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Old 08-24-2010, 08:24 PM   #121  
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speaking of dry ice a good tip for anyone reading that may be thinking about Bistro MD. When you get the box I know you will be excited to see what is in it. So read that important sheet on the top that says DONT TOUCH THE ICE. The first week I got it i happend to grab it from the bag and didn't think twice and stuck it in the sink. The second week I was so excited to look at what my goodies would be that I went to grab the bag and quickly let go. Let me tell you the numbness I Ifelt was unbelievable. So PLEASEEEEEEEEEE anyone reading DONT TOUCH THE DRY ICE either put gloves as lisa mentioned or grab it good by the bag not the actual ice.

Can't wait to get my order this week to see the difference in meals from Biggest Loser Meal Plan to the normal Bistro Plan......off I go to order those extra snacks with the free shipping that price is unbetable.
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Old 08-24-2010, 08:52 PM   #122  
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You are sooooooo lucky you didn't get burns from that! You have no idea!

Not only will dry ice burn you badly, but it can burn through bone and tissue. I was horrified at how they demonstrated this in a nauseating horror movie I saw with Lindsay Lohan from a few years ago (I could not believe she agreed to do that film)! The killer used dry ice to cut her limbs off! I was so disgusted that I barely made it through the film! It was called "I know who killed me" and it was disgusting (and I never looked at dry ice the same way again)! I already knew it was dangerous if mishandled in any way, but that was just mind numbingly awful!

BE VERY CAREFUL WITH DRY ICE! It's fine if you know not to touch it directly, but never handle it without gloves or paper towels or some kind of barrier between you and the ice! I remember that this was what eDiets told me when I asked them why they do not use dry ice. She said it was because it was dangerous (and food poisoning isn't)! I would rather have a huge neon sign put in that is literally taped to the top of the box that warns me about dry ice, than to have food shipped across the country in this heat with regular gel packs ground! You just have to be careful and you are fine. I touched a piece once by accident, and I know that numb feeling well! I ran my fingers under warm water for a while! It completely melts in 24 hours after I get my shipments, and then its fine to break the boxes down, etc.

Oh and for a bit of trivia. They used to use dry ice in horror movies to make mist and fog. Its the freakiest thing. You will see this for yourself if you run water over it (not advising you to do that, but it's definitely freaky)! It's instant Halloween!

Last edited by Lisa1978; 08-24-2010 at 08:55 PM.
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Old 08-25-2010, 07:04 PM   #123  
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i spoke to soon about the price being unbeatable. Lisa hopefully you didn't order yet from Amazon because I think I found a sweeter deal. About $8.42 a 12 pack. Shipping is a flat 4.99 so if you order at least 2 12 packs it is automatically lower than the $12 Amazon with Free Shipping. And there is a greater variety on their site....I think they have all the Kay's Natural products.....I want to try out their breakfast cereal that is $6.76 a 12 pack. Here is the site

http://search.evitamins.com/search?w=kays%20naturals

Unfortunately I placed my order on Amazon for 4 12 packs and than noticed the evitamins site and tried to cancell my order. It allowed me to cancell the two 12 packs the other two were showing as not having been processed yet.....oh well you live an learn
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Old 08-26-2010, 06:49 PM   #124  
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Ok recieved my Bistro box today and both blocks of dry ice were still in tack so everything was frozen soliid. menu looks very similar to what I had under the Biggest Loser Meal Plan by Bistro. All meals were ini trays. Only differences I noticed were:

1)it is slightly more expensive I think $10
2)Day 6 Diner is not provided
3)My Breakfast muffiin was acompanied by a Protein Hot Chocolate
4)One meal was different had not seen it at all (Blue Cheese Meatloaf).

Other than that the same. Here is what I recieved on this shipment. (On page 7 of this thread is a sample of the meal plan I had with Biggest Loser Meal Plan by BisitroMD).


