Hi All,
I have seen a few postings under various threads where folks have shared their experiences using recipes from Dr MMs/Mrs MM 8-week blood sugar diet recipe book and the 8-week sugar diet book and given that I have made a few lately have created this thread. This may or may not be useful as we all have different tastes; and goals; and needs; but afterall ‘these books’ are a reference a lot of us are using, particularly if you are a new starter, like me. I thought it would be useful to collate experiences, just on the recipes in these books, in one place.
My first recipe – Portobello Mushroom with goat’s cheese and pine nuts. Fabulous. But when I weighed it all out per the ingredients, it is more than 150 cals as detailed in the book and as another post has already mentioned the mushrooms are not cooked in 3 mins. I did mine, which were big (3″+ diameter) and flat, in the top of oven at 200 for about 8mins then added the cheese and pine nuts for another 5 mins. The oil isn’t necessary, and I added baked tomatoes with this and 100g steamed spinach.
Tuna, Artichoke and Butterbean salad. Super. I used 4 artichoke hearts from a tin of hearts in water bought from Waitrose (and this batch makes two portions); for my dressing (as always cooking for one) I used 10ml Olive Oil and 10ml of Cyder vinegar. I have some very small plastic pots (bought in Sainsburys) and measuring spoons and put the dressing in one of these and just give it a good shake. I recalculated my calories from the ingredients used. I ate my salad on a bed of mixed salad lettuces with fresh herbs.
Greek Yoghurt, nuts, seeds and berries. Easy. I personally use Woodlands Organic Sheep Yoghurt. Again from Waitrose. I use whatever nuts I fancy but just 10g, and 50g fresh berries. A great break from grains in the morning and less carbs too.
I am about to make Moroccan Spiced Chickpea Salad (two portions, so will need to adjust the recipe ingredients). I shall let you know later how I get on.

Thanks. Some useful tips here!

Hi WildlifeJacks

This is a great idea. I am now in week 3, I’ve pretty much stuck to the meal plan and recipes in the book and have been thinking that some may find all the ‘homework’ I’ve done useful in planning their meals. The only thing I changed was instead of the brunch options, I just repeated meals from other days, where the recipes are for 2, I made them for 2 and ate the leftovers on these days – less time spent cooking! I agree with you about the mushrooms, they took longer to cook and the oil wasn’t needed.

So for starters here are my recipe counts for all the breakfasts I’ve made, if anyone wants to know the exact ingredients and quantities I used I am happy to share the details. I’ve included a few details where it affects the calories.

Yoghurt with Passionfruit 171 I used 100g yoghurt not 150 and 5g pistachios
” with mango and hazelnut 354 not 180 Used 130g yoghurt and 10g hazelnuts
Almond butter with apple etc 237 not 110
Portobello with mozzarella & pinenuts 169 used 25g mozzarella instead of goats cheese
No carb bircher 222 only 25ml apple juice
Grilled peach (apricots) & Yoghurt 177
Melon spinach & blueberry shake 130
Blueberry & green tea shake 155 not 100 with only 5g flaxseeds
Scrambled eggs & smoked salmon 310
Avocado poached egg 202
Avo, tuna & spring onion 192
Roasted peaches & greek yoghurt 176 a pudding from the recipe book with 50g yoghurt

FIRST POST!!

Only started on Monday and am following the plan to the letter. Two issues so far – one a tip and one a query.

The recipe for the vegetable curry was for 3, which was awkward, as there are two of us, so in a flash of inspiration, I doubled all the ingredients and then froze 4 portions.

The almond butter – blimey! I had no idea it would take so long to blitz… I halved the amount of nuts, as I did not want the extra 2 portions sitting in the fridge and could not see it repeated in the following weeks. According to the recipe (based on a serving being 2 tablespoons) this should have made 4 tablespoons (or am I being incredibly dozy here?). There is NO WAY that I have that much butter – one table spoon at the most. Can’t wait to see my partner’s face when he gets served this on Friday morning …. What have I done wrong??? Also – isn’t it easier just to buy almond butter – if it’s 100% almonds (eg Meridian)?

K8te, when it is an odd number it is easier to divide the ingredients by the number the recipe is for (i.e. 3) that gives you the portion for one then just multiply it up. Then for an extra meal double it.

UNLESS you are able to resist it don’t buy Almond butter as a jar can be very tempting and it is very high in fats and calories. I also wouldn’t bother to make it, life is too short and almonds are too expensive.

Hello and welcome K8te

A word of warning on the almond butter recipe, it has more than DOUBLE the calories than stated in the book, see my post above. Just 25g almonds alone is around 154 cals. And yes it makes a tiny portion, I ended up dividing it by 3 so had even more calories – oops! You’re better off having a handle of almonds and an apple for breakfast! If I had this again I would just use the peanut butter from my cupboard and just make sure to weigh and count the calories. Good luck with all the recipes, I am near the end of week 4 now so have made most of them. 🙂

That’s handful not handle 😀

Well done for getting to the end. Is it worth it? Are you pleased with your results?

K8te,
Sunshine-girl is so right about the almond butter. I cannot buy the Meridian almond butter as I can’t resist it.

It is BSD friendly – but not if you eat a jar in 48 hours which I am afraid I have done on more than one occasion. An almost unbelievably huge amount of calories and fat.

