Hi Purple. Dinner is the carb meal with little or no fat. Lunch is your fat meal with no carbs...

But for dinner you can sprinkle a hard cheese on your food. I stay away from any other fats like olive oil or any oil BUT I think you can have a tsp or so of an oil. Not sure if it's still only olive oil...

I've been stalking this tread, even tho I'm not even close to P4 yet.
Let's call it "research" shall we?
This may be a really stupid question, but does IP provide you a list of what foods are 'slow carbs', 'fast carbs', or even fats / proteins (seeing as yogurt could be either)? I'm really not too sure how to classify them.
I'm so thankful that I can learn from all of you!

The only food list I received from my coach were list of veggies and fruits and the level they are on the glycemic (sp) index. I've been googling the other items. It does get a little "tricky" for some items...I was talking to my coach about fats and she said cheese is a fat but can also count as a protein... some gray areas...so if I want an extra fat I'll consider it a protein

So what about your protein at dinner that may have some fat in it? Is that okay? For instance- skirt steak (center cut, as much fat trimmed as possible), or 96% lean ground beef? Will the fat in the protein be a problem? I understand not adding the extra fat with sauces or too much cheese but... every night can't be chicken.

I'm only in Phase 4 for about 5 weeks, so time will tell, but here's what I know/do.

Breakfast is same as Phase 3, though I do agree that the pancreas is awake now, so having it in one sitting is not as important anymore.

Lunch, I have my usual home made soup and throw in some meat. Have my usual salad, but now I can add regular salad dressing and cheese. The amounts of fat are not real clear on the Phase 4 sheet - they just say 'at least' 1 tbsp oil. But I try not to overdo it.

Dinner, I have my usual stir-fry vegees and add meat (not all the time), and pasta or rice or some other grain I'm learning about. My Phase 4 sheet just says '1 serving' so if you look at the package of pasta, 1 serving is 2 oz dry, weighed, and it cooks up to a little less than a cup. I still use 2 tsp oil for the stir-fry, but that's it for fat at dinner. Maybe some fat-free feta on the salad, with a WF dressing.

Fruit is allowed at dinner, so I usually save that fruit for my evening snack and have yogurt as the protein snack, with fruit.

I also have a late morning and late afternoon snack, as I try to push to get my house fixed and need something, so I've been having spinach/kale smoothies with soy protein powder and WF chocolate or caramel and ice. Or, an IP bar or chips.

You can have 'unlimited' vegees, but I still find I can only eat about 2 cups with meals, but I can then have the extra spinach in my smoothies. You can have the full 7 oz meat twice a day, but you don't have to have a full 14 oz, so many times I don't. I still get plenty of protein with the smoothies.

I call the 'cheat' days 'splurge' days. I like that better.

I just found this informational sheet and thought I'd share. I don't know if your clinics gave you something similar, but it may be helpful.

Fat from the meats is fine at dinner.

Thank you so much for that info. I was really confused.

Thank you, Sewmam. I guess I just really need specifics to feel comfortable. You all have helped me tremendously and I can't thank you enough.

Today is my first P4 day! I'm really excited. I'll have chicken salad for lunch and I'm going to a communion party later for dinner which will be catered. I'll have the Chicken Picata (all sauce scraped off), salad (no dressing), veggies, and a small roll if there is one. There won't be any rice. There will be vegetable lasagna but I think it will be too messy and hard to scrape off all the ricotta cheese and other deliciousness. Plus I don't think I can control myself.

I usually go by the nutritional label to figure out amounts. For example, 1oz of cheddar cheese has 9 grams of fat. Then I use my digital scale that is adjustable to measure lbs.,ounces, grams, etc., to measure 1oz of cheese. I've always been told to measure pasta cooked...which is about a cup. Again, I would weigh it on a scale not a measuring cup because weight is more accurate since pastas have so many different shapes. Don't worry, you won't have measure every time. After a few couple times you will a good idea of how much 1oz of cheese (or any other food you commonly eat) looks like.

