Vlog: What We Ate On “Mary’s Mini” McDougall Potato Diet (Days 1-5)

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If you watched our last video, you know that we have been doing a “Mary’s Mini” diet for the past few days. We have been filming short vlogs each day and taking photos of everything we eat! Today’s blog (and video) will cover days 1 through 5 of our Mary’s Mini Journey.

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. Check out this blog post for more information and resources related to Mary’s Mini.

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)

Day 1: Monday, July 22, 2019

We started our Mary’s Mini adventure with hash browns for breakfast! If you watched our oil-free hash brown throwdown, you know we love to cook up frozen hash browns in our Griddler (see “featured products” at the bottom of this post for a link). We topped those with some spicy ketchup that we got at Fred & Ricky’s before they closed last month (it was a local St. Louis business that had oil-free/vegan food).

Breakfast was around 8:30am, and by 10:30am I was already hungry, so I knew I’d need to bulk up these breakfasts a bit going forward.

For lunch, Brian and I each took three medium sized baked potatoes to work. We each added a bag of frozen steamed veggies (broccoli, cauliflower & carrot mix). Brian topped his with salsa and some leftover chili cheez mix from our popcorn recipe. I went with some yellow mustard, which is quite tasty on potatoes – try it!

Before I got home from work, I texted Brian and told him I wanted a FEAST of potatoes for dinner. I was quite hungry. He delivered! When I got home, he was simultaneously making potato chips in the air fryer, roasted potatoes in the oven and mashed potatoes on the stove. I contributed by microwaving a bag of frozen broccoli 😀 It was a delicious dinner.

All in all, day one went off without a hitch. We both felt really hungry at different times throughout the day, but other than that, we were loving our food.

Day 2: Tuesday, July 23, 2019

At the start of day two, we were both feeling kind of sick. For me, I was just so hungry when I woke up that I felt a bit nauseous. I didn’t want to eat, but I knew it would make me feel better. Brian was just feeling kind of sick to his stomach at the same time.

We made more hash browns for breakfast and added some broccoli to bulk it up a bit, as well as some spicy ketchup for a nice kick. Despite not feeling well, it was a tasty breakfast. Within a couple of hours, I was feeling good again.

For lunch, we each brought three more medium sized baked potatoes and paired them with steamed veggies and salsa. Lunch was okay for me – nothing special – but Brian seemed to enjoy his.

When we got home from work, I prepped some veggies for the week (fresh broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, etc).

Brian was craving salad for dinner, so he cubed up a cold baked potato and put it on a bed of spinach with salsa and a quick dressing he threw together. He didn’t love this – I wouldn’t suggest eating the potatoes cold…

My dinner was actually quite tasty! I had some leftover mashed potatoes on a bed of spinach. Let me tell you – mashed potatoes and spinach are a great combo! I topped with with some sriracha and a bit of Trader Joe’s Hatch Valley Salsa – that stuff is AMAZING! I’ve never had it before, but I will definitely be using this more often.

I got hungry later in the evening, so Brian made me some grilled veggies on the Griddler. He likes to call them “smashed veggies” because the Griddler flattens them out 🙂

Day 3: Wednesday, July 24, 2019

On day three, I skipped breakfast because I had a doctor’s appointment and I thought they were doing blood work. Turns out they weren’t, but I didn’t really feel that hungry anyway. Brian ate some air fried frozen home fries with mushrooms (also air fried) and spicy ketchup.

For lunch, I was getting sick of the cubed up baked potatoes, so I decided to cut up a baked potato, season it, and bake it again (the night before). It turned out okay… but not great. I added my steamed veggies and some sriracha (too much LOL). This has been one of my least favorite meals so far.

Brian was home from work for lunch, so he got all fancy! He made a twice baked potato with red onions and mushrooms mixed in. This is definitely a recipe he wants to work on… it was good, but not GREAT.

For dinner, I had some of the leftover twice baked potatoes, along with some mashed potatoes, spinach and grilled zucchini. I am telling you – mashed potatoes and spinach! So good!

