Friday, September 30, 2016

Webinar - Atherosclerosis

First, the reading material for the webinar:

Dr. McDougall's homework for you to get the most out of this webinar. READ THE FOLLOWING:
1) Chapter on Osteoporosis from McDougall’s Medicine book. Download this chapter for free here.2) May 2013 Newsletter: Who Should Take Cholesterol-lowering Statins? Everyone or No One?https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2013nl/may/who.htm
3)May 2011 Newsletter: The Egyptian Mummy Diet Paradoxhttps://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2011nl/may/egyptian.htm
More webinar info after the video, so keep scrolling!


 And don't forget to sign up for the next few:

Thursday, October 6, 2016 at 11 a.m. PST
Title: Dr. John McDougall Discusses Heart Disease
Description: In this live webinar, Dr. John McDougall discusses the topic of Heart Disease.
Presenter: John McDougall, MD
Host: Gustavo Tolosa, DMA
Important Reading Material for this Webinar:
  1. Chapter on Heart Disease from McDougall’s MedicineHeart: Disease  a Challenging Second Opinion
  2. Newsletter, August 2012: Heart Surgeons Kill First Man on the Moon: Neil Armstrong
  3. Newsletter, May 2016: Beware of Interventional Cardiologists (Heart Surgeons)

Thursday, October 13, 2016 at 11 a.m. PST
Title: Dr. Doug Lisle: Anxiety and Panic Attacks, Q&A
Description: In this live webinar, Dr. Lisle answers questions about anxiety and panic attacks.
Presenter: Douglas J. Lisle, Ph.D.
Host: Gustavo Tolosa, DMA
Please watch the webinar on Anxiety and Panic Attacks before you submit any questions. Your question may be answered in the recorded webinar

Thursday, October 20, 2016 at 11 a.m. PST
Title: Dr. John McDougall Discusses Hypertension
Description: In this live webinar, Dr. John McDougall discusses the topic of Elevated Blood Pressure
Presenter: John McDougall, MD
Host: Gustavo Tolosa, DMA
Important Reading Material for this Webinar:
  1. Chapter on Hypertension from McDougall’s MedicineHypertension: a Challenging Second Opinion
  2. Newsletter, November 2009: How I Treat Patients with Elevated Blood Pressure

Thursday, October 27, 2016 at 11 a.m. PST
Title: Dr. John McDougall Discusses Diabetes
Description: In this live webinar, Dr. John McDougall discusses the cause and treatment of Diabetes
Presenter: John McDougall, MD
Host: Gustavo Tolosa, DMA
Important Reading Material for this Webinar:
  1. Chapter on Diabetes from McDougall’s MedicineDiabetes: a Challenging Second Opinion
  2. Newsletter, December 2009: Simple Care for Diabetes

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Jill McKeever Reads The Healthiest Diet on the Planet


She goes through the book giving her opinions page by page. Very entertaining!

Because of the way the camera and the chat program work together, all the text is backwards. I've seen this on Chef AJ's live videos on FaceBook, too, and have no idea why that happens.

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

The Healthiest Diet on the Planet - Initial Personal Feedback


WARNING: These are my personal opinions after making a quick perusal of the book. These may not be my final opinions of it once I've actually read the thing.



Dr. McDougall's latest book reached my Kindle today, The Healthiest Diet on the Planet: Why the Foods You Love-Pizza, Pancakes, Potatoes, Pasta, and More-Are the Solution to Preventing Disease and Looking and Feeling Your Best

I didn't get much chance to look it over yet. I do know that he has said multiple times in the webinars that the bulk of the book is being taken from newsletter articles he's written over the past year or so and are still currently available for free on his website. Those chapters are titled: There are Lies, and Damn Lies, and The Healthiest Diet versus Fad Diets.

The next chapter is Red Light, Green Light: Dr. McDougall's Guide to What We Should and Shouldn't Eat, a.k.a. The McDougall Color Picture Book. Nothing new here - just a few paragraphs explaining how the "book" came about and the same exact photos as on the web.

Chapter 5 is the recipe section: Recipes for the Healthiest Diet on the Planet. Most of these are already in either other books or the recipe sections on the web site. Unfortunately, many of the recipes use things like miso (too salty for many people with heart or blood pressure conditions), tofu, cashews - more calorically dense recipes, similar to those in The Starch Solution that people complained about when that book came out. If you're on the Maximum Weight Loss Plan, very few of these recipes are for you. There are Pancakes and French Toast and breakfast burritos; a bunch of bowl meals and sauces, some that use tofu or peanut butter; soups containing tofu, even tahini; a (3 recipe) section devoted to tofu recipes; bean and pasta salads; a section titled Potato, Rice, Bean and Pasta Dishes, again with a few containing tofu and nuts; next comes the Burger, Wraps and Pizza chapter, followed by the Sauces (Yes, more nuts, tahini and tofu in here, too). The Desserts - agave, nuts, back to Wonderslim Cocoa and frozen apple juice concentrate again. Full color photographs of 19 of the recipes comes next.

