The Behavioral Path to MWL Success - August 2022 Group

[Gimmelean]

Post for week ending 8/27/22

Hello everyone!

1) Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.
Yes.

2). Follow the 50/50 plate method for your meals.
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) Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).
Yes.

Victories,Comments,Questions,Challenges: I had some very challenging weeks prior to this one and finally asked what to do. Technically, I’ve learned how to follow MWL for success, but it’s impossible to always separate food and emotions and impossible to be completely objective at all times. Mark, you suggested following my WHY. It was vital to reconnect with what brought me here in the first place and update my WHY for where I am today. I am in a much better place than when I started and my goals have changed for the better. You suggested having my favorite adherent foods always prepared and available and I did. Lastly, and most importantly, you said to get back to a solid groove with patience, self-compassion, and thoughtful effort. Those words were so calming and thought provoking and clicked instantly. In the past, guilt, anxiety, and sense of failure were always first and foremost but counterproductive and never led to success. Thank you for helping me and everyone here. You are truly gifted.
Have a good week everyone. Where did summer go? (In the US). See you in September!

[JaBee]

1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit. Yes, 7/7
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
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, see #7*
6. Eliminate any added oil. Yes, 7/7
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, 2/7 day adherence, see *
8. Don't drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages). Yes, 7/7
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

Victories, comments, concerns, questions:
Improving from injuries. *Still struggling with #s 5 and 7 as non-adherent food brought into home again and unfortunately I ate them mindlessly. Had talk with spouse about importance of placing non-compliant items for their use only, preferably not in the house! Overall, feel back on track going forward to next month.

[Noella]

Hi Mark, Wildgoose, Jeff and all MWL Participants,

1. Start each meal with soup and/or salad and/or fruit.
2. Follow the 50/50 plate method for your meals.
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.
4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood).
5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy). A tiny bit of tofu one morning for a 'scrambled" breakfast
6. Eliminate any added oil. Not bad seeing as someone else did all of the cooking, but not 100% free of 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.
8. Don’t drink calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages).
9. Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don't starve yourself, and don't stuff yourself.
10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).

I am home from a wonderful camping trip on a remote island off the west coast. It was an amazing week of seaside relaxation, contemplation, hiking and kayaking. The camp cooks did an amazing job of cooking and I was able to get enough soups, salads, fruit, raw veggies, and starch at every meal. Every meal and it was close to perfect. The cooks were also ensuring food was gluten-free and nut free for others in our group. I have a new resolve to pursue my dream of being ten pounds lighter and continuing to follow the MWL guidelines will get me there with continued time and adherence. I've decided to add post-prandial walks to my daily routine to further improve my fitness in relaxed twenty-minute strolls.

Special note on the long term benefits of following MWL: it was AMAZING to see how easily I could get myself in and out of my sea kayak for each paddle. We kayaked in a group of about 16 paddlers, most in kayaks some on paddle boards...I didn't need any assistance, ever, from anyone and it felt so great to be totally strong and independent as I headed out for a paddle and returned home to shore.

Best regards,
Noella

“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

[/quote]

[Mark Cooper]

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

The remainder of my replies and the weekly summary will follow.

[Mark Cooper]

BambiS - Awesome! Carry on with your consistent efforts. Did you enjoy the okra?

Rebecka22 - Congratulations! I'm sure it required quite a bit of work, but I can imagine it feels really good to be back on track. Feeling better is what it is all about, right? Seems like a valuable focal point.

VegSeekingFit - Another great week, Stephanie! August really seemed to fly past, right? Keep us updated with your progress devising that BBQ sauce, I'm sure others will be interested.

For the holidays, I will really just plan to follow MWL checklist - I didn't have issues last year with this approach. Will be interested to hear what other folks are planning.

That's what I always do now, as well. My hard-won wisdom about myself is that I just do much better sticking to MWL, rather than flirting with the Pleasure Trap.

louie3084 - Pretty solid week, aside from those four specific incidents. Finding a solution for this "spin day" challenge should put you in a good position for success then, right? Before doing anything more drastic, I would encourage you to experiment with increasing the volume of starch in your meals on those active days and see how that goes. Depending on the volume of food you feel comfortable consuming, that might mean dialing up the ratio of starch to non starchy foods, reducing the preload volume, or otherwise tinkering with the proportionality of your adherent foods. Give that a try and see how it goes. Just to clarify, too, whole grain pasta is acceptable for the starch portion of a meal within the most current MWL guidelines, so feel free to enjoy pasta (within the context described at the link above) with your meals.

