Sunday, February 27, 2011

One of Jeff Novick's best posts ever

Many people are invested in the idea that recovering your health is very complex.  It isn't.  Recently, Jeff Novick posted a summary of how to go about it in his McDougall forum.

The advice given by Jeff is virtually verbatim  the same advice he gave me when I hired him as a nutritionist to reverse my own health problems.  It is really simple, and all you need to know.  If you follow these guidelines, you can't help but be trim and restore your health.  Here are Jeff's words:

Here is a quick review:
- Focus your diet on unrefined unprocessed fruits, veggies, starchy veggies, intact whole grains and legumes.

- Start meals with soup, and/or salad, and/or fruit as they will fill you up for less calories and help to reduce your consumption of other more calorie dense foods

- Avoid all liquid calories as they provide little to any satiety for the calories

- Dilute out meals based on intact whole grains, and/or starchy vegetables and/or legumes with fruits and vegetables. Make sure 1/3 to 1/2 of the bulk/volume (by eye) of all your meals are low calorie dense vegetables

- Salt - the less you salt your food, the less people tend to eat

- Variety- the less variety, the less consumption

- Raw Foods - Foods you can eat raw tend to be lower in calorie density and you may not digest as efficiently. Cooking begins the digestion process.

- Make sure you are avoiding all higher fat, calorie dense plant foods, nuts, seeds, oils, avocados, tofu, etc

- Make sure you are avoiding all refined processed grains and starches, (breads, bagels, crackers, cookies, dry cereal, etc and anything made from ground up flour) even if they are whole grain

-Avoid all refined concentrated sugars/sweeteners, even if they are natural and organic.

In regard to sodium, while tracking may be of some value, tracking is nearly impossible as most of the sodium is hidden. However, if you follow the program, the recommended foods are all naturally low in sodium. For any packaged/processed foods, make sure the amount of sodium per serving is no more than the amount of calories per serving.

If you do this, and make adjustments as necessary, you will hit all the numbers automatically and lose weight and lower your cholesterol and BP.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Only one card on the table

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted anything.  In part, I have been busy enjoying life, and in part it often feels like I might not be helping anybody.

The only people (I think) viewing this blog already know about Dr. McDougall, and I have seen few questions here.  When it comes down to it, this is really simple.

Dr. McDougall often says that, concerning his program, that there is only one card on the table.  And that card is whether a person is going to follow his advice.  Everybody who does follow his advice gets better - usually markedly and quickly.

So many people are interested in esoteric nutritional or psychological questions about diet.  But for those who give the program a real try, success in inevitable, and anybody who does try it (with real adherence) does not question that Dr. McDougall is correct because the results are so dramatic and rapid.

What about people who don't experience good results?  Simply, they are, usually knowingly, but sometimes unknowingly, failing to adhere to the recommendations.  Dr. McDougall cites the case of smoking.  When smokers quit, they all get better.  When alcoholics quit, they all get better.  And when those who eat our Western diet follow Dr. M's recommendations faithfully, they all get better.

There truly is only one card on the table.  Are you going to do it?  If you are going to do it, there is plenty of help available, including here, and all you have to do is ask.  For those who don't want to do it, or who want to do their own version of the program, I wish you success but expect failure  I could cite many cases of people who try partial adherence and remain fat and sick.  There is no known benefit to knowing about what Dr. McDougall teaches, or talking to others about it.  You have to play the card.

You might want to view my friend Laura' blog.  http://www.mrsdoodlepunkslaststand.blogspot.com/

Laura thought that she was an obese McDougaller (there is no such thing).  I challenged her to eat nothing but unprocessed whole plant food of low calorie density for a month.  You can see the results in her blog.  She played the McDougall card and won big time.

So there is only one card on the table.  It takes some effort at first to play that card, but it makes all the difference in the world.