One Door Closes, Another One Opens

But in this case, "door" means Facebook Community.

The owner of the Esselstyn Nutrition Program Roundtable is closing the community because it takes too much of her time. She doesn't want to just hand it over to someone else to run because the community is so old it still contains some of the original Esselstyn guidelines, things he no longer allows, and she doesn't want erroneous information to confuse new members.

But JoAnn Downey to the rescue! She started up a new Esselstyn "reversal" plan community called 100% Esselstyn Nutrition Forum. It has the same rules as the other community - the discussions and recipes will ONLY be those that adhere to the strictest "reversal" guidelines of Dr. Esselstyn's Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease program. That is, the ones mentioned here:



and here:



Here are the general guidelines for those following the strict reversal program, as compiled by JoAnn Downey:

1) NO OIL. Oils cause vasoconstriction and raise blood pressure as well as being damaging to the arterial endothelium (lining). Hidden fats may also be called hydrogenated___, mono and diglycerides, lethicin.
2) Eat starches, non-starchy veggies and a max of 3 fruit servings. Starches are important for satiation so you do not get hungry. Being hungry is not sustainable. Starches are root veggies (potatoes, sweet potatoes), beans/peas/lentils, winter squash and 100% whole grains.
3) Eat (chew) a fist-size (after cooking) serving of high nitrate veggies, with a few drops of balsamic vinegar or other vinegar, six times spaced throughout the day from breakfast to bedtime. This promotes the formation of nitric oxide (NO), the most powerful vasodilator we have, so arteries will dilate to their fullest. Esselstyn's favorite 6 ‘greens’ for NO production are KALE, SPINACH, SWISS CHARD, ARUGULA, BEET GREENS, BEETS (yes, beets!) Dr. E also has a ‘greens’ jingle which mentions bok choy, collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens, napa cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, cilantro, parsley and asparagus.
4) Avoid all smoothies and juices. Chew your food.
5) Avoid all high fat foods like nuts, nut butters, coconut, avocado, tofu, coconut, seeds (see flaxseed reference below) An olive or two as a condiment is fine.
6) Avoid processed sugars like agave and maple syrup.
7) Avoid caffeinated coffee.
8) Avoid all animal foods/meat/dairy/eggs
9) Avoid salt in cooking and at the table, and be careful with condiments. The rule of thumb is no more milligrams of sodium in a serving as there are calories. Adding a SMALL amount of a higher sodium condiment to a whole low sodium meal is OK.

RECOMMENDED SUPPLEMENTS Pg. 73-74 Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease
1. Vitamin B12…..I favor 1000mcg daily
(Note….Meghan Brady spoke to Dr. Esselstyn and he said 500mcg for those under 70yo)
2. Vitamin D3…..Check your blood level. If your blood level is normal, it is not needed. If your blood level is below normal, I suggest 1000-2000 IU daily until the low normal blood level is reached. Adjust dosage then to maintain the low normal range.
3. 1-2T ground flaxseed and /or chia seeds daily, maximum of 2T.

Also….notes I have from Jan ’17 (Patricia Slimbarski ) "My take on alcohol stems from being around the entire Esselstyn family. I have had the pleasure of being with them on many events. I have spoken at DR Esselstyn's seminars for almost 2 years now and also spoken at Jane Esselstyn's Woman's Heart Conference and also at RIP Esselstyn 2 Forks Events. They are all on the same plate here and also the same mindset regarding drinking. I have heard them all say that Alcohol is empty calories, no nutritional value and inhibits your burning fat as much as 30 pct and is a KNOWN TOXIN to every organ in your body. Drinking can also induce cancer and heart disease and other organ damage. we are so concerned about maple syrup or molasses and caffeine then why are we not so concerned about drinking something like alcohol?"

So, if you still want to join the community, go over to 100% Esselstyn Nutrition Forum and click to join. You'll be asked to answer 2 questions. As soon as JoAnn or one of the other admins reads your answers you'll be approved. You can also just do a search for the community, but yesterday there was a little glitch and it didn't appear in a regular search - you had to click the link near the top of the page that said "Groups" before it appeared.

