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Tag Archives: Dr. John McDougall

Intimidated by Veggies

I get a sense that some people, friends, co-workers and even family (excluding my wife) are a bit intimidated when I talk about”McDougalling” and how it affected my lifestyle. As I have said previously, this is NOT a diet. While my physician begs to differ, this is a lifestyle change. I’ll agree with you, the reader that this is lifestyle not for everyone, but arguments could be made that it should be.

By no means do I feel as if I am supporting a cause. I don’t consider myself “vegan” or “vegetarian” rather I eat a plant-based, whole food diet. Yet many I talk to seem to be rather narrow minded when the words “vegan” or “vegetarian” are spoken. Many conger up images or sitting in front of a big plate of salad and eating tofu for your sustenance rather than meat. It seems I am asked on a regular basis, “What do you eat?” I tell them, anything I want that is not meat, dairy or oil based. More importantly after nearly 30 pounds of weight lost, I have not been hungry since living “plant strong.”

But it’s not about weight loss alone, I have seen wonderful results internally, as my blood work numbers were trending in the correct direction. Meaning my total cholesterol was going down, my LDL (bad) cholesterol was down, my HDL (good) was unchanged and my Triglycerides were down. Toss in about 45 minutes of weights or exercise a day and it’s just a matter of time before my appearance begins to change. That is MY goal, as they say, “lead by example.”

Men especially seem to puff out their chests, being the “manly” thing to do and start to make jokes and be humorous when it comes this way of eating, backing the call of “I need meat!” in order to survive. In what I have experienced, no you don’t. Much like not supporting a vegan cause, I don’t lobby for PETA or think someone who does eat meat is a bad person. Each one of us my decide for ourselves what is best. It has taken 42 years, but going plant-based has been the best move for my health. Why would I want to change?

 

Healthy Oil is a Myth

I am sure if you were a friend on my Facebook account you would think I was pushing the plant-base, whole food lifestyle. Some mistakenly term it “vegan” but I consider my more than “just vegan.” I have come across way too many recipes from vegan web sites that end up using a considerable amount of oil. Dr. McDougall and other well known physicians have said time and time again that OIL is not beneficial and adds little to the healthiness of your food.

Unfortunately the way foods and oils are marketed, you would think olive oil is there as a “heart healthy” alternative. It’s not (in my opinion), but I am not a doctor, nor am I going to argue or belabor the point. I don’t cook with it and the program that Dr. McDougall has laid out has no recipes that include it. After further researching his point (and that of Jeff Novick, RD). As Jeff notes, “14% of the calories in olive oil come from saturated fat. The current recommendation from the American Heart Association is to limit our intake of saturated fat to no more than 7% of calories” (source).

If that example isn’t clear enough, here is another common use, see if you can relate. “If we add 2 tsp. of oil to a 1/2 cup serving of steamed vegetables, we would raise the total calories from 25 to 105, and the majority of the calories (76%) would now be coming from oil. This side dish is also now 11% saturated fat.” Again this is coming from a registered dietician and is based on what “healthy” qualities oil brings to a diet. None and that is why I stay away from it now.

Now that I have sidetracked myself, I am trying to figure out how to present this to my parents. No matter what I say or how I say it, they won’t change their ways when it comes to cooking and eating. I tell my mom the success I have had the past 3 months, the weight I lost and the improvement in my blood work and I don’t make any headway.

I know, I said I won’t push this lifestyle on anyone and I won’t. But to have my mom, who is an outstanding cook sit there and tell me olive oil has redeeming qualities I don’t accept it and I know that her opinion is based on myth (which Dr. McDougall dis-spells) and not fact.

The past 3 weeks I have monitored what I eat closely. Using a program called Fit Day, along with a recipe builder call Spark Recipes I can input all my ingredients to a recipe and get a nice breakdown on the nutritional data and enter it in my food log so I can see if I am adhering to the way I want to eat. So far, outside of my 6-pack of beer a week I am doing very well. In fact I wrote about this in Tracking My Food earlier this month. While this is probably going to the extreme I find it very interesting as to what I cooking and eat. The number don’t lie, from calories eaten vs calories burned to my overall weight, which continues to go down to how my nutritional data breaks down.

