amazing. I wasn't going to do it, frankly. I figured soup is a meal of its own. BUT...a cup of clear broth vegetable soup with minimal starchy components before starting on my entree? Can't say how many times I've had to push my plate away and save it for a later meal. The current plan is to have a cup of soup before lunch and dinner every day, and some days, a bowl of soup as breakfast is ample. This means making a lot of soup, and that's okay with me.

[Mark Cooper]

Okay, front loading with soup is amazing.

I'm so glad this has been working well for you!

[taymariekay]

I have kind of a nuanced question! I am sure this has been asked and answered, but wasn't able to find (still not great at knowing how to search correctly).

How full should I feel on preload/vegetables before moving onto starch? Sometimes I feel like I'm too full on vegetables with not enough room for starch, which causes me to not feel as satisfied then I get hungry too soon. Then again, sometimes I worry that I am able to eat too much starch after my vegetables. I could be reading too much into it, but wanted to see if anyone had some insight!

I am also trying to re-learn my true hunger/fullness cues, and eat until COMFORTABLY full and not stuffed. I think I am probably a volume eater too, which makes it harder to gauge too I think. Being present at meal times is helping!

Thanks in advance!

[wildgoose]

I have kind of a nuanced question! I am sure this has been asked and answered, but wasn't able to find (still not great at knowing how to search correctly).

How full should I feel on preload/vegetables before moving onto starch? Sometimes I feel like I'm too full on vegetables with not enough room for starch, which causes me to not feel as satisfied then I get hungry too soon. Then again, sometimes I worry that I am able to eat too much starch after my vegetables. I could be reading too much into it, but wanted to see if anyone had some insight!

I am also trying to re-learn my true hunger/fullness cues, and eat until COMFORTABLY full and not stuffed. I think I am probably a volume eater too, which makes it harder to gauge too I think. Being present at meal times is helping!

@taymariekay For me, it works to start with a moderately sized bowl (or plate) of soup or salad — using the same bowl or plate every time. I don’t think about fullness at that point, although if I had found myself getting full after eating my preload, I would have known to switch to a smaller bowl/plate next time! But the idea is to have a simple, consistent serving that I really don’t have to think about much.

Then I move on to my 50/50 plate (by eye — no weighing or measuring) of starch and vegetables. Eat till I am comfortably full (and yes, it can take a lot of food to get there, but this isn’t a problem). Stop.

When I get hungry again, I repeat that process. Even if it has only been a few hours since the last meal. That’s the beauty of this program — I don’t have to make it complicated.

Learning when you’re comfortably full can take some time. Many was the time I ate past the comfort level all the way to stuffed before I was aware of it! No big deal, there’s always another practice opportunity (the next meal) coming. It helps to slow down, because the feeling of fullness lags behind the eating process a bit. The other thing to remember is that you will be able to eat again! So many times, we come from a habit of restrictive dieting, and we feel like we have to eat a lot now because it will be a long time before we eat again. Not true here. If you underestimate at a meal and get hungry again sooner, just eat when you’re hungry again. You’ll figure it out as you go.

Goose

[bunsofaluminum]

I have kind of a nuanced question! I am sure this has been asked and answered, but wasn't able to find (still not great at knowing how to search correctly).

How full should I feel on preload/vegetables before moving onto starch? Sometimes I feel like I'm too full on vegetables with not enough room for starch, which causes me to not feel as satisfied then I get hungry too soon. Then again, sometimes I worry that I am able to eat too much starch after my vegetables. I could be reading too much into it, but wanted to see if anyone had some insight!

I am also trying to re-learn my true hunger/fullness cues, and eat until COMFORTABLY full and not stuffed. I think I am probably a volume eater too, which makes it harder to gauge too I think. Being present at meal times is helping!

Thanks in advance!

It's happened to me, and I just barely started MWL Oooops my soup done filled me up.