My thanks to JoAnn for starting this community, but I really wish someone from the Esselstyn program itself would open a message board or FB community, one that deals, like this one and the one Meghan had, with the "reversal" version of the program. So much out there that Ann and Jane Esselstyn do, whether in talks, articles, or their YouTube page, deals with the general Esselstyn program and NOT the "reversal" guidelines. When over half the cookbook, the majority of the recipes done on the YouTube channel, even many recipes from the original Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease book, are unsuited for this version, it would be nice to have that clarification "straight from the horse's mouth," so to speak. 

If you still belong to the original community, be aware that on May 1st Meghan is deleting everything, not just "closing" it to new people. If there are any recipes, photos, or any other information you would like to keep from there, get it now, while you still can, because like half the population of the universe in those Avengers movies, once she snaps her fingers it all goes away.

For the McDougallers who aren't aware of the details of the 2 Dr. Esselstyn programs, it's like the difference between the regular McDougall program and the Maximum Weight Loss version - basically the same but MWLP is stricter and doesn't allow or severely restricts some foods that are fine for the regular program. It's like that here, in the differences between the regular Prevent plan and the Reversal programs. All are healthy, but if you're suffering from severe cardio-vascular disease, you need to be super strict and go that extra mile to restore your health.

Ann & Jane - Roasted Cauliflower and Lentil Salad

A warm-ish salad for these cold winter days. 

Kale in the Komics

I have admitted a few times in the past that I read the daily comics on-line. Remember the one about The Starch Solution? I wrote about that before Dr. McDougall did.

For the past few days, a strip called "Betty" on GoComics has been doing a thread about a visiting relative, the male lead's brother. He had been a "bad boy" most of his life, even spent time in jail, but has recently cleaned up his act, and that includes (most of) his eating habits. The past few days were strips about his love of kale and its health benefits.

Unfortunately, GoComics won't allow me to show the actual strips, so just follow the link. Here's the first kale strip. After this, just click the forward arrow on each day's strip to get to the next.

Dr. Esselstyn Explains why Greens are Important, and Ann Essesltyn Strips Again

Jane Esselstyn posted this to the followers of the Engine 2 Seven Day Recipe Rescue Facebook community yesterday for day 3 of the current challenge, then later it appeared on Facebook so all the world can see it.

As the title of this blog post says, once again Dr. Esselstyn explains why he recommends greens 6 times a day for his heart patients - and everyone - for endothelial health and is proud that he can still recite the "Greens Mantra" in rapid fire. After his talk, Ann takes over and shows how she strips and cooks the kale, how quickly it all goes, and how easy it is to add greens to all your meals.




Even if you're not participating in any of the challenges or even follow the Seven Day Rescue version of the Engine 2 or Dr. Esselstyn's Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease food plan, this is a good FB community to belong to. A number of quick and easy recipes that are all within Dr. McDougall's parameters, and many of the recipes and meal suggestions (They're big on "bowl" meals and batch cooking) can even be made MWLP compatible. Oh, and these appearances by the Esselstyn family are certainly a great bonus! There are a number of files in the Video section featuring one or more of them.

Specialty Vinegars

I'm not a vinegar lover. Just a taste of it makes me cringe, a teaspoon makes me shudder. I think this is one of the reasons why I've never been much of a salad lover, and why I don't do well with food plans that insist on tons of greens, especially raw ones.

But with my husband's history of CABG and CVD, and the fact that we're both in our 60's now, we try to follow Dr. Esselstyn's rule of a handful of leafy greens 6 times a day. We've had some trouble getting them all in. I don't mind tossing a bit of spinach or kale into my oatmeal, but my husband is not a fan. It took 60 years to just get him to eat the darn oats! He does eat them 3 times and sometimes a 4th time a day. I'm about the same.

We know we have to do better.

