Mini Mary Diet Review
While the Mini Mary Diet is long gone, I have decided to post up my daily meals and thoughts during the whole Mini Mary Diet. I hope this is helpful information if you are considering going on a Mini Mary Diet. If you have any questions about doing the Mini Mary Diet, feel free to ask me and/or search Dr. McDougall’s website for more information.
Day One (Sept. 8 2014):
Meals:
Today for breakfast I had quick breakfast risotto and a sliced apple. I think I ate until I was full for breakfast, but I am not sure. I was still a little hungry when I finished breakfast, but after some time I felt fuller and more satisfied. I am not used to eating food that is calorically dense yet, so I think eating slowly will be important in order to not overeat calories. I really liked the taste of my breakfast, though. I suppose I will enjoy eating this diet for the first few days because I have not allowed myself to have lots of rice for a long time because it isn’t under the Fuhrman diet program as a food that is encouraged.
For lunch I had sweet carrot risotto. That was good as well. Not as simple as breakfast, but still only 5 ingredients. I enjoyed the risotto for lunch as well. It wasn’t as creamy as the breakfast risotto, but I understand the reason behind that— it wasn’t cooked and it didn’t simmer as long as the breakfast one. Breakfast was pre-cooked and lunch was not.
For supper I had broccoli and then the Rice and Blue Pea Risotto. I seemed to eat less at supper tonight. I only had one bowl of the combined risotto and broccoli. Around 1/2 the bowl was filled with broccoli and the other half was filled with risotto.
Reflection:
I ate more at lunch than I did at breakfast it seems, but lunch seems to be my biggest meal anyways. I will have to see how hungry I am for supper…I am usually not very hungry to make supper, but end up feeling more hungry when I start to eat. I know I tend to overeat. I am not exactly sure why. I think a large influence is Rob. Rob eats a lot and seeing him makes me want to eat more. When I was eating meals by myself, I didn’t any anybody influencing the amount that I was eating (or should/want to eat) but now I do. I think that I something I need to teach myself how to do because we will be together a long time.
I could have eaten more for supper, but I didn’t feel like it. For one, I want to lose weight, which is why I am doing this whole mini-diet in the first place. Secondly, I don’t like the feeling of overeating and being overfull. Surprisingly, even after 20-some years on this earth and a lot of years of being overweight and years of trying to lose said weight, I still haven’t learned that now I will always regret overeating. The weird thing is that I know I will feel bad when I am doing it, but I do it anyway.
I guess I put present personal enjoyment ahead of long-term personal enjoyment or future personal enjoyment. If/when I like the taste of a food, I instinctively want to eat more of it. I sometimes overeat because I get too much enjoyment out of eating. I need to start putting future enjoyment as a larger priority. I let my emotions get in the way of making a rational decision. Eating is not about enjoyment. I know this. Eating with enjoyment is different than eating for enjoyment. But for some reason I have not been fully capable of following my own logic and doing what I actually preach. That is something that I need to work on. If I expect other people to follow my advice, then I need to follow my own advice. Who would take advice from somebody that doesn’t even follow it themselves?
That is one thing that the MMD addresses. I will start to eat for nutrition and because I am hungry. I need to stop looking forward to eating as being a pleasurable task. The first priority when it comes to food is nutrition and energy. That is all. Enjoyment is an unintended benefit of eating, NOT the main priority.
Day Two (Sept. 9 2014):
Meals:
Today for breakfast I had chocolate rice, pineapple and a (rotting…haha) lemonade for breakfast. Not as good of a breakfast as yesterday for multiple reasons. The lemonade was rotting, but still edible, so it wasn’t the best lemonade I have had (out of the 3 I have eaten) and the rice wasn’t an actual risotto, but more like rice with chocolate sauce. It would have been better if I had pre-cooked rice (like yesterday) and then made the risotto (…like yesterday).
For lunch I had leftovers from today’s breakfast and yesterday’s lunch (Chocolate Rice and Quick Breakfast Risotto). The chocolate rice reheated with water ended up more like a risotto, which was good. It also tasted sweeter too. I believe that it tasted sweeter because it didn’t have amla on top. The amla was probably too much bitterness for the one packet of sweetener to handle along with the carob. I am not sure what I want to do with my daily dose of amla if my breakfast isn’t going to taste good with it. I will figure something out…
I had no supper tonight because I was not hungry.
Reflections:
I wasn’t sure when I was supposed to stop eating again. I was hungry this morning, and when I ate my fruit I was hungry, and when I started to eat the rice I was hungry, but I never got the feeling that I was really super full. I only got the feeling that I was satisfied and could stop eating if it wanted to, but I never got the feeling that I wanted to stop eating. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t overeat though, so I made the decisions to stop eating, before I had even finished the bowl contents of my bowl. I believe that is a good decision. It is better to stop eating and eat when I really need to than overeat. As I discussed yesterday, I really don’t like the feeling of having overeaten, yet I have a hard time stopping myself. This is a good diet. It will not only encourage me to eat less with monotony, but it will also encourage me to think more about why I am eating, pay attention to what I am feeling when I am eating and not overeat. Stop eating for pleasure. Start eating solely for nutrition, but with enjoyment.
My eating is influenced by Rob. He started to make lunch, so I said to myself, “Eh, okay, I’ll heat up some lunch too”. I was starting to think I was hungry, but I wasn’t super motivated yet to start making lunch. I only got motivated because Rob started to make his lunch. However, I don’t feel like I overate. I was worried that I might, but my stomach doesn’t feel like it did, so I think I should be okay. I will see how hungry I am tonight. Rob will be eating something different tonight too. It may happen that I actually HAVE to eat later than him because he will be using the pressure cooker; the pressure cooker is my preferred method of rice preparation. It is his overall preferred method of cooking as well. He will be cooking cowpeas tonight. Maybe I will not have more Rice and Blue Pea Risotto as planned and just have some plain rice, although that doesn’t really sound extremely appetizing. Part of the reason for that could be that I am full after lunch and it is hard to think about whether something will be appetizing or not when I am full.
