Quick Fix, Healthy & Sustainable Weight Loss

If you want or need to lose weight more quickly than would naturally happen by consistently eating a varied WFPB diet, then this 10-point checklist for MWL (Maximum Weight Loss) may help.

We all know about “crash” diets that are draconian but don’t give optimal nutrition. These diets are also unsustainable and often result in the harmful yo-yo effect. The following diet is one which will provide all the nutrients your body requires and so is unlikely to lead to hunger pangs or bingeing.

Ten Steps to Healthy & Quick Weight Loss*

  1. Start and end right – Begin every meal with a starter of either fruit, salad or soup. End every meal with fruit.
  2. For main courses, use the 50/50 plate rule – 50% of the plate filled with non-starchy vegetables (greens) and 50% filled with minimally processed starchy vegetables (potatoes, wholemeal rice, beans, lentils, peas, etc).
  3. Eliminate completely or greatly reduce all added sugars (including maple syrup, agave syrup etc) and all added salt.
  4. Eliminate all animal foods (dairy, eggs, fish, seafood, meat).
  5. Eliminate all plant foods that contain high levels of fat (i.e. avocados, nuts, seeds, nut butters, tempeh, tofu, soy).
  6. Eliminate all added oils.
  7. Eliminate all foods that have high calorie-density, including flour products (bread, muffins, crackers, bagels, cookies, cakes), dry/puffed cereals, air-popped popcorn and dried fruit.
  8. Avoid all fruit juices, sugar-sweetened beverages, otherwise you’re simply drinking the calories you have avoided in solid food.
  9. Ensure you never go hungry. Sticking to the above guidelines, you can eat whenever you want and eat until you are comfortably full. This is not a starvation diet. It’s about eating to satiation from an ideal range of foods, so that you achieve your weight-loss target.
  10. Keep active. Aim to get a minimum of 30 minutes moderate exercise every day (e.g. cycling, swimming or brisk walking).

Time will tell

If you decide to use this 10-point checklist in order to lose weight, and you stick to it for a pre-defined period of time (e.g. 10 days, 4 weeks or 3 months), you will lose weight quickly and healthily according to Dr McDougall. And he should know since he has been using diet plans like this with his patients for decades, with astonishing results.

Reintroduction

Once you have achieved your ideal body weight, you can then consider re-introducing some nuts, nut butters, seeds, avocados, wholemeal flour products (non-salt/oil), and some soy products.

More sensitive palate

Apart from the wide-ranging health benefits you will enjoy, eating in this way is likely to have made you more sensitive to the natural flavours in food.

Toxic environment

Eating like this is not necessarily going to be easy. We live in a toxic environment of industry-fuelled food addiction, where high sugar/high fat processed foods are designed to stimulate the pleasure senses rather than nurture the body.

The result is huge profits for the few and huge stomachs and devastating medical conditions for the many.

Take control

If you are overweight and really want to take responsibility for your own health, then why not try using the above 10-point checklist for a defined period of time? Let us know how you get on…

*Derived from a newsletter and two books (2005 & 1995) produced by Dr John McDougall – one of the few exceptional early pioneers in plant-based nutrition.

 


References

Pushing Your Set Point to the Limits The McDougall Program for Maximum Weight Loss. The McDougall Newsletter Vol. 4 No.1 January 2005.

The McDougall Program For Maximum Weight Loss. Paperback. 1995. John A. McDougall MD.

The Starch Solution: Eat the Foods You Love, Regain Your Health, and Lose the Weight for Good! Paperback. 2013. John A, McDougall MD.