The first week is HARD!

Let’s be honest, your body likes its glycogen (sugar), so it is going to feel like a major detox this week. Be sure to refer to your First 7 Day Guide each day for how to troubleshoot any uncomfortable side effects such as headaches, nausea, or hunger.  

Simply put – at minimum, please eat 3 IP packets per day, 4 cups of select vegetables, 4-6 oz of protein, 64+oz of water, 2 tsp oil, ¼ tsp of salt, 1 BCAA, and take your supplements.

You will be successful if you do this each day!!  

Detailed tips for success on Ideal Protein phase 1 and surviving your first week:

• Have everything planned out for the next day An IPism is “when you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” This is so true! Make a plan and you have a 99% better chance of having success!

• If you leave the house for work or school for longer periods of time, take way too much food with you.  Take with you for example: a bag of celery (unlimited raw), a salad with 1.5 cups select veggies on top of a huge bed of lettuces and greens (2 cups select plus unlimited raw), a bag with dill pickles (1/2 cup select veggies), Walden Farms on-the-go dressing packets, your IP lunch packet (as laid out in your 1^st week menu), an extra IP shake, a boiled egg (extra protein if you need it – if you eat it, reduce your dinner protein from 6oz to 4oz), and two water bottles – add your IP water enhancers to flavor them so you drink them more easily!!! Now that’s a lot of food, right?? YES!!! The salad, IP lunch packet, and water are the only things you MUST eat for lunch that day, but the others are there if you need them! Trust me, this 1^st week, you will be glad to have TOO much food when hunger strikes. Hunger significantly decreases after the first week, but the first week it can feel unbearable. Lastly, don’t forget to take your supplements!!!

• Follow your menu for the week!  Yes, you can mix it up as long as you only have 1 IP restricted food packet per day. That being said, we find for most of our clients, following the menu strictly helps them avoid any mishaps.

• Check your seasonings!!  For any mixed seasonings you use, please read the label and look for any sugars. The hidden sugars that are added to seasonings is shocking. The first time I did IP 7 years ago, I went home and found the second ingredient in my Garlic Salt was not garlic or salt, but sugar!! The second largest ingredient in my GARLIC SALT was SUGAR!! If you see a word in your seasoning you are not familiar with, search for it online or ask your health coach. If you find seasonings with sugar in them, move them out of sight for later on when you are no longer in Phase 1.

• Drink your water!!Water is essential to the body’s detoxification process, essential to weight loss, and helpful in keeping up healthy bowel movements. Most of all, this first week, water helps you feel full! As mentioned above, feel free to add flavor with the IP water enhancers we put in your sample pack. Lemon, lime, or mint are great to add to your water, as well.

  

• What to do with the extra shakes ??  Your intake appointment is often overwhelming so it is not uncommon to only retain a certain portion of all of the information we share in that short hour. The extra shakes are for you to use as an extra 4^th or 5^th IP packet as needed this week! Drink them when you are hungry!! You can also blend them with spinach (unlimited raw) and ice to get additional ruffage or add them to your coffee as creamer.

An absolute favorite coffee drink is made with a 20 or 24 oz cold cup, 2 shots of espresso over ice, and pour in your entire shake! It is delicious!! You can even ask for a pump or two of your favorite sugar-free syrup. 

• Be sure to drink your Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs) each day.  They are the 7 long, narrow, silver packets in your sample pack. BCAAs are used by body builders to help build muscle. In our case, we are using them to help you prevent muscle loss. It takes three weeks to be totally keto-adaptive, which means you are no longer pulling glucose from your muscles. This also means the first three weeks are critical to becoming a fat-burning machine!! We give you the BCAAs this first week as your body is not yet in nutritional ketosis, so you are essentially in a low-calorie state. In a low-calorie state you are losing both fat and lean mass, but the BCAAs help protect against the lean mass loss. Don’t worry, our protocol moves you out of a low-calorie state in the first 1-2 weeks and we move to fat-burning only! You will feel an amazing difference as this happens. This is the game changer with our protocol as protecting your lean mass is vital to weight loss. Your muscle drives your metabolism. We want your metabolism on your side when you phase off and re-introduce healthy carbs and fats. BCAAs are encouraged for the next two weeks on our protocol; however, after that time they are optional and only necessary if you are incorporating exercise or have a more physically active job or lifestyle.

• Eating out! Yes, you can absolutely eat out on our protocol. As you learn how to do this successfully, we strongly encourage you to refer to our Dining Out Guide in your Ideal Protein Phase 1 folder. Another option is to text our office with which restaurant you are planning to go to so we can give you suggestions on what and how to order. When ordering, to keep it simple, ask for meat and veggies DRY (no oils or butter), with salt and pepper (if you wish). You can also ask for a salad, but don’t order a menu salad and have them take things off. Order a salad and tell them specifically what you would like on it. Kitchens often make the same thing, so many times they will miss a “take off” instruction. If you receive your meal made incorrectly, you might feel “bad” for sending it back to the kitchen. We want this to be a successful experience for you, so tell them what you want instead of what you don’t want! 

• Exercise reminder! Clients often leave their first appointment with the feeling that they should not exercise; this is not true. Now let’s be clear, this first week you are going to feel very depleted. Whatever you are currently doing needs to be greatly reduced or it will simply wipe you out. If you currently have an exercise routine, try to continue with “going” at the same time. Walk on the treadmill at a slow pace with moderate incline, spin on a bike with little to no resistance, or do a weight routine with 20% of what you would normally lift. Light, light, light!! After three weeks on our protocol, once you are totally just burning fat and not compromising your lean mass, you can talk to your coach about increasing a little at a time. Motion and a lifestyle of exercise are good to have on our protocol, learning how to incorporate it successfully while in the weight loss phase is equally as critical. Talk to your coach and keep track of exercise in your journal so you can see what is working for you and what is not.

• Lastly, if you are an Aspire Wellness client, be sure to dial into all your resources! Join the Aspire Wellness Private Group on Facebook. Here you will find encouragement, discussion, and recipes. Read the email we sent, welcoming you with 20 favorite recipes.  Add the Ideal Protein app to your phone or computer and watch your daily videos. Ask questions!! We have a coach in the office Monday-Saturday and any one of us is happy to answer your questions. If you have a question after hours, please email us or send a private message through Facebook. Most often we have someone able to respond to you at night or over the weekend. We would rather you ask questions often than come into your 1^st weigh struggling because you did not know how to do something correctly. Be sure to read and work through your 1^st Seven Day Guide and be sure to journal your food!!

Welcome to the great adventure of Ideal Protein! Trust the process! Trust the plan! You will do amazing!!