Hey guys,

As some of you may have seen from my couple of posts in the past when I first came here, I have been struggling with this diet quite a bit.

I began several weeks ago and managed to stay on the diet for all of about 4 days before the nausea took over and I kept getting violently ill. I'm more or less a healthy person that has never had issues keeping down foods, and as soon as I stopped eating the IP food, my system seemed quite normal. My consultant traded much of my food with some chocolate drinks and omelets and the raspberry jelly, things she felt might be more soothing/acceptable to my stomach. She also instructed me to eat a piece of whole wheat toast, should I feel ill after eating.

I did a trial run of another week, just to see if this would in fact change the way I felt. My hunger was suppressed effectively, and I could see that I was still losing a great deal of weight in such a short time span, but every time I drank or ate, the nausea would simply return, and the toast didn't make much of a difference at all.

I stayed off of IP for the last couple of weeks, hoping that maybe if I take a break and then run full force at it again (bashing my head against a wall after rubbing the sore spot for a bit?) perhaps I wouldn't have the same trouble. But I'm sitting here, mid-afternoon, just now finishing my breakfast chocolate drink after opening it over an hour ago, feeling like I should keep a bucket in my vicinity just in case.

Here's the thing - I want to lose weight VERY badly, and IP is obviously an extremely effective way to not only do it well and healthily, but to do it really fast. I am willing to endure SOME suffering if it means I can get the results I need. So, although I've yet to meet anyone who has experienced the same reaction as me yet, I'm hoping to do so here. Please tell me, if you know - does it get better? I gave it a whole week to see if it would and grew scared when I witnessed no improvement... how long do you think I should wait?

kayoubi Welcome back. Have you considered "backing into" IP? What I mean by this is doing a low carb plan with 1 IP packet/day for a few weeks. See how you feel just having one per day and whether your tolerance improves. Then, if you can stomach 1 packet per day, gradually replace another meal/snack with an IP packet so you're at 2 per day after another few weeks.

Are there any packets you don't have a strong vomit reaction to? (might be a clue to an allergy)

I had an uncomfortable and disconcerting reaction, tingling and numbness in my feet, to some of the more heavily sweetened packets early on. I limited myself to at most one of the sweetened packets daily, which left me with soups and the omelet for the other 2 every day. It seems we all have to experiment at least a little bit to find what works.

Is the nausea occompanied by dizziness or light headedness? have you checked your blood pressure and blood sugar levels? Have you err had a reaction to sucralose, the sweetener in splenda? I have to limit how much splenda I eat or I get bad stomach aches, lightheadedness and nausea.

Have you been getting enough water? If not, too many ketones can cause nausea in some.

Were you a big carb eater before this? If so, sometimes the extreme carb withdrawl effects people. You could try to do the alternate phase 1 plan for a week or two. It is designed for persons adjusting to lower carbs and diabetics.

Are you sensitive to sucralose or acesulfame k? You can test this by using packets with the lowest of either of these levels. See the spreadsheet by I'm Svelting for a breakdown of this information in grams per packet.

Have you checked your blood sugar? How about your blood pressure? If either are off it can make you feel this way.

Are you allergic to soy? Soy is in the majority of these packets and foods?

Are you allergic to whey? It is the second most used ingredient.

What else are you taking with your meals? Any other supplements? Try holding them for a meal and see if the reaction still occurs.

As Svelting suggests, backing into the plan may teach you if you have a tolerance threshold you are exceeding.

Keep us posted on what you learn!

Feel better!

Thank you for the support, guys.

I do know that I'm not allergic to soy, and I'm almost 100% positive that I'm not allergic to whey. I've never had reactions to aspartame or sucralose, as I've used sweetners like Splenda and Equal much of my life. I am pre-diabetic which is what initially drove me to get serious about losing weight, and I am due to go pick up a glucosometer to check out my blood sugar levels when I feel nasty like that, but I do know that my blood pressure is acceptable. I don't encounter any dizziness/fatigue, it's just the nausea, and it's just when I eat the foods to hours afterward.

Carb withdrawal is a huge possibility that I didn't really think was possible for me (I like to think I'm invincible). I am coming off of a diet of literally 30% candy and 50% nothingness. I keep missing my consultations~ I think I may have to do what svelting suggested.

As they used to say in large smoky halls, "That's a good bingo!" If you're used to eating "30% candy and 50% nothingness" your system probably doesn't yet remember how to handle the protein in an IP packet. and keep posting on how you're doing.