Any ex-McDougall's want to share their experience
 

Hello, I have been a vegetarian for about 4 years. I love to study about health, but with all these books and media, well I am a little confussed.

I followed the McDougall plan very much to a T for about 4 months. In this time I lost weight and loved the plan, until the blood sugar thing gave me a full blown anxiety attack at work. At this time I did not relate this to diet. I thought maybe I was mental or something. I started to have a lot of panic attacks and anxiety attacks very often. Never experienced this before the diet. I even went to the ER for this. They put me on drugs of course and anti- depressents. I did not think I needed this, but it helped me in the short term. After searching for a long time, I found out that it was my blood sugar that was throwing me out of wack. I did not want to believe it, but realized that your blood sugar plays a very important roll on your emotional well being. Since then (long story short) I can't bring myself to eat meat for many reasons, but can eat tuna and sometimes turkey. ( very rare though)

I have played around and added fat into my diet. I don't have the shakes or blood sugar swings at work anymore and am drug free. Simple stuff like eating string cheese or peanuts, protein shakes, instead of potaotes for breakfast. :o made a big difference. But I am here because I need to loose about 20 pounds or so and find a good eating lc plan for me.

Just wanted someone to share their results of a low fat vegan plan versus a lc diet. Thanks.

Wow, glad I found you!

I've posted this elsewhere, but I felt AWFUL on a high carb vegetarian diet, no matter how "healthy" it was. One irony was that on a high carb veggie diet I suffered symptoms of depression, the irony being that I keep reading a low carb diet will deplete your serotonin and make you depressed, but for me the opposite is true!

I also had too many blood sugar fluctuations that made me binge on "healthy" carbs. High carbing left me exhausted as well.

I know some folks swear by high carb (although I can't find them anymore!), but for me Pritikin, McDougall, etc. just didn't work. Oh, and this is not to bash anyone, being a Vegan made me VERY sick, but I realize there are vegans out there who feel great! So we just have to find our own way I guess. But you're not alone! Gimme' a stick of string cheese over a baked yam any day!

That is so funny about the string cheese. I eat at least 2 every morning. I used to eat fat free hash browns and a baked potato for breakfast and be shaky and famished by 10:00am. Of course then I would reach for more carbs and the vishous cycle began again.

I have noticed that eating more protein that I don't have near the anxiety like I did on complex carbs. I really wish I could eat that way, because I love those spuds, but it is not worth the blood sugar attacks at all. Learning a lot. :)

I did the mcdougall, lost a ton, felt great, but always had everyone down my back over the whole protein issue. I switched to lower carb and upped fat and protein. Unfortunaltly my weight upped along with it. I think the thing was, that under mcdougall you don't eat any processed food where as almost all sources of vegetarian protein have been processed.

McDougall is a quack
 

I McDougalled for abot 8 mo's and my health suffered greatly and I think I came very close to dying. I have been lcing for about 3 mo's now and the change is amazing. I no longer feel depressed, anxious, or irritable. My hair stopped falling out. I felt guilty about eating meat in the beginning but now turkey legs with all the skin taste so darn good I don't care!!! Atkins is/was right!

Well, I don't think I can ever bring myself back to eating meat again. I never liked when I was a kid even. I jusst need to watch the calories and processed stuff.

Oh, and to the above poster, I would never stop a diet if it worked for me. I remember I took a lot of crap also about it too.

WOW you just switched on a light for me. I did Vege high carb low fat for years and was very nervy and anxious. I thought it was cos I had growing boys, then teenage boys, then I thought it was smoking, I was slim though!!!!
Well glad to have read your posts, must get to LC veging right now :agree:

Thanx all :wave:
Lesley

I followed the mcdougal program strictly for quite some time early in my teens. My whole family did after my mother used it to lose a lot of weight.

It worked REALLY well for me to lose my weight I had at the time. There was no denying it for me.....everybody I know personally who has done it strictly has lost significant amounts of weight.
However, that was the least healthy time of my entire life, seemingly every illness under the sun seemed to flare up with me. My cholesterol and blood pressure was horrid (high high high cholesterol and tryglicerides.....and dangerously low blood pressure at times). My hair, nails and skin were all in bad shape at all times. That time period was when my osteoperosis and arthritis got really bad. My blood sugar was always peaking and crashing, and my moods were getting really bad....I was always extremelly nervous and fidgety (much more than normal even, and I am diagnosed as having OCD, and BP2).
It wasnt sustainable to me, as I never felt well, and was constantly hungry.
Sure the mcdougal plan you dont have to count anything like calories, but it is such a low calorie woe even when you eat until you feel like you can burst, you can still end up ravenous shortly after. I feel strongly that the mcdougal woe caused my already bad issues with food to get much worse....soon after I gave up following mcdougal/ornish, I became anorexic (bottomed out at 130 pounds at 6 foot 3 inches tall before I got help). After that my weight ballooned up to my highest ever of 250 pounds binging on junk. Then my experience with low carb began last year, and here I still am, healthier than I have ever been in my life, and finally seeming to have been able to maintain a decent weight for my height, without obsessing over the food I eat.

