JULY 2021 Maintenance Thread

Share your McDougall successes here in order to inspire others.

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JULY 2021 Maintenance Thread

Postby Suey51 » Thu Jul 01, 2021 4:52 am

Welcome to the McDougall Maintenance support group! Let’s join together for support and camaraderie while we strive to maintain our successes.

Many of us have lost weight and/or reached other health goals. We’re ready for that next chapter, maintaining the gains we’ve accomplished.

This group will have Friday check ins, where everyone can touch base. Weigh-ins are optional, and will not be tracked. Please feel free to share your non-scale victories (NSV) as well.

In order to foster group participation, we do ask that only participants post, so please do join! You can join at any time simply by hitting the “post reply” button and saying something along the lines of “I’d like to join.” As they say, the more, the merrier.

Our first check in is Friday 2nd July. For those of you celebrating 4th July this weekend, what are your plans and what's on the menu?
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Re: JULY 2021 Maintenance Thread

Postby Lyndzie » Fri Jul 02, 2021 8:57 am

THANK YOU so much for getting the June and July threads posted, Sue. I've had a whirlwind of a few months. The divorce led to some temporary housing situations without internet access. On the plus side, I just moved into my new house last weekend, and will have internet hooked up as soon as the local cable company can come in and put in the plug (it had been accidentally removed when the house was renovated, oops!).

My eating had been pretty bad, admittedly. My Catholic upbringing requires me to confess my sins here: there were epically terrible food choices. Pizza, candy for breakfast, the whole nine yards. Fortunately, I did not suffer at the scale too terribly considering the extent of my transgressions, and have re-centered myself and am back in the saddle, so to speak. Current weight is 117.2 lbs, and my usual range is 108-112 lbs.

I mention my "fall from grace" also to let anyone else who stumbles across this post to realize that reaching your health goals does not mean life will never throw you a curve ball, and even if you get thrown for a loop, when you get back on your feet, just get back to eating better one day at a time. I started with getting breakfast right, then working on getting my other meals compliant as well. I also started a couch to 5K program to do some self-care, and that has been motivating as well. The point being: you can do it, one meal at a time.

Being in the US, I am celebrating the July 4th weekend visiting my sister in the Souther Tier of New York (state) where she is attending grad school. Today we're heading off the Corning Museum of Glass. I'm hoping to hit up a knit shop. Doing my best to eat on plan while traveling in a group (two sisters, my mom and sister-in-law).

So good to "see" everyone. Thanks again for everyone's support while I went through a tough 6 months.
Lindsey
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My pregnancy journal: Maybe a Baby 2017
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Re: JULY 2021 Maintenance Thread

Postby Ejeff » Sat Jul 03, 2021 8:57 am

Lindsey, I’ve been thinking about you! So glad you are into your new house and getting back on track. You are so right life will always throw some curveballs, but we can all get back to taking care of our health. Thanks for always sharing your stories with us so we can learn. Enjoy your girls getaway.

I don’t have much to report this week. We are now through the heatwave. It’s not typical for us to have +35 for more than a day or two, but this one lasted about 10 days. I’m still sticking to my same daily routines, pickleball, weights, biking and walking. Not so much walking this week.

I made a quick pot of red lentil soup in the instant pot. Sautéed the onion, garlic and celery then added the lentils, kale, zucchini, broth and spices. So quick and easy. I really like having something like this at all times in the fridge so I can eat it anytime I feel hungry. Other than that not doing too much cooking as I have a freezer stash. Since I’ve been trying to include more beans I just dump them in a plate and sprinkle my flax seed on it. Eat it cold or room temperature. It’s a tasty quick start to my meal when I get home and am really hungry to get eating.

I’ve also been making a banana oat cookie/pancake in the air fryer. I just mash the banana with about 1/2 cup oats and some cinnamon, chai, or pumpkin pie spice. Let it sit for about 10 minutes and then cook in airfyer for about 15 minutes on a piece of parchment paper. Lots of spice makes it a real treat. Probably easier to just eat some oatmeal, but sometimes I just want more texture.

Have a good week everyone.
Erin
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Re: JULY 2021 Maintenance Thread

Postby Suey51 » Sat Jul 03, 2021 10:25 am

You're so welcome Lindsey.

Thank you for being so honest about your 'fall from grace'. Life does throw us curve balls that can cause disruption in our normal habits. Well done for getting your eating back on track and starting the C25K. Let us know how it goes!