It’s been so worth it K8te, end of week 4 now and 12lb lost. I’ve lost inches from all over, my clothes are so much looser, I’m fitting into clothes I haven’t been able to wear for years! I have enjoyed most of the recipes & I like following a plan, it helps me to stay focused. The only thing I changed was I didn’t do the ‘brunch’ options, on those days I had 3 meals as normal and it gave me a chance to use up leftovers, I only cook for one so if a recipe was for 2 I would eat the other portion on brunch days. I’ll keep going for another 4 weeks and I’ve bought the recipe book so looking forward to trying some new recipes. How are you getting on?

Truthfully, finding it a bit of a faff, but sticking to the plan religiously and have already lost 5lb (husband has lost 7.5) in 4 days – which is completely mind-blowing. I know what you mean about the left overs, but as I get more confident, I will be able to stray a little from the plan and start to substitute dishes. I deffo won’t be having that green tea and blueberry drink again – we thought is was pretty horrid and not at all the best start to the diet, but so far have loved the bircher breakfast, the beetroot falafels (serious faff with a capital F, but really tasty) and the steamed fish was good, although I did add some red pepper to it.

Anyway so far, so good. And weighing every day has really helped us – although we’re taking the grandchildren away for a long weekend on the IOW, so next weigh-in not ’til Tuesday …. watch this space!!!

Thanks for replying, btw

Hi, I’m on day 3 today and finding it ok so far. I’m glad I read this thread before this morning as breakfast was the mango, hazelnut etc yogurt. I think the serving is wrong and this is actually meant for 2 people as I halved everything apart from the nuts & came out with 208 cals. Your total of 354 Gardenista would make 2 servings of 180 about right (as they round to the nearest 10). Plus I halved everything and still had a big portion. Double that would have been HUGE!
I weighed myself this morning and have lost 6lbs! Really? Can that be right? I know I had a huge curry the night before I started so was probably artificially bloated but still, that’s a massive amount to lose in 2 days. I’m assuming that’s probably it for this week and I’ll stay the same now til “official” weigh in on Sunday? Anyone else lost that much so quickly?
Thanks.

That is a lot for two days certainly, but I have probably matched it a time or two on fast back to back days since I have been on maintenance. A lot will be water of course, and I have certainly found some commercially prepared curries to be a big source of water retention. I think I lost 9 pounds in total on my first week, so there may be a couple more to go.

Hi, I’ve just made the spicy chicken with green lentils. I dunked the recipe as it states it’s for one and was cooking for OH as well. The portion was HUGE! A whole can of lentils for 2 people seems a lot. And a whole fennel bulb was too overpowering for my taste.
Plus it wasn’t really spicy (maybe my fault as I went easy on the chilli flakes for the first go). The chicken didn’t cook in the time given & not sure why the oven has to be turned down. And way way too much stock.
Have I read this completely wrong & the amounts stated are for 2 & I’ve just eaten over 800 cals in one meal 😱?

Pleased I’ve found this I have only been doing it 12 days but have cooked the recipes every day and live them. Great to get feedback from everyone on what I haven’t tried yet. Thought I might list some I’ve teied. I did substitute some things using up meat in my freezer at the start and I’m not super strict on measurements but I’m getting there. Love cauliflower rice and zucchini spaghetti.
From the recipe book:
Mushroom omelette and variations w herbs/ chilli
Full English breakfast
Tuna artichoke Butterbean salad
Viet pho prawn
Salmon lemon dill roast veg( made for guests)
Beef stir fry w asparagus ( made for guests)
Spaghetti no4 meatballs( made for guests)
Cabbage stir fry Chinese
Pear Brazil nut brownie
Desserts we have punned strawberries and dollop Greek yoghurt or stone fruit in season here. If overripe I boil with 2 x cinnamon sticks, water and lemon skin. Delicious.
Mostly my fruit is fresh strawberries and that is my snack. Mornings I usually have a shake. I can’t wait to try more recipes. My new hobby!

Depending on the recipe I will have or double it as often it’s only me . But this week with 2 more people in the house all the leftovers got cleaned up and they made the Brazil pear brownie! We all got into it and cooked together which was also fun!

Hi everyone, last night I made the hot smoked trout and mushroom frittata, yum! It was my version though as I bought hot smoked salmon as it was marked down for quick use. I also added dill to the mix and didn’t have much of baby spinach so added silverbeet . Also lazy so I cut it in quarters and flipped it in the pan to brown the cheese. That worked and it was really delicious.

Hello everyone. Even though we’re in a metric country, we (my wife and I) seem to have an American version of the book with imperial instead of metric measures, so be aware of what edition of the book you’ve got. It’s incredibly frustrating as we have to translate everything into metric.
We also find that some items are in different measures in different recipes, e.g. mushrooms appear both as ‘2 mushrooms’ and as ‘4 ounces mushrooms’, which makes figuring out how much to get quite difficult. Some of the fresh ingredients are often out of season, so you have to work around that too.
We do like most of the recipes but when we made the brownies, they were AWFUL! Took us forever to source ‘cacao nibs’ too. Anyone else got a better experience with this recipe? Or a better version? Ours ended up with our chickens.