This is my third New Years posting.
What I have learned is this "diet" is doable. My weight has ebbed and flowed, but I have the principles in place now to make good choices and (mostly) stick to each "phase".
Now, I'm a full time mamma and work full time, so the recipes have changed a bit... but there's also more products on the market now, then we're existent four years ago when I first started....
This blog will be updated periodically throughout the year, as I have time. It's such a joy to read comments and hear back from readers what they like& find interesting about IP life and recipes, etc.
Back to products, for example frozen riced cauliflower. Such a time saver. I will pay whatever the grocer vendor wants not to have to spend hours cutting, chopping, ricing-- and the smell is gone too! Win win!
Also, there's cauliflower tots on the market:) phase 4 dream come true :-)
2016 was a hell of a year for me, as most of America. I had such great intentions of a reboot but life got uber busy, we attended 3 funerals one being my mother, we moved into our new home on the Oregon coast (during a typhoon), I went back to work full-time and my husband moved up into the next role for his job. It was a whirlwind of a year, to say the least.
All that to say, I could not find the mental energy within me to commit to this the way I know the diet first requires. Total commitment no cheats no excuses. I had no mental stamina to food prep, weigh, portion, and shop while juggling all the changes. I felt guilt because I didn't have the mental stamina and it was a dark season for awhile. That's just me being honest. I share with you, because I want you the reader to be encouraged-- whether your contemplating doing IP, or doing it for the fourth, fifth or sixteenth time... it's okay to start wherever you're at. Give it all you've got, when you can find the strength to go for it!
I am still a firm believer the keys to succeeding on this diet are: water, food prep, and making sure you have an emergency protein bar on hand when hangry fits of rage strike. Okay, maybe not rage-- but you know what I mean. We all get there.
Have fun with it! Half of diets fail because they're too regimented and "structured" and framed into a deficit model of what you CANT have. Focus on what you CAN do and have! For example, tonight knowing I would be going to the movies I packed a seltzer water with Mio as my "Soda" (shhhh!) protein chips as a "popcorn" alternative, sliced pepper for a "crunchy snack" and a protein bar, instead of a "candy bar".
I hope in 2017 you find your best self. I hope you focus on health and feelings of happiness and kindness towards yourself and focus less on numbers and the scale.
Have a GREAT year!