I just wish I could get my parents to recognize there are healthier ways to eat. When we vacation with them in March, I hope to introduce them to a few of the recipes we frequent, like potato enchiladas. While I don’t expect them to make wholesale changes in their lives, I would like to see them make some changes to improve how they eat. We will see just how they take to what I cook.

Cooking Within Limitations

Cooking. I enjoy to cook, never have been trained in the culinary arts, so I guess you could call me self-taught. I have watched many of the Food Network shows, just to watch the food preparation and the recipes. Changing my diet to a plant-based, whole foods lifestyle has not been as difficult as I expected. What is great about this way of eating, being able to experiment even more with food.

Tell a chef to make a dish with 3 ingredients and I am sure many could put together a very good meal. Take away 3 ingredients, in my case, meat, dairy and oil and the task of cooking becomes challenging. It’s one I am up to and I am always on the lookout for new recipes that might go over well with the family.

Neither my wife of son have embraces the “plant strong lifestyle” 100%, I will give them both credit, they are eating many of the recipes I keep trying. In fact my wife now weighs less than when she had our son, Zachary, something she had not been able to accomplish with some of the “fad diets” she had put herself on.

As for my son, we still feed him processed foods that are quick and easy, such as chicken nuggets and french fries, but I have been able to pass of a few healthier options on him. A few weeks back I was able to get him to eat a spicy black bean burger on an thin whole wheat bun. I did include a small slice of American cheese, but hey, it’s a start. He now eats my spaghetti and pasta, which is also whole wheat and the sauce is homemade and includes no oil. So while we are still giving him some of those kid favorites, I am introducing him to some new foods.

Co-workers make comments about me not eating meat or being vegan or vegetarian, rarely do I correct them. Many recipes that follow vegan and vegetarian guidelines include dairy and oil in preparation. The McDougall way of eating does not include either, which is where the challenge comes in. But with everything else in cooking, there are substitutes. I spoke about it yesterday, but I miss cheese. Thankfully I have made a cheese sauce a few times that I find satisfying. There are some others that I have on my list to try.

There are also foods that I never ate growing up as a kid. The two most recent foods I have tried and really enjoy, sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts! The sweet potato could be the “perfect food.” It’s high in fiber but low in sodium and cholesterol, it’s sweet, but gives you good nutritional value, the proteins in a sweet potato have antioxidant effects and  it’s a filling meal in itself.

Recently found a very cool web site called The Post Punk Kitchen and while I have yet to try any of Isa’s recipes I do have plans to. They look great and I am sure taste the same. So you don’t think you can eat this way, the compromise and make one day or even one meal, like dinner without meat, dairy or oil. You might be surprised at just how good it is. My suggestion: Potato Enchiladas, Skillet Refried Beans and Mexican Rice (with or without Pinto Beans).

Tracking My Food

As I mentioned on Friday in my Eat on $3 a Day I have started tracking how much I eat daily. I started tracking my food on January 23 and now that I have 2 full weeks in I have some idea on how I am doing since changing my lifestyle, embracing Dr. John McDougall’s starch based diet. My main source of calories come from nearly 80% carbohydrates that constitute my diet.

Any early “myth” Dr. McDougall dispelled was that “starches make you fat.” A large potato gives you about 150 calories, a cup of rice approximately 200 calories. Compare that with two tablespoons of mayo at 200 calories or a cup of grated cheddar cheese at 450 calories. Do the math and see what you come with if you need to eat 2200 to 3000 calories a day. Potatoes are a great source of carbs, until you top them with sour cream, butter and bacon bits.

Looking over these past 2 weeks I have averaged 1657-1682 calories a day, much lower than what the suggested daily intake should be. Even with what I am eating I don’t go hungry during the day. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get the carb intake up around 80%. February 2 I did have 73% carbs eaten that day, thanks to a Subway Veggie Delite sandwich and a serving and a half of potato enchiladas for dinner.

More notably than the carbs are the low fat intake, which were single digits the first 7 days I tracked my food, as I averaged 1682 total calories a day. The last 8 days have seen that number increase, but still been a percentage point or two around 10% total fat eaten. The exception being January 31 when my daily diet consisted of 17% fat. That was due in part to 4 whole wheat tortillas, that contain 3 grams of fat each.

Still I have been able to stay away from dairy, which has proved invaluable when it comes to keeping the total fat down. We have started to eat more potatoes than rice the past few weeks as well, now that I have found a new interest in the sweet potato, which I can with just about anything or even eat it plain.

