What a difference a change in diet makes (Standard American Diet (SAD) vs. Vegan)

[Systematic Chaos]

http://www.tickerfactory.com/weight-loss/w5Sn8t8>My Weight Chart:
>

In terms of plain text, my weekly progress thus far has been:

June 21, 2009 - 488 (-31 from Dec. 2007 lifetime high)
June 28 - 488 ( 0 )

July 5 - 485 ( -3 )
July 12 - 478 ( -7 )
July 19 - 476 ( -2 )
July 26 - 475 ( -1 )

August 2 - 456 ( -19 )
August 9 - 449 ( -7 )

31 lbs. in 18 months on a typical diet, followed by 39 lbs. in 7 weeks following The McDougall Plan. Sweet! :D

[auntAgonist]

1. SWEET doesn't cover it. This is AWESOME news

You're doing so well. I'm so excited for you. Kirk, you're gonna do it. I can feel it. And you deserve all the praise. It's gonna happen for you. Trust me!

I'm so proud of you my friend. I think of you all the time and hope you're doing well.

Thank you SO much for posting your great results. I'll bet you and Jeanette are just thrilled with this.

:toast:

:hug: :loveya:both :hug:

[Systematic Chaos]

3. Thank you, aA!

You can bet Jeanette and I are thrilled. :D

I've had too many years of false starts, self-doubt and difficulties. I'm so happy that this is turning out to be so easy, at a time when it really was just about do or die (or at the minimum suffer an amputation!).

I will definitely keep in touch here on this board. I'm also posting in the Vegetarian/Vegan/Animal Rights boards now.

As always, anyone and everyone is encouraged to check out my main journal on the McDougall website.

Thank you for all of your encouragement and continued support over the years while I've struggled to get my head in order, auntAgonist. It's meant more to me than you can possibly know.

:grouphug:

[justgamma]

2. I'm so impressed!

We knew you could do it. One day at a time. That's great progress. We are proud of you!

[Systematic Chaos]

4. It's taken me a long time, but finally the pieces are falling into place!

Just as I wrote to auntAgonist, thank you for your support as well, justagamma.

Seventy pounds is only part of the battle for me, but already I feel like a totally different person. I still tire fairly quickly since I'm trying to let my foot finish healing and therefore I'm not on it much. But, if there's a ring of the doorbell or I need something from the front of the apartment, I can get there much more easily then I could just a few short weeks ago. I can stand for many more minutes now than before as well. I just need for my arms to stop hurting so much. Frozen shoulder is one of the nastiest conditions imaginable, but I seem to be making slow progress with that clearing up too. I'm hoping that the only surgery I'll ever need will be cosmetic in nature, to get rid of excess skin. :P

I will be keeping everyone posted regularly! :grouphug:

[Systematic Chaos]

5. Fun with Water Weight Roulette: The Lasix Saga Continues.

June 21, 2009 - 488 (-31 from Dec. 2007 lifetime high)
June 28 - 488 (unchanged due to quitting 3 daily doses of diuretics)

July 5 - 485 ( -3 )
July 12 - 478 ( -7 )
July 19 - 476 ( -2 )
July 26 - 475 ( -1 )

August 2 - 456 ( -19 )
August 9 - 449 ( -7 )
August 16 - 454 ( +5 ) (blood pressure low enough to drop lasix completely, but at the expense of some water retention)

I actually ate less this week than last week, when I made a deliberate effort to slow my weight loss just a bit. However, at the same time I decided to get off a medication I seem to be able to live without, so I attribute this week's setback to a bit of water gain. Also, losing 26 pounds over the previous two weeks just wasn't something sustainable given that I'm not really exercising yet. That comes when I break below 400.

Otherwise, I'm doing very well and still thoroughly enjoy the McDougall lifestyle. Last night's dinner was a mushroom dish with a red wine reduction over some quinoa. Delicious!!