Wishing you much happiness in your new home and hope you have a great weekend x
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Re: JULY 2021 Maintenance Thread

Postby CindyD » Sun Jul 04, 2021 8:28 pm

Hi Lyndzie, I hope the moving wasn't too stressful. Couch to 5k sounds great! I've never done much running. I would feel guilty leaving the dogs at home lol. We walk twice or recently sometimes three times a day. They can be pretty slow, though. Not old just need to pee on everything that is more than 2 inches tall. :D

Hi Ejeff! I never liked celery so I haven't added it to anything since I switched over. Maybe it's time I tried it again, I bet it would taste different. I always liked the softer inside parts but never really liked to add it to salad or soup. I think I will get some. The banana oat cookie sounds great! I don't have any air fryer, but I have been making more banana bread. most to give away, it's been a hit and nobody I know is vegan! So that's nice. In fact, I made it "wrong" by accident, leaving out the applesauce for one batch, and it was still pretty great. Lots of vegan chocolate chips though. And I've probably eaten a bit more than I should. But considering the ingredients I don't really feel too bad about it. I do have to start using the resistance bands I got recently.

Hi Suey! I have no plans for the holiday (today), except trying to comfort my two small dogs who do not love the fireworks. I am afraid that's true for a lot of dogs. But they should be ok tomorrow. I made another batch of garbanzo beans in the Instant Pot. No soak, just high pressure 40 minutes and perfectly done. I really have no excuse not to have some made and available all the time.

I've had a rough time getting any painting done. Not sleeping so great. But this long weekend should help. And I did start painting another cow. I will try to put up a blog post by next week's post.

Aside from the banana bread I've been eating oats, broccoli twice a day (me and the dogs too), big salads and I recently got some more fresh mango salsa, my new favorite thing. A lot of trouble to make imo, but from the fresh section of the grocery store it's so good. I have frozen rice from Trader Joe's so I can just heat up some black beans and rice and pour heaps of mango salsa on and it is pretty great. Highly recommend. :)
Last edited by CindyD on Mon Jul 05, 2021 7:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: JULY 2021 Maintenance Thread

Postby CindyD » Sun Jul 04, 2021 8:30 pm

I just realized in reading my post I should totally be making black beans in the Instant Pot also. I made some once but keep forgetting to buy more beans. :)
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Re: JULY 2021 Maintenance Thread

Postby SunshineDay » Mon Jul 05, 2021 3:22 pm

I'd like to join!

After an initial loss of about 60-65 pounds several years ago, I had found myself at a very long-standing plateau, with maybe about 25 more pounds to go. A little frustrating at times to be "stuck", but at least for well over a year I held steady. Until somehow, I wasn't. Some backsliding apparently sneaked up on me (likely in the form of too many dates, avocado, tofu, tahini and flour products), because about a month ago I found myself at nearly a 10 pound regain from my plateau weight. NOPE, THAT IS NOT HAPPENING!!!!! I quickly battened down the hatches, and am glad to report that today I am very close to being back to my previous plateau weight. As such, while I will be actively striving towards experiencing a new low on the scale (requiring nth degree, black-belt, no-holds-barred MWL on my part), I'm also stead-fastedly refusing to lose any ground in my Maintenance. I can't. I wont!
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Re: JULY 2021 Maintenance Thread

Postby Ejeff » Tue Jul 06, 2021 6:53 am

Welcome SunshineDay, love that name! Good for you in battening down the hatches and quickly moving to reverse the gain. I feel the same way, once in maintenance everyone should have their line in the sand weight (or other marker they use such as various body measurements). Without some way to monitor where you are those 10 pounds can easily become 15 or 20.

I know generally during weight loss this program recommends weekly weighing. I have always weighed myself weekly and recorded it. I like to be able to see the history. I plan to continue this habit forever. I’m not sure if that’s what Jeff Novick and John and Mary do. Perhaps they have reached a point where they don’t need the scale at all.

Good luck in hitting your new lows!

Erin
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Re: JULY 2021 Maintenance Thread

Postby JeffN » Tue Jul 06, 2021 9:03 am

Ejeff wrote:I have always weighed myself weekly and recorded it. I like to be able to see the history. I plan to continue this habit forever. I’m not sure if that’s what Jeff Novick and John and Mary do. Perhaps they have reached a point where they don’t need the scale at all.


Here is what I said in the original post on weighing, which contains much more info than the article.

https://www.drmcdougallforums.com/viewt ... 22&t=57741

JeffN wrote:Me? I am a 6th Degree Black Belt Scale Monkey and proud of it. :)

I weigh myself every day and have for decades, While my weight has fluctuated little over the years, I like to keep an eye on it and I like to track things.

