I saw my coach at WI in today and asked what her suggestion was for an upcoming cruise I'm going on in November. She said because I'll be closer to my goal weight by then she wants me to just skip over Phase 2 and go right to 3 a week before the cruise. I wont be staying on plan while on vacation but I do plan to have a big breakfast (I'm really looking forward to a breakfast buffet every day!), light lunch and then normal dinner. Then P1 again until goal- starting the day we get off the ship. She gave me the P3 and P4 guidelines today, too, to familiarize myself.

What would you pros do? Do you think it's going to be worse for me to jump right to P3 or would you recommend doing a week of each prior to leaving? She didn't seem overly concerned about it so I'm asking you guys instead.

P2 is only slightly different than 1. It's just adding your own protein at lunch. I only did 1 week of it and honestly, I don't think I needed to do that. P3 however IS very important and a big change. I would make sure to get at least 1 week of that in before the cruise, if not 2 weeks.

I'm going to Aruba dec 1 and my coach also is putting me on phase 3 a week before

When my mom had her hip replacement our coach put her directly on phase 3 for 2 weeks before the surgery and then she began phase 1 again 1 week after surgery. She told my mom that phase 3 was more important in phasing off than 2. She wanted my mom to have the full 2 weeks of phase 3. My mom also didn't gain any weight during her 3 week phase off.

I did 1 week at 2 and 1 week at 3, but that was over a year ago when we were still only going to 80% before transitioning to P2.

I did this with very positive results. If you are interested there is a thread by me called "vacation report" if you want to read about my experience.

Great, thanks! I feel more at ease now that it seems this is standard protocol. Off to search the vacation thread!

I'm not going on vacation until January or February but I'm starting to plan it now.

My coach suggested that I try to stay on phase 2 during vacation. We're a going to Hawaii for 10 days, so I'm thinking bring shakes and bars, too bad all of the bars are restricted, I don't loose well eating restricted every day. My friends were saying something about having a big breakfast to hold them over until dinner, but this won't work for me. Might be hard to get my veggies in throughout the day.

Has anyone tried vacationing in phase 2? I searched but most people go p3.

What about 3 real meals out (sticking with the guidelines) and just a snack at before bed?