Day 4: Thursday, July 25, 2019

I woke up hungry and wanted a giant breakfast, so Brian made me a large batch of chili-spiced hash browns. His mix of chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder and a little bit of salt is amazing! He made himself some hash browns with Tandoori Masala seasoning on it. We both had some fresh broccoli and cauliflower – mine were grilled on the Griddler and his were just raw.

For lunch, I had my favorite combo – mashed potatoes, spinach and hatch chile salsa. I just love the warm potatoes on the cold bed of spinach.

Brian was home again from work, so he got fancy again! He made some mashed potato puffs – basically balls of mashed potato put into the air fryer. Don’t worry – he is working on a recipe for this! He paired it with steamed veggies and extra mashed potatoes.

For dinner, I was out working at a concert, so I had a quick (giant) bowl of steamed veggies mixed with leftover hash browns, topped with more hatch chili salsa. Brian made an Italian baked potato with a side of green beans. The potato was topped with a sauce made from a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes and some mushrooms.

Day 5: Friday, July 26, 2019

Day five started with… MORE HASH BROWNS! We paired them with veggies and spicy ketchup, as usual. It is a great combo. Oliver helped supervise the photo shoot in our window sill 🙂

We ran out of regular potatoes today, so I had to take even more hash browns for lunch… not that I minded! I paired them with steamed veggies and some yellow mustard. Brian took the last two Russet potatoes with him to work and paired it with steamed veggies and the rest of this “Italian” sauce from his dinner the night before.

After work, I went on a shopping trip to pick up more supplies! I got a ton of Russet potatoes (the original 20 pounds we bought lasted us 3-4 days). I got a few Yukon Gold potatoes to use for making cheese sauce and a bunch of veggies. I also stocked up on salsa and mustard!

For dinner, we decided to get FANCY! On our “normal” diet, we always eat giant salads for dinner, so it has been a while since we made a nice hot meal. We started out with some mashed potatoes, and then I decided to water sauté a bag of kale with some nutritional yeast, onion powder, garlic powder and a bit of salt. The kale was SUPER yummy. We cooked some veggies on the Griddler and water sautéed green beans as well.

Over all, the first five days were actually super fun and easy. It has been great to test out all of these simple preparations for potatoes and veggies. It is amazing what you can do with a few simple ingredients – and how many variations you can come up with! Brian is a rock star in the kitchen when it comes to testing out new cooking methods and seasonings, so I am very fortunate.

Okay that is great, but are we losing weight?

So how much weight have we lost on Mary’s Mini? Well… we are weighing in every day, but I will be putting all of the data together into a chart for the next blog 😉

We have both lost a few pounds so far… so stay tuned for the final numbers!

What have we learned so far?

So far, I think this has taught us more appreciation for the foods that we aren’t “allowed” to eat on Mary’s Mini. The main one being fruit. I miss my fruit, but this will definitely make me appreciate it more once I am able to eat it again. I also miss our giant salads we normally have at the end of each night. Oh and HUMMUS! I want some smoky hummus 🙂

I think it is good to change it up every once in a while, so you don’t start to get bored with the same things over and over. This has been a nice change from our usual eating habits. It has been easy to prep since we are using very simple ingredients.

I like to say we are doing Mary’s Mini “Krock-Style,” but you can do a more simple version. No need to get “fancy” with the dishes, but we genuinely enjoy testing new things out and experimenting so we can develop new recipes to share! I keep wondering if this has been so easy because we are over-complicating our dishes or if we are just so traumatized by the two weeks of completely plain potatoes, that ANYthing but plain tastes good to us LOL.

Compared to the plain potato weeks we did last year, this has been a breeze for us. But I still think it is serving its purpose of “resetting” us and maintaining our focus on whole food, plant-based eating. It has re-energized us and also helped a lot with my depression.

Follow along on Instagram!

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!

We will be putting together a few recipe videos of our favorites from Mary’s Mini! Let us know in the comments below if there is anything specific you want to see a recipe video for.

Featured Products:

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Cuisinart 5-in-1 Griddler
NuWave Brio Air Fryer
AmazonBasics Silicone Baking Mat Sheet, Set of 2
Pyrex Storage Plus 7-cup Round Glass Food Storage