The Behavioral Path to MWL Success - November 2023 Group

[wstokes]

gained 1.9 lbs

1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit. 80%

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. 35%

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. 5%

4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood). 85%

5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy). 70%

6. Eliminate any added oil. 90%

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. 90%

8. Don’t drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages). 100%

9. Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don’t starve yourself and don’t stuff yourself. 70%

10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking). 100%

I almost didn't report. I know better and have had a week of "I'll cheat this one time, and buckle down after that". The scales don't lie and I'm sure the lab work won't either. A big pitfall is access to after dinner snacks that are all out of bounds. I go to restaurants that have healthier options, but the "I'll buckle down" thoughts take me off course there. I have no troubles with #8 & #10, so this week I want to focus on #2 and #3....and especially #9 this Thursday.

[Gimmelean]

Post for week ending 11/17/23

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.
No. But better this week than last week.

4) Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish,)
No - but better this week than last week.

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

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.
No. But better this week than last week.

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:
Hello MWL team. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. With all good intentions, I am looking forward to spending time with family and feeling good before, during, and afterwards!
I am very thankful for this group.

[letsfixmyheart]

I am inordinately excited today, mostly because of a mind shift. After you all encouraged me to include a little whole-grain pasta if that was making me sad, something clicked in me -- I don't need excuses to not eat what makes me feel best, I just need to find foods that will nourish and please me. Today I did pick up some brown rice pasta, but also some sweet potatoes, giant red beets, a delicata squash, and the hugest purple radish ever just because it was cool. I'm about to look up how long to steam gold potatoes in the Instant Pot so I can have them in the fridge to snack on -- I love cold potatoes or sweet potatoes with salsa on them. (Also bought some salsa. Last week I made some, but this week, I'm focusing more on getting a bunch of starches cooked.)

I need to get out of my head and keep myself from whining. I am not being deprived of anything; I'm challenging myself to find the healthiest choices that are also delicious to me. Not exactly a punishment.

[Artista]

Hi Time and Adherence Team

1) Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit. Most of the time.

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. Most of the time.

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). Hit and miss with this one.


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. Mostly, yes. I did eat some raisins one day.

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 for 6 days out of 7. I usually do over an hour of combined exercises every day but I missed one day this week.

Victories, comments, concerns, questions: I ate some nuts and seeds and soy this week. I did get all that stuff out of the house so I’m hoping to do better with #5 next week. I hope everyone has a nice Thanksgiving if you’re celebrating. I’ll be getting together with my family and we decided on a potluck with a non-traditional menu. I think that will be an improvement over all the turkey, etc. I’m planning on taking lots of my own food so I’ll be sure to have enough to eat and to share. Wishing everyone a positive week this week.

[Mark Cooper]

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

My replies and the weekly summary will follow.

[Mark Cooper]

BambiS - Congratulations on the completion of your "kitchen purge"! Your BIG deep-cleaning and decluttering project must be fairly complete by now, right? Your observation about the connection between preparation and adherence seems accurate to me. Reset, refocus on adherence to the recommended behaviors, and move toward year's end with success and poise. You can do it!

Rebecka22 - An awesome and successful week! Nicely done.

Trying to focus on how good I feel when I stick to the plan and remember that next week when everything is about food.

That seems like an effective way to frame things. What is your plan for navigating the holiday? It always helps me to face those celebratory situations in an intentional way. Keep doing your best!

wstokes - I applaud you for deciding to report this week's self-assessment, in spite of that feeling difficult. I know for me, the "one cheat then buckle down" always seemed to turn into two, or three, or four, and before you know it the week is past. The ready availability of non adherent foods in the immediate environment almost always makes adherence feel more challenging to attain or maintain. As you observed, you seem to have points 8 and 10 mastered - that is great! Focusing on the next two or three points that feel most attainable, important, or sensible for you makes sense. Think about what resources you need to adhere to those recommendations and how you can arrange your environment or establish your routine to support adherence. Keep working, assessing and adjusting as you go, and you'll get there!

