The Behavioral Path to MWL Success - October 2022 Group

[Noella]

Report for the Week of Oct. 1-7, 2022,
Dear Mark, Wildgoose, Jeff and everyone,
1. Start each meal with soup and/or salad and/or fruit. Yes. I have salad most times
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 stop them. Yes...I use a reduced amount of salt and only rarely add sugar to anything.
4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood). Yes, this is going well.
5. Eliminate all higher-fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy). Yes. I sometimes wonder if there are vitamins or minerals in these that we need to have on occasion for good health.
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. got too hungry... I had a small amount of dried fruit displayed on the kitchen counter for our guests and a slice of freshly baked whole-grain bread (also for our guests visiting for the weekend). I had allowed myself to get very hungry by skipping breakfast and lunch to work on a project. This evening, I was over-hungry and had less ability to fully adhere to those tempting, healthy, non-MWL foods. I ate several helpings of adherent salad, beans and yams but still had some bread...just because it was there!!! Eating adherent food on a schedule helps me to get through these tempting moments. Lesson learned. I must not allow myself to get hungry when I am entertaining guests or eating out with friends at a restaurant. I need to have starch regularly in the hours leading up to the social event; then I have what looks like willpower, but it's starch-power!
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. Yes, mostly. Today I stuffed a bit because I hadn't eaten enough earlier in the day. It does help not to skip meals.
10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking). I walked a fair bit most days. Not perfect, but better than last week.

Thanks again, Jeff, Wildgoose, and Mark, for your suggestions about buying food on my upcoming trip to the USA.


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

[Gimmelean]

Post for week ending 10/07/22

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).
No- had some dip with dairy

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

6) Eliminate any added oil.
No had some prepared salad dressing.

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 -had some corn chips.


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 lapses this week triggered by several changes in routine. Family is visiting for two weeks. It’s much easier when there is time for more focus and introspection. I have to figure how I’m going to keep adhering to MWL by not going on autopilot. I especially appreciate Noella’s comments this week on how she’s been working through similar challenges.
Have a good week everyone!

[Lizzy_F]

Hello fellow Time & Adherence travelers!

Another week coming in right under the wire!

1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit. Yes, per the parameters already reported previous weeks.

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, per the parameters reported in previous weeks.

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 eliminated.

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!! This one is feeling effortless these days. I’m not saying I will NEVER used some nuts in a sauce, or have some avocado. But I recognize these are NOT weight loss foods, and I have not struggled at all in recent weeks leaving them alone. And there are TONS of nuts & avocados in my house that my husband eats! If I lived alone, it would be easy to follow the “if it’s in your house, it’s in your mouth” easy model of doing this. Living in a mixed food household means I have to learn to leave things that are “not my food” ALONE, even though they are “in my house.” Is this harder than if they were not here? Yes. Is it possible to leave these foods alone even though they are here? Yes. I also think that leaving them COMPLELTELY alone is way easier than it would be if I were trying to eat high fat plant foods in limited quantities. What I’m seeing as I type this out, is that these foods really are right there on the edge of the Pleasure Trap (especially nuts, for me anyway) and if I fall into the Pleasure Trap, all bets are probably off. So best to continue leaving these items alone, even though for some people they can be part of a healthy plant based diet. Thank you MWL 10-point check list!


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! I would say the exact same thing about this category as I said about higher fat plant foods, I think. One nice things is that I do NOT have to live with a lot of these in the house (husband is low carb, so he’s got all the high fat low carb junk, but none of the high carb junk – thank goodness!)

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. I feel so much better about being where I am with this, than I did where I was with this even a month ago. I know I still have a long way to go. I have been insanely busy the last couple of weeks, so this is really easy when I don’t have a lot of time for meals LOL! This winter, as it gets colder outside and life slows down some, I believe I will have the opportunity to continue working on this as it relates to potential boredom eating, etc. So I want to continue focusing on awareness of my actual hunger levels whenever I’m eating or thinking about eating.

10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking). IMPROVEMENT NEEDED! Well, I did go for a wonderful walk yesterday morning in the crisp cool weather – it was FANTASTIC!! I’m also planning to walk today once the delivery people finish and get out of here. I still have not gotten traction on a 5-10 minutes, do SOMETHING simple goal.