I do not want to gain weight on this diet program. I still need to be conscious about what I eat and when I eat and WHY I eat. I can see that I eat because Rob eats. But that will naturally happen in a relationship. If we want to continue to eat together, then we actually need to eat at the same time. I doubt our systems will become fully synchronized and we will become hungry and full at the exact same times all the time. We need to do the best with what we have.
Right now though, I don’t have much excuse. We are eating different things. It is acceptable to eat at different times at this stage because we are eating different meals.
Day Three:
Meals (Sept. 10 2014):
For breakfast today I basically had the quick breakfast risotto again but I made it from fresh, uncooked rice in the pressure cooker and not from pre-cooked rice like on Monday. It was yummy but not as creamy. I also had 183 grams of pineapple and 1/2 of a lemonade. I was worried that I ate too much; however I do not feel like I did so. I measured out 2 cups of uncooked rice, but it seemed to have expanded in the pressure cooker. I could have stopped eating sooner I suppose, but I didn’t want to have a small amount of leftovers, so I just finished the bowl (what I cooked).
For lunch I had the small jar of plainly cooked rice and a salad with lettuce, carrot, beet, red capsicum, white wine vinegar, lemon juice, parsley and black pepper. It was flavorful and filling. I was satisfied after I had consumed a portion of my rice but not all of it but decided to keep eating anyways.
Reflections:
I am thinking that because I wasn’t hungry for lunch yesterday, it may be better to eat just two times a day— at breakfast and then have a late lunch. Perhaps if I am hungry for supper I can have just a small portion of broccoli or another vegetable.
I was surprised that I didn’t need something before lunch and dinner. Between 4 and 5, when Rob and I went on our walk, I started to feel tired. I am not sure what is the cause of that— simply lack of sleep, lack of nutrients, lack of calories or something else entirely. I don’t feel hungry, but since I haven’t had a lot to eat today, I feel like I should have something for supper. I suppose if I don’t feel hungry tomorrow morning, I can always miss it. I do think I need to eat supper to get my energy up. I am sure my body isn’t used to all this starch and lack of nutrients. Normally I get a lot more nutrients from fresh fruits, vegetables and legumes. I am not used to low nutrient foods like rice.
Day Four (Sept. 11 2014):
Meals:
For breakfast I had a sliced apple and quick breakfast risotto. It was pretty good. I only made 2.5 cups of rice. I want to make sure I don’t overeat, so it might be better to eat more small meals than few large meals.
I had another bowl of rice around 10:15 AM. It consisted of 2.5 cups of rice, black pepper, cumin and parsley. It was okay, but not great.
Supper was delicious tonight. I had around 2-2.5 cups of cooked broccoli and some Mushroom Rice. I ate the broccoli quickly, but did my best to eat the rice as slow as I could. I was able to appreciate and enjoy the rice more when I ate it slowly and quickly. I don’t think eating slowly actually makes food taste better, but it does make the consumer more conscious about the flavors and textures they are experiencing.
Reflections:
Overall, I believe today was a good day. I don’t think that I ate too much and I definitely don’t feel like I ate more than I needed to. Eating slowly is very important on a weight loss regime. I think that if I had eaten quickly and without conscientiousness, I wouldn’t have felt full when I did and then would have overeaten. It also helps that I only make a certain amount of food. 2.5 cups of precooked rice seems like a good amount for a meal. I will remember this for the rest of my Mini Mary Diet.
I am also more conscious about how I feel when I see other people eating. Seeing Rob eat makes me want to eat. However, I could tell that I was full. I was also more attentive to this feeling as well, so I didn’t search for something else to eat. I finished off my pre-cooked rice for the day, so I really didn’t have any thing that I was supposed to eat available anyways, but it is always good that I am noticing. I need to be attentive to these feelings and recognize them so when I am tempted at a future time when there is more food available I do not eat it. This may not be so important to do when I am looking to maintain weight, as along my journey (since curing my thyroid problems) I haven’t gained weight, but at certain points I haven’t lost weight on a healthy diet either. A short-term weight loss diet regime is different from a weight maintenance regime. I do think that I would lose the weight eventually on a healthy diet. I haven’t been able to weigh myself and I am not sure if I will be able to. However, I think that this will work. It seems effective.
Day Five (Sept. 12 2014):
Meals:
Breakfast was a lemonade, apple and Quick Breakfast Risotto. It was tasted like it always does, but I am not getting tired of eating it every morning.
Lunch was a TON of rice and sautéed carrots, onion, black pepper and paprika. The flavors were there but it needed more sauce and the carrots weren’t fully cooked. I cooked on an outdoor BBQ today, so I can’t expect a gourmet meal…
I didn’t eat supper.
Reflections:
Breakfast was yummy. No complaints.
Lunch was promising, but it didn’t reach to its full potential because I didn’t have the proper equipment. I intend in recreating that dish in a real kitchen.
I am disappointed in myself for not stopping eating my rice. I knew that I should have, but I was still able to eat. I just ate until it was gone. Because I know I overate and also because I was not hungry for supper, I didn’t have it. I don’t know why I didn’t stop. Perhaps I was enjoying eating my food too much. I need to stop doing this. It is just so much easier to stop eating where there is none left. Then it seems as if I don’t have to make a decision to stop eating. I need to follow the rules. Eat until you are satisfied, girl. Do it.
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