Day 1
Breakfast: Chicken Mushroom Crepe (they subbed it (due to mushrooms) with Omelet w/ Veggie Paty)
AM Snack: Proticcino Shake
Lunch: Turkey wity Quinoa
PM Snack: Parmesan Protein Chips
Diner: Moroccan Warm Lentil Salad


Day 2
Breakfast: Stuffed French Toast
AM Snack: Pineapple Orange Shake
Lunch: Vegetable Chili (subbed out (not sure why) with Vegetable Burrito)
PM Snack: Dried Sirloin Beef Strips
Diner: Broccoli and Beef Dinner


Day 3
Brunch: High Proteini Bagel with an Egg White Patty and Canadian Bacon
AM Snack: Crisp N Crunch Fudge Graham Bar
Lunch: Peanut Chicken
PM Snack: Sour Cream and Onion Crunch O's
Diner: Chicken with Greek Inspired Lentils


Day 4
Brunch: High Proteini Bagel with All Natural Maple Almond Butter
AM Snack: Kiwi Strawberry Shake
Lunch: Picadillo
PM Snack: Honey Almnd Cookie Bites
Diner: Apricot Glazed Pork Tenderloin


Day 5
Breakfast: Spinach Mushroom Crepe (they subbed it (due to mushrooms) with French Toast
AM Snack: Crisp N Crunch Peanut Bar
Lunch: Chicken Breast Stuffed w/ Spinach & Feta w/ Roasted Baby Carrots & Green Bean Almondine
PM Snack: Chili and Lime Soy Snack
Diner: Salmon Fillet with Roasted Pepper Puree


Day 6
Breakfast: Corn Moffin w/ Protein Hot Chocolate
AM Snack: Crisp N Crunch Double Berry Bar
Lunch: Steak House Wrap with Creamed Spinach
PM Snack: Chili Soy Snack
Diner: <My Night>

Day 7
Breakfast: Buckwheat Pancakes
AM Snack: Mini Chocolate Criisps
Lunch: Blue Cheese Meatloaf
PM Snack: Mini Chocolate Cheesecake
Diner: Ham & Turkey with Couscous and Butternut Squash (subbed out (not sure why) with Curried Chicken w/ Couscous)

Last edited by tzoavva; 08-26-2010 at 07:08 PM.
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Old 08-26-2010, 07:11 PM   #125  
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Just curious does anyone know how many weeks rotation Bistro has I think I recall reading 6 but could be wrong.

Last edited by tzoavva; 08-26-2010 at 07:34 PM.
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Old 08-26-2010, 11:48 PM   #126  
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I recall 6 weeks also, but I'm not sure why. So jealous that you got meals I've never had yet. Like the Picadillo, Peanut Chicken, and the Chicken with Greek Inspired Lentils. And I swear, if they send me Arroz Con Pollo again this week, I'll freak. Every week I've gotten one! I put a note in my profile about it.
About all the substitutions, I had a number of subs my first week. Maybe this is like your "first" week, since you switched over from BL. I think they fill those orders last.

Here's my week 4...
Breakfast 1: Spinach Mushroom Crepe - love it!
Lunch 1: Grilled Pesto Chicken (new to me!)
Dinner 1: Asian Style Vegetable and Beef (new to me!)

B2: Omelet with Canadian bacon and Apples
L2: Arroz Con Pollo
D2: Poached North Atlantic Salmon Filet

B3: Stuffed French Toast (new to me!)
L3: Bacon Cheeseburger Meatloaf (good, but I like the blue cheese meatloaf better)
D3: Chicken Marsala with Brussels Sprouts (new to me!)

B4: High Protein bagel with maple almond butter (love the bagel - flaxseeds!)
L4: Steak House Wrap
D4: Roasted Turkey Pomegranate

B5: English Muffin with Egg White Patty and Turkey Sausage
L5: Shrimp Primavera (subbed out for Curried Chicken with CousCous)
D5: Chicken stuffed with spinach and feta with pomodoro sauce, mashed eggplant and wheat penne (LOVED this one!)

B6: Buckwheat Pancakes
L6: Beef Tips in Red Wine Sauce
D6: none

B7: Mixed Berry Crepe (Like this!)
L7: Pasta Putanesca with Chicken (new to me!)
D7: Vegetable and Beef StirFry (new to me!)

