So I have tried my best to follow IP 100% but the past 2 weeks I started to get sick of all the vegtables and I had a few cheats. They are small and spread out, but add up. From a large handful of popcorn, 3 bananna bars, a couple potato chips, a muffin,and a few other minor snoops here and there I lost the same in this past two weeks than the four weeks before. I even went to the "steamers" vegtable bags in the frozen section which does have sugar in to help get in some of my vegi's. How does this make sense? Was I not getting enough out of my 3 a day protein packets? I am so glad I lost, I was so nervous, but worry that I will cheat more often now. Any thoughts?

I tought the steamers was alotted? I dont recall my couch saying not to eat them. I usually buy the steamer broccoli or the califlower? hope i havent been cheating and didnt know it lol.

my thoughts....

I am an "ex-cheater"..Just ask anyone on here.. I cheated and cheated and cheated on this diet several times..And just like you.. i lost weight despite cheating and thought "Hey! I can have my cake and eat it to" "Follow the diet and have an occasional cheat..okay!" WRONG! Let me tell you how many times ive started over on this diet..Ive counted almost all my fingers on both my hands, thats how many. I thought that cheating here and there was okay but its not okay.. Here are a few reasons why:

1) You kick yourself out of ketosis every single time..Why is this bad? Well...Ketosis is the state in which you are burning your body fat stored in the cells, for energy or (calories) This is a very low calorie diet. Your body in essence, can go into starvation mode after the first few days..the reason it doesnt however, is because your body has switched over to burning your fat for calories ...So you may only consume 600-700 in your food per day..but your body has lots more calories stored in cells that its going to burn..but only if your in ketosis..So if you keep kicking yourself out of ketosis...you are practically starving your body with not enough calories for the day...

2) This is an un-balanced diet(read Dr. Tran's PDF) that has a delicate balance..You upset the balance in regards to how it plays in with hormone levels and blood sugar levels and even blood pressure levels...If you miss out on one thing say like your veggies..and substituted chips for that...then not only do you miss out on crucial fibre, you also miss out on the healthy carbohydrates you need...Chips would only give you a simple form of carb without fibre and it will end up being stored as fat.

3) If you cheat..you are not breaking a pattern that got you to the place of needing to lose weight in the first place. We are all here losing weight because we obviously did not care about are bodies enough at the time to feed it the right fuel and to eat for fuel reasons..By cheating , you are telling yourself that its okay to keep doing it over and over again and its not going to hurt you..but obviously eating that way did hurt you at some point and that is why you are on this diet, trying to break that cycle..and put yourself into a new lifestyle.

These are only 3 reasons why not to cheat...

I can say this is the first time that i have stayed OP and have not cheated..I am on the alternatives plan so its a bit different in terms of food...but nonetheless...im OP and commited and have not cheated in over 2 months which is the longest i have gone..

DONT CHEAT! Its not worth it to your body..

I would add one additional reason to Porthardy's excellent reply. I just learned from my coach that when we are on this diet we are eating such low calories that (in her own words) we are 'tricking our body" such that it doesn't think we are starving. If we suddenly throw a ton of extra calories in a particular day, our body does not treat them like a normal day, instead the body "saves" the calories and stores them, because again, in Phase 1, we are one step from our body thinking we are starving. (which doesnt explain why you still lost weight ).

So, bottom line, if we were to phase off the diet, slowly following IP guidelines, we could easily eat a much higher quantity of calories w/o gaining anything (assuming we are not eating a crazy amount). The problem lies with the fact we are eating them in Phase 1 & they get "stored." With cheating, for some at least, we get in a cycle of losing the same weight over and over. When really, if we are not going to be 100% it is better to phase off as these extra calories will not have the same impact if we are out of phase 1.

This is a new angle of the diet that I had not previously understood. Please correct me if my understanding is incorrect. Thanks everyone

First of all, if you deprive yourself of everything, you will never stick to any diet. I have had a bite of food not allowed here and there throughout this diet. The difference is, a bite or two totally satisfies my want for whatever it is and I'm done. I'm not thinking about it anymore or wanting to eat the whole thing.
It takes far more than a taste or a "handful of popcorn" to knock you out of ketosis.
Maybe people obsess about the cheating because they are being way to hard on themselves. Get over it. Diets are meant not only to lose weight but to change your eating habits for life.
One of the best things I've learned on this diet (my first diet ever) is, that first bite of something you've been craving is wonderful, the second is good, from there you're just eating to finish it. Ever noticed that? I CAN stop at a taste of something and feel satisfied.
Stop obsessing about small cheats.

Wow, Port! I am also on alternative and this post was right on. I am here for the long run and want to learn a healthier eating lifestyle so I can maintain my weight. I want to keep every ounce of muscle that I have and staying OP achieves this by losing fat only. Yep, you can still lose with cheating but losing muscle is not worth it.

Thank you for the posts. Reading this will help keep me on task.

GREAT dialog folks - thanks always good to thinks outside the bun!

When you cheat your body doesn't burn muscle. It's first choice is carbohydrate. Then when that's gone, muscle. We protect our muscles by eating high quality protein. Telling someone their body burns their heart as fuel when they are cheating (eating carbs and out of ketosis), is wrong and scares people. Not eating properly on this protocol (select veggies and protein) puts muscles at risk if you dont eat enough.

That definitely wasn't my intention, I deleted my comment.