After this comes the references, 10% of the book. Nobody can say Dr. McDougall slacks off on this! Another 10% for the index.  

Am I happy I bought this book? Well, I'm a completist, and if I didn't buy it now I would have in the future. Will I read it? I'll read until I recognize the article from a newsletter, then skip to the next. Will I make any of the recipes? Maybe one of the few new ones, but I'm trying to lose weight, not gain it, so the majority of the recipes aren't for me or my husband.

I'm happy Dr. McDougall got the offer he couldn't refuse and put this new book out, but, as he warned, there's really nothing new in it that isn't already on his web site, except for a handful of recipes. But if he wasn't offered a boatload of money to do this, unless I see something really extraordinary when I start to really read it, he should have stopped at The Starch Solution and just referred people to his web site's newsletter archives.



Sunday, September 25, 2016

Friday, September 23, 2016

McDougall's Medicine Webinar 2 - Osteoporosis

(Edited 9/25/2016 to correct the video URL. For some reason Gustavo deleted the version that was there and reposted it, hence the need for a new url.)

I just realized yesterday that the chapters from the book these new webinars are based on - McDougall's Medicine: A Challenging Second Opinion - are being given away for free by Dr. McDougall as PDF files on his web site. By the time this series is finished we'll have the entire book in digital form. Thanks, Dr. McDougall!

1 Cancer
2 Osteoporosis
3 Atherosclerosis (Next week's webinar topic)

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

A Senior's Version of "My Favorite Things" by Bill Horn


SENIOR "FAVORITE THINGS"


There are recent rumors that Julie Andrews did a concert for AARP (The American Association of Retired Persons). Ms. Andrews sang a favorite from the Sound of Music, "Favorite Things". There were a few changes to the words, to fit in with the AARP theme.
Here are the new words to this tune:

Maalox and nose drops and needles for knitting,
Walkers and handrails and new dental fittings,
Bundles of magazines tied up in string,
These are a few of my favorite things.

Cadillacs and cataracts and hearing aids and glasses,
Polident and Fixodent and false teeth in glasses,
Pacemakers, golf carts and porches with swings,
These are a few of my favorite things.

When the pipes leak,
When the bones creak,
When the knees go bad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don't feel so bad.

Hot tea and crumpets, and corn pads for bunions,
No spicy hot food or food cooked with onions,
Bathrobes and heat pads and hot meals they bring,
These are a few of my favorite things.

Back pains, confused brains, and no fear of sinning,
Thin bones and fractures and hair that is thinning,
And we won't mention our short shrunken frames,
When we remember our favorite things.

When the joints ache, when the hips break,
When the eyes grow dim,
I simply remember the great life I've had,
And then I don't feel so bad.

Friday, September 16, 2016

McDougall's Medicine Webinar #1 - Cancer


For some reason, Dr. McDougall and Gustavo are now going to do a series of webinars based on the old book, McDougall's Medicine: A Challenging Second Opinion. The info and link didn't appear on Dr. McDougall's site until Wednesday, so I doubt many people had a chance to do the suggested readings first.

Next week's webinar registration link isn't up yet, and the exact topic wasn't announced, but Dr. McDougall did manage to squeeze in a line that next week they'll discuss the next chapter. If he is sticking to the same format as the book, the chapter is titled Osteoporosis.

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Correction to URL for Caloric Density Video


Jeff Novick is using another hosting site for his video and has disabled embedding for it, so to watch the video from the DVD Calorie Density: How To Eat More, Weigh Less and Live Longer he would like us to go to this page and watch it from there.


Calorie Density: How To Eat More, Weigh Less and Live Longer - Jeff Novick, MS, RDN
Understanding a few simple concepts about calorie density is one of the keys to safe and permanent weight loss. In this enlightening and humorous talk, Jeff will show you why choosing the wrong kinds of calories is a major contributing factor to the obesity epidemic. His easy to follow instructions will help you reach your goal weight and live a long and healthy life.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Jeff Novick's Caloric Density Talk


Jeff Novick has just made the talk from his Caloric Density: How to Eat More, Weigh Less, and Live Longer DVD available for free on YouTube for a limited time, he wrote. It's a wonderful introduction to eating the whole foods, no SOS way, and has been around long before a certain someone's "eating to the left of the line" was even put to paper. In fact, she consulted with him a number of times regarding this.

Jeff has discussed this subject many times for free on the McDougall forums, and is readily available to answer all questions there.

