I think this is a really healthy mental outlook. For people with only 40lbs to lose being on IP is relatively short. For those of us with a year, maybe 18 months or more ahead of us it's unrealistic to believe that you can be 100% OP and that there may not be risks to overall health involved.

I hadn't thought of planned breaks, but now that you mention it I think it's worthwhile discussing with my IP provider and setting up something in advance.

Thanks for the post.

I think this is a good explanation of the difference in the first try and the second try. It shows that the first round taught you some good thinking and associations - if you can't be 100% compliant then adapt it in a way that you can stick with long term, provided you are losing. I'd say that's a partial success for your first IP run and now you can capitalise on your second.

To me it's a learning curve. We don't go from carb monsters to healthy food lovers overnight. We are reeducating our palates as much as our brains and bodies and sometimes it takes more than one run to make lessons stick.

Congrats to you, Peppertree, that is fantastic. Did you do the naked happy dance round the scale this morning to celebrate?

I highly doubt a coach would encourage it, but it is worth a discussion. I stopped going to my clinic after about 3 months. They didn't offer any knowledge, simply weighed, measured, and sold food.

It is worth mentioning that some people do find that low carb diets are not as effective each subsequent time they try them, so there is a potential downside to taking scheduled breaks. My weekly losses have slowed a bit over the past year, but I think it is is more related to the fact that I am carrying around 97 fewer pounds than because I have stopped and re-started a few times.

I may have. And thanks!

I too, believe planned breaks are necessary for those who will be on plan for a long time.

I stuck to the plan for 10 months the first time, losing 90 lbs and really shooting my thyroid down. I had no idea how hard a plan like IP can be on the thryoid.

I had a major plateau & started scheduling planned breaks.

I took a month completely off this summer and didn't stick to the maintenance plan well. Guess what happened? <duh!>

Now, I'm planning breaks from p1 every 12 weeks.
A "break" for me will be 2 weeks p2, 2 weeks p3, 2 weeks p4 (only maintaining), then back to P1 if there is any weight left to lose.

So, it really isn't a break "from IP", just a break from P1, to allow my body to rest and help make sure my thyroid keeps working. It isn't functioning optimally yet, but it is better than it was!

Planned breaks should be for physical or psychological reasons and have a well-defined plan (not just a "I'm going to do this for this one special day" - there are just too many of those & too many excuses can ensue).

My planned breaks will keep IP in mind. Having a total "who gives a crap" attitude resulted in about a 15 lb weight gain in one month! Thank goodness I had the sense to reign it back in. I've lost & regained all of my weight before and I wanted IP to be different. So far it is!

This is one of the issues that concerned me. My paternal grandmother was diagnosed as hypothyroid aged 16 and was on medication her entire life. I've had a couple of questionable thyroid test results, and although it's been normal for a few years it is something that I'm going to have checked fairly regularly.

Did you have thyroid issues before you began IP, Lisa? Or they developed/altered while you were in P1 ?

They developed while I was on P1, which is why it is so important to me.

A Big help for me to stay motivated is my before photo....Pull that baby out any time I am down! LOL Seriously I too will be here for a year + and loved that you brought this question up. I love hearing what others have to say and planned breaks may be the key to getting to goal and not overeating because "I have not had this in months". I need to think about this some more...

Woo Hoo that is fantastic! You are in inspiration to me as I still have a long way to go...

I go for blood work mid November and am curious to see what IP has done for me. Prior I had mostly "normal" numbers except for cholesterol so we I wonder if anything will change....

Just to chime in on the whole planned breaks thing. I took a small 24 hour break on the weekend (from dinner to dinner). I had been planning to try and break every 10 or 12 weeks, but decided to break early. Partly it was frustration at losses slowing more and more each week, partly because I spent the whole week saying no to cakes, drinks, etc and partly because I had some stuff planned. I was torn whether or not to, and talked to my bf about it, and finally made the decision to go ahead with a break.

I'll admit, I didn't feel great. For future breaks, I will probably avoid alcohol. I had wicked hangovers both Saturday and Sunday morning, but hadn't had much to drink at all (compared to previous). This isn't really a bad thing, as I was drinking way way too much wine previous to starting IP. I struggled to eat the full plate in front of me (and didn't, woo hoo!) and even a small amount of carbs left me feeling a bit bluh.

But! Since the weekend, I've had a huge woosh. I'm down almost 4 pounds from this time last week. I didn't go "crazy" while breaking and I found it very easy to get back into the swing of things (partly because IP doesn't feel like much of a "diet" to me, just healthier eating). I'm feeling super motivated again, much like when I started.