Victories: New low on the scale. BMI is now 22.7. Bought my first pair of size 6 jeans since I was probably 12 years old(OK, so they run really big but who cares LOL!). MORE IMPORTANTLY – I continue to notice reductions in aches and pains related to inflammation (I assume). I still have those time periods where a knee acts up, or that thing with my heel will act up a little (although it’s WAAY better now) but it used to be SO MUCH WORSE!!! By a LOT!!! I also noticed I can wear heels again!! I love clothes and fashion (even though I’m all dressed up and nowhere to go LOL!) and needless to say my 4” stiletto days are WAY FAR behind me! But I’ve worn 2.5 inch heels on booties or whatever this week ALL DAY and did quite a bit of walking around, and didn’t have a problem! YAY! I’m glad I didn’t give away ALL my shoes with heels. I need to see if my (old) snake print sandals (probably 2.75 inch heel) are a potential for the holidays! OK. I’m really far away from MWL territory and way into journal territory now – so I’ll move on!

Comments:


Concerns: I really want to refocus my mind set into a successful maintenance mindset. As you can tell from my week to week “victories” comments, I’m very motivated by losses on the scale and slimming down. I don’t begrudge myself this exuberance! It IS exciting to lose weight, wear smaller clothes, get complimented all the time, etc. HOWEVER. That cannot continue to be my source of goals and motivations. Because at some point, the goal becomes having the scale and the clothes remain the same. And people who have already seen the new, more slender “me” will no longer comment about it. So those motivations / rewards are going to fade and need to be replaced by other motivations to stay the course. It is also challenging to feel motivated about the absence of something. i.e. the absence of pain. I think I want to expand my daily gratitude practice to more formally acknowledge gratitude for some of these “absence of” things. They are among the most meaningful aspects of this journey, and yet the easiest to forget (for me, anyway).

Questions: I am interesting in hearing about other people’s experiences with mind set as you began to approach your “ideal” or “goal” weight, and how you worked through whatever shifting took place for you.

I hope everyone had a great week! Onward and forward!

[Mark Cooper]

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

My replies and the weekly summary will follow.

[Mark Cooper]

VegSeekingFit - Yet another awesome week, Stephanie! I'm delighted to know you found yourself ENJOYING those early morning walks; that transition from stars to sunrise sounds amazing. Wishing you great success with your work responsibilities, and some time for relaxing in their wake.

Ejg - That is substantial progress from the previous week, right? I think those deviations and exceptions that creep in after what is viewed as a successful measure on the scale are experiences that many will find familiar. I agree with you that it seems like an incongruent way to reward oneself: "I was SO successful in maintaining this pattern of behavior that NOW I'll stop maintaining it." I think this can often be related to where our attention is focused and what we imagine our underlying goal to be. If our focus is specifically on the scale, and we view our end goal solely in terms of weight loss, I think this particular reaction starts to make more sense: "I was successful in losing weight, and I deserve a reward." If we, instead, frame our efforts in terms of attaining and maintaining the pattern of behavior that is most likely to promote and secure our health and well-being, then deviating from that pattern as a "reward" seems dissonant.

These wobbles have so far been limited and I've not allowed myself to use them as an excuse to completely go off the rails.

That is good. This discussion on fruit consumption might be useful as you continue to experiment.

carwex - "Almost perfect" sounds pretty good to me, Carol! Well done! I think the analysis you describe, taking some time to think through specific situations that seem to consistently present challenges is extremely beneficial. Identifying these recurring situations, and devising and testing solutions to the attendant challenges results in increasing resilience and self-efficacy. I applaud your efforts.

What is success for me? It’s just to keep coming back to this forum, keep on sharing, keep on trying as best I can to stick to the MWL. I don’t know if I will ever get to a constant state of just doing it naturally but if I keep coming back, I can’t go too wrong. That sounds like time and adherence to me.

Yup! ADHERENCE + TIME sounds like success to me! I'm happy to know that you are able to use the scale in a way that supports and motivates your efforts, and VERY happy that my thoughts on weighing felt validating. Congratulations on your results!

BambiS - Great! Keeping your attention on the fundamental principles seems like a solid path to success. Jeff's article discussing Why We Hit Plateaus and What We Can Do About Them is a great resource for those times when our progress feels stalled. The 160's are waiting for you dead ahead!

Noella - Really excellent effort and very cogent analysis!