*** I am no longer vegan or veggie, I eat a LOT of dairy and eggs, some soy, small amounts of other legumes, and two or 3 times a week I have a small portion of meat or seafood.

Btw my mother who I mentioned did the mcdougal plan strictly for years...but has slowly but surely as of the last year with my influence become more moderate...eating more healthy fats and protien...still vegetarian, and not totally low carb, but it is working for her and she says she feels great now and her blood levels are much better and hasnt gained back any of her weight she had initially lost with mcdougal.

Paleo VS Starchivore theories and McDougall does he look unhealthy for a 70 year old.
 

I am Confused with the Paleo VS Starchivore theories and McDougall does he look unhealthy for a 70 year old?

My diet History
I followed the Pitkin diet for over 20 years and i had really perfect health, I would have a small amount of meat and eggs maybe once a week or fortnight. But included dairy like goats or sheep’s yogurt and milk, NO cow products. I would also take a B12 and Vitamin E supplement and flax seed oil and linseed meal. Mostly i would have a mixed rolled oats/rye/barley with a sprinkle of linseed meal for breakfast with a banana or apple and a little honey. (No milk).

Snacks would be fruit or date and walnut scones made with fermented whole meal flour, yogurt, oats, dates and walnut, which I would bake and have with yogurt on top.

Lunch would be sour dough rye bread with goat’s milk or water and a piece of fruit or a vegetable (carrot and tomato) omelet made with water and plain whole meal flour and of course the sprinkle of linseed meal and bi-care of soda an egg whites as a rising agent.

Dinner was steamed vegetables lots of potatoes or a soup/stew also with lots of potatoes and barley seeds.

but then i got into the raw Vegan diet and become more fruit and juice focused, and my health has slowly gone downhill since.

I then came across the paleo diet and tried that but i got even more run down, but I think that was because I was mixing the paleo with the vegan ideas but having high fruit juices packed with greens.

Recently i became paleo again but kept it to a paleo breakfast and then lunch and dinner just sandwiches and stir-fry’s, but added the high butter and dairy.

I lost about 10 pounds in 6 weeks and i felt better and my energy levels picked up. Plus i did not feel hungry in the mornings so would not snack. I cut fruits right back to only one a day and no more juices. But I did not restrict what the evening meal would be as it was more often a vegan stir-fry with brown rice.

McDougall
But then i came across McDougall and the high carb starchivore diet which is closer the old Pitkin diet and i am now giving it a try because the science does seem to support what they claim and also i am temporally in Asia and its harder to do a Paleo diet here, so I will give the high carb starchivore diet a trial and see if I keep losing weight as i feel that weight gain or loss will be a true tell of a diets effectiveness.

But what concerns me about the McDougall high carb starchivore diet is that he does not look very healthy in his recent YouTube clips. Googled his age and it comes up at 70 years born May 17, 1947. So i am thinking that if he looks that old by age 70 his diet has problems. Because he is looking like what a healthy 85 to 90 year old should look like.

What i am thinking is that maybe the real truth is that it’s a mixing of both the Paleo and starchivore theories together that maybe the full answer to perfect health.

So does anyone have any thoughts out this, because i am feeling confused, with the whole Paleo vs starchivore theories.

I don't have answers for you,but my experience following the McDougall high search diet to a T, for 6 full months, was a disaster. I went to my doctor fully convinced I had found the answer to lowering my cholesterol.

What a shock to find my triglycerides were over 400! I quickly ran back to a lower carb way of eating, and within 3 months numbers were normal.

I don't know either. McDougall may look old for his age but everyone is different and not having much body fat will make one look older.

I don't know if looks count because we all have a history...I know I do. The other thing is that if you carry extra weight and your face is filled out, it will show when you lose it.

That said, I am not one who can follow McDougall. I am more of a bean eater with the occasional potato meal. Beans/legumes are just more satisfying IMO plus when I moved away from LC, my BG was unstable and potato was a spiker.

Now, three years later, I can eat wfpb type starches with no problem and my FBG is solidly in the 80's.

If he still looks that old when he's 90, I'll forgive how he looks now. :lol:

This is highly subjective....

I think he's looking and sounding pretty good (March 2020)

https://youtu.be/gQ6_NmTMmC0