If I am eating soup as a preload, I use a one cup measure. That's a cup of soup, right? It's enough, without filling me up. Then I eat my 50/50 plate, and many times I am pushing away before finishing, but sometimes I'm able to finish. I'm still tweaking how full the plate is. It's a salad plate, and sometimes it's heaping you know? A pile of starch, next to a pile of veg. But if I get too full during the meal, I put it in the fridge for another meal, and if I do get hungry before the next meal, I eat a piece of fruit or a nuked potato to tide me over.

[Mark Cooper]

taymariekay - I concur with everything wildgoose wrote in response to your question; it just takes time, adherence, and some sensible adjusting if you find at the end of a meal you've missed the mark a bit. I know it often feels like the question of "how much to eat" and "am I really hungry" is of paramount importance; that makes sense, particularly since nearly all "mainstream diet advice" focuses on eating LESS, or managing portion sizes, eating less frequently, counting calories, &c. In the context of our broader social environment, how much and how often to eat are seen as key factors to be "managed" with the application of "willpower." From my perspective, the REALLY important question is WHAT to eat; the quality of the food has a more powerful influence on results than quantity. When eating in adherence with the MWL 10-Point Checklist, the overall diet will be quite calorie dilute, which facilitates eating to satiety whenever one feels hungry.

Follow the principles of calorie density which allows us to eat when we are hungry until we are comfortably full, even if we are a volume eater. There are several discussions listed under the hot topics in regard to this.

The issue is not really volume, but the content of that volume.

When hungry (regardless of whether you may think it is true hunger, appetite, or something else) just eat. Eat of the recommended foods as outlined in the 10 point checklist.

Over time, it will work itself out.

It should not require Holmesian levels of attention to know when you are full. Do you feel uncomfortable? Are you stuffed? If you overshoot the mark, take note and do your best to slightly adjust next time, but don't spend energy fretting and beating yourself up over that - if you stuffed yourself on MWL suitable foods, the calorie density was low and it seems unlikely that you will be continuously stuffing yourself at each meal, each day, on an ongoing basis. Don't overvalue the importance of these episodes, or think you need to perfectly manage hunger cues, as compared to the impact from including troublesome foods in your menu or planning not to adhere on a consistent (or occasional) basis. If you are over consuming problematic foods, the problem isn't your appetite, it's the food, and you can direct your efforts accordingly.

[taymariekay]

Thanks so much everyone for your thoughtful replies and advice! Definitely making more sense to me now and I’ll be putting your tips into practice

[PonysPlants]

Only down 0.2lbs this week. Bit of a disappointment.

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. YES
3. Greatly reduce or eliminate added sugars and added salts. This includes gourmet sugars and salts, too. YES
4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood). YES Easy. Vegan for life
5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados,) 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. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily. NO. Been struggling with migraine type headache most of the week so didn’t manage every day.

Well, the only one I didn’t manage was the exercise but was really vigilant with everything else. There’s a possibility that any results may have been obscured by water weight from me having my period but I’ll guess I’ll find out next week! Onwards!

Thanks as always Mark for your support and encouragement.

Naomi

[Rachael]

Weight change +/- in lbs: -3.2

1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit. Mostly, but I completely blanked and did not do this on Thursday for my lunch or dinner at all. I didn't try the fruit before breakfast this week. I like to have my 2 servings of fruit either as an afternoon snack or after my lunch & dinner meal. Maybe I could try a soup. A warm soup in the AM sounds appealing.
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. No stinkin nuts anywhere in my environment! Just the way it should be!
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. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).yes

Victories, comments, concerns, questions: I was very compliant this week and I feel great. I'm within that last 10 pounds of my goal weight so seeing the 3 pound loss was crazy. I think it has to do with my issues of bingeing on nuts and saltines last week and it goes to show the quantity and calories I must have consumed Since I'm new to the discussion boards, I've spent the last week searching around and reading the plethora of information and insight that it holds. What an amazing resource! I do have a question for you Mark. What is your background?