Thanks for starting this group,oneuh2. I started August 5 honestly feeling that being over 50, I would not be able to lose weight. I've really enjoyed lurking on the July starters' posts; as I follow along behind you, you all have given me faith that I can lose weight. I'm pretty slow compared to some others, but I am getting there.

I am an empty nester, missing my kids. I don't have a lot of support in my weight loss journey. Your support here is invaluable to me. I don't think I would still be on plan without you all.

I am doing the C25K program. I had started with walking 3 miles a day. But I have decided that as long as I feel good, and it doesn't seem too taxing on my system, I will continue working toward a 5k. I'm on week 4 now. I am amazed that it is working. I am a little fatigued when I am done, but it only lasts a few minutes and it doesn't wipeout my whole day.

I have had a Fitbit Flex since Christmas, and I love it. I've also started tracking my food on My Fitness Pal. I love them both. I think tracking my food along with protein, net carbs and calories has been eye opening. I start the planning out my day a day in advance. I put in what I think I am going to eat, and I know where I need to make adjustments to hit my goals as my day goes on.

I am mostly IP. I go to a very small clinic with a sweet, but mostly uninformed, young lady working there. I've accepted that; in the past, I would have used that as a stumbling block, a reason to stop the program when things get tough. I've cheated outright a few times, but I have been able to turn around the next day and get back on plan. I do use some butter for my oil - I am not thinking it is as bad of a fat as it has been considered for years.

Looking forward to hitting goal and maintaining with all of you!

Aww shucks Oneuh2! You are such a ray of sunshine, and I love how you build everyone on this site up!!

Congrats on your Diet Bet thing, I was curious as to how that was working for you.

Sue - that was me who mentioned the Southwest Cheese Curls. I had them for lunch yesterday and was pleasantly surprised. I opened the bag and hmm'd because they look like little cheeto's (which I hate), but I tried a couple and loved the spicy kick! WTG on your inches lost - again!!


I didn't get to measure this week, I asked my coach and she said let's do it next week. I'm not sure what her thing is sometimes, she commented last month that I ask for measurements more than any of her other clients - she said they do it once a month. In my mind, we started (with my original coach), doing it every two weeks, so that's how we should be continuing. Plus it helps me see progress. She also asked me if I really follow the program as it is on the protocol sheet - what?? I said something like uh, yeah most of the time. In my head I'm thinking "what did you think I was doing?" I dunno, sometimes I wonder if she really "gets" it... Anyway, enough ranting!

Belated thanks to Oneuh2 for starting this thread.

I started IP on July 23 as a result of increasing blood sugar numbers (and having been overweight most of my adult life). I was mostly motivated to get my sugar down, but once I got through 90 days (when sugar was normal and I got off my blood pressure meds) I decided to stick with it for the long haul. My "goal" is set, for now at 100lbs down from my original weight, which at the time I never thought was possible. As of this morning (on home scale) I am only 13 pounds away!

My experience for the first 5 months was fairly uneventful. In the last two months, I have struggled a bit with hunger, a re-introduction of hot flashes, and anxiety, all of which my doc chalks up to hormone imbalances caused by the weight loss. I have found that the symptoms are less on days when I have slightly higher carbs, so I hope that as I move out of phase 1 they will abate.

I am more than slightly terrified about moving beyond phase 1. I told a friend yesterday that I know how to "eat like *&%$", and I know how to eat almost nothing - the really hard part of this will be to learn how to eat like a regular person (or a regular, formerly fat person).

I am so grateful for the support and information I get from all of you. Looking forward to moving phases with my summer starter group!

If you need some incentive to get moving, this is a fact that works for me: Of weight loss maintainers who have kept their weight off for more than one year - 90% exercise, on average, about 1 hour per day.

