I'd be amazed if so!! I usually have my IP packet and salad around noon - sometimes I'll try to save my salad for 1:00 or 2:00 but by 3:00 I'm starving and need to have that snack at 3:00 and then dinner at 6:00.

I just cannot even imagine going 6 hours without ANY food - from lunch till dinner!

Do any of you actually manage that? How?? Just curious.

Well, I swap my lunch and dinner, so my largest meal is lunch. This allows me to easily make it 6 hours without getting hungry (though I rarely get hungry on this diet anyway). I think I'm going to have to split my lunch though... it's just too much to eat at one sitting.

Depends on the day. Some days I have lunch about 12:30 and dinner about 5-5:30. Other days I have lunch about 12, a snack about 3:30-4 and dinner about 6:30-7. A warm beverage when I get home from work often helps with those hungries until I can get some food.

Lettuce salads don't really fill me up & I get hungry quicker. I usually have a soup with veggie puree and some other veggie (today it was mock german potato salad). Those veggies "hold" me better. I make sure I add some fat to my soup b/c fat is filling.

Hey Slow, my dietician/coach follow the protocol exactly and says that you shouldn't go more than 4-5 hours without eating anything. I do the same as you, have something in between the lunch and dinner meal.

Here's my typical phase 1 day

Up at 6:30 am

9 am crispy cereal
12 pm salad w 1 c cucumber, ip chicken soup w 1 c cauliflower
2:30 pm ip pudding as a shake
4:30 ip restricted snack or equivalent (simply bar)

Exercise 6-7 pm (bootcamp, etc)
7:15 pm dinner-8 oz meat and veggies

9:30 bed!!!!

If I can't get the gym I don't have the extra ip shake and I have the bar around 3.

I usually eat my snack between my lunch and dinner to hold me over! And- I don't usually like to eat after dinner!

Me too, I just have tea at night. Right now my stomach is GROWLING. Thankfully I'm off at 3:30 and that's when I have my IP snack.

I agree with those that said they are always hungry - I guess that's just the way it goes for some of us. I know in theory you aren't supposed to be - but clearly some of us just are.

I don't have a choice - if I didn't have my snack in between I'd pass out.

I would be having dinner at 4 pm if I couldn't snack between lunch and dinner.

Sometimes I will spread things out. I'll have breakfast around 8:30, my lunch packet around noon and then veggies at 3. Then I'll have dinner at 6:30 or 7. This helps to feel full all day, and also helps when I am out in the field for work.

I generally don't eat between lunch and dinner as I like to have my 3rd IP around 9pm, which is generally a pudding shake. If I do get hungry then I'll have a pickle or two or a cup of tea.

I wasn't eating anything between lunch and dinner. If I was really hungry though or I knew dinner was going to be late, I'd eat half a bar and save the other half for dessert.

My new coach says I need to eat a 4th packet a day now, so he suggested I eat it in the afternoon and save my other snack/dessert for late evening.

I have my shake w/coffee around 7:30 - 8:00 am, my lunch at 12:00 - 12:30 pm, supper at 5:30 - 6:00 pm and then my snack at 9:00 - 9:30 pm... in bed by 10:00 - 10:30, read for 1/2 to 1 hour then lights out - up at 6:00 am.... to do it all over again! LOL!

I used to have a shake arund 3:30 (between lunch and dinner) when I first started, but that lasted about 3 weeks. Then I realized that my lunch kept me full til dinner. You'll do fine, just dont cheat yourself and stick to the diet.

I found that I was starving during that lunch/dinner time-frame, too. When I ate my snack during that time-frame, I was always bummed after dinner when I didn't have a sweet something to chase all of that meat down (I was 90% vegetarian until starting this diet, so the meat thing is pretty overwhelming for me).

I tried having a cup of tea after dinner, but wasn't really liking it.

So, here's what I do now. I eat half of my "real food" protein for lunch. I have my lunch soup (or whatever packet it is for that day) for "snack" at around 3pm, and I have the other half of my "real food" protein for dinner. A few hours later, I'm enjoying my sweet something!

I vary my routine everyday! Somedays I am hungry and eat all my IP before noon, leaving me veggies and meat for the rest of the day. Other days I eat my restricted in the evening. My most common is having an IP pudding shake or muffins in the afternoon. I like the pudding muffins because they are a non-resticted that I can eat over time or take on the run.