Our Current Menu

I should have said in that last post that those were the meals I *used* to make on a steady basis. From October (after VeganMoFo ended) through the beginning of January, that was the menu I followed, those were the meals I made, aside from lasagna on the holidays and a tater tot casserole on my birthday and our 37th anniversary.

Since mid-January I've been concentrating less on McDougall recipes and more on those of Chef AJ, mainly the ones she demonstrates in her Easy Meals to Make You Thin video and some of those she does in her Foody TV videos. If you look through past blog posts here you'll find a number of them that I've made, and in future blog posts I'll talk about some of the others that have become staples in this household. Some cannot be shared, either because they were part of a bonus PDF file for those who preordered her Ultimate Weight Loss DVD's (No longer listed on her web site's store page, for some reason, but Healthy Girl's Kitchen owner Wendy does a good write-up of it) or because they're from her soon to be published new cookbook and came right out and told us not to share them yet, not even the other people on her "secret" Facebook group.

Why those meals instead of the McDougall ones? Well, following the menus posted yesterday, I lost absolutely no weight. I didn't lose any weight at all for all of 2014, and in 2013 lost a few pounds only because my husband had his CABG surgery and for over a month neither of us ate much of anything. I've mentioned many times here how hard it is for me to lose any weight at all, even if I kept all my meals MWLP. I'm one of those who gain weight just looking at pictures of food, and that's only a slight exaggeration.

Following Chef AJ's (and Dr. Goldhamer's) rule of eating a pound of non-starchy vegetables before breakfast and at least another pound during the day, along with filling up on Chef AJ's chilis and soups, I've managed to easily and without hunger lose 7 1/2 pounds since mid-January. For the past week and a half I ate meals from the menus posted yesterday to finally start getting my cabinets and emergency storm stash cleared out, and in 10 days I gained 3 pounds, my husband gained 2. The rest of this week I still have McDougall meals planned, all MWLP except Saturday's pasta. Starting Sunday it's back to Chef AJ's soups and chili meals. 

Back in January I made the same old (empty) promise to my doctor that the next time he sees me I'll be down 50 pounds. I've said that at the end of every visit since 1983. While I may not be able to go that far between January and July, I'll certainly be able to show him a loss instead of a gain or no change this time around.

I'll always consider myself a McDougalling Starchivore, but at least for now I have to add a lot more veggies and legumes than Dr. McD recommends to make myself a lighter weight one.