Bistro Buddies?

You're on Page 6 of 40
Go to
  • That's one thing I can definitely say BMD has going, is the taste of their food. They might not have as many options as some of the other places, but the quality of taste makes up for it by a longshot. At least with them you can actually ENJOY your meals.
  • My one issue with DTG was the mushrooms. They were in almost everything. I had to go thru one complete cycle of Low Carb to see what was easy for me to pluck out the mushrooms and eat. Those that were not feasible I just had to swap them out. Hated having to eat the same thing twice in a cycle so started doubling up some meals from week to week to swap things around in those situations. So when I stopped DTG to start BistroMD had about 10 meals left behind. Which I guess can come in handy if BistroMD comes late at some point for me.

    I just finished first week and it was good I loved their variety, liked the two snacks while still consuming 1200 cals. I am doing the Biggest Loser BistroMD plan. When I signed up I wasn't sure what plan to choose and filled out the profile and selected I don't like Mushroom. Noticed now 2 weeks in a row the menu shows meals with mushrooms on them but they subbed them out with something else. Was surprised and loved the fact they did that even though I choose the Biggest Loser Plan instead of standard BistroMD. The other thing I like about Biggest Loser Plan (not sure if all the others are the same) even though it is not low carb like DTG most the meals are not overly carb loaded. And when there is it is smart carbs, sweet potatoes, brown rice. Anyway hope week 2 goes just as well.
  • Wow is all I can say. I just had my first big snafu with Fed Ex over my delivery yesterday. My driver always comes between 10am and 11am or so, and so far that's been working out great. Everything is still frozen and I've had no serious issues (they always throw in extra dry ice for me as well). I have always worried because it gets very hot where I am, and two days in transit ground makes me nervous as is, but again they always throw in extra dry ice, and my driver comes early.

    Yesterday I was waiting as I usually do so that I can quickly get everything into the freezer, and no driver came. It was almost noon and I began to get a bad feeling. I called Fed Ex at nearly 2pm and got a sympathetic Fed Ex rep who put my call through directly to the local center. I explained the situation and told the rep that I was becoming a bit frantic as it was a very hot day, and our driver never comes this late ever. That the package clearly says perishable in several places. After much holding, the rep told me that for some reason my shipment was transferred to the business route truck instead of home delivery, and that it would be here soon (I had a very bad feeling at this point). He said that happens when one driver has too heavy a load (I thought oh great)! I knew I was in trouble. As it is, when I get it in the morning it's just beginning to defrost, but not enough to cause any issues. It's still frozen pretty solid, but you can tell that it would not be if it were another few hours in a hot truck.

    The driver showed up in a Budget Rental car truck (I guess it was one of those contracted drivers for Fed Ex) at about 4pm, and I knew when I felt the box, that I was in big trouble for sure. I opened it right away, and the menu was even wet from everything melting. There was not even a drop of dry ice anywhere in sight. I was so upset when I saw what was inside that I literally broke down in tears. This diet is very important to me, and I have been doing so well on it. To miss a week of food, could really derail me at this point. There were only two or three meals that were somewhat frozen. One or two meals that were cold and the rest were warm and slushy. I was so upset I could barely contain myself as I called Fed Ex. They said that someone would be contacting me over this. He said he would do what he could to make sure that this package is never put on another route again (and I pray this is true because I cannot afford overnight delivery of this). I am barely able to afford this as it is! It had been sitting in a sweltering Budget Rental Van all day long, and completely ruined. This is why I would never ever ever trust regular gel packs during the summer ever ever ever. I was so upset, I could scream (and Bistro packs things very well).

    I called Bistro not knowing what to expect in this type of situation, and was stunned by how caring they were. The rep I spoke to could tell I was in tears, and just beside myself over this. She told me to throw away all the food that was completely defrosted and warm, and keep what I could salvage to hopefully get me through (that amounted to 3 meals). She said they would reship Monday overnight delivery free of charge! I was so overwhelmed by this gesture, that I just wanted to hug the rep who helped me. Here I am thinking I will be out of my food for a week, and now I will have a new shipment on Tuesday (crossing my fingers that everything goes as planned and as promised). And that Fed Ex does not do this again!

    At this point, I have to say that Bistro is truly a class act. Their customer service is amazing. This is what real customer service should be. I am so relieved. Still very concerned about the Fed Ex situation, and hoping that a manager does call me, and that this never happens again. I am very impressed with Bistro. I mean that sincerely. They could have handled this in any number of ways that would have left me as the loser in all of this, but instead they are bending over backwards to help me.

