Being organized on the Ideal Protein Diet makes life so easy!

If you’ve been on the Ideal Protein Diet already, you already know how easy it is to follow. The combination of our foods along with veggies and your evening home cooked meal makes things pretty smooth and convenient. We like that doing some meal preparation is still required and you aren’t just eating products that are ready-to-go. Why? Because that’s the way real life is. Remember, our unbalanced diet has a beginning and an end and is only designed for healthy and effective weight loss. It’s a temporary phase. Once you transition back to eating a balanced diet, you will return to getting all your energy from whole foods. You may not have noticed it so I’ll let you in on a little secret: the diet is preparing you all along for creating a new healthy lifestyle once the weight loss phase is done! Think about all the good habits you are acquiring along the way.

• Increase in drinking water (which your body thanks you for)
• Increase in vegetables (for most people 4 cups of veggies a day is a new habit)
• Increase in protein intake (protein satiates the body)
• Increase in paying attention to YOU (most people don’t even stop for 5 minutes in the day to catch their breath)

If you’ve done our diet, you know what I’m talking about: the sound sleeps, the even energy throughout the day and the general feeling of being well in your body. There are many more benefits, too long to list here.

It’s pretty hard to fail at our diet plan because it’s all laid out for you and all you have to do is follow it. Still, there are some things that make following it easier than not and those things require a bit of planning ahead of time. Planning is another good habit we train you in when on the diet. Lack of planning around food, some of the time, is some of the causes of weight gain among our most successful (career-wise) and high-powered men and women at Vital Body. They have not built the habit of taking care of themselves first.

Making a Weekly Plan on the Ideal Protein Diet Checklist:

On Sundays, set aside 30 minutes to plan your week. Use this checklist and your food journal:

• Map which Ideal Protein foods you will like to have each day in your food journal (you can leave some empty spot for spontaneous choices if you wish).
• Based on your list, check your cupboards for stock and make a IP grocery list for the ones you will need to pick up at your weekly check-in.
• Do some meal planning for the week using the Ideal Protein cookbook, the Janeva cookbook or googling Phase 1 recipes always cross checking for accuracy with your Phase 1 sheet of course. Or keep it simple, there is a lot to enjoy in simple foods!
  • Meal planning for lunch: add the vegetables you enjoy (most likely ones that are convenient for taking to work) to your IP food choice each day in your food journal.
  • Meal planning for dinner: choose 7 evening protein types you would like to have (salmon, lamb loin, ground beef, tofu, eggs, etc) and map them out in your food journal. Then, pick two occasional vegetables from your Phase 1 sheet and add them to your protein of preference. Next, add the Phase 1 vegetables to your evening meal (this is a great time for those vegetables that you can bake, roast or barbecue, i.e. roasted fennel or barbecued asparagus).
• Make two separate grocery lists: 1. Monday-Thursday groceries and 2. Friday to Sunday groceries. This way all you have to do is grab your list!
• Next, lay out in a dish you love (nice pottery always does the trick for me) your supplements for the next day and refill them each night after your evening snack.
• Make a basic Phase 1 friendly salad dressing for the week. Measure your oil to know the size of your allotted 2 teaspoons.

Calendaring/ Scheduling for the week ahead:

• Schedule time in your calendar to do a grocery shop for produce and protein on Sundays and on Thursdays.
• Schedule time in your calendar for meal preparation each morning (or the evening before) now that you have your plan.
• Is this week’s check-in with your coach in your schedule? Make sure there is enough time planned for driving to your appointment.

Follow this simple Weekly Plan on the Ideal Protein Diet Checklist can be the key to feeling organized on the diet. The benefits of taking the time to plan will result in the following things:

You empowered around food
You are loving your diet
You feel confident and successful at honouring your goals
Your day just flows and you can focus on other things with ease
You are enjoying food
You are taking time to nurture yourself

Your context for doing the diet matters most.

At the end of the day, it’s crucial that you know WHY you are doing the diet. It’s one of the very first things we ask our new dieters at Vital Body. “Tell me why you are here, why is this important to you.” We take it from there.

If you are unclear about why it matters, then most likely, no amount of planning or scheduling is going to help you. When you are aware of why it is important to you to do the diet, following it, planning for it and making sure your life is set up for it is easy peasy. Ease will naturally flow for you and your weight loss program. That’s the real goal. Many times the difference between a successful dieter and one that struggles is the clarity with which they have entered the weight loss phase. A dieter that says “I’m here because it’s time to take care of me and my body” and one that says “I just need to lose weight” is a huge difference in context.

Love yourself enough to put yourself first. Everything else will follow.
Most of all, enjoy the process!