the starch solution: a guest post by linda gentino.

My mother-in-law and I recently read The Starch Solution: Eat the Foods You Love, Regain Your Health, and Lose the Weight For Good, by John McDougall and Mary McDougall (featured physician in the Forks Over Knives documentary).  Linda and Steve decided to follow the 7-day trial eating plan, so I asked if she would write a guest post about their experience.

I recently read The Starch Solution by Dr. John McDougall and decided to get on the seven day plan he recommends.  My husband, who is a saint, said he would do it with me.  The plan is a vegan diet focused on starches and eliminating oils such as corn, vegetable, and olive oil which would be allowed on the standard vegan diet.

Why would someone read a book like this and then follow it?  Well, of course, it didn’t happen overnight.  About a year or so ago I saw the movie, Forks Over Knives, where I first heard of Dr. McDougall.  The title means that if you are careful about what you fork into your mouth, you will be able to forgo the surgeon’s knife for certain common diseases such as heart attacks, cancer, and diabetes.  When Julie and family visited in September, I rented the video and we watched it twice.

I didn’t have a bad winter but it wasn’t good either.  My job was stressing me, my joints ached when I got up in the morning, I felt tired at the end of the day and usually fell asleep on the sofa after dinner.  I had a CT scan showing lots of small lesions, nodules, and scattered sclerosises, which probably everyone my age has but they don’t know it because they don’t have regular CT scans.

And I said, “I’ve got to do something.”  Perusing some blog sites, I found a McDougall link, borrowed the book, and began the plan.

It was a good week.  I made our food menu for the week and pretty much did not deviate from it.  A normal day for me includes coffee with half and half in the morning and a candy bar in the afternoon.  I switched to tea with a teaspoon of sugar in the morning.  The book says don’t go hungry so I ate three meals a day until I was satisfied and pretty much did not get hungry between meals.  When I experienced my 5:00 p.m. slippage, I ate the apple I brought with me daily.

Each day I felt a little better.  Day 3 I noticed my face wasn’t as oily as normal.  On Day 5 I read in the evening and didn’t doze off until 9:00.  Day 7 Steve and I both thought: This isn’t so bad.  Let’s try another week of it.  Steve’s big change was that he has a big, bad, loud, chronic cough and that just about disappeared.

I weighed myself on day 1 and day 8 using the scales in the college wellness center and weighing in at the same time of day each time and lost 4 pounds.

Here is the website with the free 12 day plan – http://www.drmcdougall.com/free.html and here is my before and after photo.

Before:

After: