I have been reading threads and I am wondering...I have been eating one restricted bar/pack a day. My coach is nice but not very helpful... she has way to many people scheduled at one time. Thank goodness for all of you I am getting more out of this board than my coaching Should I limit my restricted to once a week and switch to all shakes for better weight loss? ?

The program is extremely low carb/calorie/fat the way it is designed (WITH the daily restricted). For the majority of people, there really isn't any reason to tweak or attempt to further game the plan. Just follow it. It works!
A very small percentage of people are super insulin resistant but it is way too early in your program to be worrying about that.

Relax and enjoy the ride.

IP was thoughtfully and carefully designed to allow for 2 unrestricted and one restricted EVERY day. You are already getting a very low calorie, low carb, low sugar, low fat, moderate protein eating plan. Actually if you drop too low your body will start to hold on to fat, going into starvation protection mode. In addition, the eating plan recognizes that most people need the "emotional" boost a treat brings!

IP itself no longer even suggests omitting restricteds in the first few weeks like it used to. Motivation to continue is key and restricteds offer just that.

Most people don't do better eliminating them, though some carb-sensitive people do. Ultimately it is a personal choice and you can try w/o.

I am going for weigh in tomorrow and we will see what the week brought....I am going to plan for now to stick two unrestricted and to one restricted a day

Fat loss is an equation of energy. How many calories are in a restricted item? 3500 calories represents one pound of fat. Assuming a restricted bar has 100 calories you would have to skip 35 of them to lose an additional lb of fat.

The key with any diet is compliance. Restricted items are built in to help keep you compliant to the IP diet. As JLUS mentioned - a "treat". For many this will help keep them on track to the rest of the diet.

Not true. This is not how the body works, at all. The body cannot hold on to fat.

Pretty sure you were being imprecise here & it's not quite what you meant. Look at my pics. My body did a great job of holding onto (storing) fat for years!

I wondered the same thing, asked the same questions and got the same answers here. But, being the strong minded person that I am, I decided to experiment with it to see how it went.

I realize I never did come back and post my results.... will dig up the old thread and do that today.

Day 1 of no restricted, no change. Days 2 - 4 I DID see an uptick in weight lost (lost 1.5 lbs in one day). Days 5 - 7 NOTHING, days 8 - 9 a slight uptick, day 10 down a little, Day 12 nothing, Day 13 nothing, day 14, down a little. All in all, I was down 5.4 lbs in 2 weeks. My average weekly weight loss is 2.5 - 3 lbs, so it really didn't make a difference for me. So, after that, I went back to my restricteds. However, I will skip a day or two here and there and it SEEMS like I get a short term bump with that. It's hard to tell because my weight really bounces around.

I have an app on my phone that tracks my weight daily and charts it on a line graph for me. I swear, it looks like a kiddie roller coaster with small, gentle rolls up and down, but over the long term, steadily down. My total weight loss in 2.5 months is 35 lbs! Most of that time included restricteds.

So, what's the answer? Everybody's different. And you can't go wrong trying to cut restricteds to see how you will react. (Unless, of course, you will feel SO deprived that you go off plan and cheat.) I can just tell you my personal experience and others can share theirs or their opinions.

If it does work for you, let me know. I will be insanely jealous!!!!!!

Thanks for sharing your observations. I wonder how that would have compared to using restricteds that same week? Unfortunately, we can't control for every variable and have no way knowing if those same ups/downs would have happened WITH resticteds. The bigger picture, suggests yes, it would have, since your weight is so variable (mine too!)

I stand firmly behind the IP plan, which includes one restricted/day. They are there to reduce cravings because they provide a small treat but keep us within the plan. Unless someone has a proven reason to cut them, my input is leave them in! So many people wanting to fix something when it isn't broken. It works!!!!

Lisa I am with you! No way I'm giving up my restricted unless I gain a crazy amount of weight in a week which lets face it, if I am OP I won't. I feel this program has been thoroughly and scientifically researched and I do think deprivation, both physically and emotionally, can be amotivational. My Quest bar and I have a very close friendship lol, and I won't turn my back on a friend!

Since I don't use or order alternatives and must avoid gluten.... I have not used any restricted items at all. My IP site did not suggest anyway around it and supported me avoiding them. My weight loss averaged about 2.5 lbs / week over about 6 months. Closer to goal now and have seen a few lower than average weeks recently. (Am away from home for a while so no idea how its going at the moment.. (chasing a 2 year old and a crawling-scooting 7 month old. Am sticking to my plan though and will weigh in for the 25 by fall challenge on the weekend of the 10th) Hope to reach 1st goal of 65 lbs by Aug 26... Anything else is wonderful... And I'll take it. But I don't think the restricteds mattered in the overall picture ....except maybe gave me a bit of wiggle room to cover eating out in case things were NOT always prepared specifically to my ordering directions.

I have been on IP since August 31, 2012 and have lost 120 pounds. Up until the last couple of weeks, I always ate one restricted a day except for the first couple of weeks, when I did not understand that the restricteds tasted better, LOL! Over the last couple of weeks, my weight loss has slowed. Now, understand, at first I was over 100 pounds overweight and now I am at a normal BMI, so I am not overweight at all and am just trying to lose an extra 10 pounds to give some distance between myself and "overweight". So after a couple of weeks of bouncing around, my coaches suggested eliminating the restricted, because I was already 100% compliant and there was nothing else to do. I also was more vigilant in meeting the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) guidelines in getting the appropriate amount of exercise. That "broke" my plateau, and I lost 2.8 last week. But whether that really had to do with the elimination of a restricted (after all, the calorie math says that a restricted is only about 70 calories more than a non-restricted, so you are only saving ~490 calories a week) or the exercise helped "move things along" a little better (you can hold up to 17 pounds of excrement in your colon if you are constipated), who knows? I would say eat the restricted and give yourself a little something more to look forward to. Though even after almost a year of dieting, I can't say that it really has bothered me to stop the restricteds, there are plenty of other things that I like. Good luck and let all of us know what your experience is!

Just gotta say on your healthy life style! You just inspired me!

When I did IP in 2010 they advised us not to eat restricteds in your first three weeks. I didn't and after that I limited myself to three a week. I averaged about 3.7 pounds a week after 17 weeks. This time I'm limiting my restricteds again. It doesn't say on the phase 1 form that they are mandatory, just limited to one a day maximum. If that bottom line meant they were mandatory, it also says about a maximum of two chili packets a week, and those aren't mandatory. I think you just need to find what works best for you. There is no true way to measure if you lose more with or without them. For me, I justify it as follows; I have always been a daily snacker, which resulted in me gaining weight, so I am trying to break that habit. I need to learn that "treats" aren't to be eaten every day and that I can make it through a day, week, month without a treat. And I feel that the less carbs I put into my body, the more my body is going to have to look into its fat stores for energy, glucose, etc. I may be wrong, but it works for me, and only you will know what works for you. ps. Sorry for any spelling mistakes, I'm posting this from my blackberry playbook and it is horrible to type on here!

I have had one restricted every day from the start. I have been losing consistently. I really love the restricted items and look forward to them. I wouldn't want to try going without them!