    I was just at my doctors recently, and he was telling me how good I looked. When my blood work came back, my cholesterol dropped almost 40 points! I was jumping up and down! They wanted me on statins, and I really didn't want to have to take those, but this program has even lowered my cholesterol rather dramatically! It's still high, but so much better! I plan on sticking with Bistro all the way through! I don't know if you are ever out here Bistro, but thank you so much for your help on Friday!!!!!
  • wow that is fantastic service....totaly impressed. I finished up week 2 of Biggest Loser BistroMD and it is fantastic. Can't complain at all. Honestly I think I liked everything thus far.
  • Just signed up for Bistro MD - went for the full 7day w/ snacks pkg to start and figure I'll trim back as needed.

    I'm not much of a breakfast person and I've seen a few times in this thread people said they requested not to receive breakfasts. This isn't shown as an option when you sign up, so I'm assuming you have to request it specially? What is the cost per week without the breakfasts?

    I figure it'd be just as easy for me to keep some instant oatmeal around - and honestly that's about all I can eat in the morning.

    If I keep getting the breakfasts I'll probably end up eating the Lunch around 11am, Dinner around 5pm, and the Breakfast around 10 or 11pm. Figure as long as I'm consuming x # of calories the order shouldn't be too much of an issue, but I may call to ask the dietician.

    I'm excited. And I think the cost alone will be pretty motivating for me NOT to cheat. "Yeah eat the birthday cake. Eat the $800/mo birthday cake."

    I'm also not sure how to transition off BistroMD to "maintenance", but I figure I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I've never made it to the maintenance stage of a diet before and have always been overweight, so if I can just hit my ideal weight I'll be more than happy and willing to figure out a slow way to start eating well, but more inexpensively.

    I have vacation coming up in 4 months and am hoping I'll lose enough weight for my family to notice when I see them. I need to lose 70 lbs overall but 25-30 should be pretty noticeable.


    Edited to add - this is the first time I've ever been excited about a diet too because the food sounded so good. I really think I'll be eating better, tastier food than I am right now, and it'll actually be healthy!
  • Yeah they really took care of me. I was really concerned because I didn't know what to expect, and of course Fed Ex made a good point. They said it was crazy to ship food ground no matter how much ice you throw in, and I could hardly argue with that, but I did my best. I see their point. We barely had a leg to stand on when you have food going two days in transit ground, and then sitting on a hot truck all day before it is delivered (and I know others that have had longer transit times, which is just nuts to me). I think those people got lucky if they received everything still frozen. That is why I think it's complete and utter lunacy to ship food ground in the summer using regular gel packs! Even with dry ice, you have problems but gel packs! That's called "the luck of the draw."

    I really wish they did ship overnight, and just charged a little extra as they have a huge account and can get good rates. That's the only thing I miss with Jenny Craig (besides the french toast, pot stickers and desserts). They always shipped overnight Fed Ex with lots of dry ice. When I used Diet To Go, I got it the next day because of my location. I am nervous now that this happened to me because the fact that it happened to me once, means there is a good chance it will happen again before summer is gone. I hope not! That won't dissuade me though. I am doing very well on this food. In fact I have never been able to handle a meal delivery plan this long, and still be this content. Adrian in customer service is an absolute angel! The food is actually delicious, and food I would want to eat whether I was on a plan or not! That's a first!

    As for maintenance, I am going to continue to buy this food for as long as I can afford it. I say this because it's actually very good and extremely healthy and well balanced. It saves me the hassle, worry and energy needed for cooking, figuring it all out and so forth. If I get to a point where I can't afford it anymore or do get sick of the food, I will have at least learned how to eat the proper way. I find myself doing things very differently then I did before. My boyfriend was going to Applebee's today for some take out, and asked me what I wanted and I said none for me. That has never happened! I splurged a couple of weeks ago and had some ice cream. Normally I would have eaten the whole pint. I had less than half a pint, and simply realized that this took up much of my snack calories for the day. By keeping the journal, I know exactly where I am at calorie wise every single day. Incredible tool! I am slowly learning many things. I am understanding portion control, and the right kinds of foods as opposed to what I used to think was OK.

