So, I've been following the Ideal Protein program for about 3 weeks and I had done very well up until now. This weekend has been a terrible weekend of cheating and I feel incredibly guilty. Yesterday my good friend had a HUGE Super Mario birthday party for her 6 year old twins. There were TWENTY FIVE KIDS!!!!! She enlisted me and my husband to help which we didn't mind. She knows about my diet and said she would make sure there was something I could eat. It all started with a gigantic 3 tiered marble cake with homemade ice cream.......I resisted. Then there was 5 big bowls of chips........I resisted. Then she made pizza...... and again I resisted. After all of the parents picked up their kids she made me a salad and I ate it with my Walden Farms dressing I had brought along in preparation. At this point the men and children sat in the living room and watched a movie while she drove a friend home. I told her I would start to tackle the dishes while she was gone. I walked into the kitchen and there it was....... several pieces of pepperoni pizza staring back at me. I resisted at first and did some dishes but that stupid pizza just kept calling my name. I ate one piece and felt horrible about it and then I went ahead and had another. (SO STUPID!!) When she came back we visited for a bit and I didn't tell her that I had cheated, I felt to embarrassed.

After a little while my family and I went home and after the kids went to bed my husband said he was going out for a bit. There I found myself in the kitchen looking through the cupboards and the fridge for anything I could get my hands on. And then I ate some left over shepards pie (with a lot of mashed potatoes) I ended up feeling so disgusting and full and bloated and regretted it immensely.

This morning I woke up and thought to myself, today is a new day and I'm going to forget about what happened last night. I confessed to my daughter and my husband that I had cheated and my husband didn't really say much (as usual) but my daughter seemed really disappointed. The whole day went well. I took my kids to the circus and resisted the popcorn, candy apples, cotton candy, nachos.......... and I ate my southwest cheese curls and I was fine. We even went to McDonalds afterwards and I just got a piece of grilled chicken and some lettuce and tomato....... I felt great about my choices and I felt like maybe I had strength to do this after all.

Then my daughter was having a sleepover and they "needed chips" so we stopped and picked some up. I even got myself some beef jerky so that I wouldn't be tempted to eat the chips and I would have my own snack to enjoy. When we got home I tidied up and got the girls all settled in to watch a movie and as soon as I ripped open those ketchup chips I knew it was all over. I stood in the kitchen alone and inhaled the most delicious chips ever while , once again feeling incredibly guilty.

I don't get it, I've lost 15 pounds and I've been feeling great. Why am I sabotaging myself? Maybe part of the problem is that my coach was away this weekend so I didn't have my regular scheduled weigh in. She is really motivating and I usually go home exited to work really hard to get more results. I want this more than anything (except pizza and chips apparently) and I don't know why I can't keep myself on track. I need to make a change in my life and for some reason I just can't stop myself. What's wrong with me. Even while I sit here typing this I'm thinking about how much I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Help me!!! Maybe I'm just not ready for this.......but will I ever be?

I'm sorry this post is so incredibly long but I really needed to get all of this off my chest. Has any one else experienced something like this or am I just weak?

Reena
I've sent you a pm.

You're not weak. Everybody struggles with this.

It has been 6 weeks on IP as of tomorrow and I can't think of 1 day that I haven't thought about the things I'm missing. I have admitted to having a few small cheats once in a while, and what really is horrible is that it is hard to stop yourself once you start. Are you still losing any weight even tho you've cheated?
I talked to my coach yesterday (she's in Alberta, I'm in Manitoba) and told her about my progress with this diet as my loss has been very minimal (13 pounds in 6 weeks). I am finding it hard to stay on this diet because I don't feel like it is working for me as well as it should. The other morning I weighed my self and was happy that the scale seemed to be moving again, only to discover the next morning that I had gained 4 pounds from the previous day and I hadn't had any cheats in over a week. It totally discouraged me so I ate 3 (yes only 3) chips.
There is something about food that I love...I love the tastes, the smells, and now that I have been on IP for 6 weeks, my imagination has gone crazy.
I don't know what the answer is only that I have another month of IP food in my cupboard, so I will keep plugging along for another 4 weeks, and if I don't start to see any results...maybe I just need to accept that fact and move on.
Hope you can get over your cravings, some people say they don't crave things anymore...I for 1 crave everything all the time, every day
Good Luck, and try to stay positive even tho it's hard to do sometimes

I can totally relate to your post. I did not do this on IP but this was the "old me" before IP.

Your "friend" really set you up to fail badly! OMG! How you could stand there and resist and resist like that was amazing! However, you are only human and by the time you got home, you felt so deprived (and probably left out too).

Life happens and you are only human.

I agree with you that you need to consider it as "taking a small break" and just start over. You need to recommit and just do it.

One thing that has helped me is to have a "stash" of different ready-to-eat restricteds for any occasion and to bring some along with me whenever I go somewhere. You need to have your own "treats". So, for example, if your craving is for chips, you could sit and eat ridges (BBQ or salt & vinegar). If your craving is for sweets, you can have a bar. I would suggest the soy puffs but they are too addictive for me and I can't behave with them... but everyone is different!

It does get better in time. I had a hard weekend like that on Mother's Day weekend but since then, things have changed drastically for me. Yesterday, I was able to take my family the ice cream parlour, buy them all there treats and just sit with them and sip on my water bottle and I honestly, felt fine. I was not longing for anything. I had a lemon bar in my purse in case but I never even touched it! I am told that puddings can be frozen as nice frozen snacks in summertime too!

Because you're surrounded by foods that you love that you're not allowed to have. It's so much harder when the stuff you can't eat is around. I find it's hard when I go to people's houses and they're snacking on chips constantly, I break out a bar most times when this happens. But I live alone, so when I go home, those foods just aren't in the house.

I actually managed to convince myself that I would make myself sick if I had any carbs for the first 6 months or so of my diet. I figured, at minimum, I'd have to go through the 'switching into ketosis' agony again, plus, it can't be good for your body to be flipping back and forth all the time. That kept me away from carbs until I was used to them.

Find things that you enjoy that are either on the diet, or aren't that bad. When you find yourself being tempted, have an extra shake. Better that than the pizza or the chips, and you'll be so full after the extra shake you won't want the pizza anymore. Always have something on hand that is on program that you can eat.

And drink water constantly. I found the act of putting *something* in my mouth - even water - satisfied the need for social eating.

Good luck! (And don't beat yourself up. Just go forward from here.)

I thinker have all been there. Just consider today a fresh start! You know you can do it!

Thank you all for your words of encouragement! Today is a new day and I am putting this weekend behind me and starting fresh. Wish me luck!

GOOD LUCK TO YOU my friend!
this is not the easiest thing in the world for me, and at times even discouraging. I have about 30 pounds to go and I hope I can keep going...lets stick together and do this thing so we can get on with life, and have a few "treats" once in a while!

Hope you have an awesome week and I will be here rooting for you and everyone else on this plan