So, overall, while I did it for the wrong reasons, I did think it out before just eating everything in sight, and I'm glad I did it. My body is happier this week, and my mental state it also better. I'm going to structure quick breaks in every 7 or 8 weeks and see how my body responds. I do think it's important to create some sort of schedule though, so you're not doing it for the "wrong" reasons (i.e. cravings, emotional stuff, whatever - see above :P). It also helps with diet fatigue. The hospital program I did awhile back encouraged the 80/20 rule once the core program was over... you can't be perfect every day of the rest of your life, or you will mentally explode and go off the deep end and fall back into eating badly. So, recognize that maybe once a week, or in this case, once every two months, you need to treat yourself. Be responsible about it, maybe hit the gym an extra day (once off IP), but recognize that striving for long-term perfection often means sabotaging yourself. Obviously I'm not suggesting that you take weekly breaks, but something to incorporate into your long-term maintenance. Nobody's perfect.

Wow! I am so glad I asked that question! Thanks to all for your thoughtful responses. I have bookmarked this page and will come back to it often.

I think the idea of a planned break makes sense. We were talking about Thanksgiving the other day and my kids said "You aren't going to do this on Thanksgiving are you?". I reminded them that Thanksgiving is really more about the people than the food, but I have benn thinking about it since that conversation. Thanksgiving might not be the time to take a planned break (because of my extended family's tradition of overindulging for the entire weekend) but a planned break sometime before Thanksgiving might help me feel less deprived during the holiday weekend.

My planned breaks have nothing to do with feelings of deprivation and aren't planned around events. We have to learn to live with events differently than in the past, if we are to maintain the weight we lose. The Beck Diet Plan book is essential in learning to think and act differently about food.

My planned breaks are for health purposes. When I took more time off, my overindulgent behavior came back with a vengeance, which is why I'm encouraging everyone on the 90 day challenge to engage in a book study of Beck Diet Plan.


Owning a book and/or reading a book are different than actually DOING the assignments in the book. I've "read" the book 2-3 times (audio version during my 30-45 minute commute). This time I'm not moving forward to the next day's reading until I've actually done an assignment (even if it is to create response cards to sabotaging thoughts). I REALLY do want IP to be my last diet & to learn to stick with a healthier way to think about and behave with food.

Sure and that's fine for you Lisa, but every single person who does this diet is different. I'm sharing what bariatric physicians and psychologists shared with me, people who have seen thousands of people lose weight, gain it back, people who were successful, etc. Everyone deals with things differently, there is no one size fits all. This is their viewpoint, it may not be for you, but it may work for others where your's doesn't.

As I stated above, I recognized that I did it for the wrong reasons, but it made me understand something about how *I'm* going to deal with this, and that's why I'm *scheduling* the breaks instead of doing it when I feel like. You do it for health reasons, other people may need to do it for mental health reasons, and some may do it for a combination thereof.

It was actually something Lisa said in a post during my early days on this site that started me considering breaks. She mentioned her thyroid issues and their connection to long-term low calorie dieting. After lots of research, I decided it wasn’t something I was willing to risk. My ultimate goal is to be healthy and be able to maintain when I get to goal, regardless of how long it takes me to get there.

I feel like I should have pointed out that my breaks aren’t an excuse to eat everything I have been missing while in ketosis. I largely eat close to P2 anyway (salads with 3 oz meat and veggies instead of a packet and veggies for lunch), so I am sure to give myself a few days of P3 before I expect to be eating something that would only be allowed on a maintenance free day. I don’t want to shock my body by suddenly hitting it with alcohol or sugar while still in ketosis. I don’t go through the full phase off only because I don’t want to take that long of a break from weight loss.

Even keeping everything in moderation, I always gain a few real pounds. I try really hard to stay off the scale until I have been back on plan for a full week, so that I am fully back in ketosis and have re-lost the water weight. After that week, I have been anywhere from 2 to 5 pounds up. They generally come off in the next two weeks. I.E. 2 weeks of moderate off plan eating results in a total of 4-5 weeks of where I’m not loosing any new pounds.

I’m not advocating this for everyone, but I find it is working for me. My thyroid was tested at my annual physical in July and the results were right around the same numbers they have been when previously tested. I did have to specifically ask that it be included in the blood work since my doctor does not routinely test it.

Wanted to say a big congrats to all of you. Losing 100+lbs is no easy tasks but very doable. I lost 142lbs in 10 months and this past June was my 2 year of maintenance.

I won't lie, i still struggle. The mental reasons why i was obese have not disappeared with the weight so its important to work on that too.

The older we get, i find that time just flies by...so you can assume that by following the program, you should be done by this time next year...doesn't seem that long in the grand scheme of things!

Keep up the good work!