Then the other day a question came up in the Essesltyn Nutrition Program Roundtable Facebook community about how much vinegar should be used on those greens, and a small debate started about if the vinegar is a necessity - when and where does the doctor even *say* that?? The answer was that he says it in his monthly seminars at the Cleveland Clinic. Of course, some of us (Yeah, I was one.) wanted to see it somewhere in writing, or some other place where we could check on it. Dr. Esselstyn was giving a talk that same day and one of the community members saw him afterwards and asked. Here was this woman's post about his reply (link only works if you belong to the community):

Latest conversation with Dr Esselstyn tonight. I asked him about the balsamic vinegar., can we use apple cider vinegar, yes on that answer. How about lemon juice....No on that one. He wants the acetic acid in the vinegar in combination with the leafy green veggies, cooked or raw six times a day. This acetic acid helps produce more nitric oxide which is healing to that damaged endothelium cells. Blessings to all! 

Thanks, Tricia. 

I guess mixing some in my oatmeal, in sandwiches, soups and stews isn't good enough any more. I have to start preparing tons of them and have vinegar on hand to eat with them. I'm not a happy camper. :(

I've been buying balsamic vinegar for a while now to make Jane Esselstyn's 3-2-1 Dressing that my husband loves, and in the past few months I bought a bottle of fig and a bottle of pear flavored ones, too. My husband can't tell any difference. Maybe because they're some cheapo brand the local grocery store sells and aren't too strongly flavored. I got a small bottle of balsamic glaze, hoping that was better. Because of its thickness he says the flavor's a bit stronger, but not worth buying glaze instead of plain old balsamic.

People on-line keep talking about those other vinegars out there, and I really want to learn to like vinegar on my greens, so I decided to buy some of the Napa Valley Natural's Grand Reserve balsamic vinegar. People say this is tastier, sweeter, and way less cringe-inducing because it's only 4% acidity, unlike other vinegars that are 6% or even 8% acidity.

I'll let you know when it gets delivered.

Does anyone have any other hints on how to get those 6-times a day greens in?

McDougall Advance Study Weekend is THIS Weekend!

I honestly forgot all about it until I got this email overnight:

Watch the February 2016 Advanced Study Weekend by Internet Broadcast

View it for up to 6 months online!

Then it dawned on me that he opens the McDougall Media store up to this a few days before the event. Yikes! Better go warm up that credit card and register, because I don't want to miss Dr. Esselstyn and Dr. Campbell, the Esselstyn ladies, and Dr Lisle. And of course, Dr. McDougall himself! The rest of the speakers are gravy to these meaty speakers.

And don't forget this week's free webinar with Gustavo and special guest Dr Lisle on self esteem. It's sure to be another goodie!

Pot Pie Soup

Nina and Randa Nelson, daughters of the VegSource owners, occasionally make up their own recipes. It's Jeff Novick's influence on them! You're not going to appear in his Fast Food videos and not enjoy making up your own recipes. :)

I had already written about Randa's Corn Chowder in the past. Well, today I discovered they recently worked together to make a soup I'll call Pot Pie Soup, since near the end they say it tastes like pot pie.




The ingredients, as my old, crumbling ears heard them:

1 quart low-sodium, no-fat vegetable broth
2 15 ounce cans black beans (3 cups) drained and rinsed (She held a double-sized can of beans)
1 15-ounce can (1 1/2 cups) kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 pound bag frozen mixed vegetables (with lima beans is okay)
1 pound chopped frozen kale
2 pre-cooked russet potatoes, cut up
nutritional yeast
onion powder
garlic powder
no-salt seasoning

Like all of Jeff Novick's Fast Food recipes, you just dump everything into a pot, season to taste, heat for 10 minutes or so, then eat.

I like nutritional yeast so used about half a cup.

I prefer my mixed vegetables without lima beans because the beans in my local store's blend are always hard as rocks, but the girls, and usually Jeff, use a blend that has them. Makes no difference. No kale in my freezer at the present time so a bag of spinach was tossed in.

I had Yukon Gold and white potatoes already cooked up so used them instead of russets.

Onion and garlic powders I sprinkled in about a half teaspoon or more each. I didn't measure, just shook.