Eating adherent food on a schedule helps me to get through these tempting moments. Lesson learned. I must not allow myself to get hungry when I am entertaining guests or eating out with friends at a restaurant. I need to have starch regularly in the hours leading up to the social event; then I have what looks like willpower, but it's starch-power!

You have it exactly right, in my opinion. Starch-power - what a great way to describe it!

I sometimes wonder if there are vitamins or minerals in these that we need to have on occasion for good health.

Is there a particular nutrient that you are worried is missing from your diet, or is this more of a general anxiety that "something" is missing?

Gimmelean - Hang in there! Changes in routine combined with social elements and, I would imagine, a somewhat more fraught immediate "food environment" can create big challenges, but also be big opportunities for growth. Do any potential tools spring to mind that could be useful as you face the current challenges? Is there a way you could apply Noella's concept of "starch-power" to the problem? You can get there.

Lizzy_F - Fantastic progress! And a NEW LOW! As someone who also lives in a home that is replete with both higher fat plant foods and other calorie-rich products, the approach that has proven successful for me is very much as you describe: those are "not food" (for me) and I leave them completely alone, rather than flirting with the Pleasure Trap. I think the challenge of sustaining motivation, or finding new sources of motivation is inherent in the transition into "maintenance." A "new normal" state of being is a significant contextual change, likely requiring some assessment and adjustment. Finding new goals that feel both meaningful and relevant seems like a useful approach to take. Certainly, for me, avoiding pain proves to be a pretty powerful source of motivation. I love your idea to cultivate a regular acknowledgement of gratitude for the consequential positive changes you've experienced and are experiencing!

[Mark Cooper]

A great start for October! Many thanks to all participants! What are you feeling excited about this month? Is there anything that feels like a "looming challenge" on the horizon?

This week, I want to spend some time discussing the idea of deficiency. I think many of us, at one time or another, have felt worried or anxious about whether our diet is "missing out" on some important component: "Is this simple diet of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes really sufficient? Does it have everything I need?"

The short answer, of course, is NO. We need Vitamin B12, right?

For those who have chosen to follow a diet completely free of all animal products, they have created a “need” for Vitamin B12 and so in this situation, a reliable source of Vitamin B12 is required and a supplement might be the way to fill that need.

More on B12 here and here. Likewise, Vitamin D has been thoroughly discussed here in the past.

But still, we feel worried, right? Isn't there SOMETHING we're missing out on?

I think a significant factor contributing to this anxious feeling is an overabundance of (sometimes spurious) "information." Jeff wrote about this under the heading "The Trouble with Social Media" in his article The Road to Success: Creating Healthy Habits, and Dr. McDougall discussed it in his July 2017 newsletter article Simple Reasoning Solves Dietary Confusion. In The Information Myth: Is More (Always) Better?, Jeff offers a solid, 4-point framework for navigating this sea of overwhelming and often contradictory information.

Something else that I believe can be helpful in resolving "sufficiency anxiety" is thinking about and referring to foods as FOODS, not macro- or micronutrients.

My recommendation is not to refer to foods as proteins, carbs or fats as it rarely tells the full story or is accurate. It is much better to refer to foods as foods; like beans, grains, cereals, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, etc. Then their degree of processing (minimally processed, moderately processed and ultra processed). Amongst them, we do prefer those low in fat and low in calorie density.

The diet we recommend is based on fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes that are minimally processed and low in fat and calorie density. It contains all the essential components (protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals) we need (except b12 and D)

Keep in mind, too, that many of the so-called "qualified health claims" that we see touted for different foods are essentially meaningless and really just serve as a form of marketing.

You can find a great discussion related to the topic in this thread.

There is a “myth” of nutrient density that often pops up around here, which is says the diet we recommend is not nutrient dense enough and/or making it more nutrient dense is better.

Let me be clear, the diet we recommend here, whether one is following the regular program or the MWL program is nutrient dense, period. Trying to make it more nutrient dense is missing the point. And in trying to do so, you may end up with a diet too low in calorie density & satiety

If you ever read the mainstream health organization discussions on this, they say the main reason the American diet is lacking in nutrients is not because the plants they eat are somehow lacking in nutrition, the reason the American diet is lacking in nutrients is because they don’t consume enough plants and because the ones they do consume, are overly processed. The solution is including more minimally processed plants. The most nutrient dense foods are vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, and pulses. Trying to design a diet based on just the foods rated to be the highest in nutrient density amongst these foods is missing the point.