Last edited by Jen516; 08-26-2010 at 11:50 PM.
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Old 08-27-2010, 02:50 PM   #127  
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Thanks for the update on Amazon Tzoavva.

Actually it was like pulling teeth to get a straight answer about the difference in foods. I called Bistro three times and asked this question of three different people. One higher up individual said that the food was the same, and that they were just giving Biggest Loser people a discount due to their agreement with the network. That I might get a packet meal here and there, but no real difference otherwise.

That was strange to me, because it went against everything I read out here before in other Bistro threads where the Bistro old timers said they had a 6 week rotation, with more variety than the Biggest Loser. This is when I was trying to decide if it was worth switching to Bistro for better variety. I finally called and got a rep who said she's been with them forever, and that there is indeed a difference between the plans (I thought so). She even went into detail, and she turned out to be right. I began noticing meals I had not received in the previous weeks at all (and I got about 5 packet meals that first time on Bistro). She said Biggest Loser people do not get the steak, and she was right on that. I also finally got to try the Cherry and Apple stuffed chicken, which I was told I could not have on Biggest Loser. They even looked that up for me, because I really wanted to try it and I was on Biggest Loser at the time (I have yet to see or taste even one cherry in that meal). It's OK and everything, but it basically just tastes like apples and chicken. They said I would need to be on Bistro to get that meal.

There were others that I saw coming through eventually that I had not seen in my previous weeks on Biggest Loser. It does not happen all at once. It's not like your first week on Bistro, everything is different or anything. You get an infusion a little at a time until you begin to see the newer pattern. I can't think of all the names, but my guess is that you get maybe 7 or 8 new foods and that does not include any of the Bistro breakfasts because I don't get the breakfasts to gauge that. This other person who ended up being right about the other stuff, said there is more variety and more of a rotation. I bet their lives will be simpler now without the Biggest Loser on board because that would confuse the heck out of me working there! I know that it confused me as a customer. Everyone had a different answer when I called! One thing to consider is that now everything could be totally different anyway. It's a new ball game without the Biggest Loser plan, so they may have a whole new system for all we know as far as rotation goes.

I love the food, however I have noticed that I am starting to get almost the same meals every week here the past two weeks. I don't know if maybe I gave them less to work with when I filled out my profile or what (probably). I will never eat the Greek Inspired lentil stuff again (not for me). I also said no Meatloaf's, Chili's or Philly Cheese Steak, but they have plenty of other meals, so it shouldn't be that much of a problem. I haven't seen that Santa Barbara Chicken for a while. I was told you would not lose any meals by switching, but that you would only gain more variety. I also notice that they pay attention to my favorites from my profile, because they give me those nearly every week.

Oh and I said no Mahi Mahi, but I have also not seen Tilapia for a while either. My last two weeks have been almost identical. It's all good food, but that will get tiresome after a while. Maybe I just got stuck in a rotation where it just so happens that the last two weeks had more of the ones I don't like (hoping that's all it is).

I know that Bistro users get hot chocolate, but I have my own anyway. I get 7 lunches and 7 dinners because I am ala carte Bistro. I do not get their breakfasts or snacks. Because I pay per meal, I make sure that I get 7 lunches and 7 dinners (I don't want a my night).

P.S. I had so much dry ice in this last one, my eyes nearly popped out. The box weighed nearly 50 pounds! The good news is that everything was frozen solid again! Yay

Oh and I got no packet meals this time either. They did say they are phasing those out (and I won't miss them at all). Much more convenient in trays.

Now that I look more closely at the menu you put out, I see why I got so many of the same foods again. Many of the ones I don't care for were in this weeks. Oh well. I seem to never get enough of the Chicken Fresco or the Blue Cheese Stuffed Chicken! I was getting a California Inspired Wrap, and a Philly Cheese Steak every single week (that was making me nuts)! No more thank God!

