Just want to hear some stories of what inspired people to start the Ideal Protein diet, how they heard about it, etc?!
I am a Registered Massage Therapist in Ontario and have always struggled with my weight since childhood. I would try a new "diet" and stick to it for about 2 weeks, and then lose motivation really easily and give up.
The owner of the spa I am working at went to an Esthetics show and that's where she learned about Ideal Protein. We are going to start offering it at the spa next month, so I am one of our five "guiney pigs" for the diet!
I was so excited to be given this opportunity! My fiance is currently in Afghanistan on a 7 month deployment, so I had already decided to try and trim down on my weight with him out of the house since he can eat anything and not gain an ounce therefore there was always tempting junk food around. So when I learned about this opportunity with Ideal Protein it seemed like it was meant to be. I told my fiance I am doing the diet, but I am not going to give him any information on my progress so that it will be a suprise when I go pick him up at the airport in August for his leave! I am hoping to reach my goal by the time he comes home in December!
Even though I am only one and a half weeks in, I feel great already. I wake up every morning with so much energy and I swear I feel thinner and healthier every day! I also have so much more confidence in myself already. I even bought my first-ever piece of lingerie for his return home on leave!
I find myself exploring in the kitchen. I used to always stick to the simple veggies, potato and meat, but now I'm experimenting and making things I never thought I would.
We are planning our wedding for next summer, so I decided when I hit the 50 pound mark, I am going wedding dress shopping!
My inspiration is my fiance and our wedding. He's a marathon runner and wants desperately for me to run with him. I've never liked running because I was on the large side of life. I've decided to start slowly training for a half marathon and running it towards the end of the year.
Our wedding is in December and I've already found and purchased the dress of my dreams. My desire is to not look like a stuffed sausage in the dress. Heck- I think it would be awesome to have the boutique owner tell me that she can't alter the dress down any more and that I've lost toooo much weight and will have to get a new dress.
I just started IP today and have already bought a cute sun dress that's hanging in my room as encouragement to stick with it. I want to be in that dress within a few weeks.
I have to keep in mind when I'm feeling hungry (like right now) that in the end this is all worth it.
That's awesome!! Good luck on your first week and every week after! I found the first day I was a bit nauseous after my pineapple banana drink breakfast and then I was fine, and day 4 I felt like I wanted to eat everything. I wanted to cheat so bad but I didn't, and I'm glad I didn't! I haven't been feeling hungry at all this week, but when I did last week I would just drink a big glass of water. That filled me up no problem!
Being healthy and living a long life to see my son grow into a man is my main inspiration for doing this. Also after waking up everyday feeling crappy for so long its a nice change to feel good when I wake up in the morning. I would also like to get into MMA fighting and start training and want it to be in a weight class I actually should be fighting in. I'm certain I'm on the right track with IP and with my son and other things I want to do as inspiration I refuse to fail at this.
My inspiration is having another baby.
I have a 6 year old son who desperately wants a sister! LOL
After 2 years of trying, I was diagnosed with PCOS and started fertility treatments. After 4 months, they didn't work and I was told in May that I needed to lose 30-40 pounds before I can start fertility treatments again. By June I hadn't lost anything really..so I realized something drastic had to happen. Thank goodness for my friend. She kept telling me about Ideal Protein. The gym we go to offers it. She kept looking it up and kept mentioning it to me. Finally I made an appointment and signed up that day (last Friday).
After the baby I will probably come back on program to lose more, but my initial reason is to expand our family and I need to be healthier to do that.
My inspiration is to be healthy and feel confident in how i look. I've been on the heavier side since puberty and it has just gotten progressively worse since then. It's never been easy for me to lose weight, but it's always been super easy to gain. So, i started IP in the beginning of April and have lost 25 lbs since then. I'm currently at the lowest weight i have ever been in my adult life. It feels SO nice to put on clothes in a smaller size. So now that i'm in uncharted territory, it's exciting to think about the road ahead!
I have always struggled with my weight, but over the last 3 years I have gained close to 40 pds....mostly due to alot of stress...I was working 2 jobs and finishing up my accounting designation...that left me with no time to exercise and with all the pressure I just ate to comfort myself.