However, if there is any day-to-day or week-to-week fluctuations, I know why and I don’t let it impact my mental or psychological state or let it decide whether I will have a good day or not.


:)

Jeff
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Re: JULY 2021 Maintenance Thread

Postby Ejeff » Wed Jul 07, 2021 6:51 am

Thanks Jeff, now that you reminded me of that very informative post I do recall you saying you were a scale monkey lol.

I trust your advice and will keep with my weekly weigh in and tracking. :-D

Erin
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Re: JULY 2021 Maintenance Thread

Postby Lyndzie » Thu Jul 08, 2021 8:44 pm

Hi everyone!

I am still typing everything in my phone, so forgive me for not writing individual messages at this time.

To add my two cents to Jeff’s very thorough post, I use Cronometer to track my weight. It is very handy because it doesn’t lie or misremember the numbers, and can be adjusted for period of time. With the tumultuous year I’ve had, it was good to look back and see that things didn’t get too out of control, just farther than I’d like, and I’m already on my way to having “hot girl summer” just in time to pull out my sweaters.

Looking forward to seeing everyone’s updates!
Lindsey
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Re: JULY 2021 Maintenance Thread

Postby Suey51 » Fri Jul 09, 2021 3:04 am

Erin – glad you are through the heatwave. I agree about sometimes wanting more texture than oatmeal or porridge. I’ll give the banana oat cookie/pancake a go in a low oven as we don’t have an air dryer. Yes it would be such fun to meet up. We’re planning to visit Canada at some point so I’ll let you know as and when any plans are coming together! How did it go in the Italian restaurant?

CindyD – ah of course; I wasn’t thinking about fireworks! Hope the dogs weren’t too upset by the noise I recently bought some dried black beans so going to give those a try in the slow cooker next! How was the lunch with your co-workers? Hope this week’s been better sleep-wise. Ooh, mango salsa sounds good, I’ll have a look for a recipe.

SunshineDay – welcome! I also love your name. Congratulations on your overall weight loss, for tackling the recent gain and being very close to your plateau weight. I have an image of you in a karate kid style outfit as you aim for a new low while defending the losses you’ve already made! Its great to have you join the group and I look forward to hearing more.

Jeff – thanks for sharing that very helpful and comprehensive post on weighing. I weigh myself daily but mostly pay attention to the rolling 7 day average number. I track in a spreadsheet and show it in a nice colourful graph and also in the MyFitnessPal app.

Lindsey – It’s good that you were able to put the gain in perspective. Here’s to a hot girl summer!

It’s been an interesting week, full of learning opportunities! :eek: Last Sunday we had a lunchtime family BBQ/gathering of 16 people with all sorts of off-program foods available. What with the preparations/clearing up, showery weather, worrying about adhering to current Covid restrictions, biting my tongue when health/diet came up in the conversation and not being used to mixing with that number of people for the last 18 months, I felt overwhelmed and exhausted by the time they’d gone. In the evening, I hoovered up some of the off-program leftovers. It’s a behaviour I’m aware of from the past, and I realised that I still have to be careful about the combination of feeling tired and overwhelmed and being surrounded for a long period with off-program foods as its easy for me to end up eating off-program.

I then spent a couple of days staying with a friend who recently moved from our town to another about 2 hours away. We’ve never stayed in the same house together before so it was interesting to observe her eating habits. She’s close to being vegetarian, eats fairly small portions and seems able to eat moderately on very rich foods. I found myself eating more mindfully and stopping eating when 80% full. Recently I’ve noticed a tendency to overeat and graze, particularly in the late afternoons/evenings, so this was a useful experience.

This morning I got very confused after deciding to microwave some medium oatmeal (I think it’s similar US steel cut oats) rather than make my usual three-four portion batch of banana porridge with porridge oats in a saucepan. I used a one third cup size measure which I thought would be about right for one portion. However, when I checked on my UK scales it weighed 100 grams (4 ounces) so I compared with a one third cup of rolled porridge oats which only weighed about 50 grams (2 ounces). My scales are old-fashioned non-digital ones so not very accurate but it did remind that cup measures are about volume rather than weight! :lol:

Best wishes, Sue x
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Re: JULY 2021 Maintenance Thread

Postby Ejeff » Sat Jul 10, 2021 12:48 pm

Sue, glad you had an interesting week and were able to learn some things. It always feels good to learn and improve. Very nice if you make it to Canada one day. Well I would say the restaurant was a fail. Fail in that I ended up ordering a pasta dish that had oil and a bit of coconut cheese whatever that is lol. On the plus side I ordered a peppermint tea to drink and only ate half the dish. So could have been better with a salad, but could have been worse. When I got home I ate more food, which I probably didn’t need. But it was on plan food so not terrible. Still working on stopping eating when full.

