It takes a long time! I have been maintaining for a year and I am still suprised when people comment on how lean I have gotten...or when I go shopping and am suprised at how small clothes I fit!

There is a settling in period to make the IP plan really work for you, and then you will feel much better about it.

I found it hard to eat from the first week "sample" bag that my clinic provided but once I had built up an inventory of a lot of the different items, I could get a pattern going that was eating by "meal" not by "the packet".

For example, breakfast was either cappucino hot to go, or yogurt cold, or a prepared sit down of cheese omelet w/ veggies and V-8. Lunch was my meat/veggie meal so I could eat w/ my co-workers, but if I was home I would do a asparagus stir-fry (from frozen food section) with few soy nuts added in and then a sweet protein as "dessert". Cold weather supper would be first course of celery sticks and hot vegetable broth, then chili (added frozen pepper/onion mix) or vege + spaghetti or vege + soy patties (added mushrooms & egg white) for a hot meal after work in the winter. Warm weather pm snack of vanilla RTD w/ almond flavoring, over ice (imagine a nightcap Amaretto) or choclate RTD w/ orange flavoring on ice. Watching TV snacks would be sliced salted cucumbers, or pepper slices. Saturday night movie night is Southwest cheese curls in addition to veggie plate, as pm snack.

I found I would eat a lot of something for about two weeks, than not again for a month or two. I also found that about every 6 weeks I got so sick of IP food that nothing seemed to help. I made a "two bite" rule--I could have only two bites of something that I really craved that wasn't on the protocol, just to get me past the boredom--I didn't feel bad or guilty about it, I just did it and then went right back to the plan.

Good luck! You'll find what works for you if you keep trying. I can't eat lettuce or spinach due to food allergy, so what works for me is to use cucumbers freely.

JackBsMom,
I put together a "motivation" document for those times when the going got rough. It happens to all of us, even though we are quite positive on the threads, we all have emotional ups and downs, some more than others, some less so.

Anyway, I just cut & pasted anything I found positive, supportive, motivational to a word doc. Just going through the process of making the document was strengthening.

Also I've kept busy the first 3 months pulling together my own documents on recipes by phase, helpful tips, nutritional notes, etc. Doing that is strengthening as well. Being on these threads is so helpful too.

Good luck, hope this helps. I look forward to hearing your success stories.

Best,
Chloe