Congrats!!! You keep me hanging in there.

I had a NSV yesterday, and I still feel good today. The maintenance man was over to fix a broken light fixture. He's a young, buff, bodybuilder. He kept looking at me and finally said "You look great, you've lost a lot of weight". It was nice to have a man notice, especially one who is focused on his own body. We had a great time talking about carbs, protein, supplements, etc. He's uber fit and has just as hard a time staying away from the high carbs as we do. He was beating himself up for eating some muffins. Wow. Thought I might make some of Finn's muffins for him and see what he thinks.

Differences between IP & Dr. Tran's book?
 

I've been reading "The Unbalanced Diet Approach" and I've noticed some differences between IP and the book. (I haven't read the entire thing yet, so maybe it will be answered later in the book)

The biggest difference I found is that he recommends the first phase for only 2 - 4 weeks? Or am I missing something here?: "The concept of an unbalanced diet - the protein diet - is only acceptable for patients for a limited period of time (two to four weeks), allowing for exceptions, as is the case for obese hospitalized individuals. During the second part of the weight-loss process, you'll eat a balanced diet to keep the pounds off." (page 28)

Broccoli, mushrooms, cabbage, sauerkraut, cauliflower, turnips and leeks are included in his list of "restricted" veggies.

Celeriac (one of my faves) is listed as a vegetable to avoid.

Also, he states that aspartame can be used as a sweetener.

I'm just curious about the differences, knowing that IP is at least somewhat based on Dr. Tran's book. Does anyone know why there are these differences?

Please tell me there's a reason that after being 100% OP for my first 5 days doing IP, I could step on a scale and be at the same starting weight. I woke up so happy to be thru the wk one hunger and headaches and would have been happy to see even a loss of 2. My first WI is still 3 days away and from everyones posts and sigs I was hoping itd be the best one-a jumpstart that let me know this could work for me too. :-(

Wait and see what you weigh at your WI on their scale. My second week I thought I had no loss and was really bummed out. When I got to my WI I was down 1.6 lbs. I was not thrilled but it was a loss. I am in the middle of my 4th week and as of WI#3 was down 9.25 lbs. This is slow in comparison to many but I am averaging over 3 lbs a week at this point so I am okay with that.

Make sure you are eating all of your protien (8 oz) it seems to me it makes a difference and make sure your are not constipated which can be an issue for some on this program.

Good luck and hang in there. It will come off if you stick with it.

We are encouraged not to weigh every day but I do because I don't get emotionally upset with whatever the scale says. But my pattern is to go for 4 or 5 days each week with no loss and then it goes down one day. So wait out the whole week to see what your loss really is.
Pat

I am wondering the same about his time frame for phrase 1 when I questioned my coach about it he said it has been modified (but I couldn't find anything written that has been authored by Doctor.

Also, I would really like to know reason for no aspartame.


Hopefully, some experienced IPer can answer?

Thanks for bringing same questions up I had and thanks to anyone who might have insight on this....

HI EVERYONE!

Im back! and im happier then ever and ready to do this. I wasnt ready before. I some issues i needed to work out.. One: being my issue with binging(im getting help with that from OA and im 1 month binge free today wooppee!!!) and the other issue :My stomach health issues. I could barely eat anything and they didnt know what was making me sick so i couldnt even diet. Turns out i have a Celiac Disease and so ive been on a month long wheat free gluten free diet and in turn I feel great! In fact, oddly enough i used to binge on bread and pastries. It was my go to binge food... I used to crave it like crazy and now i dont crave it and i dont drink pop anymore!!! I used to drink pop like crazy and now i dont crave it. The only thing i drink is water now!! Yay! Im so happy! I feel so much better! So now that they know its the gluten and wheat thats causing the issue, i can now go back to IP alternatives, just modified in the sense that i have to cut out packets that have wheat and gluten..which leaves yummy pudding and shakes!

Anywho! im starting at 294 and im excited to do it this time. This time i even set goals, which is something that i have never done before...So excited to do it!


WOW WUV...you look amazing..your smaller than me now!!! Congratulations..

Wayward..glad to see your still around and doing it! You must look incredible! I bet your wife is like "va va voom".

Hi to everyone else! Cant wait to talk to yall!

Wondering if anyone has insight on this?

good morning everyone....as for the book I am sure it is because the book was first written a while ago and the diet was first written for professional athletes. It was so that they would fit in certain weight categories. It was not originally for long term dieting, but there has been some modifications. At the time the book was written the best sweetener available if you needed was aspartame so that would be my guess as to why that was acceptable. It was the "safest" one to have. Now there are so many other ones that are safer like stavia, splenda...until the next study shows that there is something wrong with those artificial sweeteners.

Glad to see you back Port and it is so good that you have done all the research on your own particular problems before starting again. I am wheat intolerant but not to the point of celiac. It makes me gain huge amounts of weight instantly and totally drains my energy. So I had to learn to eat wheat free long before IP. It is tough because in our society everything is wheat based but there is more variety of gluten free products than there used to be. Unfortunately most of these are very high carb.
I went from 204 to 161 by eliminating wheat and maintained that loss for 5 years. Now I'm using IP to get the rest off but will never be able to handle wheat products.
Good luck with the rest of your journey after you have made that important first step.

Pat