Could anyone help me to determine which lettuces are free and which count towards the 2 cup veggie requirement.

All lettuce is free. Spinach counts towards your veggie count. Go to the 2 stickies at the top of the 3FC page and you can print out the Phase 1 sheet that tells you exactly what veggies you can and can't have. It's a helpful one to print off and put on your fridge, or keep in your purse for shopping

Romaine, boston/butter lettuce and iceberg are "freebie" lettuces.

Spinach is a vegetable and needs to be measured and counted in your 4 daily cups. Same with "Field Greens", which are the bitter lettuces you find in spring mixes.

Thank you!

My coach and I did research on Arugula and found it similar enough to romaine that she allows it as a freebee for me. I like it as a peppery change to my usual romaine.

Not to be argumentative, but rather to point out differences in coaches, my coach said spinach/baby spinach can be counted as EITHER free lettuce or my veggie requirement (not sure how that works, but it is what she said to me).

Mine said the same to me with lettuce, spring greens and spinach...every coach is different

Different coaches "tweak" the program. Scorbett is technically correct but follow your coach. In addition to calories/carbs, IP is also an alkaline program so Scorbett has also looked at the acid/alkaline levels of different greens when she gives her answers. If coaches are only looking at carbs/calories, they may not be including all of the science intended.

Good to know! Thank you for the info

Thanks Lisa

Yes many coaches "tweak" the program. But many also do so using "traditional" dieting ideas, not specific to IP. As Lisa mentioned, I have done some research into the spinach question, as it has come up before. Some of the issue here is that IP is designed to be an alkali diet (not a blood ph issue, as much as a digestive system ph issue). Part of the chemistry of IP is that it creats an anti-inflammatory environment in the body. Spinach, while APPEARING to be fine as a lettuce if you only look at calorie/carb count, actually creates an acidic reaction in the body - which can throw off that alkali balance. That is why it is a measured veggie and not a lettuce.

Thanks Scorbett I've been eating the mix of romain & spinach and not counting the spinach as part of my veggies.