Mrs. Dash Table Blend is the seasoning I used, and I tossed about a teaspoon. The twins used a salt-free blend from Costco, and I'm sure the brand many McDougallers use, Benson's Table Tasty, would work fine, too, as would any Mrs. Dash or McCormick blend.

This practically filled my soup pot! When I first added the ingredients I thought I would need to add more broth or water, but as the veggies cooked they released some water of their own, so it was plenty.

As for the taste? Well, not exactly like pot pies I remember as a kid, but delicious on its own merits.

A keeper for sure.

Is there a chance it can be made in an Instant Pot pressure cooker? Maybe not. There are so many ingredients and makes a large volume of soup, it's probably too much. Besides, this will be ready on the stove in 10 or so minutes. It'll take longer than that to reach pressure and start cooking in the IP, so why bother?

Barbecue Cabbage Sandwiches

There was a good sale on cabbage this week so I grabbed 2 heads. These cabbage looked better and fresher than they did in March for Saint Patrick's Day sales!

My husband, who usually works from home, had to go into the office this week for a few days and I could stink up the apartment as much as I liked, so this was a good time to cook them up. 

First, Jill McKeever's Barbecue Cabbage Sandwich recipe from her YouTube channel:



The recipe she demonstrates is slightly different than what is in her new book O M Gee Good! Instant Pot Meals Plant Based and Oil Free.

In the video she uses part of a head of cabbage, in the book it's a whole medium sized head. She does thin slices in the video but says "slice into chunks" in the book. She says she adds some maple syrup in the video, but it's not in the book version.

Oh, and in the book she cooks all this up in the Instant Pot on saute mode. Well, it is an Instant Pot book, after all (Woot! Woot!).

I cut my cabbage in thin strips, as she did in the video, tossed them into the Instant Pot with a bit of water as she does in the book, and even when I turned the heat up to High it still took almost a half hour before my cabbage was soft enough so it still had some bite but wasn't all limp and over-cooked, and I still ran across some really hard pieces.

I had to go through my pantry to find the BBQ sauce. I still had an opened jar of Annie's in the refrigerator, but that brand contains oil, so I don't dare use it on any foods my husband may eat. I really should throw it away - it's probably way past the "use by" date by now. Over the weekend I bought a fresh jar of Weber BBQ sauce, Sweet and Thick flavor. This is a wee bit too spicy for me, but my husband loves it. Next time I'll probably use the Bone Sucking Sauce.

Here's the sandwich I made from the cabbage:

I had to miss the annual Irish Festival that was held nearby this past weekend because the light rail trains were off-line for some maintenance and they had buses running in their place. We tried those in the past and it took hours to make the 15 minute trip, because each bus hold about 30, each train (double cars) around 100. That, plus they were only running them once every half hour instead of the usual weekend train schedule of every 10 minutes. Anyway, we no longer eat the corned beef and cabbage sandwiches they have at the festival, so eating my cabbage sandwich this way instead brought a big smile. Next time I'll serve them on rye bread instead of the Ezekial bread.

Now that my husband is more closely following Dr. Esselstyn's protocol of eating greens 6 times a day I need to keep coming up with new ways to cook 'em so he's not bored with them. When he's bored with a food, it doesn't matter if I have a fridge full of it, he just won't eat it. I don't think he'll get bored with this stuff any time soon.

Jeff Novick Says: Leafy Greens and You: How Much Is Enough

From the McDougall forums:

Non-Starchy Veggies, Leafy Greens & You: How Much Is Enough

Postby JeffN » Wed Mar 11, 2015 7:47 am
Non-Starchy Vegetables, Leafy Greens & You: How Much Is Enough?

How many non-starchy vegetables and leafy greens should you eat in a day? A few servings? A few pounds? or Six times per day? Should we eat them at every meal? What about for breakfast? Should they be a side dish or a main meal? And, when we discuss amounts, are we talking about servings, visual volume or calories? Someone could go "kale crazy" trying to figure it all out.

Here are a few articles and discussions to help you cut through the confusion. Take the time to read through them all to help put this issue in proper perspective & context. In addition, I have added a few posts below that have actually broken out the math.