Saturday, September 10, 2016

Live Webinar with Dr. Doug Lisle: Anxiety and Panic Attacks


Dr. Lisle talks about anxiety and panic attacks and how to deal with these conditions without taking medications. His talk starts about a half hour in - Dr. McDougall talks for 15 minutes or so first. He shows off his new baby - a case of the new book has been delivered to his home and they'll be selling them next weekend at the Advanced Study Weekend. 

For those who can't make it to Santa Rosa next Friday, the streaming replay of the ASW is now available to order. The price doesn't show until you click the order button, but it's still $150. The videos are usually available to watch an hour or so after each program is completed.

Friday, September 9, 2016

VeganMoFo in November for 2016


Vegan Month of Food (a.k.a. VeganMoFo) is going to be in November again this year. IIRC, it was November the first year they had it, too.

If interested in joining, go to the VeganMoFo page for details.

I didn't participate last year because I really didn't like the idea of having to follow their themes and daily prompts for posts, but it seemed a lot of other people disliked it, too, and didn't follow them. Because of that, it's not going to be an official requirement this year.

Right now I'm following a really stripped down version of the McDougall program, eating close to how Dr. McDougall has said in webinars he and Mary currently eat and how Jeff said to eat in my last post. Weekend dinners I make the old tried and true McDougall soups; twice a week I make rice and veggies; once a week we're again having baked or mashed potatoes with veggies and one of Mary McDougall's gravies, now that I can eat spuds again; another day we have sweet potatoes with either broccoli or saurkraut and black beans. The seventh day changes weekly - sometimes it's a McDougall chili, or a Jeff Novick SNAP recipe, or just a pot of spaghetti with jarred sauce and a bag of veggies tossed in. Breakfast every day is oatmeal with fruit. Lunch for my husband is a hummus sandwich or 2 with a handful of romaine, Boston lettuce, baby kale, or baby spinach. My lunches are either leftovers or some rice or taters with veggies.

I really don't have the energy or inclination to start making more elaborate recipes again, and at this point in my life, anything with 5 or more ingredients is "elaborate" to me now Because of all this, I'm most likely not going to participate in VeganMoFo this year, either. I'm not closing to door on it entirely - when the new McDougall book comes out later this month, The Healthiest Diet on the Planet, there's going to be a recipe section of some of Mary McDougall's favorite tried-and-true recipes with full color pictures. I may be moved enough by this to do a month of these recipes to get non-believers interested in the book, even if I already wrote blog posts, even past VeganMoFo posts, on the exact same recipes. I guess I'll find out in about 3 weeks what the 60 recipes are and see then.

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Compliance on a Healthy Diet - Jeff Novick


This is why I love reading Jeff Novick writes and wish he would put out a book of his own. The following is but one post. To see the entire thread, which started in 2014, click here.

Compliance on a Healthy Diet


Wed Sep 07, 2016 7:50 am

JeffN wrote:We are just finishing up a 10-Day program and this issue of long-term compliance was the topic of several discussions both formally in the lectures and informally around the meals.
During one lunchtime discussion on this issue, there was a women sitting with us at the table who had been successfully doing this program for over 30 years. So, I asked, her, tell us what you believe has been the most important factor to your long-term success. She didn't even hesitate and said, easy, simplicity. I keep it very simple. 
So I asked, what do you think would be the next most important thing. And again, without hesitation she said, I just don't care what anyone else thinks of me.
Words of wisdom.  :)
In HealthJeff


As usual, this came up again at the recent 10-day programs. 

As I mentioned in another thread, so did the issue of what I call "internal confusion," which is happening more and more recently. Not confusion about our perspective and the perspective of low carb, paleo, atkins, etc etc but confusion created by others in the WFPB world. 

I had 3 Q&A Sessions and this topic came up in each one, especially in the last one. I reviewed most of the things in this thread with the group but they still wanted to know what were the 3 most important things I recommended for their best chance at success. 

Here they are...

For the first 6 months to a year....

1) Simplicity

Keep this as simple as possible and resist every influence to make this complicated. You don't need 5 versions of oatmeal, and 15 dinners, and fancy pots, pans, utensils, etc. Just use what you already have and keep it simple. Oats, fruit, rice, beans, veggies. They dont have to be organic, Non GMO, fair traded, imported, etc. Eat sweet potatoes, not imported Japanese Satsumas. They can be fresh, frozen, canned, etc, whichever makes it easiest. You just need oatmeal, brown rice (Starch), beans and a few veggies and fruits you like. 

