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nayasmom wrote:Hi OonaOwl, I have been following the McDougall diet parameters for about a month now and I haven't moved past the initial 3 lb weight loss. Once a week I allow myself a splurge meal, which is usually a pizza with no sauce, just veggies on it, but yesterday I had a sandwich with lite avocado and veggies, with slices of dill pickle. I had the salad bar as well, and for want of a suitable dressing used the bean salad mix (full of sugar, bleah) and a tiny amount of olive oil with vinegar.
All day today I've had a rumbly in my tumbly, as Pooh would say.
Anyway, you can rationalize the daily beer, but I suspect if you continue with the daily indulgence, you'll have a hard time losing weight. You very well could be "metabolically efficient" like me.
Try a week without the beer, and see if there's a difference in the weight loss. For myself, everything has been removed from my list of acceptable food that's processed (save for the weekly splurge meal), and too high in fat. Quinoa has 3g fat per serving, so I have to be very judicious on using quinoa, like maybe once a week only, or one serving spread out over several days.
I'm also still experiencing the daily tiredness that I used to have from eating way too much fruit, so I have to consider that apples are not appropriate for me as a fruit. I'm going to buy grapes today and see if I can use that for my daily fruit. If not... there's pears, bananas, mangoes, pineapple... Something is bound to work for me!
Just keep tweaking your diet to find out what's working and what's holding you back.
Robyn
PS I do enjoy reading your journal!!
nayasmom wrote:Hi, OonaOwl,
I believe it's the sugars in fruit that makes me tired. Last year I was essentially vegan but was experiencing terrible exhaustion in the afternoons. If I was on call I HAD to lie down for a nap in case I got called in at night, and if I was called in at night I had to come in late next morning. No amount of sleep was ever enough. I had a tough time training for the Redrun in Virginia City because when it was time to go do a training run, I was SO tired I fought going. And my runs were tired, heavy, and uninspiring. I got through it and even finished the Redrun in a good time (for me), but ... pretty much stopped running right after.
Then I discovered that my cholesterol had gone up, and my triglycerides had risen 100 pts since 2010, to 339 mg/dl. Ouch! So I researched cause and effect, and came up with the massive amounts of fruit I'd been consuming every day. We're talking roughly 5~6 servings per day, with chopped nuts, coconut, flax seed, and maraschino cherries mixed in. Once I learned what was driving my triglycerides up, I immediately cut waaaay back on fruit, and the exhaustion disappeared.
When I started the McDougall diet Jan. 20, I put away the nuts, coconut, maraschino cherries, and got off the boca burgers, breads, almond butter, etc. The molasses and honey and sugar are all stashed away.
I never liked oatmeal but ate it anyway because it's "good for me". When I tried the multi-whole grain hot cereal, holy chorizo that was like waking up from a bad dream, so no more of that nasty oatmeal for me!! I find I don't need sweetener in it like I needed in the oatmeal.
Anyway, small changes like that have led to major changes in my daily diet, but one thing I hung on to was an apple a day. Now, I'm never exhausted, but when I sit down my eyes get very heavy and sleepy and it doesn't matter time of day or what I'm doing while I'm sitting. I eat a wide variety of foods day to day, so I wasn't suspecting the potatoes, rices, veggies, etc. I pinpointed the apple because of its sugar content - my guess only - and the fact that apples are the one constant food every day.
Now I'm trying grapes. I had a serving of them a little while ago, so tomorrow I'll try to gauge my sense of energy overall. I'll work my way through the fruits that I enjoy to see if I can eat a serving a day and not pay for it the next day in sleepiness.
Now, when I started the McDougall diet, I also entered a marathon in August, and began training for it. I've increased my mileage week to week, and you'd think I'd be losing actual pounds as a result... and that has SO not happened!!
I would love to not eliminate my splurge meal once a week, so I can tweak that as well to stay within my parameters while still indulging, meaning it will be pizza once a week and that's it.
It may simply need perseverence for me, and for you as well. I'm not losing hope or getting discouraged; I have benefitted from this change of diet in other ways that are wonderful so I am capitalizing on those benefits rather than wondering after lack of weight loss. For now, anyway.
Take care!
Robyn
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