I am a pain wimp too. I completely understand. Mine has never truly been diagnosed but a lot of therapy has helped get it under control.

Re hot choc: most pudding mixes have directions for making them into a shake. I use 8 ounces of water shake it up and then heat in micro in my favorite cup. If you shake with hot water it may explode so don't do that.

Mtnrose - I do the same things as Lisa for my hot drinks except I blend them in the bullet first - I like the texture better.

And sorry you are having so much trouble! That sucks. Just be sure if they do give you pain meds that those can increase the Big C so be wary.

Thanks for the Bday wishes everyone, it was a great day filled with love. Ate at a great local restaurant called Cafe Vermilionville. It's an incredible old home from the 1830's turned restaurant. I used the pointers in yesterdays chat about restaurant ordering. Sadly, they still brought my steak on a bed of mashed 'taters. Tis OK, scraped them off, passed them to my brother and he gave me his asparagus! They steak was supposed to come stuffed with a crawfish cream sauce so I'm glad they got THAT right and left it out!! The family passed around a plate of bread pudding and I sat there with my decaf coffee, super content to be surrounded by love. My uncle is leading his Mardi Gras Krewe (he's king) in the first parade of the season tomorrow evening. He was filling us in on what his plans are for the parade. Can't wait! When I got home, I warmed up an IP brownie, and felt like I indulged!

Didn't feel like I missed out on anything in the celebrations. Like so many people here say, it's your outlook you must change on what is a reward/used to celebrate. Hope everyone has a great OP day!

Wrong silver package...geeeezzzz
 

Oops, running on autopilot and thought I was getting crispy cereal. Nope, had lumpy mushroom soup for breakfast. Mouth is confused.

On the good side, scales were down this morning and that has motivated me to stay OP.

Happy belated Birthday ems70508 and wow! talk about NSV. Inspiring! Sounds like a lovely celebration. Wishing you a great year.

So I thought that I was being 100% on plan for the past two weeks, then I realized that I have been eating way too many vegetables. This is making me a little annoyed, but oh well, I still will have about 4 lbs less on my weigh in 2. I prefer my vegetables cooked or steamed and yesterday I made a mushroom and zucchini stew. Well, that only gave me 4 full cups of stew that I divided into 2 servings. Thinking back I realized that my pan was full of veggies, so raw that was a lot more than only 4 cups of veggies. I also cooked kale earlier in the week, just added some garlic to it, but a full pot of kale reduce to less than half and I was measuring two cups when I was eating it. I guess I will have to change the way I prep my veggies moving forward. I am just slightly annoyed with myself, but nothing I can do about it now.

That made me smile today! Easy to do! Congrats on the weight loss too!

If it's any consolation, I always measured my veggies and meat COOKED--it was easier and I didn't know otherwise. Maybe the "innocent" mistakes don't count, lol!:)

I so hope that you are right. At least I am eating two cups of cooked mushrooms and zucchini and not gold fish. LOL I can't stand romaine or iceberg, I like red leaf lettuce but my coach says that I have to measure that lettuce. It would be easier to just be given a weight of the veggies rather than cups.

Hopefully more people with experience will chime in here, but I always thought red leaf lettuce could be treated the same as romaine or iceberg or any other lettuce. Nutritionally they appear about the same. Did your coach give a reason why red leaf would be treated differently?

No, she said only romaine and iceberg are unlimited, everything else needs to be measured. I specifically asked her about boston lettuce and red leaf. However, since I have been on these boards I find that we all get slightly different info from our coaches. I will ask her today and point out that nutritionally they are the same.

I think your coach is wrong about the lettuce. I was told ALL lettuce is unlimited.

I use butter lettuce like iceberg and romaine. I haven't had any issues with using it.

So interesting how different coaches say different things.
Interesting or sad.
Some coaches say "lettuce"
Some say romaine & iceburg only.

I've always gone with this: if its called "lettuce" then it's lettuce.
Romaine lettuce
Iceburg Lettuce
Redleaf (or greenleaf) lettuce
Boston Lettuce
Bibb lettuce

But not spinach, field greens, other "greens"

Hello,

I think it was Ruth Ann that mentioned the "ice" chips, which I ordered and love, so does hubby. My Q is?? to they effect your bowels? I only have 3 "chips" a day ( they are expensive), but have noticed that since I have, I definitely don't have any trouble with the big "C", a little bit the other way. I was just wondering if anyone else has experienced this with the "ice chips"

Another small loss this week, although yesterday I was down another whole pound, I don't understand, but I "accept". lol Raining here making a mess of melting snow & mud. Glad to have it a little warmer though, was out yesterday in a sleet storm. yuck!

Bellamack: I was told that the xylitol in the ice chips can give some people very loose bowel movements so to limit them. I limit myself to 3 or 4 a day.

So I just had my weigh in and the clinic scale showed a 2.5 lb loss. Home scale showed more, but I was naked prior to eating anything when I weighed myself at home. That is a total of 7 lbs in two weeks and just over 3 inches. She said they average 6-9 lbs in the first two weeks so I am on target. Also, some clothes that I could not button two weeks ago I put on no problem, so that is awesome. Incidentally I lost most of the inches at my waist.

I clarified the lettuce and she said any lettuce is unlimited. I know that first day I went in she was adamant than only romaine and iceberg are unlimited. Oh well.

Hope everybody has a great weekend :)

Love it when scale goes down.
 

Party on!! Lettuce is on me. :)

:D It is not like eating unlimited red leaf lettuce got me here.

