Dr. McDougall's Online Discussion Board

I have a question. I just read through Jeff's thread on Intermittent Fasting/Time Restricted Eating. I am a bit confused by all of the studies posted. Is it recommended to incorporate IF/TRE with MWL or not? I am especially interested on the effects of IF/TRE on T2 diabetes reversal and improved insulin sensitivity. If it is recommended, or allowed here, what IF/TRE schedule is most effective? 16:8, daily or 5:2 weekly (2 non-consecutive days of fasting), or would some form of ADF (alternate day fasting) be advisable? Thanks for the clarification.

kirstykay wrote:I have a question. I just read through Jeff's thread on Intermittent Fasting/Time Restricted Eating. I am a bit confused by all of the studies posted. Is it recommended to incorporate IF/TRE with MWL or not? I am especially interested on the effects of IF/TRE on T2 diabetes reversal and improved insulin sensitivity. If it is recommended, or allowed here, what IF/TRE schedule is most effective? 16:8, daily or 5:2 weekly (2 non-consecutive days of fasting), or would some form of ADF (alternate day fasting) be advisable? Thanks for the clarification.

Jeff tackles this question in this post. I recommend reading through that whole thread, but the short answer is below.

JeffN wrote:This may be one of the most common questions we get during our Q&A at our events. It was one of the top questions at the past 3-Day Weekend.

Follow the regular program or the MWL as is, eating when hungry of the recommend foods until comfortably full and not eating when not hungry.

IF violates that basic principle.

Thanks, Mark. I appreciate the quick, straightforward response. That clears it up for me.

kirstykay wrote:Thanks, Mark. I appreciate the quick, straightforward response. That clears it up for me.

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 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

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, concerns, questions good week, nothing eventful

Another great week. I have a smart scale that says I’m gaining muscle. I guess that’s a good thing, but doesn’t help the scale numbers. I’m still slowly loosing inches, my mom noticed.

I’m looking forward to making some St. Patrick’s day recipes that I received in my email from Dr. McDougall.

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). 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 ate out one night for dinner and that night also had some Girl Scout cookies. The rest of the week and even that day I stayed on track though. I feel like I am getting much better at getting right back on track at least which is a big improvement over last year when it would be a whole week of no’s. I really appreciate this group and all the support and expertise. I hope everyone has a great week.

Hi MWL team!


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 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

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

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. YES

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

9) Follow these principles, eating whenever you are hungry until you are comfortably full. Don't starve yourself and don't stuff yourself. YES

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

Victories, comments, concerns, questions:

It was a bit better than last week. There was some oil in one food. In response to the questions in last week’s reply, I think the thing that finally clicked was truly believing that the best thing for my family was for me to ‘put on my own oxygen mask first’. I’m learning to take time to rest and to plan and prepare nourishing food for myself. It doesn’t come naturally. Onward!

Thank you for the quotes you posted, Mark! They helped a lot.

Wishing everyone a wonderful and healthy week!

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 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, reduced salt, eliminated sugars.

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. 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’m pretty happy with how this week went. I did have one unfortunate encounter with a bag of peanuts, but I got those out of the house along with some other problem foods and since then it’s been clear sailing. I appreciate having the checklist as a reminder, especially to preload my meals and to exercise every day. Those are the ones I tend to overlook the most.

Hello, friends!! I hope you all had a healthy week.

1.Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit. FOR ME Breakfast always includes spinach, and other meals include soup or salad, but then that soup or salad usually becomes the meal.
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. 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). NO, I have continued to eat some tofu and soy milk.
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 (except one vegan cookie)
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.

Positives for me this week March 8 – March 15
Eating the same breakfast each day: oats, flax seed meal, blueberries, spinach, banana, garbanzo beans
I made a giant pot of vegetable soup with lentils to eat before meals, but then I am too full to eat more than the soup right then. An hour later I’ll eat a mixture of rice, black beans, and veggies with salsa, or rice, beans and salad.
I have frozen cherries and tangerines and apples for snacks.
Because I live in a house with my husband, adult son and two grandchildrn, there are a number of food items around that are not on my plan. My son and his children are vegan, but they have a lot of non-healthy snacks around, as well as nuts and avocados, cookies, crackers, bread, etc. My husband doesn't eat meat, but he does eat dairy. So, I feel I have done quite well this week focusing on the 10 points above and only got sidetracked one time to eat a vegan cookie from Trader Joe's. I haven't weighed myself, but I'm feeling a little smaller.
I really appreciate everyone's comments and am aiming to stay on track with the best health possible as my goal.
Have a good week, everyone. I look forward to reading your comments for this week. Sarabee

1) Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit. YES
This was the thing I resisted most in the past, but I made a big pot of non-starchy vegetable soup and enjoyed eating this before lunches and dinners. Morning was fruit. It's a relief to not feel like I HAVE to eat huge salads. I really appreciated Jeff's article on this. I think this is going to make a big difference for 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 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. 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). MOSTLY. Some Tofu in a stir-fry

6) Eliminate any added oil.MOSTLY. One restaurant meal this week.

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. Some Bread.

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. Thanks for clearing up my question about intermittent fasting. I have it settled now and can embrace this WOE without that nagging in the back of my mind.

10) Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).YES. Lots more walking this week and got to my BodyPump class at the gym 3 times as planned.

Overall, it was a good week. I feel like I'm making progress. I also know where I can improve. The checklist keeps me honest. I fill it out in my journal each day, and it really helps. Thanks for all you do to help us.

MWL Post for week ending 3/15/25
Hello everyone. This is the last Saturday of winter! (In the US).