    By the way I just found an incredibly easy recipe to make cheese crisps that blew me away just now! Although I am not counting carbs and fat grams like I used to (and losing more by just counting calories), I still want to try and eat as few carbs as possible. Well I was buying those delicious and highly rated 1 carb cheese biscuits (J&M Foods) at Netrition.Com. Those were hot and cheesy and satisfied my cravings. I was stunned when I went to buy more, and found that they have been discontinued! I am trying their regular cheese straws (just like the biscuits only tastier and in a squiggly shape) which are still relatively low at 10 carbs per serving, but still, what a bummer! I have tried many cheese snacks, and most leave a lot to be desired like the so called "Just The Cheese" which is anything but! That is nasty stuff loaded with sodium nitrate, MSG and all kinds of crap. It is supposed to be just baked cheese but the ingredients almost knocked me out of my chair!

    I looked online and many people were talking about their favorite no carb treat, which was just to bake cheese itself and I thought, it can't be that easy. Don't you have to mix it with stuff? I figured it would be a pain or something. Well I found a recipe that people were raving about, and I wanted to pass it on even though this thread is somewhat dead. It's delicious! So easy and so perfect! You just need to buy some Reynolds Parchment baking paper (its usually next to the regular foil in that area of the store-or the baking section of a store). Parchment is the only thing that will work, and they stressed that as it does stick to anything else pretty badly. I just bought some parchment paper, a couple of packages of my favorite sliced cheese (Sargento's Medium Cheddar). All you do is set the oven at 350, take out a couple of slices of cheese, and cut each slice into 4 quarters as it spreads out when it bakes...alot). Let those squares bake for maybe 5-7 minutes (you want to watch them until the edges get a little brown), then take them out and let them cool for a moment or two). You need a really thin spatula to make things easier. I put them between paper towels, and got tons of grease off of the cheese making it an even healthier snack. I just had some, and thought I had died and gone to heaven! No wonder people were raving (one woman said that they make these in the restaurant where she works when they close up at night). They are delicious! It's like the edges of macaroni & cheese that you wish there was more of! You don't need to add any salt or anything, although some people get creative and put some shredded cheese of a different variety on top, or add paprika and other spices before baking. I had to fight my boyfriend for them because he had one and then wanted more and more lol! Two slices gives you eight delicious crisps that total only 160 calories or less (especially when you get most of the grease off of the cheese after it bakes) and it was pure cheese and incredibly yummy! Simple to make and the clean up was just throwing out the parchment paper (which you can continue to use if you are baking up a bunch of batches, but then you need to throw it away of course right away. I never did see advice on how to store them, but now I see why (You can't hold onto them long enough to store them as they are soooo good). I just figure I will bake up a batch of two slices (8 pieces each time) and keep myself more honest that way.

    Hope everyone has a great weekend!

    Oh and about the breakfasts. You have to call them, and tell them you do not want to do breakfasts anymore. I must warn you that when you go ala carte (which is what they call that), it ends up being pretty much the same cost! The meals ala carte are expensive. You will save very little. I don't get the breakfasts either. Good luck to you.
  • Hi All! I just started the BistroMD meals on August 2. The first three days have been pretty good! I selected the 7 days with no snacks. The snacks didn't look that appealing to me. Plus, this way I get to supplement snacks that I like or foods I might start to miss on plan -- like dairy, fresh fruit/veg, and salads. I really do like to eat those things, but it'll be good to use them as a supplement. If I don't feel like shopping or prepping the healthy stuff, at least I still have the basic meal.
    Meals have been pretty good. Anything that is so-so is usually better once I mix it all up or add a some fresh veggie. The convenience was key to my decision. That and, ironically, the cost. I'll feel guilty is I spend $800 on food and then ignore it. So far, so good. I like that I can focus more on WHEN to eat and whether I'm really hungry and not worry about WHAT to eat and how to make it!
    Looking forward to checking back in with folks! Share your little secrets!
  • Still here on Bistro MD (Biggest Loser Plan) and starting week 5 today. Well after my last post to Lisa saying how impressed I was I am back for an update.

    So week 4 shipment came after that post and as usual I oppened the box went thru everything to make sure it was all there and to seperate it out so I knew what would stay home and what I needed to take to work. Going thru the list noticed one breakfast item (spinnach mushroom crepe) hadn't been swapped out that had mushroom so was dissapointed and then noticed for that same day a dinner item that showed up as being swapped out was missing. Then going thru my dry items noticed 4 snacks were missing as if I was only doing the 5 day plan ....my guess is my dry goods box got mixed up with someone elses. So I immediately emailed Bistro and told them of the issues with my order and asked for the two meals to be sent out with the next shipment so I can shift things around to eat them as my day 7 items. My shipment arrives Thu so Fri I would have eaten them so just in time.

