And Jeff Defends It

In a new post on the official McDougall forums, Jeff Novick, the McDougall program's own dietitian, wrote the following in a post defending the McDougall Maximum Weight Loss Program. He offers many quotes by Dr. McDougall, even links to the newsletters explaining the MWLP as-written.

Jeff said at one point:

The recommendations of Dr McDougall and myself come from not only a thorough review and understanding of the scientific literature on these issues, but also from decades of clinical experience working with clients in a closed residential setting.
However, in the last few years, people have come up with their own personal ways to improve the MWL program, usually based on their own short term experience. Most often, they do not have the understanding of the literature or the longterm clinical experience we do. In addition, we are not interested in promoting modifications to the MWL to produce short term results that will be unsustainable for most people. As Dr McDougall always says at the program, we are not here for instant results, we are here to get you to like the food and teach you a sustainable program. We could easily serve you an all (or mostly) vegetable diet and you would have better initial short-term results but it will be unsustainable. 
It is important to realize that any modifications to the MWL that are not in the above newsletters, or that do not come directly from Dr McDougall or myself, are not part of the MWL program, nor do we recommend them.

and later in the post he added:

People will often say, I was doing the MWL program but it wasn't working till I also did "X," to which they are often unaware that "X" Is already a part of the MWL program. On the other hand, people will often say they are following the MWL program and doing "Y" but they are unaware that "Y" is not part of the MWL program nor recommended. 

Before making adjustments to the MWL program, we recommend you give the MWL program with the refinements a fair and honest chance. 

Here are a few of the adjustments people make that are not recommended. None of these are new. All have been around for a long time and seem to get recycled every few years

- A predominately raw food diet
- Eating only raw foods till 4 PM
- Intermittent fasting
- Restricted feeding window
- Extended fasts to lose weight
- Smoothies 
- Juicing
- Basing their diet on non-starchy vegetables.
- Not including starch at each meal.
- Delaying the starch component of a meal.
- Eating only fruit for breakfast
- Eating only non-starchy vegetables for breakfast
- Excessive or extreme exercise
- Food Combining
- Meal Replacements
- Supplements 

In regard to added salt and added sugar, we recommend buying and preparing food without either and if any are to be used, to add them at the table on the surface of the food. If either one is troublesome and create uncontrollable cravings for you, then leave them out.

Clear enough? And to think, it doesn't cost anything to follow that food plan, and there's oodles of free on-line support on the official McDougall discussion boards!