Can you do ideal protein Monday thru Friday for breakfast and lunch...eat healthy portion health normal foods (some carbs) occastionally on weekends and still lose weight just lose it slower? The food is too expensive. I dont' mind the shakes at all for lunch and breakfast but for dinner I want to eat a small amount of cheese or etc.
Please give me your opinions.
I would think I could lose the same weight by just eating like a should be and exercising.

This diet is designed to be followed according to plan to get the best results. If you are not ready to fully commit then I recommend you look for an alternative.
IP does have a different protocol for diabetics that may work better for what you are looking for. I don't know the specifics but I am pretty sure you get to have one fruit and some dairy each day. You should be able to find the sheets in the daily chat.
Another option would be to use alternatives, they tend to be less expensive. There is a forum here as well where others post what they are using and how to decide if the food meets IP guidelines.

Good luck and hopefully you find what will work best for you.

Not if you are following the Ideal Protein plan, and expecting typical Ideal Protein results. You cannot lose 2-4 pounds per week on many other diet plans. or just with diet and exercise.

IP is a ketogenic diet - what that means is that your carb intake is so low that you deplete your glycogen stores (which your body normally uses for energy) and instead of burning glycogen your body starts burning fat for energy (known as ketosis). When you add in carbs that are not on plan, you are pushing yourself back into the zone where your body is not in ketosis and not burning your fat stores for energy.

The IP program is ALSO designed to be low enough calorie (and remember that grains, high carb veg and fruits are ALSO higher in calories than the veggies allowed on plan) so that there is a big deficit between what your body needs to function, and what you are taking in. That's what produces the high losses when compared with other diet plans.

There are diet plans with a similar structure to what you are proposing. If you don't feel that you would be a good fit for the IP plan as it is written, you may want to investigate those options. The 5:2 diet plan is one of those, and might be better suited to your needs:

http://thefastdiet.co.uk/

Can you? Maybe. The only way to find out would be to try. It would be a rather expensive experiment IMO, but you probably could find a way to do it successfully, if you really wanted to.

If you think you can "lose the same weight by eating like [you] should be and exercising," then do that. You can lose the same weight with less drastic measures, but not at the same speed, so you will have to accept slower progress.

Losing quickly through a ketogenic diet is a very different experience than more moderate methods. The pros and cons are different, so you need to determine what type(s) of dieting work best for you, and no one can tell you that. You have to learn it on your own, through experimentation.

If you like the idea of meal replacements, you might consider buying or borrowing the book, The Simple Diet, by James Anderson and Nancy Gustafson. It is modeled after HMR, a hospital based meal replacement plan. The plan is not ketogenic, but uses grocery store products, so it's quite affordable. The basic plan, in a nutshell, is 3 shakes (100-200 calories each), 2 frozen or shelf-stable dinners (140-300 calories each) and 5 or more servings fruits and veggies.

If you want a ketogenic diet, Atkins, or something like it, may be the way to go. If you aren't going to be under a doctor's supervision, you have to be very careful on ketogenic diets that are very low-carb and very low fat. Eat plenty of veggies and/or include a fair bit of healthy fats.



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