Gimmelean - Moving in the right direction from last week - that progress matters! I think heading into the holiday with intent, preparation, perspective, and self-compassion is a winning approach. Enjoy that time with your loved ones AND feeling great throughout!

letsfixmyheart - I'm happy to know that the clarification of the guidelines felt helpful for you, and that you have a renewed and reframed perspective toward adherence. I think challenging yourself to find and choose those adherent foods you find most appealing and delicious is exactly the right tactic to pursue. Using you diary to "check-in" with the recommendations is also a great way to support yourself. When you feel prepared and ready to "jump in" you can post a weekly assessment here. Maybe next week? Keep at it!

Artista - The actions you took to align your immediate environment with your goals are absolutely the best way to support progress, Nancy! Well done! I'm always happy when an event is potluck, since I at least know I'll be able to eat what I bring myself (and I almost always bring my own food to meal-centered gathering, anyway). Enjoy the time with your family and carry on with your plan!

[Mark Cooper]

Applause and a big thank you to all this week's participants!

For everyone who is celebrating, I hope you have a wonderful and joyous Thanksgiving, with good company, comfort, and peace. Try to be intentional and prepared in your approach to things, behave in a way that is congruent with your goals and beliefs, feel good and be kind to yourselves. We will be spending Thanksgiving Day with friends (at their house), so I'll be bringing my own food. That will almost certainly include sweet potatoes and brussels sprouts and, more than likely, some "oatmeal pudding" (my refrigerated oatmeal mixed with fruit). I love to keep things simple and focus my energy on connecting with my loved ones. I'm certainly thankful to be able to participate in this group, with all of you as my comrades! It continues to be a privilege and a pleasure for me.

I like to share Jeff's "Thanksgiving Thoughts" at this time of year; I always find them quite moving (even after having read them year after year).

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is often thought of as time of feasting and indulgence and, for many, it means a time of overindulgence. As food is central to many of our celebrations and our health, I want to share some personal thoughts on Thanksgiving.

Throughout history, many cultures have enjoyed great feasts to mark the important and joyous occasions of the year. These feast days traditionally occurred only a few times a year and any overindulgence was confined to these few days of celebration. However, today, the spirit of celebration and the notion of a “little indulgence” have been taken to extremes as more and more Americans treat every day and every meal as a holiday and a time to overindulge.

Over the past 40 years, rates of excess weight, obesity and related health problems have increased rapidly. Today, almost three-fourths of American adults and over one-third of children and teens are obese or overweight. This extra weight increases an individual’s risk of developing many chronic illnesses such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, arthritis and cancer.

Every day throughout the year, American meals tend to provide portions that are too large and have excess fat, salt, sugar, and calories. A large disparity exists between recommendations for a healthful diet and actual food consumption habits. Excessive intakes of salt, solid fats (major sources of saturated and trans-fatty acids), added sugars, and refined grains often replace intakes of healthful, nutritious foods, making it difficult for people to achieve recommended nutrient intake while controlling calorie intake. The negative health effects of these eating habits are further compounded by the sedentary lifestyles of many Americans.

Commitment to a healthful diet is one of the most important components—if not the most important component—of an individual’s overall health and well-being. A healthful diet is one that emphasizes minimally processed fruits, vegetables, starchy vegetables, intact whole grains and legumes, and limits the intake of salt, saturated fats, added sugars and sweeteners, solid fats and oils and refined grains. The key to achieving and maintaining a healthful weight—during the holidays and all year-round—is to live a healthful lifestyle on a day-to-day basis that includes healthful eating, regular physical activity, and stress management.

Following is one of my favorite food quotes of all time, and it comes from the book The Life We Are Given by George Leonard and Michael Murphy. I think it has a powerful message that is appropriate for this time of the year.

“Finally, how we eat, just as is the case with how we exercise, stands as a fundamental expression of our embodiment and is thus important to our practice, not merely for the benefits it might bring but for its own sake. To eat with full awareness turns us toward a diet that is both good and good for us. It rejoins us with the matrix of our existence and can inspire us with thanksgiving for the everyday wonder of food, the everlasting miracle of the life we are given.”