    I got an email response back immediately from them that they would ship out all the items on next order. Monday rolls around and I recieved the FedEx email that my order was being shipped (one day earlier then normal). So the box arrived on Wed earlier than planned which allowed me to defrost the foods for Fri. Wow what a suprise. I was just saying to Lisa in the post above how great the service was and here I am not 2 weeks later being able to attest to that good service. Bistro Rocks!!!

    Onto a different topic Has anyone heard of Bistro MD Sport's meal program (google bistro md sport) I work out 7 days a week and burn everyday around 500-700 calories so I have been wondering if I need to increase my caloric intake. Wasn't sure if Bistro MD Sport is higher calories or the food choices even different. I think I will give them a call next week to find out.
  • Reporting in - today is my 3rd day on Bistro MD.

    So far I'm enjoying it, although I've had a little trouble adjusting my schedule to it. I normally am not a breakfast person, eat lunch at 12, and then dinner at 5. However I am usually starving by lunch time, so I've been trying to adapt myself to eat breakfast to stretch out my meals more healthfully across the day.

    The best I've managed so far is eating breakfast at 10, snack at 12, and then lunch sometime between 3-5. Then I eat the dinner as late as I can because I'm really not that hungry, especially after the PM snack, but I figure I need the calories - around 10-11pm at night.

    Obviously it's only day 3 so I'm just getting adjusted - but clearly my problem has not been wanting more food which is nice.

    I have had some cravings for sweets (gotta admit, the chocolate roll in the freezer that's my 7-day PM snack has been calling me since i got it). But, since I'm not keeping any groceries in the house aside from drinks/condiments and I'm too lazy to go to the store just for sweets, I'm hoping these cravings pass. Prior to BMD I would eat cookies or something pretty much everyday so it's been a dramatic change. Also the cost is definitely "helping". I can't justify spending this much on food every month and then cheating on the diet which is the whole justification. If I'm going to waste money I might as well just screw the diet and get a giant flatscreen TV. So as long as I'm paying for the meals I think I'll have that extra incentive not to cheat.

    Overall food is tasty - one potential 'issue' is the amount of spinach. Spinach appears to be in everything. It's been in 4/7 meals I've eaten so far (And 3 of those 7 were breakfasts). I'm not a big spinach-fan. I avoid it unless it's mixed with a lot of other vegetables and you can't taste it. It tastes "skunky" to me. Some of the spinach dishes have been good (I really liked the spinach-mushroom crepe I had the first day). Others I just ate them because I felt I should (one meal had a side of pure chopped spinach. yuck. I had to add some salt and Tobasco to cover the flavor.)

    Looking at the menu, spinach seems to be a huge staple of the diet - stuffed in chicken, mixed in the salads, pretty much used in 50-75% of the meals. For now I'm going to roll with it - I've always been pretty good about eating whatever as long as it was reasonably palatable (6 mos foreign exchange program will do wonders for your ability to not be judgmental of food when you don't want to offend your host family ).

    There have been items I really liked too though. I mentioned the mushroom-spinach crepes, mm. I really enjoyed a vinegary artichoke-hearts-and-pepper salad as a side dish. The yucca fries were kind of amazing - they didn't have the exact consistency of regular fries - a bit softer - but were very tasty. I've also never liked meatloaf but found the BMD meatloaf palatable and mildly enjoyable.

    I think I'll be fine as long as the menu keeps rotating - my worry is when some of my less-liked spinach-focused meals come around again in 6 weeks, my stomach may rebel. My lip is curling just thinking about the side of chopped spinach, solo.


    Edited to add - although I complain about the spinach, I feel like it's a good thing I can't "choose" my meals. If I start hating the spinach enough I may request they remove any meals with "pure spinach" and see how it goes. However if I got to pick every meal I want, I know I would find 3 or 4 I loved and just get a ton of them. And then I would get sick of them and be disappointed. Been there, done that with Lean Cuisine. :P This way I'm guaranteed some variety with all the ups and downs that includes.
  • Quote: If I'm going to waste money I might as well just screw the diet and get a giant flatscreen TV.
    Too funny -- I totally feel ya!