How Many Non-Starchy Veggies Should We Eat?
https://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=42701

How Much Kale Does It Really Take To Reach Nutrient Nirvana?
http://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=28413

Eating Greens & Nitric Oxide Production
https://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=44548

Leafy Greens 6x/day
https://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=44556

Clarifying the Confusion: Dr Esselstyn Responds
http://www.jeffnovick.com/RD/Q_%26_As/Entries/2013/8/29_Clarifying_the_Confusion__Dr_Esselstyn_Responds.html

McDougall’s Moments: The All-Vegetable Diet?
https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/education/videos/mcdougalls-moments/all-vegetable-diet/



The Healthy Eating Placemat:A Visual Guide To Healthy Eating
http://www.jeffnovick.com/RD/Q_&_As/Entries/2013/8/21_The_Healthy_Eating_Placemat_A_Visual_Guide_To_Healthy_Eating.html

A Day In The Life
https://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=43281

Better to eat many different foods or a limited variety?
https://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=8179&p=439451

When Low Risk Means High Risk & Hi Benefit Means No Benefit
https://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=43681

The Calorie Paradox: Is Your Plant Based Diet A Vegetable Based, Nut Based or Starch Based Diet?
http://www.jeffnovick.com/RD/Articles/Entries/2010/12/30_The_Calorie_Paradox__Is_Your_Plant_Base_Diet_A_Vegetable_Based%2C_Nut_Based_or_Starch_Based_Diet.html

In Health
Jeff

Chef AJ on Foody TV Web Site

Remember back when the weather was warm and sunshine actually existed Chef AJ made the announcement that she was making a few episodes of a web tv show that were going to "air" in Spring 2015? Well, they're already on-line.

The series is called "Healthy Living With Chef AJ", and the episodes are as follows:

Episode 1) Guest: Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn; Recipes: Sweet Potato Chili, Beet Soup and Banana Strawberry Soft Serve



Episode 2) Dr. T. Colin Campbell; Recipes: Yellow Split Pea Soup, Quinoa Salad, Peanut Butter Fudge Truffles



Episode 3) Both Dr. Esselstyn and Dr. Campbell; Recipes: Breakfast Oats, Red Lentil Chili, Hail to the Kale Salad



Episode 4) Rebecca Martinez-Rocha (Chef AJ's sous-chef); Recipes: Hearty Lentil Tostadas, Mockacamole, Black Bean Brownies



Episode 5) John Joseph (front man for Cro-Mags and Ironman participant); Recipes: Clafouti, Cole's Cauliflower Soup, Caramel Apples



Episode 6) Classic Diner Food; Recipes: Mushroom Chili, Chipotle Burgers, Almond Milk and Chocolate Milkshake Smoothie

How to Sauté Spinach

Just omit the oil, for us healthy cooking folk.

The February 12, 2015 Sheldon comic strip.



Even Chef AJ reminds people that 2 pounds of cooked greens can fit into the palm of one hand, so this isn't stretching the truth all that much.

Vegetables - Beach Boys,and Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead 2

Thanks to Joe Cross and his Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead 2
   

for refreshing my memory of this fantastic Beach Boys song from my youth. Here are 2 different recordings of it. 

VeganMoFo Day 18 - Deviled Green Beans

This recipe comes from the October 2011 newsletter. I was very disappointed in this recipe. It makes less than 3 ounces of sauce for about 6 cups of cooked green beans. Only a few molecules of the sauce gets on each green bean. Then comes the ingredients themselves:

DEVILED GREEN BEANS

Preparation Time: 15 minutes 
Cooking Time: 10 minutes
Servings: 6

1 pound fresh green beans   
2 tablespoons vinegar 
1 cup water
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

Clean beans and cut into 1 inch pieces. Cook in the water until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain off water, reserving 3 tablespoons. Mix reserved water, vinegar and mustard. Pour over green beans. Stir until well coated. Serve hot or cold.

Hints: 20 ounces of frozen green beans may be substituted for fresh, if desired.