It is just like how one can take calorie density to far, miss the whole point, and end up with a diet of only leafy greens and non-starchy vegetables. Whether it is calorie density or nutrient density, we only need it to be good enough, not some made up idealistic goal of perfection, especially when, like with nutrient density, it is based on a fudged scoring systems (ie, ANDI).

Here is another insightful thread related to these concerns.

Excellent point which I have discussed a few times in general but let me add in some additional comments on some of these misconceptions.

1) To begin with, starches are not low nutrient density. While they may not be as high as vegetables and green leafy vegetables, starches are a high nutrient dense food.

We can all do the comparison ourselves by using the CRON-O-Meter. This allows us to do both a nutrient by nutrient comparison and an overall nutrient comparisons based on the Standard of Reference used in studies which is the USDA SR 21.

However, in regard to second hand info and in the name of simplicity... You can also go to http://www.nutritiondata.com and use their online tools. They use a proprietary system to rate foods on Nutrient Density, Nutrient Balance, Protein Quality. Again, I am not a fan of proprietary systems, let's just see what is says..

Nutrient Density (Score 1-5)
Sweet Potato 4.5
Oatmeal 3.4
Almonds 3.3
Walnuts 2.4

Sweet Potato (starch) and Oatmeal (grain) are higher rated than Almonds and Walnuts.

Nutrient Balance (0-100)
Sweet Potato 65
Oatmeal 43
Almonds 42
Walnuts 26

Sweet Potato (starch) and Oatmeal (grain) are higher rated than Almonds and Walnuts.

Protein Quality/Amino Acid Score (higher is better)
Sweet Potato 82
Oatmeal 104
Almonds 54
Walnuts 55

Sweet Potato (starch) and Oatmeal (grain) are higher rated than Almonds and Walnuts.

The CRON-O- Meter, which I do recommend and which does not use any proprietary methods, will confirm all of these numbers.

In fact, Dr Fuhrman has his own proprietary system, which actually also confirms these numbers. From the actual ETL chart

http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article17.aspx

Dr. Fuhrman's Nutrient Density Scores
Sweet Potatoes 83
Oatmeal 53
Sunflower Seeds 45
Brown Rice 41
White Potatoes 31
Walnuts 29
Almonds 25

Sweet Potato (starch) and Oatmeal (grain) are higher rated than Sunflower Seeds, Almonds and Walnuts.

There are several threads in this forum where I have analyzed simple versions of this starch based diet (Going Nuts, Wendy's Mini, SNAP, etc) that show it is extremely high in nutrient density. I know of no evidence showing more than this, is ANY better.

2) we know that diet that are low in nutrients, can raise your risk for certain diseases. However, this is not what is causing most disease and death in this country. In fact, when we look at the long lived Okinawans, we see that their dietary intake was actually low in certain nutrients and they even showed symptoms of these deficiencies, yet in spite of them, they were centenarians.

Caloric Restriction, the Traditional Okinawan Diet, and Healthy Aging,
The Diet of the World’s Longest-Lived People and Its Potential Impact on Morbidity and Life Span Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1114: 434–455 (2007).

The data from 1949, which was reflective of those who would become centenarians. What i found most interesting is in spite of their nutrient dense diet, they were short on several nutrients.

Nutrient, Amount, % RDA
Vitamin D (mcg) 0.4 2%
Vitamin B2(mg) 0.5 45%
Niacin (mg) 13.2 93%
Vitamin B12: 0.6 27%
Calcium (mg) 505.3 82%
Zinc (mg) 6.2 62%

And while several reported experiencing some signs/symptoms reflective of these deficiencies, including 14% reported experiencing symptoms of Cheilosis, which is reflective of the B deficiencies, this didn't effect the overall benefit of their overall diet and lifestyle to their longevity.

So, where is the evidence that being a little low in a few nutrients is harmful or dangerous?

3) we have absolutely no evidence that once you have surpassed the general recommendations, that more is better and in fact, as consistently discussed here in the Where's The Harm thread and as Dr John discusses in his writings, more is not always better.

Remember,

The overall dietary pattern matters most, not any one (or two) foods, good or bad.

By following the guidelines, especially starting meals with a soup or salad and the 50/50 guideline, one's diet will be very nutrient dense. In regard to weight, we do not recommend tracking your nutrients. Follow the plan, and the nutrients will be there.