This comes from the research of the National Weight Control Registry. The registry questions people who have lost at least 30 lbs. and maintained that weight loss for at least 1 year. There are other interesting facts on the web site related to weight loss maintenance. http://nwcr.ws/Research/default.htm

In preparation for maintenance, exercise is one of the habits that I have incorporated into my day. I started out walking 1 hour a day. Now on days that I do my 30 minute C25K runs, I walk the other 30 minutes and walk 1 hour on my days off. I try to get in 6 days a week minimum. Especially since I started C25K, I feel like I need a day off.

My Fitbit step count was a real eye-opener to how sedentary my life is. Without the planned exercise time, most days I would never get to my goal of 10,000 steps.

Loser58, sorry you have been struggling the last couple of months, but what you have accomplished so far is amazing, you must be so proud you decided to continue once your sugars were under control and only 13lbs to your goal! YAY!!!

Lose2Win, I too am determined to make exercise an important part of maintenance, and while I am currently doing the C25K as well I am inspired to step it up a bit

JJTx, I agree with you on the measuring. It's just as important as the weighing, especially on low lb loss weeks! I don't see why she would have an issue, it's not like it takes up that much time.

For me the last 9lbs are brutal! I reached 9lbs to go on Feb 8 3 weeks later and I still have 6lbs to go!! SLOW!!! And maybe it's because of the added exercise, but I don't want to give it up!

But my inches aren't going down either. My stomach hasn't moved in 5 weeks, maybe it's all just excess skin now, I don't know. I might have to wait months to see how much recovery my body will do with loose/excess skin.

I had really hoped to start P2 on March 12, and if I am only 1-2lbs from goal I just might. or I'll push it to the 13th or 14th. Based on some of the reading I've done on the forum I am thinking of doing only 1 full week of P2 and then 2 full weeks of P3 before I start P4. It seems like it won't have a negative impact on me phasing off, any thoughts?

Oh, and I'm more bummed about not having a birthday cake than I thought I would be. I don't even think it's not being able to eat the cake so much as the ceremony of it all.

Stay strong and OP

So in our July thread last week, we were talking about loose skin. Today's IP video (I'm on a rerun rotation) was about - loose skin! How timely is that?

In the video, Dr. W said that the body is capable of reconstructing itself, and the skin that has expanded to cover our larger bodies will adjust to cover our smaller ones. It does take time, and age is a factor of how long it can take. He said to give yourself at least six months after reaching your goal weight for your skin to "catch up" before considering alternatives (ie. plastic surgery).

So what do we do? Use the raspberry jelly or blue-cran drink 2-3 days a week, and that will help our bodies with the collagen to help our skin. They can be used as a 4th packet in your day, or if it affects your weight loss, use it as one of your three.

Hi. This sounds similar to me. First 5 months easy. Last 2, not so much - a lot of physical symptoms. I got a blood test yesterday. I'll share when I get results to see if you can glean anything from that.

Hi all - I started IP September 2014. A co-worker was doing the program and at that point had lost 46 pounds so I joined up! I love the program and have lost steadily and then in late January and a lot of February I started having symptoms (dizziness mostly) so I had to switch around my schedule so I had protein every 3 hours. I went to the doctor to get checked out but all blood work, heart rate etc came back normal. It seems to be under control now so I think it might have been related to stress.

I went thru a period between Thanksgiving - mid January where I would buy new work pants only to have to have them altered because the hem was dragging on the floor to needing the next size. I went from 12 to 10 to 8. Which shocked me how rapidly it happened. And to top that off the 8s now need a belt !!! Not sure how that can be except that they are from Talbots so maybe their sizes have gotten bigger since I was this weight at least 10 years ago. But, heck, I will take it.

There never was a September group so I'm happy to be with the "summer" group! Everyone is doing so well and I really think I will need support in maintenance. It scares me and seems so confusing.