5 tablespoons of water and vinegar mix and a scant 2 teaspoons of mustard. Not too flavorful. In fact, my husband looked at the serving dish of beans with the sauce already poured over the top and asked when I'm going to add the sauce! Where's the "devil" in this devil sauce??

This is with all the sauce on it, without even stirring it in

We wound up using the Jane Esselstyn 3-2-1 Sauce that I always keep on hand in the refrigerator. It has more vinegar and mustard per serving and has the little bit of maple syrup tang. OK, so it's no longer deviled green beans, just tasty green beans.

Kale Salad

Gee, Jeremy Duncan (Zits comic) and I are of the same opinion!

Cooked kale, fine, but not raw, no matter what is done to it it feels like eating sharp, pointy objects.

Marvelous Marla

Long-time McDougaller Marla, owner of the Marla's Marvelous Meals recipe web site, has been experimenting lately. On the McDougall forums, Marla has been photographing and entering into the CRON-O-Meter 30 days of her meals (Only 2 meals per day - she skips breakfast) in a thread called Marla's CRON-O-Meter Chronicles. At the same time she's been wearing a Fit-Bit pedometer night and day to measure her energy expenditure.

Want to know what I found out?

She has to eat between 1000 and 1200 calories a day to lose any weight, and it's only been about 2 pounds per week. 

Of the 2 meals a day that she does eat, one of those meals is usually a big salad (2 quarts) with a nut based dressing, and a tiny sweet potato.

Her dinner plates appear to average 75% green/yellow non-starchy vegetables and only 25% starchy foods. 

Oh, plus a bowl of fruit on the side, at least 2 servings each to equal about 100 calories, at both meals.

She estimates the daily caloric density of her food is about 300-350 calories per pound, and she eats around 3-4 pounds of food each day.

The only potatoes she eats regularly are Japanese yellow sweet potatoes. I think I saw russets only twice. The volume seems to be no more than a cup each time. When she does have rice instead, it looks like a half cup scoop, 2 ounces in weight (The CRON-O-Meter printout says they weigh apx. 70 grams).

She also must walk/run 5 miles every morning plus another 20 minute walk every evening. She calculated at the beginning how much exercise/calories she needed to lose 8 pounds in 4 weeks. She estimated she needs to do 2,200 calories worth of exercise per day to see any weight loss.

Here is her conclusion at the end of her 30 day experiment.

It's an eye opener thread, that's for sure! I found out that even eating at least 75% non-starchy veggies with fruit and only 25% starch at most, that's still a very small amount of food, volume-wise, unless one eats mostly salads. What she's been eating doesn't really resemble the McDougall *Starch Based* food program at all.

McDougall Program for Maximum Weight Loss

Back in 1994, Dr. McDougall finally realized that not everyone was losing weight effortlessly on his food program and published the book The McDougall Program for Maximum Weight Loss, affectionately known as MWLP by his followers.

He added a 5-day MWLP program in Santa Rosa, which was well attended.

Michelle Dick added a page to her FatFree web site explaining the difference between the two McDougall programs.

A long-time McDougaller made up a list of MWLP recipes found in all the other McDougall books.

Another forum member started doing a blog with photo essays of her making many of the MWLP recipes. She also took the time to make a list with links to all the MWLP recipes found in the McDougall newsletters up to that point.

In January 2005, he wrote a newsletter article on how to refine the MWLP program for better compliance and results. He mentioned all the big weight loss people at his program would achieve. Well, yeah, people always lose big the first week of a new weight loss diet. 

Many people still weren't losing weight as easily as promised. I even wrote to him with that complaint, and got the same reply back that doctors had been telling me for decades when I complained I would follow a diet exactly as written but still fail to lose or gain - I must be cheating and not following the plan right. After years of encouraging people to fill their plates to the max, even offering a bet in the MWLP book to people saying that they can't eat more than him, he decided that eating so much isn't a good thing.