[CrispyQ]

6. Congrats on your incredible progress!

I love McDougall. The recipes in his books are easy & good. A long time ago I read that it takes two weeks for your taste buds to adjust to a new diet. I think that a lot of food in America is basically salt & fat & people don't really taste the food underneath. If you can put in the two weeks, you really start to taste the whole foods you are eating.

I haven't visited McDougall's site in a long time. Thanks for the link.

And again, congrats on the outstanding progress!

[Systematic Chaos]

7. Continued progress...

June 21, 2009 - 488 (-31 from Dec. 2007 lifetime high)
June 28 - 488 (unchanged due to quitting 3 daily doses of diuretics)

July 5 - 485 ( -3 )
July 12 - 478 ( -7 )
July 19 - 476 ( -2 )
July 26 - 475 ( -1 )

August 2 - 456 ( -19 ) ** (resumed diuretic and diabetic meds)
August 9 - 449 ( -7 )
August 16 - 454 ( +5 ) (stopped diuretics again due to lowering b.p.)
August 23 - 444 ( -10 ) (nope... can't quit lasix -- I want to but I need to be real)

My experiment in stopping lasix due to acceptable blood pressure readings wasn't such a great idea. I still retain a lot of water in my bad leg due to some vein damage, so I can't tax myself that way. Better a drug than the consequences of further compromised circulation!

I'm still continuing to eat vegan, with no added oil. I feel great except for the pain from my healing leg, so sometimes I have a hard time sleeping, but all-in-all I'm far less miserable than I was 3 months ago!

[Tobin S.]

8. Excellent, SC

Down 44 pounds in a little over 2 months is wonderful. That's nearly 10% of your starting weight- in other words, remarkable progress.

[justgamma]

9. I have one thing to say.

:woohoo: Keep it going!

[Broken_Hero]

10. Keep up the good work :)

:toast: :hi:

[Systematic Chaos]

11. Had a couple very rough weeks but I think it's cool now....

June 21, 2009 - 488 (-31 from Dec. 2007 lifetime high)
June 28 - 488 (unchanged due to quitting 3 daily doses of diuretics)

July 5 - 485 ( -3 )
July 12 - 478 ( -7 )
July 19 - 476 ( -2 )
July 26 - 475 ( -1 )

August 2 - 456 ( -19 ) ** (resumed diuretic and diabetic meds)
August 9 - 449 ( -7 )
August 16 - 454 ( +5 )
August 23 - 444 ( -10 ) (tried stopping lasix again -- no go)
August 30 - 449 ( +5 )

September 6 - 443 ( -6 )

I seriously have no idea what caused me to gain 5 lbs. last week. Even worse, I had another episode where my left thigh got really tender and immediately afterward my whole body fell ill for two days. It's got to be long-trapped lymph fluid coming loose as weight loss reverses my lymphedema, is all I can guess. That would certainly be toxic enough to throw me for a loop as it works its way out of the body! I spent the entire weekend last week in bed, asleep. Only ate one time, but also only took my medications one time. My blood sugar spiked for a couple of days as a result, but by Wednesday I was on my way back to normal.

At least whatever caused that weight gain, I reversed it plus a pound this past week. I'll take it!

Oh, and I've begun exercising daily too. Just marching in place on the bedroom floor for now, but that recumbent bike of mine is waiting for me to drop under 400 so I can get on and pedal all I want with no impact on my bad foot.

I hope all of you are doing well! Thanks to everyone who has been checking in on me. Sorry I didn't have much to say for a little while. I just needed to get over whatever happened last week and know that my weight was coming down properly again. :D

[supernova]

12. I'm glad you're back on track, Kirk

:hi:

We all have setback occasionally. I know I do.

It's OK, as long as the general trend is downward. :-)

[SheilaT]

13. I have gotten in the habit

of weighing myself every single day. My weight will fluctuate a couple of pounds from day to day, sometimes up, sometimes down. The five pound gain is only about one percent of your total weight at present, and I suspect that even those who do not have weight issues go up or down one percent of their body weight more or less all the time, and if they're not weighing themselves regularly they might never know.

In short, don't sweat the five pound gain, especially since it was immediately followed by a seven pound loss. You are obviously doing something quite right, and good luck to you!