I have read lots of posts with similar concerns on this forum as well as experienced my own anxiety about life after phase 1. However, the other day I read a post that has me feeling a whole lot better. I read through the whole thread but a particular post really helped me as it seemed to do for others in the thread as well. Take a look at the first sticky thread. In it, you will see a link to a thread for Life After Phase 1. Read posting #27. If you have the time, read through the thread but I keep referring back to that posting. I like how the coach in the workshop does her cheat day by spread it out over 2-3 weekend days after 3 pm - I was planning to do that and was reassured it wouldn't be too disruptive when I saw the workshop instructor proposing this. The other thing that resonated was that I have read a bunch of stuff too about future phases and wasn't getting the big picture either until this post addressed that and it really crystallized things for me regarding maintenance.

It's interesting that the planned cheat would be after 3pm. I would've opted for the other way round as it allowed for caloric burn between end of feast and the next morning.


I am calling this my "non-conformist" week - Sunday and Monday I had hubby's birthday meals (Mexican) and today I had a protein powder pancake made with 1/8th cup almond flour/meal. Low enough carb to keep me in (or at least close to) ketosis, but still a grain and I'm retaining water as a result of it. I've also been shockingly under my water requirement because one of my very much loved ragdolls is sick enough to require x-rays and blood tests every couple of days to try and get to the bottom of it, so I'm considering myself relatively good for not using the situation as justification to go completely bonkers with foods that I know are way outside what my body can tolerate and still stay in ketosis.

Learning curves are there for a reason. I may not be winning the war at the moment, but I'm getting my smart battle victories in! Body fat percentage down. Minor changes to measurements. Keeping a grip on not splurging while stressed.

Hang in there, Amanda! Sounds like you are engaging some good coping mechanisms - keep it up but hydrate! I hope all works out ok.

If you note in that post, it says to adopt the cheat any way you want - that was just one example, and it happened to match what I originally thought would best work for me. The logic behind the 3 pm wasn't metabolic but seemed social - splurge with friends and such on Friday/Sat nights with a nice family dinner on Sunday without guilt.

Yes please share..... I would love an electronic version. I journal every day, but it is a handwritten journal from the clinic. My coach looks at mine every week!

Snow day in NJ. Actually the gov. Declared a state of emergency so school had to close. There is barely an inch on the ground! Serious overreaction so far...I'm waiting to see what the rest of the day brings....

Wow, definite overreaction - I am sick of winter. Here in Chicago, we must have had a 30 degree drop in temperature from the afternoon until the evening when I took my garbage out yesterday. But, I hear we are supposed to get a 55 degree warmup by next Wed so we are supposed to be in the 50s by middle of next week. Our weather usually happens 1 day in advance of NJ so maybe there are better climate days ahead for you too :-)

Now, for the spreadsheet...I don't remember how to post a link to it as a Google sheet so bear with me as I try and remember how to do that. Or, I could PM you to send you an email or something with it. Let me see what I figure out.

One instruction note is to make sure your food item is listed in the Food List so you can select it in the journal days. I'll provide some simple instructions once I figure out how to get it to you.

Ok, so I think I remember how to do it. Let me know if you have any problems accessing.
I am not sure how proficient you are with Excel - this doesn't require that much proficiency - just a little working knowledge. Here is an explanation...
Tab 1 - Food List
- The Food List is the first tab. I'm sure our food selections are different (I'm not very adventurous in my eating habits am rather picky so not a lot of variety in my diet - for non-packaged items, I use the categories as either Protein, Vegetable or Fat - this doesn't matter for the formulas, just how it sorts so do whatever makes the most sense to you) so add any foods to the list that are not already there so you can reference them in your journal. I started with as comprehensive of a list as I could find with IP and alternatives as I use this for 2 purposes - my food journal/macronutrient tracking but also to do comparisons between IP and alternatives when making food choices.
- To add items to the food list, do the following: 1) add entry at the end of the list. Click on the Item # at the top to find the next item number to use (for example, there are 331 items in the list so if you add the next, you should note it as 332). The reason this is not in chronological order is because when you sort it, it is set to sort by Category and then Product so I get all bars together in the list for example. Or, you could just sort by item # and use the filter when you want to look up the item # for a bar - your choice - I have just described the way I have it set right now. 2) If you choose to sort the way I do, after you add entries, select row 1 to all the rows & columns that have data and then Click on the Home menu and choose Sort & Filter sub-menu option and select Custom Sort - it is already set the way I describe and then click ok to get it to re-sort by Category and then Product.