I just realized I shared a similar post in January 2021; I think it is worth a look.

I hope all of the above serves to put minds at ease. If you are adhering to the recommended pattern of behavior, your diet will be sufficient, so rest easy - YOU ARE DOING GREAT!

Best wishes for an amazing, successful week to come! Take care & be well!

[louie3084]

I think I am too late! Sorry. Posting for week ending 10/07/22

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. Except for a couple of lunches, which led to lapses in the evening twice!

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 - except for two evening lapses.

4) Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood).
No- had some dip with dairy

5) Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy).
Yes - except for two evenig lapses... peanut butter is my downfall!!

6) Eliminate any added oil.
No had some prepared salad dressing, once when out with work colleagues.

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 am living in a household where there are lots of high fat foods - peanut butter for the kids! I lapsed twice this week as I didn't eat enough during the day. Then ate way too much fatty food at night. Before these lapses I was feeling great like I was making progress. I wonder if I lose a little then just think, well I can have this now?? Would love to hear your thoughts Mark, Wildgoose and others!! Thanks for reading and sorry I missed the cut off (busy day with kids sport yesterday!).

[Rebecka22]

I did not do good this week, but I also did not intend to miss the reporting, so I just wanted to post to say I hope you all have a great week, and I will keep working this week to get more yeses.

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. NO
10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking). YES

[BambiS]

10-14

1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.
Most days


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 desert
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, 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

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).didn’t do well with this

Victories, comments, concerns, questions:thank you for the plateau article. I really don’t think I eat that many calories, but will try to do better. Clothes are smaller and fits good

[Ejg]

1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit. Yes, (I think) started every meal with salad or, in the case of breakfast, cut up peppers (eating salad for breakfast doesn't quite feel right to me)
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. Split my meals 50-50. Fruit continues to be a challenge, more below.
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. I sprinkled some salt on sauteeing mushrooms while they were cooking but none other than this
4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood). None
5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy). None
6. Eliminate any added oil. None
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. None
8. Don't drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages). didn't drink calories
9. Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don't starve yourself and don't stuff yourself. Good on this
10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking). Did this every day

For some reason this week I was sure that my continued luck with losing weight was going to run out. I guess I only associate weight loss with either a massive amount of exercise or the feeling that I'm starving, and with MWL, there's neither (kind of sounds like I'm pitching this for an infomercial). So I told myself "just be diligent about following the rules, and if there's no weight loss when I get on the scale, it won't be because I wasn't keeping myself honest." Lo and behold, I continued to shed weight when I stepped on the scale yesterday. Sticking to two pieces of fruit per day continues to be a challenge. Thanks for providing the thread from a few years back where this was discussed, I read the whole thing. I think rather than buy fruit (which is tempting for me) and try to white knuckle through only two servings a day (which rarely works), I'm just going to outright not buy it. When my daughter is with me, she likes red delicious apples (which I don't care for) so I guess half the time, there's going to have to be some degree of just gritting my teeth and getting through the extinction burst. This has all been quite a wild experiment for me, every day I find myself wanting to eat something outside of these guidelines and my "test" is always "am I hungry enough to eat salad and potatoes? If not then you aren't actually hungry." Trying to figure out these patterns, how they came to be, and what's driving it all has been highly enlightening and amusing for me. This weekend I'm going on a father/daughter camping trip, and I can guarantee will be surrounded by halloween candy, chips, beer, etc. I know as long as I don't indulge in the first bite, I can get through it (I'm bringing a frozen tupperware of lentil soup I made a while ago, and a crock pot to heat it in). If I eat a single chip, its a very slippery slope for me. If that's what happens I'll be honest about reporting it next week, but to me the value of this is the accountability -- being truthful with myself and the group about whether or not I made an honest effort and making adjustments as needed. I've become good at recognizing the thought patterns where I'm beginning to justify to myself going off the plan, and there's always a moment I catch myself and know I'm making a decision to eat something I shouldn't, and there's still time to correct. change since last week: -1; cumulative change: -4

[VegSeekingFit]

Hi to All!

Hope everyone is having a great week!