In the November 2005 newsletter article on Volume Eaters he admitted that for some people, they do need to reduce the total amount of food, even of his beloved of starches, to levels sometimes as low as those given to clients in attendance of the Rice House, many times reducing the calories to under 1000kcal/day. Yeah, that's what I said when I wrote to him, that I don't lose any weight unless I eat under 1000 calories. I was told to stop counting calories. 

Possibly disproving my usual preaching that people following our diet always lose weight and become healthier are a few extraordinary people I call “volume eaters.”  They eat very large amounts of McDougall approved foods, and their weight remains stubbornly fixed at a point too high for excellent health—although they all lost initially after giving up the high-fat, high-calorie Western diet.  I can vividly recall several men and a few woman who exemplify this behavior—and I know there are many more out there (in fact, I am guilty of a tinge of this behavior at times myself—“it takes one to know one”).

and also:

The most successful program for the treatment of people with serious eating disorders is the Kempner Rice Diet.5  This is a diet of rice, fruit, and sugar, plus vitamin and iron supplements, devised by Walter Kempner, MD, of Duke University in the 1940s to treat hypertension. The regular diet consists of about  2,000 calories daily and contains 5 gm or less of fat, about 20 gm of protein, and not more than 150 mg of sodium.  However, the initial diet prescribed for weight loss is even more restricted in calories (400 to 800 per day).

 I had heard from a number of other women who were experiencing the same thing - weight gain while following the MWLP as-written. When I mentioned this fact on the original McDougall forums on VegSource I was banned. Finally, I was vindicated!

In 2006, he let the world know how he and Mary go on an actual calorie-restricted diet he named the "Mary's Mini" for 10 days at a time and outlined this in the June and July issues of the newsletter. (Also told of Mary's history of what appears to be disordered eating, some days eating only a can of tomatoes or some jars of baby food, then went on to defend it by saying the babyfood squash has all the vital nutrients. Enabling much?) 

In 2008 he released another set of lectures on DVD called Dr. McDougall's Money Saving Medical Advice, and the first of those three lectures was The Science Behind the Maximum Weight Loss Program.

In 2011 Dr. McDougall added this short talk to his McDougall's Moments video series:



In April 2011, in a forum post about the buffet table at the seminars, her wrote this:

I have made that same conclusion and have often threatened to reverse the order on the buffet table so that people eat their salad last like I hear they do in Europe.
I teach the Maximum Weight Loss Program (an approach which emphasizes green and yellow vegetables) less enthusiastically than before because people do not do well in short and long term without the starch.
Short term they don't like the food as well, are hungry between meals, and have intestinal distress (gas and pain and upper acid indigestion).
Long term, without satisfaction delivered by starches, compliance falls off.
I believe in a starch-based diet -- green and yellow vegetables and salads are side dished.

In recent years, he's been mentioning in lectures he's given that he no longer pushes the MWLP program because people were turning it from a starch-based program into a green and yellow vegetable based one. You can see that plainly on his forums daily, when certain Star McDougallers encourage people to make their plates 3/4 veggies and only a quarter starch, the complete opposite of Dr. McDougall's teachings. He barely mentions this way of eating in the last book, The Starch Solution, devoting only a page to the principles of it (216) for those with stubborn weight loss and doesn't even refer to it as the MWLP. He no longer offers the MWLP 5-day seminars in Santa Rosa.

Still, for so many of us, weight loss is not possible without it, and many of the female Stars who are on that elite list because of their large amounts of weight loss only achieved it because of the MWLP. As soon as they start to eat foods not on the plan they start to gain. Just as with any weight loss diet, to maintain the loss you have to continue eating the foods that got you there, and in the same amounts. There's no way to eat more and not gain weight. 

There were only 3 times in my life I lost any significant amount of weight. The first time was as a child on 1000 calories a day, exercising almost 2 hours each day. It took 2 years to lose 30 pounds, then 1 month at 1200 calories to regain it all plus another 20. 