Journal Entries
- Once your food items are added, you are ready to use the journal. This keeps track of a 2 week time period. Each day is a separate tab. The green section in each day is all you need to fill out - the item # that references your food that you had/will have and then scroll over to the other green section and enter how many servings of that item you had - the food item and nutritional information will all update accordingly once you enter those 2 things.
Further note, by default, this has my entries in it. If you want to remove them, then just delete what is in Green for each day. Once you fill the info out, all the formulas will reference accordingly. Be careful to only delete from the Green sections in the daily journal tabs; otherwise, you will be deleting formulas.

Weekly Summary
3 - There is a weekly summary at the end that gives you a summary of the 2 weeks by day and by week. This is automatically done for you depending upon what is entered in the 14 tabs representing the daily food journal (except the dates for week 1 - you need to enter/change those for each time period). I print this weekly summary out and take with me to my appointments in addition to daily entries.
This section is all formulas so be careful not to delete cells as you'll be deleting the formula. If a value isn't right, it is because the corresponding daily journal entry is incorrect so change it at the source.

Alternative Guidelines (and other Notes)
4 - Just a notes reminder for me about alternatives, etc so I have easy access to this info when using the journal (vs coming back to forum to look it up).

One other note on the food list - I have a column called Verified. Because I started with someone's existing list, I added this column to note whether I personally verified the nutritional info (as indicated by a 'y' in this column). If I didn't, then the info could be inaccurate or incomplete so if you use any of those items, you will want to verify/complete this info. Some of the IP products I don't use but I have the item listed to remind myself to get the nutritional info for the product.

Don't alter tab names in the workbook as the formula references will get goofed up.

What do I do when 2 weeks are up?
As I noted, the journal was designed for two weeks. You can do a "save as" on the Excel File by dating it for the span of 2 weeks that it covers so that it will make a copy and you will have multiple Excel files for each date range.

Hopefully that isn't too hard to follow. Let me know if something wasn't clear or if you have additional questions.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7J...ew?usp=sharing

Ugh, I am so disgusted. I made the mistake of signing up for a weight loss challenge within my neighborhood right after the new year. $50 pay in with cash prizes for the top 3 losers (percent of body weight lost).

I really thought I would have a good chance of placing in the top 3, if not taking winning the whole thing due to IP.

The lengths that these ladies have gone to lose weight are not only unhealthy, but dangerous. The lady who won lost 9lbs this week alone and emailed that she hadn’t eaten or drank hardly anything for days, no salt for a week and rate 8 miles a day (she is a marathon runner). She said she kept her kid home from school yesterday to make sure she made it home from her run before weighing in for the last time.

The top two ladies were crazy and I wasn’t going to jeopardize my diet or health to compete with them for the top 2 places. Felt pretty good with my loss this week and thought I’d secured third place which I’d been at for the last 4 weeks. Sent in my number and photo of my weigh in. The lady in #4 place reported a crazy loss beating my weight loss percentage by 1lb. Seriously?

I know this is not scientific and we are not all getting on the same scale but I am calling foul! I had to refrain from sending them all an email on my opinions about the whole thing. Don’t want to sound like a poor loser but I told my husband if I had read this email from the #1 finisher and removed her name and inserted my 12yo DD, I would be freaking out and rushing her to the pediatrician for an eating disorder. #2 finisher, also a marathon runner, did equally crazy diet tactics….and she is a nurse!

Thank you for letting me vent! I do have to say I texted DH about my outrage and he replied with the sweetest text that I am a winner to him and he was proud of his skinny rockstar wife. I got a good egg there ladies.