I had recently taken a break from being super strict about my diet and had been maintaining for a few weeks, but then slowly started creeping up again.
About a week ago I wandered into a health food store to pick up some vitamins and started chatting with the clerk. She recommended a program called Ideal Protein. I head heard of it before from my boss as the shop but thought it was something I couldn’t get here (I think she got it from her sister in the states). I’m getting desperate to make a change and I know most people wouldn’t approve of me doing a packaged meal diet again but I need to try something to get me back on track.
I did some research and people seemed to have success on the system and went back to chat with the lady at the store again. What I was unaware of is the fact that I was supposed to sign up for the program before I could buy the food. That, was a no go for me $165 for the set up and then $28 for a box of 7 meals or snacks, plus tax. At that time, I was kind of ticked off that she didn’t tell me that the first time I was in the store but now that I did more research into what’s available, I’m glad it worked out that way.
I ended up looking for the food on eBay and stumbled across a bunch of listings stating “Don’t waste your money on Ideal Protien” so I clicked further into it and found another website which took me to a website which had a selection of high protein food, all individually listed, or sold as a 2, 4, 8 or 12 week package.
I was looking at individual food as suggested by the eBay listing site and then thought, what the heck, I’ll try a 4 week starter box. I’m lucky that my brother took the initiative and had set up a US address for us to have items mailed to both to get items where companies won’t ship to Canada and to get items for free or cheap shipping as US companies tend to offer over shipping rates to Canada. At $5 a package as their fee, I can’t complain. It worked out well because I was already planning on heading to Windsor on Friday to stay over night and it’s only 20km more to pop over the border and head north to Port Huron to come home.
I selected the customized box so I could make sure I didn’t get any flavours I didn’t enjoy (coffee based, cheesecake based, oatmeal etc) and got more of the ones I thought I’d enjoy more (like pancakes and omelets). I got a discount due to their site’s more order = more discount set up and free shipping to the continental US. I also picked out a few vitamins that are meant to support a body on a higher protein diet.
Last night I printed out the food diary page and turned it into a meal plan page. I counted the amount of meals I had of each flavour and tried to distribute as evenly as possible throughout the four weeks. This was harder than I thought - there are so many things I have to eat in one day so I wanted to try to ensure I had a variety every day so I wouldn’t get bored. I then started planning out the allotted additional veggie / fat / protein selection.
Today was day one. I made the pancakes for breakfast with a berry smoothie. Not so fond of the smoothie but the pancakes were great! Dark chocolate pudding for a snack, spicy mac for lunch with a cookie dough bar. In the afternoon I made chocolate cream pudding, then dinner. We went out to celebrate my big brother’s birthday to swiss chalet. I had the quarter chicken dinner with steamed veggies and a multigrain roll a few hours later, I had the mint chocolate hot chocolate for my evening snack. All of it was pretty tasty except fake berry. I might try adding a squirt of sugar free mixer to see if that changes the taste enough to be able to get through it. I’m also going to try mixing with my almond milk instead of water.
Avoiding the pop is going to be another issue but I’m using today and tomorrow as my withdrawal period so hopefully it won’t be too much to handle. I found some really tasty aspartame free packets in the states that I really enjoyed drinking through the day to take the edge off. If I rage at you at work on Tuesday, I apologize, it’s the withdrawal.
I’m hoping to update more frequently again to help me keep on track and to also it helps me track how I felt about each meal before I order again (if I order again).
We’ll see if I get better at starting over this time!
No comments:
Post a Comment