Hi I am going to start this diet in March when I know I will have some clear space without much on.
Does anyone know whether once I am on 800 cals a day I could have porridge for breakfast? They are proper oats not the instant type and it is a low calorie breakfast as I make it with water. I find this one of the breakfasts that keeps me fuller for longer. But I have noticed in the book that it is not one of the options and I haven’t found anyone mentioning it online?

Yes you can eat porridge

From the FAQ
Which foods should I avoid?
You should avoid refined carbs ie anything white or rich in sugar. It also means avoiding starchy foods such as pasta, white rice, breakfast cereals (other than plain unprocessed porridge) bread and potatoes, as well as the more obvious things like donuts!

Joe

If you are diabetic or pre diabetic you may find porridge spikes your blood sugar, it does mine, otherwise it should be fine

Wondered if you tried porridge ?
I was going to eat them I bought cheap bag Tesco to make with water are they ok .?
Many thanks Alan

Hi Alan, Porridge is still refined oats so no, I’m afraid not. The only oats that are ok are rolled oats – ie non-refined. Refined oats – they type bought to make porridge release the carbs into the blood quickly and cause spikes in blood sugars.

Oh no I’m having porridge oats today too !
Can anyone tell me the make brand etc of oats that are OK to eat in morning as I really need an easy filling breakfast ?
One or two eggs doesn’t seem very filling for me
Any cereals makes which are ok ??
Many many thanks Alan

The nearest to unprocessed porridge you will get is called pinhead or steelcut oats. It is basically the oat kernel chopped a few times. The traditional scottish way of preparing it was to soak it in water overnight and boil up for a few minutes the next moring with a pinch of salt. It was served with a cup of ice cold full cream milk on the side, so you could dip your spoonful of porridge, rather than pouring your milk over the porridge,.
It is delicious and creamy, and definately doesnt need to be made with water. You would need to test your BS after at 1 hour and 2 hours to see if it was causing a spike.

On another aspect, ther is a lot being written about resistant starch, where cooked and cooled starches increase the dietary fibre (cellulose), reduces calories (because you can,t absorb the starch), and improves gut health. It applies to potatoes and rice, so I suspect it applies to porridge too, because it also becomes gelatinous when cooled. I know you can reheat porridge (slowly with a bit of extra water), so Im. going to try it. Any food scientists out there able to confirm my theory?

This seems to get more and more complex,so no foods for breakfast which really fill me up ?
Thanks to everyone on here for advice I will continue trying to unravel the dark secrets of the diet.

If anybody has the name /brand of a safe porridge I’d love to know or any safe cereal,or filling breakfast allowed on this diet
Thanks all

Alan

Rolled or porridge oats are OK according to the book. It’s the instant stuff such as Ready Brek or the kinds in sachets where you just add hot water or milk which are the problem.

Read the ingredients. If it only says ‘rolled oats’ then they’re fine. If there’s other stuff, such as oat flour or sugar then give them a miss.

Thank you ever so much for that straight forward answer patsy
Everyone’s been so helpful in here
Alan

In the hotter weather (hopefully we’ll get some!), you might like to try natural yoghurt – perhaps with fruit or nuts for a change. I wasn’t sure it’d be very filling, but have been surprised. Do get a kind with some fat in though.

I am in the UK, and bought Mornflake medium oatmeal from Sainsburys – I followed the instructions in the packet to the letter and for 100g of oatmeal I got 1000g of porridge. so 4 servings. at 92 calories and 14g of carbs. Not bad and you could easily add flaked almonds, passion fruit, raspberries etc to make even more yummy. (even a tablespoon of double cream if you were feeling decadent!

As an experiment, I have left the portions to cool in the fridge and will heat one in the morning, to see if they taste ok. It should reduce the calorie and carb count as some of the starch will be converted to resistant starch and provide fibre rather than calories.

Is there a food technologist out there that could confirm my theory?

Reheating porridge – Yup it works. I refridgerated in portions and reheated one portion this morning – didn’t even have to add water, and it was perfect. So talk about a fast filling breakfast! 92 calories and 14g of carbs. (I did use cold milk to ‘dip’ each spoonfull into, about 3 fl oz max.

!I am in the UK, and bought Mornflake medium oatmeal from Sainsburys – I followed the instructions in the packet to the letter and for 100g of oatmeal I got 1000g of porridge. so 4 servings of 250g at 92 calories and 14g of carbs. Not bad and you could easily add flaked almonds, passion fruit, raspberries etc to make even more yummy. (even a tablespoon of double cream if you were feeling decadent!).

Hi Alan, I don’t think there are any safe cereals apart from rolled oats. I have full-fat greek yoghurt with berries and seeds and it keeps me full for longer than almost anything else.

At the weekend I had a brunch of a fried egg , 2 sausages (97% pork) and half a can of reduced sugar baked beans and it filled me up for the rest of the day!

Aldi rolled oats 75p big bag mmm

Breakfast food doesn’t have to be “breakfast food” (a recent invention). I like having leftovers, a bit of cold meat with vegetables. Tomorrow I’m having leftovers from tonight’s tacos – no shells, a pile of salad with spicy mince, jalapeños, salsa and a sprinkle of cheese. It was 255 calories tonight, very filling, I’ll have a bit less meat in the breakfast version.

I have just posted about porridge on another one of the forums, we are not diagnosed diabetics, so hubby & I don’t have blood-sugar spikes to worry about, we treat ourselves to a bowl once a week, proper rolled oats, we make it with Almond milk, add some berries and ‘seed-dust’ – very filling and we look forward to this weekly treat a lot!

Oats (proper ones) are in the book as a long-term M Diet safe-food.

Other days we have youghurt & berries with a few seeds chucked in for texture (have issues with a big need for texture-rich foods eg ones that crunch!), weekends is eggs, grilled bacon & mushrooms, need to keep swinging the changes so we don’t get bored.

Have to say the massive egg, bacon, mushroom & tomato mixture I cooked for my hubby on Saturday kept him going all day, dinner was on-diet too & we did it all for 800 calories !

: )

M&S do a multi grain porridge contains a high fibre mix of oats, barley, Rye, spelt and flax seed – no added sugar – all good stuff for diabetes sufferers!