Amen! lol

I find that I have weights that I associate with different times in my life.....128 in high school, 115 in college… and this morning I hit the weight that I was the morning I went in to deliver my son....The next morning I weighed 142 pounds and was appalled. How I would love to be that now. How times do change :-)

First time I wieghed this much..
 

I'm on way down from 197 and currently I am at 172.
When I moved to Santa Barbara in 1971 I weighed 173 on the landlady's scales. OMG, I thought that certainly her scales were broken--they weren't.

Today 172 feels good as I am on my way down. :dancer:

Me too! If you ask me what I weighed at any point in my life I can tell you the exact number. High school (125), wedding day (135), right after having my son 185! I have not been able to get under 150 since having my son and after I had my daughter the lowest weight I had was 155. I felt great at that weight, but I am hoping that Ideal Protein can get me to my "utopian" goal of 140. I have seen people on this diet go skinnier than they have even been as teenagers or in their 20s, so I know that it is possible.

In other great news, Canada's men's hockey team beat USA in the semi-finals of the Olympic tournament! As the things stand, Obama owes Harper two cases of Canadian beer and USA gets to keep Bieber.

http://msn.foxsports.com/olympics/st...-higher-022014

LOL, not sure which I'm happier about... winning the hockey games or keeping Bieber away... LOL!! :rofl::rofl: Lots to laugh at on here today!

Weight as history
 

Your entry made me smile because I, too, associate my weight with events in my life - when I met my husband, when we married, birth of the boys, etc.

So I am down below everything except the weight I was when I met my husband, but I am really, really close.

One of my sons made a comment in regards to my weight loss (I have not seen him in a year so he was just making this on the phone) that stopped me in my tracks. He said "Now you weigh less than both your sons". It smacked me in the face that all their grown up years (teen and above) they have always known me as heavier than them!

Sad, but true, but no longer. I am PUSHING hard to get to Onederland which has been my big goal since the beginning, other than final goal. Just 3 more, 3 more, so close.

Thanks. That is helpful advice. I weigh myself every day and use that almost exclusively to gauge my success. I need to remember the biggest focus needs to be on what I am eating and the results will come.:)

Hi all,

I'm new here. I go for my first visit to get signed up next Tuesday. I have a friend in Idaho who highly recommended this plan and she has lost 30lbs so far. I went to Walmart last night looking for WF products and couldn't find any. I am in Dallas, TX. I don't normally shop at Walmart so I'm not familiar with the way they lay out the store. Are all the diet products together? I couldn't find the EAS shakes either. I'd just like to supplement what I will be getting for IP and maybe at some point switch to Alternative items. This is my first post and I wasn't sure if I should ask here or in the Alternative thread. I love this site. I have gotten so much info. Thanks to all of you for posting all the great tips and ideas.

You're almost there! We'll all celebrate with you when you get there!

WF products can sometimes be hard to find. I don't recall anyone mentioning finding them at Walmart but that could very store to store.

I get mine at my regular grocery store in the produce section cool shelf area with other salad dressings. The jam spreads are with all jams and pancake syrup with syrups, ketchup with ketchups (that's all my store carries) so pretty much in the normal sections not diet area.

For EAS at Walmart mine has a section for protein drinks and bars (near the Pharmacy shelves.) check out the Pure Protein shakes they also carry. I like EAS but like Pure Protein a bit better!

looking for WF products
 

Your coach should be able to tell you who sells WF in your neighborhood.
My coach stocks WF products, very handy. Several online sources too.

Good luck, keep working the program. Let us know how you're doing.

I stayed 100% OP for the first several weeks before experimenting with alternatives. It's what works for you.

WF products are in the "organic" section of my Kroger. I looked at them there and decided against buying any.

JLUS - Thanks so much for the help and the Walmart directions. I went back and there they were right in the pharmacy section like you said. I got the Chocolate EAS and the Vanilla Pure Protein. I'll compare and see which one I like. The EAS is almost $3 less than the PP.

SSuber - Looking at your ticker it seems that you are making great progress for such a short amount of time. Congrats! It's my intention to stick with IP products to start off, but I wanted to have a backup ready-to-drink in my arsenal for those occasional slacker moments that are bound to happen :-)

YippySue - I looked up the WF ingredients at the Vitacost website and once I saw the chemical cocktail of ingredients I decided to pass as well.

I have been doing the Paleo diet for the last year so sugar is not a big issue for me. I drink my coffee black and don't really do "desserts". Some of the puddings and drinks may be a shock for me because I am just not used to sweet things any more. My fruit intake was limited because I was low carbing as well. Mostly berries and only in season.

Thanks to all of you for your answers. I know I'm going to love it here.

good evening

just wanted to report weigh in #4 and I'm down 1.8 for a total of 9 lbs - I'm so happy with the way this program is working

Excellent, keep it up!

Good morning everyone. I began phase 1 on Monday at 229. I am down to 223.4, so 5.6lbs gone this week. I'm going to weigh in on Saturdays so I weighed early this week. Delighted with this. Have a great Saturday everyone.

Hello Everyone,

I started IP Diet in January of 2011. Since then I have put back approximately 23 lbs. Which is not too bad, yet not too good. I resuming IP on Monday the 24th.

I've tried a couple of times to lose the weight but had little success in doing so. I made the descision to brush myself off and start a new! So I'm committed to sticking to the diet and making it work.

It's will be tough! but I believe I can do it! Wish me luck...Will keep you posted.

I weighed in last night and was up .5, but had a loss of .75 inches. We decided to start phasing me off. The coach thought it would be good for me, and I am excited to do this. I am the smallest I have been since my wedding almost 32 years ago and mentally I think I am ready for the challenge that is maintenance.