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,)
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- I find myself stopping when I’m full but coming back for another light meal sometimes in the evening. Filling up first with either fruit, soup, or finger salad and then a 50/50 plate is very satisfying and I’m stopping because I’m full. Is it normal to want to eat at 11 pm again? Should I be ignoring that hunger or ok to eat a compliant small meal? I don’t want to feed the habit of eating late at night. Like Jeff, I find fewer meals more manageable.


10) Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).
Yes. Did a small amount of strength training every day this week too.
Today, a lady at the Y had this teeny little bike she folded up and put in the back of the class. It was the size of a tote bag. When she took it outside and unfolded it, I was amazed. It was a full size bike. Plus it could be adjusted to a perfect height for short people like me. I’ve got to look into that. It was a Bromton folding bicycle from England.

11)Posting before the close of the week
Yes.

Victories, Questions, Comments: a good week. Despite losing an hour of sleep initially, I found having more light at the end of a busy day to be very uplifting and energizing this week. I was motivated to exercise much more and eat very well. I wish I could bottle and patent it!!!

Have a wonderful MWL week everyone.

Hi Team Time & Adherence,

1 Start each meal with a soup and/or salad and/or fruit.
About 50% 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 dessert.
Yes. Had a couple of days pressed for time this week making a super easy meal for dinner helped!
Here are a couple:
Romaine, pear and potatoes
Carrots, apple, and Dr. McD split Pea soup with brown rice

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.
Continuing to work on being mindful to stop eating at satiation. I did ok this week. I think 1 meal I ate over that mark.

10 Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).
Yes – 6/7. Same old – walking, strength training, as much pickleball as I can!

Victories, comments, concerns, questions:
Artista – thank you for nice comment last week!

Mark – thank you for making this an incredible place to be!

Hope that everyone enjoys the week!

Best,
Stephanie

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

My replies and the weekly summary will follow.

BambiS - Excellent progress! I think gaining muscle seems like a fantastic non-scale victory! Please let us know how you enjoy your adherent recipes for St. Patrick's day. Carry on!

Rebecka22 - Great efforts! I imagine that feeling of being so able to get right back on track after a single, isolated lapse, and not be thrown for a loop signifies a pretty major milestone, yes? It certainly seems like meaningful progress in terms of self-efficacy and intentional action to me. How does it feel to look back over all the progress you've made? Keep doing your best!

Starflower - Making each week a bit better than the last is how progress is made, right?

Starflower wrote:I think the thing that finally clicked was truly believing that the best thing for my family was for me to ‘put on my own oxygen mask first’.

That seems like a powerful realization.

Starflower wrote:I’m learning to take time to rest and to plan and prepare nourishing food for myself. It doesn’t come naturally.

I think you are on target in observing that this is a behavior that needs to be learned, and for many people it might not come naturally or feel "normal" at first; I think that may be particularly true for those who inhabit the role of "caregiver," or those to whom social convention applies that role. I'm happy you found the quotes to be of help. Have an amazing week!

Artista - I can see why you would be happy with the way this week went, Nancy; it seems like a really solid effort to me! Arranging and curating the environment to support your efforts can feel so beneficial, right? I think the checklist is such a great tool for keeping us mindful of our pattern of behavior and for spurring our actions. I know for me that solid structure provided invaluable guidance. Full speed ahead!

sarabee - Very well done! Doing so well in maintaining your adherence in an environment with ample opportunity to deviate seems like a major achievement! Depending on the volume of food one feels comfortable and accustomed to consuming, a substantial preload could easily "crowd out" the main meal, right? I think it is fine to experiment with reducing the volume of the preload, or perhaps even omitting it to see if that feels more comfortable. We definitely don't want to be in the situation of not consuming and adequate amount of adherent starches. Something else you could try would be a small serving of a lighter soup made with just non-starchy vegetables, to see if that makes any difference. We figure these things out largely via trial and error. Aiming for health seems like a very worthy goal. Continue tracking that target!

kirstykay - I think you're definitely making progress, Kirsty! I'm delighted to know you were enjoying your veggie soup this week, and really glad that your understanding of the recommendations feels "settled" and unburdened by nagging questions or doubts. Using the checklist as part of a daily journal can be such a powerful tool; it certainly was for me. I feel like your observations in that regard are spot-on, it doesn't just motivate and inform the choices we make, but ALSO shows us where our best opportunities for progress, learning, and improvement are located. Keep at it!

Gimmelean - Goodbye winter! It certainly does look like you made this a very good week for adherence to the recommended pattern of behavior!

Gimmelean wrote:Should I be ignoring that hunger or ok to eat a compliant small meal?

I think it is exactly right to eat the recommended foods whenever you feel hungry. You might also experiment with reducing the volume of preload and/or increasing the volume of starch for (what you would want to be) your last meal of the day, to see if that offers more lasting satiety. But definitely eat of the recommended foods when you are hungry. That folding bicycle sounds really cool! The "lost hour" had me dragging for a bit, but it has been SO nice having more daylight in the evening. Our weather here has been BEAUTIFUL this week! Onward!

VegSeekingFit - Awesome adherence and efforts, Stephanie! And thank you for sharing those "super easy" meal ideas; that is a really useful concept that others might apply. Have an incredible week!

Another week done! I applaud all who are participating! You are doing yourselves proud!

This past week, it has finally felt like winter is fading away. I've been loving the sunshine, chirping birds, and lovely weather!

Moving on this week to the third point from the MWL 10-Point Checklist, I'm sharing some related and informative threads and posts below.

Sodium Levels - Use of Salt

Salt - Low-S-S vs No-S-S

Sugar and sugar subs

Honey, Agave, Stevia, Sugar, Etc.

The key point to remember is:

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

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