2) Focus

First, on this program

You invested a huge amount of money, time, effort and energy in Dr McDougall, his program and his staff. Trust your decision and the process. For the next 6 months to a year, if you have a question, ask Dr McDougall, Mary, Doug, Alec or me. We are all accessible. If you need a recipe, Mary has about 4000, if you have a question, most of them are answered in the forum or our hot topics. If you need reading material for support, we have a dozen books, 100's of newsletter and articles and videos going back about 30 years. Read the Hot Topics and this website and my forum and the Education material at the website and the FAQ here in my forum. When done, re-read them. If you need, email us, we are all responsive. 

It is not that others WFPB Health Professionals are wrong, it is just that there are some slight differences between them all and you are just going to get confused. I would tell you the same thing if you picked one of the others but you are all here and made this choice. And, there are many WFPB "experts" that have little to no clinical and patient experience but you may not be able to know that about them. You are spending this week with a bona fide, licensed, credentialed professional team that each has over 25 years of direct clinical experience helping people. Get the most out of your investment. 

Second, on yourself. 

Until you have put the time in over the next few months and understood the program and been able to achieve and maintain your own success, keep the focus and attention on yourself. Do not worry about telling your spouse, your parents, your daughter in law, your cousins, your neighbor, your hairdresser, the local school, your church group, the food industry, the USDA, the FDA, the FTC, your doctor, the neighbors kid, etc etc or anyone else about the program or trying to get them to do it. Keep the focus on yourself and getting yourself well and you understanding and implementing the program. We are not asking you to become a evangelist or preacher of this way of life or to try and convert anyone. We are only trying to help you take care of yourself. 

This is not selfish, this is self nurturing and right now, you need all your focus and attention on you. 


3) Avoid the vegan trap

Fully explained in this thread...

When Vegan is not Enough

As predicted, vegan is now a trend, and while this is a good thing for the animals and possibly the environment, for most of us, this is bad news as most of the vegan food in grocery stores and restaurants is not healthy. The Pleasure Trap appeal of this food is very very strong and hard to resist. 

However, no one has ever come to the 10-Day program to save the animals or save the environment. They made the huge investment of time, money, energy and effort for one (and only one) main reason, their health is suffering. And, almost always, this is a major health issue and not a minor one. You came to my classes with the primary goal to learn how to address treat and reverse your health issue through diet and lifestyle not to be a vegan. Don't mix them up. 

In Health
Jeff

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Chef and the Dietitian - Live



Chef AJ and Julieanna Hever, the Plant-Based Dietitian, present in front of a live audience at the LA Vegfest. Recipes are included on the YouTube page in the description.

Monday, September 5, 2016

Jeff Novick Chimes in on Infused Flavored Balsamic Vinegars


Infused Balsamic or Balsamic Crack?

2 very short excerpts from a long, informative post:

When he first brought them in, we immediately knew something was up cause they tasted WAY too good :) and clearly rung the pleasure trap bell. They just tasted too good and many people who tasted them just wanted "more." For some who tried them, they caused a spike in their blood sugars. 
After looking into them, and understanding how they were made and what they were really the equivalent of, we decided against using them. We saw them basically as "added sugar" and counted them as such. 
And his concluding lines:

So, if someone is using more than 2-3 tbsp of these a day, that alone is causing them to exceed my sugar guidelines. 
And, if they struggle with the pleasure trap, any amount may be too much.

Saturday, September 3, 2016

McDougall Webinar Thursday Sept 1, 2016 - Q&A

More than 20 minutes into it and Gustavo hasn't had a chance to bring up one question yet. They talked about their clothes, the newsletter, the government cheese, table sugar study, but still no questions and answers in the "Q&A #4" titled webinar. No wonder Gustavo turned off the chat - he probably knew they would never get to the questions, just like all the other Q&A webinars.

He did mention he's going to be on Dr. Oz in the future for a whopping 7 minutes segment.   I'll believe it when I see it. Knowing Dr. Oz, it'll be a Fuhrman episode and they'll ambush Dr. McD with accusations that his nut restrictions and "love of salt" cause heart attacks. I don't trust them at all.

Over 30 minutes now and still no questions.

Ah, 34 minutes and Gustavo said something about the government dietary goals and Dr. McD is now going on about the McGovern studies again. IDK if it's an aside to the sugar conversation or a submitted question.

First question @ 36 minutes into the show! About fasting blood sugar numbers. He explains why he allows as high as 250-350 fasting levels in people taking medications for their diabetes and feels being high is less damaging tot he body than being hypoglycemic and having severe symptoms that mimic being drunk and passing out. Do not let you sugar get to 150 or less if on diabetic meds.

A few more questions - milk for babies, sugars from sweet potatoes. Gustavo showed an old McDougall video from the Hawaii days about exercise.

And time's up. A plug for the ASW and the upcoming Hawaii trip.

Maybe the next Q&A webinar he'll answer more than 3 questions.