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

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! Lots of potatoes, sweet potatoes, beans, corn, Jeff burgers this week. Have switched over to lots of soup (from lots of salads) and making it starchy for main meal. Still had a good amount of oatmeal too – mainly with fresh fruit --- unplanned experiment where I have found that just 15 extra seconds in the microwave is the difference between nice warm oats and exploding berries… OMG!!! Messy, but hilarious (and lesson learned).

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 eliminated.

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 – no starving or stuffing (just a lot of eating when hungry).

10 Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).
Yes.
Walked 7 days. Honestly, 1 day was more of a gentle stroll since I skinned / bruised knee in a “graceful” move tripping over some sketchy pavement … which hurt disproportionately… but was all good within 48 hours (thinking it goes to the “heal faster” benefit of eating this way--- in other words, Noella’s “Starch-power”! ).

Victories, comments, concerns, questions:

Thanks, Mark for positive feedback last week. Got some great relaxation in after navigating the work ask and looking forward to some time off. Appreciate how you shared of these great resources on the nutritional sufficiency of this pattern of eating. I think that I get even more comments from friends and family to supplement various vitamins (especially as it relates to COVID lately) than questions on where I get my protein / calcium. Invaluable how Jeff & Dr. McD have shared impeccably sourced and easy to understand material right here (even down to how best to evaluate the plethora of (mis)-information)!

Noella, so sorry for your loss and hope that you had a somewhat enjoyable trip to the US. Hope that you let us know how it went!

Beth, I totally understand about the shift that takes place when moving to “maintenance”. Pretty motivating as losing weight to see the scale number drop (sometimes slowly but steadily)! I do find a couple of concepts helpful and motivating now --- more regarding mindset: 1) Time & adherence – have continued to notice seemingly subtle on a week-by-week basis, but incremental changes in healing (for instance, when I just started bouncing out of bed this summer!) and 2) Long-term sustainable change (from your Jeff signature quote) – patterns get easier and more natural as you continue to practice – doesn’t seem like an uphill battle. Hope you share as you move forward how this goes for you!

From Mark’s question last week, I am excited about / looking forward to watching the leaves change color (especially planning hikes in the woods) – love this every year (although dread the cold to come shortly after). Also, we have nephew’s wedding coming up and will be spending some time in Iowa to celebrate. I had this trip (mostly the no microwave thing) as my challenge a couple of weeks ago but was grateful for lots of ideas which will make this (hopefully) painless (especially the warm oats in thermos – thanks, WildGoose!).

Autumn Colors – Christopher Morely
The chestnut trees turned yellow,
The oak like sherry browned,
The fir, the stubborn fellow,
Stayed green the whole year round.

He also left a message to his friends that was published in New York papers after he died which speaks to me… “Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.”

Wishing everyone a wonderful week!

Best,
Stephanie

[Rebecka22]

1.Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit. YES
2. Follow the 50/50 plate method for your meals, filling half your plate (by visual volume) with non-starchy vegetables and 50% (by visual volume) with minimally processed starches. Choose fruit for dessert. YES
3. Greatly reduce or eliminate added sugars and added salts. This includes gourmet sugars and salts, too. If either is troublesome for you, you can eliminate them. YES
4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood). YES
5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy). YES
6. Eliminate any added oil. YES
7. Eliminate all higher calorie-dense foods including flour products (i.e., bread, bagels, muffins, crackers, dry cereals, cookies, cakes), puffed cereals, air-popped popcorn and dried fruit. YES
8. Don't drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages). 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 had an okay week. Traveling by car from Seattle to North Dakota and back from yesterday through Monday for a wedding, so doing the best I can. One positive is although I had a mocha I didn’t let it derail me. I appreciated Goose’s comments last week about not looking at it as all or nothing as it helped me to stop feeling like once I got a no I’d just try again next week. I packed food for the way there, but hoping to find a store and get more good choices when I’m there and for the way home.

[Lizzy_F]

Hello fellow Time & Adherence travelers!!! Wonderful to be checking in after yet another busy week!

Mark - thank you so much for your feedback on last week's report. It is so comforting to know that there are many people out there who have been successfl with this plan despite having to do it in a mixed food environment. Dear Pleasure Trap Food: YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!!!!

Stephanie thank you for your comments regarding the shift to maintenance and the mindset changes needed. Believe it or not, I have connected with some folks in the WW group I sometimes attend who have been maintaining their weight at or below goal for many years. I'm finding some inspiration from that unexpected resource!