    Yeah, that chopped spinach side, i think they call it "creamed spinach" is pretty weird -- and I LIKE spinach. I managed to eat it by mixing it in with the other side of the meal, which was some sort of burrito wrap. In fact I'm finding that I like nearly all the meals better once they are mixed up.

    I'm starting week two and I've been pretty happy with the food. I'm even happier with the fact that I'm down 10 pounds in the last 10 days!
  • Yeah I can't really complain either - a week ago I was 220, down to 214.2 this morning. I'm sure most of it was water weight considering the time of the month it was when I took the first weight, but it's still motivating. That and I chopped off about 4 inches of my hair. What a girl won't do to lose weight. But, really, I did need a haircut quite badly.

    My mini-goal is to get at least 200 (ideally 190) before Thanksgiving, and it looks like that is pretty reasonable - even just losing a pound a week.

    I don't think mine was "creamed" spinach - I think I might actually like that better (the spinach in the crepes was almost pureed and missed with the cream and mushrooms, very tasty). This was just chopped leaf spinach, with no cream or other additions. It may have had a little flavoring on it, but nothing strong enough to cover the spinach flavor.

    My challenge is going to be when it is shrimp night and I have tasty, tasty cocktail sauce. God I love shrimp with cocktail sauce, I might have to forego a snack and have cocktail sauce instead.


    Edited to add - I'm having lasagna for lunch right now and mm it's pretty tasty. A little unexpected spiciness which is nice. The side veggies were a little bland but a dash of lemon juice perked them up.
  • Hot Chocolate - when do I drink it?

    I realized today a packet of Hot Chocolate came with the snacks but is not listed anywhere on my meal plan. Is this a floating "freebie" I can drink whenever I want or was it included accidentally? There's no nutritional information on it so I can't determine if it's just a few calories, or closer to 100 making it more "snack" appropriate.

    If it's very low in calories and assuages my chocolate cravings, I may have to look into getting more of them. I've also been thinking about making my own from cocoa powder, liquid Splenda, and water. It wouldn't be as rich and tasty as if I made it with milk but would have 20-40 calories depending how much cocoa I used. Might be worth an experiment.
  • The hot chocolate is probably supposed to go with one of your breakfast. Mine usually go with a muffin. I don't get the snacks, but I've gotten one pkg of hot chocolate each week for a breakfast. Don't know about calories or taste since I haven't tried it yet. I've been forgetting to defrost the breakfast goods and a microwaved muffin doesn't sound good. So, I eat oatmeal instead. Oops! (Although really, doesn't oatmeal sound better for you than a muffin? )

    I had Bleu Cheese Meatloaf for lunch today. It was better than I thought it would be! And I added 1/2 cup frozen veggies to the miniscule amount of broccoli! And as to the "creamed spinach", it was soo weird. I didn't taste any cream, but it was like they pureed spinach and water and then somehow managed to get it to fluff up like a souffle. I had quite the science experiment on my hands trying to figure it out. I think I would have liked the steamed spinach better!
  • You're right! It goes with the Vanilla Nut Muffin, I completely missed that on the schedule.

    Hmm the creamed spinach sounds.. "interesting"?

    Are you on the BL diet? It sounds like we have different meals for the week so I'm wondering if everyone gets different weeks?


    Edited to add - loved the lasagna lunch. Mediterranean Chicken dinner wasn't amazing, but wasn't bad. I enjoyed the side vegetables (squash medley?) and spiced up the main chicken/rice dish with some lemon juice and Tabasco. The rice (confetti rice?) tends to be pretty bland - I've added Tabasco to the two rice-based dishes I've had so far.


    Overall the food is good - I've eaten everything I've gotten so far - I'm just being super picky because it's pretty expensive. If I don't LOVE it, I'll say why.

    Has anyone else noticed that the protein shakes taste like liquid Jello? It bothers me a bit - they taste exactly like instant jello if you taste it before it cools. I'm sure it's the gelatin base. This isn't necessarily a bad taste, but the idea of it is a little off-putting. I'm thinking this will bother me less in the chocolate-flavored shake (we'll find out tomorrow) but it made me enjoy the fruity ones a bit less.
  • Update - I just had the Papaya Pork with steamed vegetables and it was AMAZING. Such a tasty sauce, very similar to a mango chutney. Mm.