Hi Mark, Wild-goose, Jeff and all MWL Time and Adherence Participants,
I apologize for this extremely late post with my assessment for last Friday, September 16, 2022,
I had a great week!
1. Start each meal with soup and/or salad and/or fruit.
2. Follow the 50/50 plate method for your meals.
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.
4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, meat, eggs, fish, seafood).
5. Eliminate all higher fat plant foods (i.e., nuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, soy).
6. Eliminate any added oil.
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.
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.
10. Avoid being sedentary and aim for at least 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise daily (i.e., brisk walking).
***I have been mulling over Mark's thought-provoking questions since he posted these last Saturday. Wonderful! Thank you, Mark, for deciding to ask these questions and thanks to Wildgoose, Marilyn and Stephanie, for getting everyone started by answering these! Thinking about these topics ihas been an extremely clarifying and encouraging endeavour.
Question A.”What does "success" look like to you?" —Enjoyment: I thoroughly enjoy following the MWL guidelines and reporting weekly. Being part of this forum inspires my success. It is a commitment and an opportunity to be gaining maximum health. Consistently being on this forum each week and taking time to assess and evaluate each week’s decisions keeps me on track.
—Making healthy choices: I don’t buy calorie-rich processed foods anymore. I get fresh produce and fruit delivered and cook potatoes, legumes and grains, keeping our fridge and pantry well-stocked for easy preparation of starch-based meals.
—Improved Health: So many of my health problems have completely healed. Before I changed to this starch-based diet, I had: Costochondritis; Seasonal Allergies; Frequent Sinus Colds and Flu; Nummular Eczema; Insomnia; Trigger Fingers; Arthritis in the hands and knees; Daytime Sleepiness; Indigestion; Heartburn; Acid Reflux; Migraines; a Breast Cyst; Obesity; High Cholesterol and more…. I do not have any prescriptions or use any OTC medications. I continue to have interstitial cystitis, but it's not as problematic for me now, as following this diet has eliminated many of the aggravating foods and beverages and also alleviated the severity of several of the symptoms. I’m hopeful that one day this will be healed, too.
Question B: “What markers, milestones, or other signifiers do you use to view your progress?"1. Measurements: I measure my waist regularly. From 42 inches - currently 28 inches
2. Pant size: From size 22 - currently 8. I keep the size 22 pants and put them on once in a while just for the pleasure of seeing them immediately fall off my hips to the floor. It reminds me of how far I have come on this journey to maximum health. I also have some ‘too small’ pants. They don’t fit yet, but I try them on once in a while, too, just to see how much more weight I ultimately plan to lose.
3. BMI - From 35 - currently 22
4. Weight: From 240 to 145. I plan on losing at least another 5-10 pounds. At first, I weighed myself twice daily or more; then, after 18 months, I weighed myself daily. Now I only weigh myself a couple times a week.
5. Big Lifestyle Changes:
—Entertaining: I have changed my entertaining from having friends over for coffee and decadent desserts to having friends over for a walk and a treat that includes healthy options, like fruit. --Holiday dinners have changed from calorie-rich and wine-paired meals like a prime rib roast, Yorkshire pudding, gravy, broccoli with cheese sauce, and cheesecake with whipped cream for dessert to homemade marinara sauce on wholegrain pasta, steamed vegetables, green salad and fruit kebabs for dessert.
—My cross-country skiing used to emphasize the after-ski socializing at a pub with wine, nachos, steak dinner and pie with ice cream as much as it did on exploring the trails. Now, I focus more on getting the fresh alpine forest air and the adventure of exploring new cross-country trails, rather than focusing on the following hearty dinner of chilli, salad, fruit for dessert and sparkling water in place of wine.
—Travel: Less focus on eating at fine restaurants and more on the discovery of new sights, experiences and activities.
—Alcoholic Beverages: I used to have wine with dinner weekly. I don’t drink alcoholic beverages anymore.
Question C: In what context do you situate your goals, achievements and struggles? The circumstances surrounding my achievements and struggles are very conducive to my success. I’m a recently retired educator, so I no longer have the workplace stress or the staffroom goodies, lunches and after-work socializing with dinners and alcoholic drinks to entice me. Nor do I have the end of work week exhaustion that led to celebrations at a restaurant or take-out meals because 'I deserve a break". I’m at home every day and I have lots of time to plan and prepare meals. II have my husband’s support with this lifestyle - his support and encouragement. He even cooks steel-cut oats every morning, makes delicious marinara sauces, and three-bean chilli. He will put together simple MWL dinners of salad, starch and steamed veggies and greens in under ten minutes! I’m so fortunate to have him. I met him at age 18-- I'm now 67, we've been together for 49 years and hope to be gifted with another 30 years of superior health, and independence. My husband eats starch-based with me, but he embellishes his meals by adding condiments, nuts, peanut butter, avocados, hummus, salad dressing, grated parmesan cheese, dried fruit, croutons, crackers and bread. I don’t have any struggle with avoiding ‘his’ foods. These items are in our fridge, cupboards and pantry and I simply consider them as 'not my food'. These rarely entice me. It’s most challenging for me, and I struggle most, when I'm not at home, visiting family for several days and spending time with friends or travelling. Mainly, this is because I’m not particularly eager to draw attention to myself, and to request what I need, plus I have a solid desire to fit in with the crowd wherever I am, so this trait can make it challenging when I’m at a social event. My best way around this is to take compliant food with me to share. I will offer to bring a couple dishes, or I will offer to cook several of the meals when I visit - this is easy when I'm at one of my my daughters' homes. They love it when I bring food or do the cooking for them! I usually bring my delicious no-oil refried beans, Spanish rice and all the fixings for burritos; pasta and marinara sauce, rice and stirfry veggies/mushrooms plus a big quinoa salad and green salad and no-oil dressings. I also usually bring a couple dozen pre-baked potatoes and lots of fruits and vegetables for snacks, too.
Question D: How does it feel like you are doing at the present moment, and what informs that feeling?I have renewed hope of a healthy future to look forward to! I’m doing well and I am motivated to keep giving this lifestyle my best effort because the results are in: I have lost close to one hundred pounds and I have kept it off for more than a year. Almost all of of my ailments have disappeared. It's been positively life-changing in every possible category and there is no way I would go back to how I was living. Everything is better! I am enjoying much-improved health and good energy. I can keep up with my husband on our walks and quickly get up and down off the floor to play with my grandchildren. I can do all of my favourite things: kayaking, hiking, cross-country skiing, calligraphy, drawing, sewing... My knees are much more flexible now, and I can go up and down stairs and hills easily enough - not yet hiking super-briskly or running up and down these stairs or mountains, but maybe one day, right? That's my hope...my dream. This MWL time and adherence lifestyle and all of you, here, taking precious time out of your busy days to write and submit your stories to this forum gives all of us, a huge gift of hope and inspiration. Thank you!
“Once you start believing in yourself, anything is possible. Once you start believing in yourself, your dreams take shape. The more you believe, the more you achieve.”
― Martina Navratilova
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