Interesting article by Dr. McDougall in December's newsletter called Fat Vegan. It's worth a read.

It does seem that Dr. McDougall is eliminating just about ALL prepared foods from his allowable foods list. Boca Burgers have been allowed since the days of his The McDougall Plan book, and now they're taboo. He's now against all mock meats, including seitan. Other foods that were allowed before and are now gone are soy cheeses and Gimme Lean. In previous articles he mentioned how tofu shouldn't be eaten, either, yet Mary McDougall still writes recipes using it. Confusing.

Merry Christmas

Sad, Confused, Wheezy, and Soon to Be Hungry

So depressing to see the sale go up again, but what did I expect after a week-long binge.

And why did I binge? Because it was vacation and the foods I ate were "forbidden" ones - mostly bakery donuts. I ate my regular breakfast and lunch most days and enjoyed a few days of burgers with the boys, and most of those I ate low-fat veggie burgers. We ate take-out just once — Chinese food, and I chose one of the all-vegetable dishes from the "healthy" menu — and because we didn't hit any mall or movie theater during the week there were no extra snacks. We didn't even do a big traditional meal for Thanksgiving but had burgers with the holiday side dishes (stuffing & cranberries, and my snack later that night was a bowl of Brussel sprouts).

My official gain for the vacation is only 3 1/2 pounds. I used to gain or lose that in one night, depending on how salty the food was that I ate the night before, so why am I so obsessed over it this time? Is it because I really enjoyed eating the same foods as my family for a change? That I ate those treats without any thought of guilt and now it's all come crashing down on me?

Maybe I really should make an effort to re-read the Overcoming Overeating book as the group is doing on Friends of Overcoming Overeating. I really need to absorb the message again.

And I really should toss out that scale!

I think part of my problem is the fact that I've been a bit short of breath and phlegmy from my asthma the past few days. I stopped taking my Singulair at the start of vacation in an effort to see if that medication was the cause of my fatigue, since my doctor says it can't be from my thyroid and fatigue is one of the side effects. I also really didn't get much exercise in this vacation. Usually we're roaming miles through malls or the streets of Manhattan, but this time we had a lot of little pissy things to do closer to home and no money to spend in malls. I really can't do one of my exercise videos while my husband is asleep just a few feet away on the other side of the wall, so that could be a reason for the breathing problem, too. And the weather. We had some rain outside, dry heat inside, and both bother my asthma. So why am I blaming this on my weight?

So this morning I took my Singulair first thing in the morning and already did my Mindful Movements video. I'll be grabbing my oatmeal breakfast as soon as I finish this post, will have my usual salad, rice & veggies for lunch, and dinner is Greeny Beany Soup with a loaf of some sort of whole-grain bread. Even last night I had my traditional banana as an after-dinner snack, but if I feel like some banana bread, I have some slices in the freezer, and I'll eat one without guilt.There's really no way that I want to throw myself back on the dieting merry-go-round. I might not lose much weight, but I'll have my sanity. Well, at least getting a little closer to finding it, that is.

Then again, I do have a doctor's appointment soon, and if I weigh more than the last visit I'll never hear the end of it. Maybe that banana bread better stay in the freezer.

Damn Donuts! And Day 30 of 30

I stepped on the sale yesterday. I didn't want to do it, especially not when fully dressed and after a 24 ounce glass of water, 12 ounce mug of coffee and cup of oatmeal plus fruit breakfast, but it was calling me. When my husband went into the bathroom I gently removed the item of torture and placed in on the flat kitchen floor, took in a deep breath, and stepped on.

It reads 5 pounds heavier than it did at 5 in the morning on November 21st.

I'll get an official reading tomorrow morning at 5am, after my husband goes back to work. I'm certain of a gain - one doesn't share in a few dozen donuts and fudge brownies over a ten day period, plus a few very salty meals (like Chinese food, even though it was low fat and vegan) and not suffer the consequences - but I'm sure it won't be a five pound gain.

I put the sale back into its lair under the bed and promised myself to stick to strict McDougall MWLP until I lose not just those 5 but an additional 130 pounds. We were on our own for dinner again so I made a pot of Broccoli Cheese soup from a post on the McDougall forums earlier this year, and Rainbow Skillet Medley, a MWLP recipe.

Three hours later my husband comes into the room with the dregs of the donuts and insists we finish them off. Like a good little wife I did as he requested. At least those things are now GONE and even he realizes we really can't handle them any more at our age. If either of us feels like something sweet, more than just a piece of fruit, it's going to be made from a McDougall-legal recipe.

