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MEET THE KROCKS: We are a married couple who started on a life-changing whole food, plant-based weight loss journey in June 2018. To date, we have lost over 270 pounds combined and we aren’t done yet! Read Our Story
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For today’s video, we decided to give you a little update on what is currently going on in our lives! Last Friday, we decided we wanted to try out something called “Mary’s Mini.” Check out the video and read below for more information.
What is a “Mary’s Mini”?
Mary’s Mini is a diet developed by Mary McDougall and her husband Dr. John McDougall. Officially called the “Mary’s Mini-McDougall Diet,” they created it as a temporary diet to help people lose weight quickly and easily. Unlike their other programs, Mary’s Mini isn’t really meant to be a lifestyle change – it is just a temporary diet. They suggest you do it for ten days, but also say you can keep doing it longer if desired. It can be used to kick-start a new lifestyle or give your progress an extra boost.
NOTE: We are not nutrition experts. We do not give out medical advice.
Contact your doctor if you have any concerns involving this diet. (Read More)
The basic premise of the diet is you have to pick ONE starch to eat as the base of your diet for ten days. We picked… POTATOES! 🙂 You could do something like brown rice, corn, winter squash, etc. as well, but we are gluttons for punishment! The thing is – once you pick your starch, according to Mary’s rules, you can’t switch it up. You will be stuck with that as your ONLY starch for the ten days.
The good news is… you can also add a few extra things to the potatoes. You can have simple non-starchy vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, green beans, zucchini, etc.
The even BETTER news is that you can use some light condiments such as ketchup, mustard, salsa, soy sauce, veggie broth, sriracha, hot sauce, etc. You can also season with a little bit of salt or any salt-free seasonings. This makes a HUGE difference!
Fruit is completely off-limits during a Mary’s Mini. You also can’t have any processed sugar, beans/lentils, chocolate, tofu, etc. Basically if it isn’t your starch, a simple non-starchy vegetable or one of the approved condiments, you can’t have it!
For a complete list of what you can / cannot have during a Mary’s Mini, check out the resource links below!
Learn More About “Mary’s Mini”
Honestly, there isn’t a TON of information out there about Mary’s Mini – so we had to do a little bit of digging!
For anyone curious to learn more about this diet, I would recommend that you start with this blog post from Chuck of Brand New Vegan. He has compiled a ton of information throughout the years and it is a great resource! As a bonus, he also has a collection of Mary’s Mini “compliant” recipes – so check those out here as well. And I just discovered that he did a podcast about Mary’s Mini a while back as well. Thanks Chuck!
The other thing you MUST check out is the McDougall’s Webinar from 2016. They chatted all about Mary’s Mini and answered a bunch of questions. It was really nice to see the two of them talking about the diet and explaining why they created it!
There is also a newsletter the McDougalls published back in 2006, but the diet rules have changed a bit since then. Chuck’s site and the webinar have the latest updated info, but the newsletter still has a lot of great info.
Why are we doing a “Mary’s Mini”?
There are a few reasons we decided to do this.
The past couple of weeks have been really busy for us, and we have gotten out of our normal routine. Don’t worry – we are still going strong on our whole food, plant-based diet – but we haven’t been able to meal prep as much and plan every meal out like we usually do. Life got in the way.
Last week, since we didn’t really have any meals prepped, we decided to use it as an opportunity to clean out our fridge/freezer/pantry. We got pretty crafty and put together meals out of whatever random stuff we had on hand. This led to some pretty awesome meals, but it also caused me to be hungry a lot of the time. We are used to eating HUGE portions of salads, soups, etc. Since we were eating random things like veggie burgers and frozen meals, I never really felt satisfied and kept wanting to munch on everything. Mostly Lily’s vegan chocolate bars, Lara bars, queso, sweet potato crackers from Trader Joe’s… just a bunch of junk 🙂
I have also been struggling with a bad round of depression and anxiety over the past few weeks, so I was ready for something new and exciting.
We have actually been wanting to do a Mary’s Mini for a while. When people ask us about eating two weeks of plain potatoes, I often suggest that they research Mary’s Mini, so I wanted to try it out myself and see how it compared!
I told Brian I wanted to do it and he wasn’t 100% on board at first. He was actually doing a lot better than I was and he was ready to jump right back into our giant salads this week. But, being the amazing husband he is, he wanted to be supportive of me and agreed to join me on my crazy quest! I also told our friend Martin The Great Potato Mage about it and he was excited to join us as well! 😀
How is it going so far?
You can follow us on Instagram for real-time updates on how the Mary’s Mini is going! I have been posting most of our meals to our Stories, so go to our Instagram profile page and click the Mary’s Mini highlight to catch up!
As of now, we are on day number three and going strong! This is SO much easier than when we ate plain potatoes. The best part has honestly been experimenting with all kinds of potato recipes. Brian has made me amazing mashed potatoes, chips, roasted potatoes, twice baked potatoes… you name it, he has tried it (or will over the next week)! Expect a few great potato recipes to come out of this.
The major challenge for me so far has been not having anything sweet. I always want something like a small piece of chocolate or fruit at the end of a meal, and I can’t really get that right now! Since that was kind of my downfall coming into this challenge, I think it is good for me to go without sweets for a while. But it still sucks LOL!
At this point, I honestly think I might try to keep doing Mary’s Mini for an extra week or so beyond the ten days. Brian’s birthday is coming up on August 9th, so I think it would be fun to keep going through then. But we will see how the next 7 days go!
