This is my first week on the IP program and so far it's been easy...except for today. Today is my 5th day and I'm hungry even after I eat. I am having dinner in a couple of hours and I'm drinking a lot of water to try to kill the hunger pains.

Does anyone know why I'm feeling this way on my 5th day? I would understand my body feeling this way on the first couple of days of the program. I haven't changed anything in the diet program. I have lost 3.5 pounds so far. Just curious about if others know why this is happening now instead of earlier in the week.

It's very simple. You're hungry because you're not eating very much.

A big driver of hunger is leptin and the less body fat you have the lower your leptin levels are. Generally speaking - if you were 400 lbs when you started the IP diet you would feel less hunger after an initial adjustment period than the same person starting at 200 lbs.

I did a similar diet to the IP diet and for the first two weeks it was difficult to eat all the food but I started getting hungrier and hungrier. After about 8 weeks it was very difficult to stay on the program. I was hungry even while I was still in the middle of eating! (I didn't start it at 300 lbs I started at 285 and ended the PSMF diet at about 255.)

The only good news is that hunger comes in waves and if you can stay busy you should be able to ignore it.

Hey Freebird - it will get better. In fact today it got a lot better for me. Many of the people on this site told me it would all work out and to wait it out and they were right. You can get through this phase of the plan and feel better.

I've had a handful of those days. I put my entire dinner on a huge bed of lettuce. So, I ate the 8 oz of meat and the 2 c of veggies on top of a big bed of lettuce. I did this several days in a row and it seemed to help.

Hot drinks help too. And finding something else to do. Get SUPER busy with something to distract yourself. I had to learn the difference between "head" hunger and true hunger. I've found its not always Leptin for me (but I believe leptin has responsibility). Sometimes it is habits that need to be changed. I was used to eating what I wanted when I wanted, which is why I got so heavy. Those habits needed to be broken. Retraining the body takes effort.