[Kikie]

Good evening,

I am finishing up my first week in phase 2 tomorrow. Ever since I started last wednesday, I have been having really bad stomach issues. Nausea, heartburn, feeling of being too full, loss of appetite, bloating, and other things like that.

Prior to IP, I was not a true vegetarian because I ate chicken (only) a couple of times per week. No other meat, no fish, very few eggs. The thing is, could these 2 meals of meat, which for me are only chicken since I do not like anything else, be the cause of all this discomfort? Has anyone else experienced this kind of issue when suddenly increasing meat like that in phase 2? I really don't know how I will make it through the next 2 weeks having to eat that twice a day. I try to have tofu as much as I can, but apparently it's not recommended to do IP on tofu only, so I have 3-4 meals of it per week.

Does anyone have any tips or experience to share? About digesting meat, or whatever could be causing this. Anything would be well appreciated. Thank you!

[LizRR]

One of the issues that Phase 2 tries to combat is to not only get your body adjusted to a higher calorie count gradually (so you don't go straight from 900 to 2000 calories, and go from famine to fat-storing the feast), is also to get your stomach adjusted to digesting 'real food'. Hence that gradual step of replacing IP with protein. Your body should eventually adjust, you may want to get some of the enzymes to help with digestion, as this IS a real symptom of the phasing off process, my coach did warn me about this. This is one reason why doing all IP foods isn't a great method long term, your stomach still needs some type of 'training' in digesting real foods to keep the balance.

[Kikie]

Wow thank you for taking the time to answer, I was not told it was a symptom of phasing off, I wish I'd known sooner so I would have at least expected it and not phased off in the middle of a 14 straight days at work... it was seriously bad.

[LizRR]

I didn't explain it as well as my coach did, but it made sense when she said how the packets are processed to make the protein highly absorbable, but this also means the stomach doesn't need to produce and work like it normally does with digesting 'real food'. She told me to expect some issues phasing off and suggested the enzymes or other type of OTC probiotic to aid digestion during the reintroduction of 'real food' as your gut starts ramping up all the normal digestion processes it had before.

I should just record all my conversations with her as I never feel I do her explanations justice...