Here are a few of our favorite potato dishes so far:
Air Fried Potato Chips
Mashed Potatoes with Sriracha
Hash Browns with Steamed Broccoli & Spicy Ketchup
Twice Baked Potatoes with Red Onion & Mushrooms
All in all, I am really glad we are doing this! Having something to focus on has really helped my depression, and I think we are going to achieve a lot of great things on this Mary’s Mini! It has also been fun seeing some of you join along with us and share your photos on social media 🙂
Please let us know in the comments below if you have any questions! We have been filming throughout this process, so in a few weeks we will be posting a recap video.
Let us know what you want to see!
I have been using Bragg’s liquid Amino sprinkled on my potatoes and sometimes on my vegtables, So delicious. You guys are wonderful. What a smart idea utilizing the buddy system with weight loss. Me and my husband are going to try this together. I like the fact that you both are so honest and real. I mean depression is a bitch-period. Sometimes we have to just “ride the wave” but I swear it is true what they say (whoever ‘they’ are) that a problem shared is problem halved! So thank you Jessica for sharing! Birthday boy Brian-August 9th! I had my first son on that very day in 1982. So Happy Birthday! Sorry to ramble. I will close. Just wanted to say how much I appreciate your effort with the vlog and sharing all your information. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Cathy
Hi Cathy! That sounds tasty! Yes, it definitely helps to have a buddy 🙂 Switching to this lifestyle has helped my depression and anxiety a lot, but it’s still a battle. Also Brian was born on that EXACT day – year and all! Thank you for watching and writing to us – we really appreciate it 🙂
I watched your latest youtibe video about Marys mini and wanted to post a comment but couldn’t see how to do it so came here to comment. You both look great! And Jessica that beginning of the video of you walking the dogs shows just how awesome you have done with your weight loss! Looking good from the back and the front! And Brian too. Great going! Keep up,the good work guys!
Thank for for the kind words and for watching ❤️
I’ve been vegan since 2006, and over the last year I became a junk food vegan and gained 20 pounds. I’ve lost six by returning to healthier eating, but the loss has been stalled down for the last week and a half. I’m going to try this. Thank you both for inspiring me and motivating me:) I’ve been enjoying your videos so much. Even though I’ve been vegan for a long time now, I’ve gotten some cool recipes from y’all!
Thanks for sharing that! Keep us updated on how you do if you try it out 🙂
Thanks for the shoutout!
Love watching your videos. You are an inspiration. I have been doing the starch solution since January 2017, but I have stopped loosing weight. I lost 30 lbs. and have 40 more to go. I have also let some non- compliant food slip back in. I did one week of the Nutritarian and lost 2.2 lbs , but I do not like eating salads every day. So, I am starting Mary’s mini today. Had mash d potatoes and fresh tomatoes for breakfast. Thanks for all the you tube videos, y’all look amazing.keep up the good work! Greetings from SC.
It has been nice to switch it up for a bit! I will say, after 10 days, I am ready to go back to our normal way of eating which is closer in line with Nutritarian. But we are going to keep going for another 8 days until Brian’s birthday and then switch back. Keep us updated on your progress ❤️ It is easy to let stuff slip back in over time, and I think Mary’s Mini can help with that a lot!
Hi guys! Just found you! Love it! I’m curious as to why you can’t have a salad on the Mary’s mini? I’d like to try this as I have been doing WFPB for a while and am not losing any more weight. I appreciate any help you can give me. Thanks! Karen
You CAN have salad on Mary’s Mini, as long as it includes all “compliant” things in the salad and dressing. We just miss our regular salads using our hummus, which wouldn’t be allowed during Mary’s Mini 🙂
If we pick potatoes can we also use sweet potatoes or it’s either potatoes or sweet potatoes? Thanks
I’ve tried to sign up with you guys on YouTube, but I never receive your posts, so I assume I’ve failed. So I headed to Instagram to find you there. But I’ve had a stroke (go figure, I’ve been eating no-added fat, plant-based since 1999 and all my lipids, etc are good. But my stroke left me able to speak and write but unable to read. So I can’t read your Instagram posts. Back to You Tube to try to figure out how to bet connected for posts. You guys really inspire me-you are so much fun to watch ’cause your videos are short and don’t take long to listen to. Thanks so much, Jill
Hydrate right.
Regardless of whether you pick still or shimmering water, drinking a greater amount of it can enable you to eat less. Research demonstrates that drinking water can enable you to get in shape by helping you consume more calories and lessening your hunger when devoured before dinners. For a flavor kick, spike yours with foods grown from the ground like grapefruit and thyme, strawberry and basil, or blackberry and tarragon.
Are you limited on how many potatoes you can eat in a day?
Thanks for all your you tubes, I really enjoy them.
Depression and anxiety are a bitch aren’t they? Take care of yourself Jessica.
When we were doing Mary’s Mini, we could eat as many as we wanted. Just ate until we were full but not STUFFED. Thank you for the kind words 🙂 Yes, depression and anxiety suck!
Great vlog. I’m Day 6 of MM today and down 3.5 lbs. One thing that you might add to those who do not follow this way of eating is to emphasize no oil. They might think they can fry potatoes or whatever, use a suce that has oil…so keep up the great job you 2 are doing Dlee
I just started my 1st Mary’s Mini yesterday! My husband is great and said he will also try it! I’m keeping a log of what I’m eating & my energy level so I can refer to later. I’ll be making a few videos on my little YouTube channel of my experience with The Mary’s Mini. Thanks for all the inspiration!!! I’m so very lucky to have come across you guys!
You both look incredible! Also, Jessica that start of the video of you strolling the canines shows exactly how great you have finished with your weight reduction! Looking great from the back and the front! What’s more, Brian as well. Much obliged to you both for moving me and spurring me.