The holidays are a time to celebrate, give thanks and, yes, perhaps for some of us, to even overindulge a little. It is important to remember, however, that Thanksgiving is just one meal on one day and is not the start of a month–and–a–half-long celebration. The very occasional indulgence on the very occasional holiday (i.e., the actual day and meal itself) will most likely not be damaging to overall health and well-being for most of us if healthy eating and exercising take place on a regular, consistent, daily basis throughout the rest of the year.

The holidays are times to focus on family and friends—not just food. Catching up and sharing laughs with loved ones will allow you to feel the spirit of the holidays more than a second helping of pie. If you do indulge a little to celebrate, be careful and do so without throwing all caution to the wind or hurting yourself. And remember, your body is never not watching!

So, during this upcoming holiday season of thanksgiving and celebration, let’s not forgot to take a moment and reflect, celebrate, and give thanks for those things that are truly the most important and of the most value to us…our lives, our health, our friends, and our families.

Have a happy and healthy Thanksgiving.
Jeff

Wishing you all the very best! Take care & be well!

[VegSeekingFit]

Hi Team Time & Adherence!

Wishing everyone who celebrates a Happy Thanksgiving! I really appreciate this group! Hope everyone has a happy and healthy holiday!
 


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). 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

I had a nice low-key Thanksgiving. One of my five daughters is vegan so I just made what she wanted this year. It was simple, compliant and satisfying. Since the rest of my family was eating other people’s food it made my cooking time much more reasonable and that was nice. I hope everyone had a great week!

[wstokes]

lost -.7 lb

1. Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit. 100%

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. 90%

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. 95%

4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood). 80%

5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e. nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy). 90%

6. Eliminate any added oil. 90%

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. 80%

8. Don’t drink your calories (especially from juices & sugar-sweetened beverages). 100%

9. Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don’t starve yourself and don’t stuff yourself. 90%

10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking). 100%

I posted my weight change, but I'm sensing that this is not done with the group any more. if not, apologies and I will stop when we roll into December. I did do much better on portion control this week (even yesterday) and also avoiding the wrong foods that are nearby. It's reassuring to get past Thanksgiving without a major bust and I look forward to building on this week's progress. Happy Thanksgiving!

[BambiS]

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


3. Greatly reduce or eliminate added sugars and added salts. This includes gourmet sugars and salts, too. If either is troublesome for you, you can eliminate them.
No had thanksgiving sweets

4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood).
No, probably was in deserts

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. No, had sweets

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).some days, still a lot of lifting and moving stuff around

Victories, comments, concerns, questions good week,
I had a too happy Thanksgiving. Didn’t feel so great after eating junk foods. I need to get back on track

[VegSeekingFit]

Hi Team Time & Adherence,

Hope everyone is doing well and enjoyed Thanksgiving! We got back this week from our cruise and had a fantastic time. I have noted deviations from the checklist, but it was a good learning experience and honestly not as grim as it may look. I am firmly back to my regular routine (looking for consistent compliance) and feeling positive about the week – with some lessons learned to apply if we cruise this line again in the future.

1 Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.
Mostly. Still about 2/3 of the time. Loving apples for the preload!

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 - more than my normal amount of sodium on vacation. I did have beans and salsa at the salad bar on vacation that I bet were not NSA.

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. I had some slivered almonds on vacation in my oatmeal.

6 Eliminate any added oil.
I think so, but leaving room for a shadow of doubt as I didn’t have full control of the food on vacation. I did request “NO OIL” when ordering and didn’t eat anything where I could detect it.

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. I had some whole wheat bread and raisins when traveling.

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.

10 Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).
Yes. Lots of walking. Thanksgiving Day was beautiful and sunny here and got in a nice 90-minute walk around the neighborhood with my son. Two days of strength training this week. Played less pickleball due to holiday week hours.

Victories, comments, concerns, questions:
Thanks, Mark for posting Jeff’s Thanksgiving message. It is beautiful and seems some of the themes are equally applicable everyday.

Hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Best,
Stephanie 

[Mark Cooper]

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

My replies and the weekly summary will follow.