Lizzy_F - Really great week, Beth! It is DEFINITELY important to occasionally reflect upon one's progress and how far one has come from the starting point. It seems to me like you have had some really meaningful realizations about how expansive the boundaries of "what is possible" might be; it's interesting how things we once believed we couldn't "live without" don't cause a second thought in the present, right? I feel like you are making good progress in zeroing in on "comfortably full," as well. The 50/50 recommendation (which, strictly speaking, means UP TO 50/50) is indeed about calorie dilution. The idea is to include an equal visual volume of starches to non starchy vegetables; it isn't important for everything to be on the same plate. For example, Jeff's Fast Food Recipes and SNAP meals all meet the spirit of this recommendation, despite the ingredients generally being all mixed together. I hope that makes sense, and I'll include an article in this weeks summary that should help clarify the concept. From what you have shared, I would agree that you seem to be satisfying that particular recommendation. Great progress on many fronts, and a special for making real strides in staying active.

Gimmelean - Fantastic! I know this was a hard-won and well-deserved victory, and I'm so happy to know that you are finding success in cultivating an environment - physical, mental, and emotional - that is supportive of your most important goals. Onward!

JaBee - I'm delighted to hear you're experiencing some improvement from your injuries! Wishing you continued smooth and steady recovery. Our immediate environment exerts a pretty powerful effect upon our behavioral choice, right? It seems like with the adjustments you've discussed, you should be in a more solid position moving forward.

Overall, feel back on track going forward to next month.

Good! That feeling of stability, mindfulness, and being "on track" counts for a lot; our conception of our efficacy naturally has an influence over our actual capability. For most of us, conceiving that something is possible is a necessary step to achievement of the same. Keep at it!

Noella - That sounds like a very rejuvenating holiday!

It was amazing to see how easily I could get myself in and out of my sea kayak for each paddle. I didn't need any assistance , ever and it felt great to be totally independent as I came in to shore.

This is wonderful; thank you so much for sharing this observation. I absolutely love taking post-prandial walks. Enjoy!

[Mark Cooper]

Hooray! Admirable efforts all around! That brings August to a close; the new thread for September will be posted on Monday. I hope to see you there!

Below is an article I think makes important points relevant to our discussion this week.

Finding The Sweet Spot: Balancing Calorie Density, Nutrient Density & Satiety

Finding The Sweet Spot: Balancing Calorie Density, Nutrient Density & Satiety
Jeff Novick, MS, RDN


Q: If I haven't eaten and am feeling hunger pangs, stomach growling with an empty feeling, and I drink a glass of water, does that quiet the feeling of being hungry, even if temporarily?

Yes, it is possible but will be very temporary.

Q: Not talking about meeting nutritional requirements, just acute hunger signals. Ive momentarily filled my stomach, so don't feel hunger pangs.

Again, yes possible.

Remember, satiety is defined in medical textbooks as the opposite of hunger and satiety has certain aspects to it. Bulk, from the water and the fiber in foods, is important, as is the weight of the food as are the calories.

So, water can provide a temporary feeling of satiety but it will not last long term or meet our nutritional needs.

Q: In a discussion, someone stated that they ate soup and it was so filling they couldn't finish what they served themselves, however also stated that they felt starving still. Can one fill a stomach to capacity and still feel starving?

Yes, in a way.

Q: I likened to filling my gas tank to capacity and expecting to not see the gas gauge read empty. I know the stomach stretches and we have stretch receptors but also need a certain weight to feel full, but I would think that not being able to finish a serving cause you're too full wouldn't leave you feeling starved, at least not physically.

Sometimes, people are trying to describe something they are experiencing and using words and terms they know but it may not be adequate or accurate. This is why part of the role in helping someone is first to understand what is really going on. This in and of itself, can be difficult. Her comments in regard to "starving" may be referring to something different that you and I mean.

However, having said that, yes, it is possible and here is why. It is what I am calling the "J-Curve Paradox" of calorie density/nutrient density/satiety.

Generally speaking, as calorie density goes down, satiety goes up (as does nutrient density). So, if I was to plot the two against each other, in a 2D graph, it seems fairly simple, to have the lowest calorie dense, highest nutrient dense diet, eat very low on the scale.

However, there is another factor that is important, that you mention, and that is weight and to really understand this issue, we have to plot 3 axis and make it a 3D graph.

Here is why, studies have clearly shown that humans consume a certain weight of food per day, regardless of the calorie density and/or nutrient density of the food. And, the size of the vessel we are filling (the stomach) has a fairly standard and limited size (with a range of variation). On average, it is about 4 lbs of food a day with a 3-5 lb average.

If we need about 1800-2500 calories per day, we need a calorie density of 450 to 625 with a range of 360 to 833.

This is almost 100% identical to what i have been saying in regard to calorie density, and is what is recommended by the WCRF/AICR report.... 400-800 calories per pound (rounded off)

So, if you go to low in calorie density and your CD is under 300 cal/lb, at even 5 lbs of food, you would barely make 1500 calories and for most people doing the minimum activity, that is too low. At 3 lbs of food you are at 900 calories and starving.