Otherwise, had a great week really. Made another batch of red lentil stew which I eat most days. Abstaining from nuts, seeds, and nut butters for the last couple weeks is already making a difference in weight and fat%. So it’s a good experiment so far. Today peppers were on sale so I’m air frying 12 to 16 and freezing them to add to my salad bowls or pasta. Also made a pan of granola bars which I will cut into small squares and freeze. I am finding I need a bit of food when playing Pickleball in this heat. A banana or orange would be good also. We are continuing with nice warm temperatures for the next 10 days.

We had a family bowling night which was fun. Hadn’t bowled in a long time. We all were pretty bad bowlers, but was nice to hang out and have some laughs together.

Wishing everyone a good week!
Erin
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Re: JULY 2021 Maintenance Thread

Postby CindyD » Sun Jul 11, 2021 7:34 am

Suey, how did the black beans go? I hope to pick up a bag of those today to make an Instant Pot batch. I am definitely in the eat-at-night camp. It's usually fruit, though sometimes dried fruit which is less ideal. But I know I don't need it. What I do need is to drink more water, for all kinds of great reasons!

Erin, I've been thinking about making my own granola, but I'm afraid I would not eat it in small squares! So I may not be ready for that yet. I do need to make some red lentil stew, though. The red ones are my favorite. Probably will do that today, with lots of onions, red cabbage, garlic and curry spices.

SunshineDay, hello! Nice work on the maintenance goals. I found that avoiding extra salt and flavor enhancers like nutritional yeast helped me avoid passive overeating while doing the MWL, in case that is a tip that might help. I do still use both sometimes, but not as much as when I started this whole thing. I'm only in it a year at this point though. :)

So I've got tickets to Florida on the 15th mostly to visit my mom, but her nursing home is now on lockdown because one of the staff tested positive for Covid. Ugh! I won't know until Monday if I'll even be able to visit, so that really throws a wrench in things. Nothing I can do about it though, and I don't have any non-compliant foods around so that's good. We'll just have to see how things go.
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Re: JULY 2021 Maintenance Thread

Postby Suey51 » Fri Jul 16, 2021 2:13 am

Erin – sorry to hear that the restaurant was a fail. But, as you say it could have been worse. Were you perhaps still hungry as you only ate half the restaurant meal? Well done on abstaining from nuts etc for a couple of weeks :-) It’s a great idea to freeze the granola bars. A family bowling night sounds fun!

CindyD – thanks for asking, the black beans cooked really well in the slow cooker. They seemed to cook more quickly than the chick peas but that may be because I gave a soak overnight rather than a quick soak in boiling water… Have you come up with any ways to remember to drink more water? I also need to drink more! Were you able to get to Florida this week?

This week I gained a deeper insight into one of the reasons for my off-track eating. I’ve become aware of how my emotions can sometimes feel difficult to cope with and I attempt to soothe myself with whatever rich food is in the house at the time. I had a good chat with my husband about it while we were out walking yesterday and we discussed a couple of ways to tackle it. First trying to deal with the causes by recognising which situations lead to the difficult emotions and finding different ways to deal with them. Second, to develop more healthy techniques to help me cope or relax when I do have difficult emotions. It sounds clear and simple when I write it down but I think these patterns and beahviours stem from my childhood so are well-established. Apologies if I’ve shared this here before (I probably have!) but it’s becoming much clearer to me now as I no longer drink alcohol to relax in the evenings. I am starting to understand what I need to work on so that feels like progress. :-D

Inspired by the slow cooker success with cooking dried beans, I tried making a batch of banana porridge in it last night, instead of on the stove top. It worked really well and means it’s all ready for microwaving this morning! We picked the first cavolo nero (dinosaur kale) and potatoes from our allotment yesterday. To celebrate I made a fancy dinner of ‘potatoes two ways’ with cavolo nero and spring greens and a little veggie gravy. (The two ways were baked in the oven and boiled – haha!) The potatoes were a salad variety called Charlotte, with a lovely yellow waxy texture and a great flavour. We also picked rhubarb, raspberries and blackcurrants and made a fruit compote.

Wishing you all a great weekend, Sue x
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