For the period between January 23 to February 5 I am averaging 1648 calories a day. My total fat is at 9%, just under the 10% goal I am aiming for. Protein running a bit high at 14%, but I am not going to worry about that much. Eating fewer beans a week will drop that number significantly. As for total carbs I am only at 59%!

Over this time period I have lost about 1 pound, down to 189.5 as of this morning. That gives me a projected weight of 173 pounds by the end of my period. Not sure I want to drop down that low unless I am able to add some muscle to my frame, but eating a carb heavy diet has me seeing weight loss, not weight gain. Interesting once you starting reading up on nutrition and the details of why this is. I am very pleased with this trial period, but have felt great since changing my diet.

Eat on $3 a Day

Back in October I was being introduced to just how made the American diet is when I viewed Forks Over Knives, Food Inc. and Food Matters. This led me to learn about a plant-based, whole food lifestyle, Dr. John McDougall and others leading the way when it comes to taking your health into your own hands. Since October I have lost 27 pounds and improved my blood work numbers, namely my total cholesterol by 64 points!

Since mid January I have become reacquainted with exercise and the added benefits to my healthy, now that I have my diet under control. Weekly exercise consists of 30-45 minutes of walking, daily. When I get home it’s been either weight lifting on our Bowflex Revolution or doing Beachbody’s Power 90 (yes, the original). Unlike seeing quick results with the diet portion of a healthy lifestyle, I figure it will be 6 weeks before I start to see physical changes in my appearance, outside of shedding pounds and looking thinner.

About 10 days ago I started keep track of my daily food intake. Back in 2003, when I first started Power 90, there was a recommendation to purchase the program, Fit Day, which allows you to track food, nutritional information, exercise, set goals such as activity and weight and track your progress.

I have taken it a step further. Using the online site, Spark Recipes, I can now entire all ingredients to any meal I plan and break that meal down into a ‘per serving’ size. For example, the Fit Day database, as extensive as it is doesn’t have my Potato Enchiladas. I built the recipe and I can now enter the nutritional data into Fit Day and see just how much I eat a day. A great little program that allows me to track all things food/exercise related to improve my health.

The next step…why…I don’t know is to start tracking the amount of money my wife and I spend a month on food. I can tell you right now it is down in the past few months since we have not spent a penny on any meat. Last time I opened our freezer in the garage there was a plethora of chicken, turkey, pork, beef and fish just waiting to be cook. Outside of the fish, I can’t see me preparing any of the other meat in the freezer.

Dr. McDougall, in his March, 2008 Newsletter discussed Cutting Food Costs in These Times of Economic Downturn. “On average women consume about 2000 calories daily and men 2500 calories…The cost of animal-food centered meals cooked at home for one person could easily be $10 a day or more,” says Dr. McDougall. For those individuals who favor dining out as opposed to eating in, “spending $14 for a full day’s worth of fast food meals would not be unusual.”

For those not following a plant-based, whole food lifestyle buying 20 pounds of brown rice or 25 pounds of pinto beans might seem extreme. When the numbers are broken down by unit cost and compared to the cost for 2500 calories you can see the extensive savings. For example, a Taco Bell Taco costs $.99 and for a man to get 2500 calories would require $14.56. By comparison 2o pounds of potatoes cost $6.99 and for a man to get 2500 calories would cost $1.75! Savings you can see and taste!

Being able to eat or feeding a family for $3 a day per person is possible, but will require a larger up front cost. That is a cost I am willing to make since I know I will use 25 pounds of brown rice or 20 pounds of potatoes. Dr. McDougall’s wife, Mary has recipes for her “Stove Top Stew cost $1.40 (fills up four adults) and the Pea Soup ingredients cost $1.80 (fills up 6 adults).” These days when money does matter and you are trying to better your budget, you might consider this as an option.

As Dr. McDougall sums it up, “A person spending $14 a day eating at fast food restaurants could be spending $3 by eating a starch-based diet at home. This translates into $11 per day savings. (This means $330 a month and $4015 per year saved, which happens to be enough to attend the McDougall 10-day live-in Program in Santa Rosa, CA—so you might consider the McDougall Program as a free program.)” Then again, a starch based diet is not widely accepted, but even minor changes can be positive.