I thought 10-20 grams of fat was a lot too. I started out only using just under 10grams but I have since increased it and haven't noticed an increase in my weight! The fat in your protein is not included in this amount.

BTW, my coach said we are allowed up to 5grams of fat for dinner to account for things like oil in cooking or a bit of grated Parmesan cheese.

There are certain foods that fall under a protein/fat category, like nuts or yogurt with fat, so they can be counted as a protein when considering your snack. I have counted nuts as a fat for one of my lunches in the past. Like you, I didn't "get" the fat at lunch, so I didn't add any or added very little. Now after finding a couple yummy ideas, I totally embrace it! Two of my favorites are:

Mushroom cap pizza bites- cremini mushrooms, pizza sauce, & mozzarella cheese; preheat oven to 400 degrees. Snap stems off, bake caps on nonstick sprayed or foil lined baking sheet for 6 minutes. Pour out liquid pooled in the caps, then set oven to broil. Spoon pizza sauce in each cup, and fill with grated cheese. Broil for 1-2 minutes. These can be eaten immediately or made ahead and eaten later. Yum! There are so many variations you can do with this, Brie/pesto/sun-dried tomatoes, bacon/Swiss/spicy mustard, etc.

Zucchini tots- 1 cup grated zucchini (wring out excess water), 1 egg, 1/4 diced onion, 1/4cp grated cheddar cheese, salt&pepper; preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a mini muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray. Combine and mix all ingredients in a bowl. Fill each muffin section to the top, pushing down on the filling with a spoon (otherwise they'll fall apart more when you remove them from the tin). Bake for 15-18 minutes. The tops will start to brown. Run a plastic knife around the edge to easily remove. This makes about 12 tots. Leftovers! Again, you can adjust this to your liking or for variation by changing the cheese or spices or adding things like bacon, ham, sun-dried tomatoes, etc. If you find they are too moist and fall apart, next time add another egg white or add almond flour/meal or protein powder. These are delish on their own or with pasta sauce, salsa or WF BBQ sauce.

When you all say that you are sensitive to the starches, do you mean that you can't digest it, i.e., you get a stomach ache, or you felt bloated or gained weight immediately? Just curious...

The fat-free cheeses are a great way to add that little something to dinner meals. Fat-free feta is great. I even take a WF dressing and process it with some feta or, buttermilk, or the fat-free yogurt to make a creamier dressing. I've got regular and fat-free versions of mozzarella, feta and cheddar in my freezer.

It is stressful doing this change, but really, the foods are great. Once you get the hang of what you like and what fits your lifestyle and body, you'll be sailing along...

When I added back starchy carbs at dinner in P4, I got headaches, a sharp pain in my upper stomach and night sweats in the middle of the night, the following morning I would wake up with the same headache and have brain fog, fatigue, and terrible muscle pains in my neck and shoulders. I also had an increase in weight which I needed anyway because I was 5lbs under weight (I didn't gain weight in P3). I felt these things for years before going on IP, even went to doctors and chiropractors, had blood tests done and they found nothing to explain what I was feeling so I just lived with it. While on IP I felt great and somehow forgot about how terrible I felt before the diet until I started adding things back in. After being free of pain and fatigue for several months, it's unbelievable I was able to live with that pain for so long!

I think I can tolerate some starchy carbs because I didn't get these symptoms while having P3 breakfasts, that included small amounts; it was only when I started P4 when I started to notice them again.

Wow....I wonder if you have Crohn's or Celiac disease, or just a gluten tolerance problem? I have noticed some inflammation coming back too, and I'm going to check out Crohn's or Celiac, both of which can produce inflammation. Blood tests don't tell everything though - I think they need to take a biopsy of the colon to diagnose.

Good luck to you...

Day 3 of P4 and I messed up my lunch with some grapefruit...oops. Other than that, it's been going okay. It's certainly a work in progress trying to figure it out and get some patterns in place. In time....

Carbs and I are also enemies. Bloating and water retention.