Stuck
 

I have been doing ip for four weeks now andamin the middle of the fifth. I seem to be stuck and haven't lost a single ounce. I am not cheating at all. This is where I seem to stop on every diet I try buti know I should lose at least another 15 ponds to be healthy. So any suggestions how to break this plateau would be most appreciated. :?:

I wish I could help!

I am exactly the same way. First 3 weeks to a month, I lose well and then suddenly nothing!

Would love to hear suggestions as well.

me too! I am at week 6, first three weeks lost 16lbs, last two weeks total of just 2.5lbs My coach thinks I'm not eating enough? also I went back to exercising after the "don't exercise" first few weeks, and my coach thought that may be contributing, really? some days I only eat 2 IP products instead of 3, combo of not hungry and crazy work schedule. I also only manage about 2/3 of the water I should get....

Some people on this board might not agree with me, but I speak from experience. CHEAT! Blow your diet for a weekend. You will go up in weight, but I cheated all weekend, really bad, and I only went up .6 lbs. After that my losses started again. I was losing like it was my first week again. Two of my friends did the same thing and they encouraged me to do it too. Both of them have hit their goal weight so I trust their wisdom!
It really kick starts the program. The only thing you have to watch out for is letting one cheat weekend turn into cheating every day. DON'T LOOSE FOCUS! Good luck!

I can not disagree more. Do NOT cheat. This a no cheat diet and the longer you can stick to that, the better. I didn't cheat for 5 months. Within that 5 months I had stalls. They are mentally hard but sometimes your body is just healing from the quick losses and the inches will go down and so will the scale eventually. The few stalls I had always were followed with bigger losses.

Once I did finally cheat (recently) it was tough to get back on plan. My losses have been super slow and frustrating since. You will never be as motivated to rock this diet as you do at the beginning. Don't let that go! Keep eating clean and the scale will move!

Increase your water in take. The more you drink over the 64 oz the more it will help. Once I started drinking about 120 oz a day the weight loss started up again.

I would not consider this a stall or a plateau by any means! Your numbers overall look good and when you dont have a heck of a lot to loose, the loss is much slower (from my own experience and seeing others that did not have much left to loose). If TOM is approaching, many do not see any loss and sometimes even a gain depending how much water your body retains to compensate for blood loss. Don't worry, if you are OP, you will loose!!!:carrot:

I have not hit a plateau yet but my coach did tell me that if you hit a stall down the road have one cheat meal, but not something high in sugar, higher in fat.

I am in week 4 and am experiencing the exact same thing. This is ALWAYS the point when the diet stops working. I am definitely feeling the frustration too. My normal WI would be today, but had to push it to Friday b/c of my coach's schedule. So technically I starting week 5. But I know that there will not be a loss or a very big one on Friday.

This is especially frustrating because I was traveling (business) and I wanted SO BAD to have a cheat, there were all these really great meals, but I didn't, I stayed completely OP- 100%! Now I am like it wasn't even worth it. Why bother?!? I am really proud of myself for sticking to my guns and staying OP when every fiber of my being was telling me otherwise, but jeez, for all of this hard work and mental struggle, you would think that the scale would reward me and make it a little easier.

I know I just need to stick to the program, but the scale is not making it easy for me right now. I have read several times that sometimes a cheat is exactly what you need, but with my level of frustration right now, I do not know how long it would take me to get back on track. The angel is saying "Stay the course" and the devil is saying "it might be exactly what you need". The angel is currently winning, but if the scale doesn't start moving again...

Don't worry, many people have a stall around week 4-6. (I had two weeks where I only lost 1 pound each week). This is just the body playing "catch-up" and if you stick with it, the losses will start again. I don't think our bodies can sustain a consistent 3-5 pound loss, so every now and then we'll have stalls. What we need to remember they're only stalls, not "stops". ;)
As well, some weeks where I haven't lost pounds have been the weeks where I've lost the most inches.

Don't get discouraged - if you've done this for a month it's worth sticking to until you're done!

Thanks for sharing your experience.

I broke my stall with a few things ( I don't know what did it or the combination of what did it)

1 - I started taking Melatonin at night
2 - Upped my water to 100 oz, with my evening water with lemon wedges
3 - I spaced out my meals as I couldn't eat everything at one sitting
4 - I add a package ( low carb drink) on active days
5 - I watch my total carbs - I am sensitive to carbs
6 - I don't eat the restricted items - If I am desperately craving I will have a half of a bar.

I was stalled for two weeks and had two weeks of a 1.8 loss and a 3.6 loss

Tomorrow is my WI. Hopefully I have lost at least 2 pounds. It would be nice to lose more but it doesn't seem to be in the cards for me.

Thank you all for all your advice. I am afraid if I cheat that I will not start up again. I do feel good on this program which I don't want to give up. Also I don't crave any sweets whatsoever. I will definitely give it a few more weeks. I hope all of you stuck in the same rut will hang in there and have success.

I don't think that a cheat on this diet will accomplish what you want to accomplish. You'll jump start your pancreas, and the main point is to keep the pancreas at rest. I think everyone who's done this diet has hit a "stall" around the same time as you are (or within a couple of weeks). Just keep going on the program and push through. You'll start losing again, I promise!

I'd say you're not eating enough. Your body needs it to keep burning fat efficiently. Otherwise you end up in starvation mode (holding on to fat stores) instead of ketosis. If you're exercising, you could consider adding a 4th packet to your day to compensate.

Stick with it! :cheer:

You know, there is some truth to this. Fact is, our bodies do everything, hormonally, to keep us from losing weight and metabolic slow down is one way. It is a fact that eating more one day/wk can help speed up metabolism and trick your body into not thinking it is starving. It is a way to regulate those hormones that drastically fall with a calorie depleted diet such as IP.

Although I believe in IP and it has helped me lose weight, I do think it is a flaw in the diet. Metabolic slow down is going to occur if you only eat 900 cals/day for months with no planned weekly cheats.

I'm not totally advocating that you cheat, the diet will work fine without it. Just expect weight loss to naturally slow, particularly as you get leaner. Being only 160 lbs, you are going to naturally see less weight loss than someone with more fat if you are both consuming 900 cals. :hug:

Read up on PSMF (protein sparing modified fast) diets, which is what IP is, on the web if you are interested in metabolic slow down. It has really helped me understand what is happening to my body as I lose weight.

I had a small gain this week and the first thing I thought about was I did not cheat and its not worth cheating for. I have committed to this program to see it through til the end. It may take me over a year, and I know I will have small, no loss at all or even a small gain like this week even though I am following the program to a tee. Any loss or staying the same is better than cheating and gaining it back even if it is a few pounds. You have lost some weight already is cheating once worth putting all that hard work to waste? Not for me it isn't....but that is just my opinion!