Happy New Year. A big shout out to all of my fellow IP'ers. Let's make this a year full of the success we are all working towards - with lifestyle changes and weight loss. For me I am going to focus on reaching my goal, making sure I can maintain it, not falling back into old eating habits and introducing and making exercise part of my life.

Cheers.

Sounds like a great plan, ColoradoCarol. I am right there with you. New Year, new physical "us". Thinking a lot about long term changes versus how long until I am done with Phase 1. This is a lifetime commitment to keeping the weight off. Cheers to continuing the journey in 2014

Good Morning all and Happy New Year. I went to bed at 6am and never really slept. Just had a few catnaps. It's gonna be a long day. Have to go with my kiddo to a dance dinner at a Mexican restaurant this evening. Hopefully I can find something to eat that's OP. If not I'll just have water and enjoy the company of my sunshine and her dance team. They will be dancing in the Sugar Bowl halftime show tomorrow. Not sure if they will be on TV or not but I'll be there hosting my casinos suite so I'll get to see her.

Slipfree - I am very concerned/worried that I will fall back into old habits and maintaining loss. I need to start thinking about that now. I am also worried about phases 2-4 - especially 4 as it seems people have difficulty figuring it out. I know it might be early to worry about P4, but that is me. I worry about future issues. I've been called a worrier.

Nolasmurf, good luck. Please let us know how it goes. I love Mexican food but have avoided Mexican restaurants as I am worried they won't have any thing OP.

Congrats to your daughter. She will always remember dancing at the Sugar Bowl.

Carol - you're a lot like me. I was really concerned when I booked my holiday - despite really, really wanting to go away - about what to do with IP. I knew there was no way that I would stay OP while in Mexico but I was nervous about phasing off.

I talked it over with my coach and decided between the two of us that a slow phase off would work better for me so I opted to do 2 weeks of P2, 2 weeks of P3 and I'll have almost 2 weeks of P4/Maintenance before I leave. I just started P3 this morning. I still lost while on P2 and I know some people do lose while on P3, I'm not sure if I will be one of those lucky ones though :) But, with a slow phase off, I'm prepared for a gain. I'm still meeting with my coach once a week and doing a WI and I have an appointment booked for the day after I come back for a restart on P1 to lose the last 25ish lbs. (Wow, that number seems amazing to me!)

I read - a lot. About phasing off, about the different phases and what they accomplish and meal ideas. And I think the last one is the really important one - and one that makes me feel better - meal planning is key when phasing off. If you have a plan, you're less likely to make bad choices. Which I guess is true in all phases.

Just keep reading and asking questions. The wonderful people on the maintenance thread have some great advice and tips on things that have worked for them. And most of all, look at what you've accomplished so far - you can do this too :)

Jo

Our local Mexican restaurants have some grilled fish options on their menus. What is usually lacking is veggies that are IP compliant. I usually eat veggies before I go to make up for it.

Happy New Year, fellow IP-ers! I am making a commitment to restarting IP today to lose the weight I gained back from doing IP the first time in 2012. I didn't phase off properly and fell right back into my old habits quick. I never thought I would be in this position, but here I am with 50 lbs to lose :-/

I want to be a more active participant on 3FC this time around. I read daily the first time, but rarely posted. Congratulations to you all who have lost and are continuing to lose! IP works and totally changes the way you think about food. I'm glad to be here with you all!

Happy New Year! I'm looking forward to a much healthier 2014! Tomorrow, I have my first weigh in...and I'm actually excited to see what IP has done for me in the first week. It's been an interesting week with lots of temptations around. I handled NYE pretty well. Nibbled on some shrimp and veggies. I did dip a few shrimp in cocktail sauce until it occurred to me that it was probably bad! Oops!! Oh well, back on full plan today.

Have any of you had leg cramps during this? Mine have been really, really bad at night...keeping me up actually. I talked to a friend who's been on IP and also my coach and have upped my potassium and making sure I'm adding my salt. Has anyone else experiences this? It was better last night, but still a little sore.

I had the same type of leg cramps at the beginning. So bad they would wake me up and I would be sore the next day. They had me up the potassium for 3 days and it did the trick. So, it will improve.

As far as the cocktail sauce - yeah it probably had some carbs - but you should be okay. It is amazing to me where carbs/sugar show up. So, chalk this up as a lesson learned and move forward. Drink some extra water too.

Hi everyone -

I am new and doing this on my own with alternatives starting Saturday. I do have all the info I believe. I did have a question about broths and/or bouillon. I am thinking it is OK, but wanted to ask to be sure!

Thanks so much!

Edited - I found my answer!! I have to be better at searching!!

Happy new year everybody! I just bought a huge amount of alternatives - I want to try to save money where I can this year - so I'm hoping I didn't goof and everything is IP compliant. I went up over December and I'm ok with that but now it's time to get the diet back under control. I'm in Texas so it's only a few more months until we're living in bathing suits. I'd really like to feel like a hot momma by the pool this year instead of how I felt last year.

A neat bmi visualizer: http://bmijs.is.tuebingen.mpg.de/en/...asses/get_data

My leg cramps went away when I made sure I was getting my pottasium

Happy New Year. Thought I'd share...my clinic put me in the paper today. I had a lot of anxiety in regards to it but its out for all to see...