An all fruit and veggies diet, would average under 300 and actually be closer to 150-200. At 3-5 lbs that is only 750 to 1000 calories.

So, by going to low in calorie density (ie, vegetables, vegetable soups), we can fill up the volume of our stomach but without enough weight or calories. In addition, because these foods are so high in water content, around 90% or more, the water does leave somewhat quicker than the food, so the satiety is not as long lasting.

In the actual satiety studies, they saw this with the high water foods, like fruits and veggies. They were very highly rated in s/t satiety but not in l/t satiety. Turns out the starches, like potatoes, oatmeal and whole grain pasta where the most satiating both short term and long term.

Now, when we add in the weight aspect to the calorie density/nutrient density/satiety issue, along with stomach size, it all make sense.

For instance, lets say the average stomach size is 1 liter or about 4 cups. Not only do we have to fill it with a certain amount of food volume/bulk to trigger satiety, the weight of this "bulk/volume" of food will also matter.

Let's see....

4 cups of lettuce has only 32 calories and is very high in nutrient density but only weights about 188 grams and 95% water.

4 cups of apple sliced has 226 calories, fairly high in nutrient density and weighs 436 grams and 85% water.

4 cups of cooked sweet potato has 720 calories, high in nutrient density and weighs 800 grams is 75% water.

So, based on everything we know, which would be more satiating both short term and long term?

Remember the foods which will provide a combination of the most weight and the least calories for the same volume will be the most satiating per calories, but the foods with the higher percentage of water will leave the stomach sooner.

Sweet potato, then the apples, then the lettuce.

So, one can actually go to low in calorie density and fill the stomach with enough bulk volume but from foods that have to high a percent of water and not enough weight for the volume that they will not have as much long term satiety.

This is why the issue is not just calorie density or just nutrient density of just satiety but a combination of which food(s) provides the best of all three.

This is also why the pictures showing how much an equal calorie amount of different foods fills a stomach is not enough as it only looks at the issue of volume & not weight/volume, etc. The above scenario of lettuce, apples & sweet potatoes are all the same volume (4 cups) but there is quite a difference in their overall satiety.

We often see this issue arise in those who are shunning or limiting the food groups of whole grains, starchy veggies and legumes. They focus to much on the fruits and/or the veggies and while they can get in enough bulk and volume, they are not getting in enough weight (and calories) for that volume to feel really satiated long term. So, they end up either going hungry during the day, which is hard to do, or the end up over consuming on the higher fat, higher calorie dense foods (ie, nuts/seeds, dried fruit and the foods and "treats" made from them) or binging on higher calorie dense junk foods.

On the flip side, we can fill the stomach with foods with a much lower water content but the calories will then be to high and the nutrient density and the volume per weight to low for good health and satiety. This is akin to the Standard American Diet. So, we end up passively over consuming calories.

This is why in the principles of calorie density, I teach mixing the calorie density of foods from the starches, legumes, and whole grains, with the lower calorie dense fruits and veggies, up to 50/50 by visual volume. This is the sweet spot where you get the benefits of calorie density, nutrient density & satiety all together.

So, if one uses the above scenario and mixed a plate with 2 cups of sweet potato and 2 cups of vegetables (the 50/50 guideline), we now get the same bulk/volume (4 cups), enough weight/volume for long term satiety, and a high nutrient density for good health We have almost 500 grams and only 375 calories.

It may not be the lowest in calorie density, or the highest in nutrient density, but it is the highest in satiety both s/t and l/t and the best combo of all the issues. This way, one gets enough both bulk/volume and enough weight to confer both s/t and l/t satiety, with a low enough calorie density to either lose or maintain weight, with a more than adequate nutrient density to insure optimal health. Its a win/win/win.

I hope that helps

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, have an amazing week, take care and be well!

[VegSeekingFit]

THANK You, Mark...

100% appreciate and benefit from your support. Means a lot!!! Bad quoting below by me.... of your answer to me (on just following MWL Checklist for holidays)...

" That's what I always do now, as well. My hard-won wisdom about myself is that I just do much better sticking to MWL, rather than flirting with the Pleasure Trap."

YES!!!! I feel like I have gone through the school of "hard knocks"... and just ok with status quo... I have to say in all honesty that it helps me 100% to know that other "regular people" will do the same ---- so THANK YOU!!!

Hope that you have a great week and hope that you are feeling excellent!!!

Best,
Stephanie

[Drew*#]

Hi Mark and all,

Just to let you know I am all in for this coming month. Since the holidays are nearing, I plan to keep moving forward with the veggies, fruit, and whole starch. Making exceptions will not be helpful. As noted by another, the MWL plan is a better alternative than "The Pleasure Trap"
--
Drew