Beware of making the Hot Cocoa hot. I did this for the first time this morning (I usually drink them cold), and instead of hot cocoa, I got runny brownie bread pudding!

yellowdaisy3321 wrote: »

110toLose wrote: »

Beware of making the Hot Cocoa hot. I did this for the first time this morning (I usually drink them cold), and instead of hot cocoa, I got runny brownie bread pudding!

The hot cocoa snack, the 70cal one? I make it hot all the time and have no issues. Although any of the full meal replacements can only be made hot if you have a blender of some type otherwise the protein clumps. I make hot drinks all the time straight from the keurig, but I blend them in my ninja travel mugs. My clinic says if you want things hot you should make them cold and then microwave them.

--I made the meal replacement hot cocoa cold first in the blender and then microwaved it; i do the same thing with the soups. I'll try the hot cocoa hot again one day when I am feeling lucky.

As a beginner these tips give me hope that I won't be so bored doing this program! I have copied them to a Word document. Thanks!

Hi marallewis!

Congrats on your weight loss! I am 31 days in, down 27 pounds on 4 replacements/day (that is our clinic's guideline but I get behind sometimes, especially if I sleep in later (I am an RN and work different shifts) then I have 3. I have more of a savory-salty tooth than a sweet tooth so I've been craving more of a balance.

I also was not a big water drinker. The clinic says I have to have my body weight/2.2 to equal the number of ounces I had to drink, not including the water used to make the meals. OH MY--that's a lot of water! I use the 0 carb liquid sweeteners and that has really helped. I have also changed up the flavors of the vanilla puddings with extracts which I also make with more water as a shake.

Yesterday I made Chicken Biscuits as I have been craving something chewy with the creamy chicken soup packet. I had high hopes and they looked so cute and yummy but sadly the chemical taste was too strong and they were really dry. I did enjoy chewing them though! It made 10 mini biscuits. I ended up tearing the last 3 into chunks and using them as croutons in my chicken bouillon!

I also mix one packet of chili with the packet of sloppy joe mix, they taste better together than separate and I also don't boil the water down so much so it's more of a soup.

We were given a 41 page packet of recipes our 2nd week. It's got a lot of great looking ideas but haven't gotten into the recipes too much. Like you the first month I was figuring things out.

You said you are down to 3 meal replacement now and read that others have been on 3. The dietitian at our clinic said we really had to have one every 3-4 hours and needed to have all 4. Maybe because we are a lot heavier in my group and we need the extra calories? I told her sometimes I only have 3 and she said as long as that doesn't happen too often but told me less isn't better. I would like to cut down to 3 and have 1/2 bar for a snack if I needed it to speed the process up but that would be discouraged at our clinic!

I found a decent recipe book here: http://yourwellnesscenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/New-Direction-Recipe-Book.pdf

Lesson learned of the day... The Pineapple-Apricot powder does not make for tasty pancakes. :-P I was really looking forward to having something solid-ish to eat. I figured if you can make pancakes with the vanilla, the pineapple would work. Nope. It brought out the chemical taste and was pretty much inedible. Oh well... now I know.

Lava cake is another good recipe, but requires 2 packets.

Mix one packet of chocolate pudding and one packet of chocolate shake with 1/2 cup water. Pour into microwave safe dish like a ramekin that you sprayed with pam. Cook for 60-90 seconds in the microwave. Surprisingly this is very good and the center does turn out like a lava cake.

any way to get that pdf file of ND recipes? Please send to kfattig@bowdoin.edu - thanks!