Tag Archives: Maximum weight loss

Maximum weight loss strategies

While most people will reach a healthy weight by simply adopting a low-fat whole foods plant-based diet, some may need additional strategies to achieve their weight loss goal. These strategies may be particularly helpful to those whose weight has plateaued after an initial period of weight loss.

Tips for maximum weight loss

  1. Eat enough moderate calorie density food to avoid becoming too hungry.
  2. Keep WFPB ‘fast food’ in the refrigerator and carry snacks when away from home.
  3. Aim for 100% adherence during the first 3-4 weeks.
  4. Don’t drink your calories as juices or smoothies.
  5. The food you have at home is the food you will eat – restock your kitchen.
  6. Upskill in food label reading.
  7. Limit or avoid whole plant foods that are high in fat – nuts, avocados, soy products.
  8. Limit or avoid dried and baked foods with low moisture contents (i.e. bread, cakes – even if whole grain).
  9. Dilute your ‘starches’ – whole grains, starchy vegetables and legumes – by adding more non-starchy vegetables to your plate, but don’t go higher than half the plate.
  10. Sequence your meal by eating low calorie density food first. Start the meal with salad or soup. Eat a piece of fruit before considering the cake.
  11. Remember that this plan is about eating more low calorie density food not smaller portions.

NB The less a food is processed the better it is for weight loss.

McDougall’s maximum weight loss plan

Dr John McDougall has a maximum weight loss (MWL) program designed to assist people to speed up their rate of weight loss. It is not suggested that you aim to eat this way all the time – it might be something you try for 3 or 4 weeks before returning to the regular WFPB program.

Basic principles include the regular McDougall guidelines:

  • Base your diet around starches
  • Avoid all meats, poultry and fish
  • Avoid all dairy products, eggs and oils

Also avoid:

  • Nuts, seeds, avocados, olives, and soybean products
  • All dried fruit and fruit juices
  • All flour products such as breads, baked products with flours/nuts/sugar syrups

There is a further tweak you can try for a short period of time to really give your weight loss a kick-start, known as “Mary’s Mini McDougall Diet”. It is based on the principle to make your diet as simple as possible for a short period of time to help you re-set your taste buds. You can choose one starch, e.g. potatoes, to form the centrepiece of your diet and eat this for every meal with the addition of a few other vegetables of your choosing.

Resources:

Return to Weight Management page


Page last updated 15 February 2016

Weight Management

The Weight Management section of our website includes pages covering Energy Density, Food Addiction, Satiety and Low-Fat diets. This incorporates much of the material we present in the weight management section of our one-day seminars or in our 4-part webinar series. Click here to see upcoming seminars and webinars.

A whole foods, plant-based diet will enable you to lose weight and keep it off without portion control. It’s first and foremost a health-supporting diet so you will feel yourself getting healthier as you lose weight, unlike Atkins-Paleo style low carb diets which have many side effects and are dangerous to health in the long term. No special products are required – it’s food-based and you can buy everything you need from your local supermarket and fresh produce store. Going plant strong is not difficult or expensive.Going Plant Strong

Energy density is the key concept for understanding how the type of food we eat determines our body weight. It’s also the key to managing your weight – whether your goal is weight loss, keeping weight off or avoiding weight loss. Check out our simple calorie density chart – it may surprise you to see that some of the carbohydrate-rich foods for which we have a natural affinity are moderately low in calorie density. You can use the principal of energy density to build meals which are full-sized and satisfying yet modest in calorie content. And you won’t have to worry about nutritional deficiencies because whole plant foods have a higher overall nutrient density than animal-derived foods or processed plant foods. People who adopt a plant-based diet for weight loss often express joy and relief at breaking free of portion control, often after years of unsuccessful dieting. Energy Density

Two-thirds of Australians are overweight or obese. This is not the result of a design flaw in the human body, lack of willpower or declining physical activity. The problem is that we eat the wrong type of food for our species. Calling ourselves omnivores does not change the fact that our anatomy and physiology suggest that humans are herbivores. Modern processed foods and animal products provide a hyper-concentrated source of calories that goes beyond the operating range of our weight-regulating physiology. The failure of our appetite and satiety regulating mechanisms to fully compensate for the richness of this food results in systematic overeating and gradual weight gain.
Appetite and Satiety

Eating food is pleasurable. We have dopamine-based brain reward systems that are designed to respond to high calorie food and other experiences that improved the chances of survival and reproduction for our hunter-gatherer ancestors. But modern foods like cheese and processed foods are ‘hyper-palatable’, leading to a temporary state of enhanced pleasure followed by addiction. Moderation keeps you trapped in this state. Once you break free from addictive hyper-palatable food, you will find it easier to resist comfort eating.
Food addiction

There is a lot of debate about low carb vs low fat diets. We prefer to think in terms of food rather than nutrients – i.e. a diet based on whole grains, legumes, vegetables and fruits. In nutrient terms this is a high carbohydrate, moderate protein, very low fat diet. There is a physiological basis for the saying, ‘the fat you eat is the fat you wear’, but the best evidence for this approach is the real world observation that people who eat low fat, plant-based diets are always leaner. Low-fat diets for weight loss

Our tips for maximum weight loss will help those who are still having difficulty losing weight even after changing to a whole foods plant-based diet.  We also give advice on how not to lose weight for those who are at or below their goal weight.

Resources

Books:

General weight loss:

Calorie density and the ‘Pleasure Trap’:

When weight loss has stalled:

Food composition tables:

Peer-reviewed articles:

Success stories

Page created 26 January 2013
Page last updated 30 April 2018