I have seen a lot of recipes with cheese in it - vegan cheese? On phase 1 what's allowed and what's good? And where do I find it at the store? I really crave cheese!

I'd be interested in knowing too! That's the one big difference I've seen between this diet and Atkins is the complete lack of cheese, half & half, etc.. So many of my standard low carb recipes involved cheese.

Same here! I love cheese! One of the hardest things i've had to go without! So far I haven't seen anything I can use on P1. Any suggestions from our pros?

I miss every variety of cheese imaginable , and basically dairy in general. Not even doing the 1oz / day of milk cuz I don't drink coffee...on meds so caffein = no good...to me it'd be the equivalent of watching cinemax if I walked through the dairy aisle at the grocery store...

I'm a newbie too, but I think the reason cheese isn't allowed is because of the amount of fat and calories in it. That's why the IP diet is not like Atkins; because Atkins is low Carb but not low calories or fat, while IP is low Carb, low calories, and low fat.

Edit: not sure which 'carbs' is capitalized, I'm typing from my tablet...

Yep I believe that doesn't help the weight loss, adding fat that we just have to go burn anyways...

No cheese on IP because this is a low fat diet where Atkins isn't. Once I go into maintance I'm adding fat back into my diet as I fully believe fat isn't the issue, it's carbs. However IP says low fat, so I haven't had any cheese since last September, and boy do I love just about any kind of cheese.

I do remember a while back where someone was able to substitute the vegetarian vegetable cheese 2x week in place of 1 serving of vegetables. Try searching the threads.

Without cheese we are not able to do pitzza and some more recepies. It is a delicious food to have.. so dont miss it.

So is that the answer? -- no cheese at all.. not even vegetable cheese allowed.

Talk with your coach after going through your journal and WI history (in case you may be 'sensitive' to extras), but some folks - including Wuv - use veggie cheese sparingly w/their coach's blessing. I actually just picked up a small package of Veggie Shreds cheddar & pepper jack flavor stats:
Serving size: 1/4 cup <--sparingly is probably less than this
Serving/Container: 7
Calories: 60
Calories from Fat: 35
Fat: 4g
Carbs: 1g
Fiber 0g, Sugar 0g
Protein: 6g

*post this in the daily chat thread and you'll probably get better feedback from folks who have been adding it in.

My coach never said a word about a journal. He is very nice but I don't think he is an expert on this diet. ( not to mention he looks like my son's age-college boy)

You don't keep a food journal? It is one of my key tools to staying on track and my coach regularly and thoroughly goes through it each visit to make sure I am OP. If you run into any loss obstacles I would see it as invaluable to tracking tweaks needed to get the scale moving. I get a new journal from my coach each month that's obviously IP stamped that has a place to mark my food, water, supplements, and activity level.

I agree. My only criticism of ip is that I think it is too low in fat. But it works...
In maintenance I have not added back in very many carbs, but I embrace the fat! Seems to work for me.