"My Effortless Weight Loss" (by Plump Vegan)

Here's part of a fine post (link below) from the self-proclaimed "Plump Vegan" about how he lost 14 lbs. of weight the first month of following Dr. McDougall's (and in effect, Esselstyn, Barnard, and Ornish's) advice.  I did essentially the same thing back in 1995, losing some 70+ lbs. in around 3-4 months (I forget exactly how long).  Key was keeping the fat as a percentage of calories low (10-15%) and NO ADDED FAT (remember, oil is not a food), and some of them, like coconut and palm oil are incredibly high in percentage of saturated fat, a double-heart killer in terms of being added fat and type of fat).  PV also provides an example of his daily menu:

"A month ago I attended a nutritional seminar from Dr. McDougall. What I learned there resulted in changes to my diet. So far, one month in, I’m on schedule.  I’ve been eating this new way now for just over a month (about 32 days). I weighed 213.6 pounds (97kg) the day I started, and yesterday morning I cracked the 200 barrier, weighing in at 199.4 (90.6kg). So that’s 14 pounds (6.4kg) lost the first month. Yesterday I fit into a pair of pants that I’d been keeping in storage anticipating that one day I’d be able to wear them again.

The idea of the diet is very simple:

Eat only foods that are low in caloric density (and high in nutritional density).

That is, stick to foods that have relatively low caloric contents for their weight. In practice this means eating salad greens, green and yellow vegetables, fruits, whole grains (but not whole grain flour or bread), beans and lentils, and starchy vegetables like potatoes. Avoid adding oil to anything, avoid all meat, eggs, and dairy products (no problem for me because I was already a vegan), avoid nuts and avocados, and avoid “empty” carbs like soda and white flour.

Of the foods I eat, I eat as much of them as I want whenever I’m hungry."

One additional note:  not only do we get easy weight loss by following this approach, we drastically reduce the chances of getting heart disease, Type II diabetes, Altzheimer's disease, and a slew of other problems. Note:  the nuts and avocadoes are a weight-loss or existing heart disease issue.  If neither is of concern, small amounts are okay.

You can read P. Vegan's full post here.  My sincere congratulations to him for his discipline, candor, and willingness to share his experiences.  Let's hope more people (incuding vegans) get it together and stop posting ridiculous recipes with as much as a day's worth of fat per serving.  That's not helping anyone.  Stop ignoring the facts:  added fat kills (and as McDougall says, paraphrased) so does "moderation."