[flvegan]

14. Been a couple weeks. How are you doing?

[Systematic Chaos]

15. Sorry I haven't updated anything here in a while.

June 21, 2009 - 488 (-31 from Dec. 2007 lifetime high)
June 28 - 488 (unchanged due to quitting 3 daily doses of diuretics)

July 5 - 485 ( -3 )
July 12 - 478 ( -7 )
July 19 - 476 ( -2 )
July 26 - 475 ( -1 )

August 2 - 456 ( -19 ) ** (resumed diuretic and diabetic meds)
August 9 - 449 ( -7 )
August 16 - 454 ( +5 )
August 23 - 444 ( -10 ) (tried stopping lasix again -- no go)
August 30 - 449 ( +5 )

September 6 - 443 ( -6 )
September 13 - 442 ( -1 )
September 20 - 441 ( -1 )
September 27 - 440 ( -1 )

October 4 - 441 ( +1 )
October 11 - 435 ( -6 )



31 lbs. in 18 months eating SAD (avg. 0.40 lbs./week)
53 lbs. in 16 weeks of McDougalling (avg. 3.31 lbs./week)

As you can see from my graph, I hit a major stumbling block in the 440s due to a number of things. Chief among those was the fact that my marching in place every day for exercise started playing really bad havoc with my upper thighs and groin in terms of chafing. It got so bad that I was bleeding, and I had to clean and treat the bad areas twice or more per day for a few weeks before the problem subsided. Because I was under the impression that I was going to be exercising regularly until things went south like they did, I brought more "rich" foods like sprouted grain bread, veggie burgers and tofu into the house. When I had to stop exercise I still had to go through all of that more calorie dense food so as not to waste it, and thus I ended up slowing way down in my weight loss. My calorie intake was still averaging only about 1500-1700 per day even with the bread and tofu, but just that alone was enough to really throw a monkey wrench into things.

Those foods are gone now, and it's back to eating lots of potatoes, brown rice, huge leafy green salads with honey/mustard/vinegar dressing (honey being my only concession away from true veganism, and I'm looking into maybe replacing that with something like agave nectar down the road), and beans. The change in my pace of weight loss is already quite apparent, and I hope to maintain an average of closer to 5 lbs. per week until I'm into the mid 300s if not lower.

To that end, I have ordered some really nice oversized slippers from kingsizedirect.com, which should be here any day now. Wearing those -- since I really have no other foot protection which is both comfortable and easy to put on and take off -- should make getting on and off my recumbent exercise bike much easier. The only thing which may still make it hard is my shoulders which are still very bad. Impingement syndrome is one of those things which is very hard to get over without either intensive physical therapy or surgery, and obviously none of those things are available to me at this time. If I can get on and off that machine, then exercise should no longer be a problem since ironically the biking doesn't cause chafing anywhere near as bad as the walking or marching in place.

More updates coming on all fronts as I progress, and as always I encourage all of you to stop by and check out my ever-growing journal at the McDougall website:

http://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11960&start=450

There are a number of fascinating and worthwhile journals over there, written by people who are in this to win it just as I am. :D

[flvegan]

16. Well over 10% in 16 weeks!

Keep up the great work. I'll try to remind myself to check out your journal over at Doc McD's house.

And don't worry about the honey thing. Use what works for you. If you can find something else, great. If not, again, use what works for you.

[Systematic Chaos]

17. 12 more lbs. will put me at 96 lost (30% to goal)!

This assumes that I will settle at a weight of 199, which for me may be too low.

In my Senior year of high school I tore it up with exercise, bicycling and walking all over Las Vegas. I got down to 235 from having been around 300 prior to that, and I barely had a tummy at all. I think 220 would have been perfect, especially if I would have started weight training rather than succumbing to depression and overeating.

I'll stick to each 32 lbs. equaling 10% for now, but it may be more like 30.

[flvegan]

18. You'll know when you're there.

And you will get there. Just stick with it.

Congrats, you've already come such a long way.