The second times was in 2000 when I followed strict MWLP 5 days a week, the regular McDougall program on weekends. Because of recent injuries and degenerative disc disease, I barely exercised. I lost almost 50 pounds in 6 months before the weight started to come back on, even when I started to reduce calories to below 1000kcal/day. I lost 16 pounds the first week, around 5 a week for the next few, then down to 2, one, none, and then started to regain. Before a year was out, most of the weight was back on. My doc blamed lack of exercise and low thyroid. It took over 10 years to find the root cause of all my pains that had prevented me from exercising more effectively, and my thyroid numbers still aren't all that great, but "good enough" according to my docs. 

My most recent weight loss has come after my husband's CABG surgery, when he was barely eating and needed a lot of assistance. During those long days at the hospital without access to decent food so lunch was skipped and it was too late for a decent meal when I got home at night; those busy days at home when I only had time to eat a small amount of food, all contributed to a rapid loss of about 15 pounds. The strict adherence to Dr. McDougall/Dr. Esselstyn food rules have helped release a few more pounds. 

Recent lab work that showed a worsening of some values, such as total cholesterol and triglycerides, is now causing me to move from many of the Esselstyn and McD heart-healthy recipes back into MWLP territory. I suspected I would have to do this back in September when my trigs and LDL shot up a bit from July's numbers, but they continued to be flaky in my March lab tests even though I made some changes. Hummus sandwiches, Rip's Big Bowl breakfasts and all those pasta meals have got to go, as well as large amounts of potatoes and brown rice. I'll be eating more soups and stews, more SNAP meals, more very beany Mary McDougall MWLP recipes. I'll take Chef AJ's advice and have green veggies with every meal, including breakfast. I already add greens to my oatmeal and grits, but now even the grits have got to go.

Dr. McDougall may not be that much into the MWLP program any more, but for many of us, it's the only way to go for weight loss and better lab numbers.

VeganMoFo Day 18 - Spinach Rice

Forgot to mention I tossed some kale in those Mexican potatoes yesterday. The doc reiterated how important it is to get more dark leafy greens into my husband to get his blood count up when we saw him yesterday for my appointment, so I did a "Jeff" and just poured some frozen kale in with the potatoes as they cooked.

No worries about leafies today, because the dish is loaded with spinach, my husband's favorite green veggie.

Spinach Rice
Servings: 4
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 50 minutes

1 small onion, chopped
1 small green bell pepper, chopped
1/2 cup chopped green onion
1 clove garlic, minced
1/3 cup water
1 cup uncooked long-grain brown rice
2 cups vegetable broth or water
4 ounce can chopped green chilies
4 ounce jar chopped pimientos
1 1/4 cups corn kernels
1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 cups packed fresh spinach
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
freshly ground black pepper to taste


Place the onion, bell pepper, green onion and garlic in a medium saucepan with the 1/3 cup water and cook over medium heat about 3 minutes, until the vegetables are softened slightly and the water has evaporated.

Add the rice, broth/water, green chilies, pimientos, corn, parsley and cumin. Stir, cover and cook for 45 minutes.

Stir in the remaining ingredients and cook for 2 minutes longer.

Serve at once.

The McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart
John McDougall, M.D. and Mary McDougall
(1996), ISBN: 0-452-27266-1 
page 335

As for my changes:

For the first 2 ingredients I used half a bag of frozen onion/pepper mix. The store brand is this very fine dice of both onions and green peppers, perfect for this, and a number of other, McDougall dishes.

For the canned chilies, yesterday I took a tablespoon out of a can, and I'll use the rest of that can today in this.

I forgot to buy fresh spinach with the grocery order so had to run out and get some. Believe me, this dish needs fresh, not frozen. Frozen tends to stay together in clumps in a dish, whereas fresh easily disseminates throughout. While the frozen my taste as good as fresh, it looks nicer with fresh.

And I skipped the cilantro and didn't bother with fresh parsley in its place.

Tastes as good as it looks.

The recipe says 4 servings, and that's what it made. My husband and I each had 2 bowls and there were no leftovers.

The only thing I would change next time is to put the whole bag of baby spinach in instead of the 2 packed cups (1/2 bag) called for. We haven't been eating enough greens (Can anybody eat enough?) and this is a good way to get them. I think the dish can handle that much more without them being over-powering.