I am now happily finished my education and getting married August 21....I started IP back in September and lost about 25pds....I started losing alot of hair and freaked out. I thought I would try to lose weight on my own and with a trainer. the trainer was great but I wasn't seeing the weightloss I was hoping for.
I tried another program with my naturopath but again nothing kept me motivated.
So is it IP or you all that is keeping me going. Well I think this site is really helpful and really something to keep you focused. Now that I am sticking to this strictly I see how many temptations there are all around us. Food is part of everything we do all the time.
Anyhow, I feel similar to the other brides on here. I want to look amazing in my dress....even though I know I can't make it to goal by the wedding...losing a substantial amount of weight will make me feel great on that day...I will feel more like the person I see in the mirror.
I am sort of opposite to many of you on here. When I look in the mirror I see this beautiful thin person, its not until I see a pic that I realize how much weight I have put on....I can wait to be able to love not only what I see in the mirror but what is in the pictures too.
Another motivator is, we want to have children soon after the wedding and from everything I know and hear it is important to be close to a normal BMI to increase your chances of conception. Also, since you gain weight pregnant losing before will help you emotionally after the baby comes.
These are all great reasons to lose weight...and sometimes we lose sight of why we are doing this and that is why I think this site is so awesome...
Good luck all on your journey's..
To the other brides...hand in there....I have taken pictures of myself in a strapless dress to see the areas that need work...this has helped to keep me motivated.
Mine was very simple: I felt bad about myself, I would work out till it hurt and wouldn't see results. I wanted to fit in cute clothes that I had from years ago and it was just darn bad when I would go shopping. BUT mainly I would get depressed, lash out at my partner for no reason. One night when I had too much to drink, I sat him down and basically interigated him as to why he was with me when he could have any woman he wanted. Next morning, we had a dicussion about my ranting and raving; by that afternoon I had made the decision that I need to feel good about how I look in order to survive my own life. It felt so ugly to have such low self esteem and the only cause I could think of was my fat belly. Soooo that was it, my motivation came when I hit rock bottom and realized I was hurting myself and everyone else I loved or cared about.
Last edited by pitakitten; 06-24-2010 at 07:10 PM.
My inspiration for starting is that I want to buy cute clothes and look good in them! I'm fairly tall, so I've always felt bigger anyway, and gaining a bunch of weight over the past couple of years hasn't helped that. I also want to have energy - I want to do the outdoorsy things like boating and biking that my husband does without feeling tired and self-conscious.
I worked at a horrible job for two years and put on 40 lbs in that time. Part of it was due to unhappiness, part of it was due to long hours behind a desk and no exercise, and part of it was due to increased alcohol (because of the job...). So, it was a blessing in disguise that I was downsized and found a better job with a much better work environment. I still work long hours, but I'm much happier. I've wanted to lose weight for quite some time, I was not skinny before I put on the last 40 lbs, but could never seem to find the time.
When I began to have a better outlook on life I really noticed how bad physically I felt. My back hurt all the time, my feet hurt, my knees hurt, I felt bloated and just plain yucky. I would get out of breath walking up the stairs, and need to rest when I tried to work around the house and yard. In March I lost 4 lbs on my own, but couldn't seem to do anymore without a more formal plan. I had heard of IP and went to a seminar in May. I still went back and forth for a few weeks, then decided to go for it, because I was worth it.
I think you really have to get to a point when you are ready to make a drastic change - physically, mentally and/or spiritually ready. Really 100% ready. Whether it's because you've hit rock bottom, or have experienced a dramatic event in your life and need to rebound. Quite simply, my time is now!
I fell across IP when I got hired at my current workplace-one half of "my boss" is an IP rep(husband-wife insurance agency). There are posters all over the office and my first couple of weeks, I'd literally walk in and roll my eyes at them thinking it was a fad diet that was probably so unhealthy and any weight lost would come right back.
My office was next door to my boss' office and I would hear her everyday doing consults for IP customers, I got the ins and outs of the program through the wall but after about a month I decided it was something I HAD TO DO eventually.
I have been on the heavier side my entire life. Been told I'm "big boned", "voluptuous", a "brick house"-but I took all of these as "you're fat and you need to lose weight". I've never been obese, but never in a normal BMI since I can remember-always technically overweight. At 16 one of my best friends introduced me to binging and purging-she's no longer my friend. I used binging and purging for about 5 years to "maintain" my weight as I never lost anything from it. I could go eat 2 plates of food at a Chinese Buffet, feel guilty about it and just go home and "fix" it. It was awful.