What am I excited about this month? I love the changing season! I love the much cooler, crisp mornings we've had this past week! I'm one of those cRaZy people who LOVES WINTER so I really enjoy the transition into fall - because that means winter is right around the corner! I'm also excited that I will be speaking to the 12-day cohort that just started yesterday. I hope to pass on some experience, strength and hope just like all of you continue to pass along to me week in and week out. I feel grateful to have this opportunity to pay it forward. I will of course be mentioning how important the MWL checklist is to my journey, along with this accountability group!

Now for the report..

1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit. One meal this week did not meet this guideline. It was an eat-on-the-run situation (or don’t eat at all, then risk a bad decision while on the road) so it was a large baked potato with ketchup, and a banana. All other meals met this guideline.

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. 1 meal exception as noted above.

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 eliminated.



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!! I still can’t believe how easy this feels now.



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 – I continue to feel really good about where I’m at on this one!



10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking). PROGRESS!! It wasn’t a full 30 minutes each time, and it wasn’t 7 of 7 days. But it WAS intentional exercise 5 of 7 days that was more than 5 minutes each time. And probably 30 minutes a couple of times. I now have a tracking / motivational system. I added a blank monthly calendar to my motivation board. Every day that I do intentional exercise for 5 minutes or more, I give myself a green dot. Days where I don’t meet this goal, I give myself a red dot. I really like this visual and feel motivated to fill up my calendar with green dots. Amazing how something so simple that feels like it’s used with first graders across the globe could be motivating for a 64 year old! I hope this tool helps me build a better exercise habit.



Victories: Exercise progress! Another new low weight today. BMI – 22.2. No off-plan food at all, and only 1 meal that was not in MWL guidelines. I declare VICTORY!


Comments: I appreciate this group so much. The accountability helps me a ton. Knowing I will report my food / behaviors honestly helps me stay on track. I feel I’m staying in the middle of the McDougall Highway where it feels much safer than flirting with the edges of the program where it’s a short distance to the ditch containing the Pleasure Trap!


Concerns: I’m in a good place and just want to keep going this way.

Wishing everyone a fantastic week filled with patience, love tolerance and kindness, and LOTS of potatoes!

[Noella]

Report for the Week of Oct. 8-14, 2022,
Dear Mark, Wildgoose, Jeff and everyone, I'm struggling to stay adherent on my road trip for my cousin's memorial. In northeast California at present, and the leaves are turning colour so the views of the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains are beautiful. Eating enough starch and exercising is challenging, though, and when possible I have been adherent, but non-adherent much more than I'm proud to admit. For the family breakfast yesterday at a hotel there was just seven of us. I had examined the menu and saw the only truly compliant thing was tomato, onion and capers usually served with trout, so I was going to order a tomato salad, if the chef would be willing, but without the trout. I hoped it would have greens but it came and it was just tomato with a couple capers and it was teeny tiny garnish-size, so, I then ordered the banana bread French toast because it was topped with banana - it came topped with walnuts, maple syrup, butter, cream cheese icing...only the banana was adherent. I didn't want to 'stand out' as different or as 'dieting', so I just ate it. My answers to almost every guideline is 'no' this week. I'll have time to report more details of the challenges once I am home, but, for now, let me say this week has been, and is, extremely CHALLENGING.
1. Start each meal with soup and/or salad and/or fruit. yes
2. Follow the 50/50 plate method for your meals. no
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. no
4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood). no
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 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

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]

[Artista]

1) Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit. I did this most of the time but there were one or two meals where I forgot. I fell out of the habit of doing this during the 2 months I was away but I’m working on it.

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. I avoid sugar and use very little salt if any.

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). Not 100% on this one, a little bit of soy milk added to tea or on oatmeal snuck in here and there.

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, except for the soy milk in tea.

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). Not quite. I missed exercising on a couple of days.

Victories, Comments, Questions, Challenges: Mark, Thanks so much for the fuller explanation of your thinking about “on plan” and “off plan”. It makes sense to me to think of those terms as they relate to a food or behavior but not to let them determine my sense of self. I remember reading in Jeff’s post about self-efficacy being so important in achieving long term success at making positive lifestyle changes. Negative labels can really undermine how effectively I think I can make those changes.

My challenges this week were my usual ones that I've had to work on in the past, no real obstacles just more focus and maybe better planning as far as the daily exercise goes.