Last edited by Lisa1978; 08-27-2010 at 06:35 PM.
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Old 08-27-2010, 09:17 PM   #128  
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Great info Lisa. I am one of thos type of people I document/keep everything so I will track things for the next 5 weeks and post my findings as the weeks go by. I have all 6 weeks of menues that I kept from BLMP (week 5 & 6 were repeats of 1 3or4 with minor changes). I actually took pictures of all meals from the first 4 weeks to post on a blog at some point when I fiind the time. Even though BLMP is gone if the food is also used on Bistro I am sure future Bisto customers or interested folks will enjoy it.
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Old 08-28-2010, 12:12 PM   #129  
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Also, I got this week's box and my menu looks the same as TZ's. DIfferent substitutions of course. I was so disappointed that they subbed out the Beef and Broccoli for no reason - it's one of my absolute favorites! I got Pork in Papaya instead. I remember somebody saying they really liked that, so maybe I'll be happy with it! Still - boo! But excited that there's quite a few new meals to try.
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Old 08-28-2010, 05:41 PM   #130  
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Hi guys! My name is Kristi and i am excited we have a little board here! I've been through the 3FG boards before but am new to Bistro MD. I've been on for about 2 weeks, heading into the third. I am very weight loss resistant and am finding this isn't any different as far as helping that issue. I haven't lost any weight but am still giving it a month before I give up again. I think some support might help. Just like with exercise, when you are working hard and in this case paying so much money and don't see results you get a little disheartened and maybe talking to those of you on this board I can at least feel a little less alone!! It's nice to find people to talk with about this plan.
I love the food so far. It's great to come on here and see that for the most part our menus for this past week were exactly the same. I wasn't really sure about that. I had requested at least 2 meals a week w/seafood in them so they did sub out a few things for me this week. The food is yummy and I LOVE not having to think about what I am going to make to eat every day.This just leads to bad decisions as I am usually very hungry at the end of my work days. I am doing the 5 day Bistro MD plan with snacks. I was considering cancelling the snacks but as with many other foods on this plan I have found that i surprisingly like most of them. However the supply of those stupid protein shakes are building up rapidly here. I am also writing about the plan in my blog which I'll try to post in my profile. I haven't been on this site since my last adventure in dieting before I gave up and put on probably another 30 pounds (bad thyroid and recovering from really bad metabolic syndrome and insulin issues last time I went to endo's). SO I saw a few people had just started but was curious about anyone on here who has been on the plan for a few weeks and has seen some results? Did you lose immediately or did it take a while for the shift to happen? I usually supplement my evening sweet cravings w/ jello sugar free chocolate pudding that I loved when I was on south beach. The soy snacks are good but I am considering cancelling as some say soy is bad for thyroid disease. Well anyway! Thanks for being here! Yay!
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Old 08-28-2010, 08:26 PM   #131  
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Welcome Kristi!
I just hopped over to your blog and it's like you can read my mind! Well, on some things. I enjoyed the same meals and I also hate the turkey pomegrante with a passion. I employ many of the same cooking tricks you described. Hope you continue to enjoy the meals!

I've been eating BistroMD for 4.5 weeks now. I've lost 20 pounds, from 288 to 268. I may be atypical though, since the meal plan represents a SERIOUS calorie reduction for me. I've done some calculations and I'd guess that I'm eating around 1000 calories less each day! Maybe even worse! I've been tracking and aim for 1350-1500 each day. Some days are a litle lower (very rare!), some are a little higher, and a few (3) have been in the 2000s. My average for the whole month is around 1600cal. I've been really conscious to not let the number get too low.

Like you, I've been soooooooo relieved that I don't have to think about food. I LIKE not having the freedom of choice. And it helps that I like this kind of food - chicken and veggies are my favs. It was just so much easier to stop at McDonalds and get a burger and fries. I do still crave french fries.
I hope your weight loss kicks in soon -- stick with it and post back!
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Old 08-29-2010, 03:25 PM   #132  
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Great blog Jen thanks for shariing. I read thru most of it and deffinately teh food seems the sam with what I have had so far. Honestly can't say there were many more choices on your list either because of my dislikes or yours are somewhat the same that could be the reason. Deffinately anyone wondering if the should start Bistro or not should check out your blog. It really gives you a good idea what to expect.

kristi also checked your blog out as well. Awesome idea about writting the date (L1, D2, etc..) on the side
i write it on the top and stack them in the right order but having it on the side and with a bright marker is so much smarter. Will do that next week thanks.
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Old 08-29-2010, 04:30 PM   #133  
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Thanks guys! Jen, that's an awesome weight loss! Congrats! I hope it starts working for me soon. I'm considering giving it at least 2 months before giving up. It's too expensive to stay on without seeing results but I am still hoping for the best.
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Old 08-29-2010, 09:35 PM   #134  
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Thanks guys! The only restriction I have on BMD food is no shellfish. I'm not that fond of shrimp, and I don't need all their cholestrol anyways.