I finally stopped vomiting when I got pregnant with my daughter at 20( I know-YOUNG) and quit all of that, gave birth to a healthy 8 lb baby girl. I gained 40 lbs and was depressed when it didn't fall off immediately after giving birth-high expectations I nursed her and it was eventually back to 180 after a year and a half of intesnse running and diet regimine.
Then about 9 months after I had got back to my comfy pre-pregnancy weight of 180, I got pregnant with my son. Gained exactly 19 lbs(was terrifeid to hit 200 again), he was born pre-term at 6 lbs at 36(tried to come out at 30 weeks but was stopped), probably because I tried to eat a little too healthy or a little too little when I look back now.
I nursed him too and literally lost all of my 19 lbs in two weeks. I then stopped keeping track of my weight and it slowly crept up. My 9/10's started getting really tight and 12's were actually fitting me again, I was horrified when I saw how big I'd gotten in pictures but I was terrified to get on a scale for about 6 months was and in complete denial.
In comes this wonderful chance to lose weight the right way and learn once and for all to eat right and learn portion control. I was getting so down on myself, I was lashing out at my husband too. He's always loved me the way I am, chubby, skinny, pregnant, whatever but I hated myself top to bottom. I hated getting dressed, buying clothes, eating in public etc. The idea of turning to bulimia crept back into my mind way too many times and I finally confessed and talked to my husband about it. He gave me his blessing(and the checkbook) to sign up.
Great idea for a thread. I've enjoyed reading all of your posts.
I think I felt a little like I'd lost control of my body, and I had no idea how to fix it. I'd tried everything. A friend of mine told me about IP & she knew a couple people who had lost. When I first heard about it, I scoffed that it was unhealthy, too.
My motivation, though, is varied. My feet were starting to gain weight and look 'fat' -- I saw a photo of myself and realized how out of control it had gotten, and I didn't recognize myself in the mirror at a glance one day. I thought that if I gained much more weight, I wouldn't be able to shop at a 'normal' store, and most things were out of my reach even at the biggest sizes. I could only wear one or two of my skirts, so I went shopping, and as I stood outside a Lane Bryant one day, I just said no. I left the mall, called & got in to the clinic, got my food that night, started IP the next day.
The new clothes might have been cheaper in the short term, but I'm thrilled.
I know this diet is hard, but it is totally worth it.
My motivation is now coming from my profile pictures! I never thought I was in denial about my weight. Oh boy, I may not have been in denial, but I certainly never thought I actually looked this heavy@
I went to a family funeral with my mother recently. My mother is 5'4 and weighs about 215. She looks very heavy to me and has lots of medical problems. Anyway, all my relatives that we hardly ever see kept saying how much I looked like my mother. They were all very amazed at just how much we look alike. I guess that is when I should have realized it. It was not just because of our beautiful faces. LOL. It was because I was now taking on the same physical (overweight) appearance.
Thanks so much to the IP center for giving me copies of these pictures. What an incredible reality check.
The next time I see my relatives, I will not look so much like my mother! Love you mom! Just don't want to look like you.
At first, I just wanted to feel better... I had already given up all wheat products, 'cause I'd always feel crummy the next day after eating bread or crackers or pasta... same thing with dairy... I realized I didn't get enough protein, so I had added whey protein shakes a couple of times a day... plus I had started eating more raw fruits & veggies... I started looking around for a "real" diet that was close to what I had come up with, & IP was it... the only thing I've had to give up since then was the fruit...
Now that I've seen some great results & read so many of y'all's amazing stories, I'm inspired to make a success of this new way of eating... so that someday soon, I can say everybody within shouting distance --
THIS IS WHY I LOOK THIS GOOD!
Last edited by Aunt Sheshie; 06-29-2010 at 12:46 PM.
Reason: To correct spelling!..
Your Inspiration!
Heck- I think it would be awesome to have the boutique owner tell me that she can't alter the dress down any more and that I've lost toooo much weight and will have to get a new dress. 
I nursed her and it was eventually back to 180 after a year and a half of intesnse running and diet regimine.