[Mark Cooper]

Rebecka22 - Awesome work! You continued the good groove that you've established over the past weeks. I'm so happy to know you had a pleasant and successful Thanksgiving. That is no small achievement! Give yourself a pat on the back and keep it up!

wstokes - From your assessment, it definitely seems like you made some progress from last week into this one, right? Avoiding those wrong foods is a big piece of the puzzle, along with eating the right foods when hungry. Below is an excerpt from the orientation, which should offer some clarity for reporting weight changes.

Check-ins and self-assessment reports are on Friday; participants have until noon pacific time (19:00 UTC) on Saturday to post their report for the week. Reports posted outside that window of time won't be included in the weekly summary, or receive replies. Please post your report in the following format -

• Assess the week in regard to your adherence to each of the recommendations from the MWL 10-Point Checklist.
• For each point from the list, please elaborate by discussing what contributed to your success and/or what actions you plan to take to better fulfill that recommendation.
• Feel free to include any personal victories, comments, concerns, or questions
• If you like, you may post a change in weight at the END of your post, but it is not required, nor is it part of the formal template. If you do choose to post a weight change, please do so in pounds gained or lost, and enter it as a whole number without a decimal. If your scale displays weight that includes a decimal place you can follow the general rules for rounding; .1 to.4 is rounded down to the nearest whole number, .5 to .9 is rounded up to the nearest whole number.

The intention here is to share effective practices and propagate them through the group. Likewise, when struggling with a particular behavior, we want to encourage participants to consider how they can overcome obstacles and devise an action plan for addressing challenges. Simply relying on "willpower" alone is often insufficient for success. If you are feeling stuck on a particular point, and you're completely at a loss for what to do, ask the group so that we can help. Our goal is to help you adopt a pattern of behavior that will lead you to achieve your important health goals.

Continue building on the progress you have made, aiming for improved adherence wherever that feels achievable. You can do it!

BambiS - Hang in there! These big, food-centered celebrations like Thanksgiving can present powerful challenges to one's adherence, but the holiday is behind you now. Consider what you might do differently in the future, offer yourself compassion and kindness, and refocus on the recommended pattern of behavior. Do you have a plan or strategy for how you'll get back on track? Do those things you are able to make adherence feel attainable and natural for you. Embrace those behaviors that you know will make you feel great!

VegSeekingFit - I'm so glad to know you had a fantastic time on your cruise, Stephanie! It seems like you did a really good job being prepared, setting and following through with your intentions, and adapting to the "situation on the ground" (or on the sea, I guess ). AND you learned some things to apply in the future, AND, most importantly, you are right back to your regular routine. That seems like a success to me. Happy you were able to appreciate Jeff's Thanksgiving message. Onward!

[Mark Cooper]

With that, we close out the month of November! I will post a new thread for December on Monday, and we will have our next check-in on December 1st! It is hard to believe that we'll be starting a new year before long.

Since some lapses and deviations may have accompanied the holiday celebrations we've just passed, I'm sharing some bits from our past conversations of lapses and recovery.

I would say that highly-palatable, calorie-rich, processed foods, when consumed, nearly always pose a risk for triggering the Pleasure Trap. That is how the Pleasure Trap works, right? That said, something achieved once should be achievable again, no? I believe there is no lapse from which one cannot recover, provided continuing life and agency.

It seems to me, for whatever reason, that oftentimes, when we lapse it can pretty easily be a string of the "wrong" foods "all at once." I think, perhaps, that an encounter with the Pleasure Trap can snowball and cause a repeating cycle. So, the key is to break that pattern as soon as possible - getting back to basics, and making the very next meal consist of the recommended foods is a good way to do that (then do the same with the next meal, and the next). A lapse needn't become a full relapse, but it can get out of control pretty easily in my experience, so a focus on returning to the previously successful form is important. You can do it.

I agree that the most important thing in the wake of a lapse, is to get right back "on plan" as soon as possible, so as to avoid a full-blown relapse. That is one reason I think framing things in terms of self-assessment, learning and adjustment, rather than recrimination, is so important. It allows us to see where obstacles lie, and correct our course around them; "beating ourselves up" often just leads to feeling bad and losing motivation.

I hope the above is of use or help. Do your very best in working toward your important goals, and treat yourself with kindness and compassion.

Wishing you all an amazing week ahead! Take care & be well!