Kristi - I hope it picks up for you! And that was another thing that was similar between us - that pic of your freezer could have been mine! It crakced me up, cause I label them exactly the same way.

I had one of my top three meals tonight - that chicken with spinach/feta/penne/eggplant. I just love it. So far, this is working really well for me. I think a pretty big part of it is the blog. Being able to track my food intake online from anywhere has been helpful. Also, it made me more aware of WHEN I was eating. It was easier to push off dinner an hour, even if I was hungry, when I knew my last snack had only been say 2 hours ago. And I'm treating this like a big science experiment - keeping track of all sorts of stats makes it feel more like a game!
Anyways, have a great day tomorrow!
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Old 08-30-2010, 09:05 AM   #135  
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I hear ya Tzoavva. I do the same thing. I was thankful that I saved all the menus as well, when it came to filling out my profile. It made it easy for me to just look at those old menus to remind me of the foods I didn't want! My daily journal has also been very instrumental in my weight loss. When you write everything down with the calories and time, it really opens up your eyes. Helps me to stay on track.

Welcome Kristi!

Here are some helpful links that will help you figure out exactly how many calories you need to maintain your current weight, so that you can figure out exactly how much less you need to eat to give you the weight loss you are looking for. Once you understand how these calculators work, they can be very helpful (though a bit confusing at first). Some very eye opening things I found when I did my research on all of this. As you probably know, for every 3500 calories less you burn per week, that equals one pound in weight loss. If you want to lose about 2 pounds per week, you want to try for a deficit of 7000 calories per week. Sounds simple enough, but I found its a bit more complicated because there are some calculators you have to do first to determine a few things for yourself individually first.

Lets say you are 5.5 and weigh 250 pounds. You have a sedentary lifestyle. If you go to the calculator below, it says you would need 2250 calories per day to maintain your weight if you did nothing else (depending on age or lifestyle, which you enter into the calculator). Then what you want to do is go to the second link, which calculates how many calories are burned even when you are sleeping (major eye opener for me). You need to take all that into account to get as accurate as possible. So lets say hypothetically you sleep exactly 8 hours a night (480 minutes). You would burn 857 calories during those eight hours. Then lets say you watch TV for say 4 hours total per day. You would burn 476 calories just doing that. Then lets say you spend maybe 5 hours worth of reading documents and the computer at work. That translates to about 595 calories (as living creatures, we are constantly burning calories). Then lets say you work out 45 minutes a day on the treadmill, that's another 350 calories burned. If you add all the calories you burn per day, which in this hypothetical case totals 2278 and subtract what you are eating now on this diet from that (lets say it's 1400 calories per day). That gives you a deficit of 878 calories per day. Again it's calories burned against calories taken in. If you add up that deficit of 878 per day times 7 days, you get 6146 per week which should give you about a pound and half of weight loss per week (and that's leading a sedentary lifestyle). If you lead an active lifestyle, you will burn even more. That's a minimum. This is how I figured out what I needed to do in order to lose about 7-8 pounds per month, and it's been very accurate so far. I am right on track. It's not just eating 3500 calories less than you already eat. It's calories you eat against calories your body burns. I've been pretty much losing 2 pounds per week, now that I understand what I need to take in to create that deficit. If I have a 1200 calorie day, I will lose even more without making any changes to my lifestyle. Once you get it, these online calculators can be a major help. Hope it helps you (it's early here, so hopefully I got all my numbers right)!

http://www.shapefit.com/dailycalorie-calc.html

http://www.fitwatch.com/phpscripts/s...category_id=01

http://shapefit.com/calories.html

Last edited by Lisa1978; 08-30-2010 at 09:07 AM.
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