Here's to a healthier December!

Richard Simmons and Anorexia

Every now and then, in his Message of the Day, Richard Simmons reminds people how he was anorexic in his younger days and would go on fasts and even purge. Every now and again he also tells people that even though he lost his weight the unhealthy way, we shouldn't follow his example, only his current food and exercise plans. He eats 1600 calories and exercises a minimum of an hour a day of cardio, plus 3 days a week weight training and possibly his "day of rest" he walks an hour.

People who follow his food and exercise plans do lose weight, but Richard has also mentioned a number of times that he meets people a year or more later than many have regained all their weight because they no longer follow his plans. Could it be because according to his charts, an average-height woman at her goal weight should only be eating 1200 calories a day, a level about 200 calories below what the World Health Organization says people around the world should be eating for optimal health? And when a body's intake is consistently below it's needs it slows the metabolism down and retains even more of those calories put into it, so when a person who has been on a restricted food plan finally snaps and has a binge (fully explained in the Overcoming Overeating book) their body gains more weight than if they had just eaten normally all along.

Dr. McDougall, on the other hand, reminds us in his MWLP book and lectures that the body is a magnificent machine that knows what it needs. We don't over-breathe, he says, and if we only ate the foods he deems safe we can't over-eat, either, and that by eating only the allowable foods our bodies will naturally go to their correct weight. Well, many of us have proven otherwise and not lost and have even gained weight eating only MWLP-legal foods, and no, we haven's let things slip in, like oil, higher fat foods, or flour products. Not even the couscous (which was added as as editing mistake) or tortillas (which he allows at the live-in program), ONLY foods listed in the MWLP book. For some of us, we just ate too many calories; for others, once they switched jobs and were no longer active for 12 hours a day, the weight first stopped coming off then started coming back on. Dr. McDougall told us we should eat less starch and more green/yellow vegetables. Gee, then it's more Eat to Live than the starch-based McDougall program, isn't it? And for those of us who still continued to gain, he recommended the Rice Diet - the original one, as followed at the Rice House in Durham, NC to this day, that is 600 - 800 calories of only 1 serving of starch (3 ADA exchanges) and 3 fruit exchanges for all three meals a day. Anyone can lose weight for a while at that calorie level, but eventually metabolisms slow down enough that people have even gained while still eating 800 calories and exercising an hour each day - whey they had the energy to, that is.

So what's the point of this post? No idea, except to bemoan once again how fat I am and the depressing reminders that everything I've done to lose this bulk has failed, from the attempts of my first doctors who had my mom water down my formula when I was a newborn infant to my current physician who refuses to give me enough thyroid hormone replacement to keep my TSH in the normal reference range, insist I restrict myself to 1000 calories and do a minimum of 60 to 90 minutes a day of cardio exercise, then gets angry at me when I can't eat that little and can't exercise that much without making myself ill and come into his office showing a gain instead of a loss. I'm due to go back to him again now for an official weight loss check-up visit (I've seen in in-between for other problems). He already knows that I haven't lost any weight since the last official visit. He knows I still feel like crap from my hypothyroid. He already knows I've been in pain and unable to exercise as much as he wants. So what's the point of even going?

And what do I do next? Do I do again what I did before the last weight loss check-up and starve myself by eating half the amount of oatmeal at breakfast and only salad and soup for dinner for a few weeks and then make the appointment when the scale has finally shown a loss? Do I go and tell him where to shove his scale and get off the merry go round and get labeled non-compliant so no other doc will ever want to go near me in the future?

I hate living like this, but I hate to lose this doc. As much as I disagree with him on so many things, his practice is still one of the best in the city. We can get an appointment the same day, we can talk on the phone with one of the doctors without charge, we can easily get referrals and copies of our paperwork, and with 5 doctors in the practice there's always someone around.

I guess I better go change my menus for the next few weeks so there's soup for dinner every night. Either that or start reading up on the Rice Diet (home version) again.

Two More Food Holidays to Go

Yesterday went quite well, with me staying 100% McDougall for all three meals and dessert, too! I figured I ate enough crap during the rest of vacation, and since I had already planned a McDougall-legal Thanksgiving I may as well stick with the plan.

Black Friday today. We spent our money at the laundromat instead of a mall, We'll spend the rest of the afternoon - my husband's last few hours of vacation time - at home. Our son went out so we have the house to ourselves. Knowing us we'll spend the alone-time either watching bad horror movies or catch up on the past few seasons of Scrubs. It'll be back on sooner than we think!

Happy Thanksgiving 2008