...and man, I forgot how tired not eating any fruit or grains makes me feel! Sooo sleepy all day. I also cut out caffiene (mostly), so I'm sure that contributes. I decided to do Phase 1 Monday - Friday because I felt myself slipping off track last week with snacking, drinking, etc.

I've been really happy with my weight loss so far, and have been consistently around 128-130lbs for a few months now (although I was 133.4 today ). I've decided to try to get down to 120lbs, partly 'cause I like the challenge of losing weight. Is that weird? It is nice to know that I am losing weight for vanity/to be a better runner only, though, and not because I need to for health purposes!

Here's hoping I can get myself craving-free again and back down into the 120s by Friday! I am worried I may be overdoing it on the cheese, though - is there a guideline for that? I've been writing down my food intake and it seems I have some amount of cheese at every meal...

Can you go for lowfat cheese? The main deal is the saturated fat/cholesterol, which may or may not be an issue for you. Those laughing cow lowfat cheese wedges, while not for the cheese connoisseur, are still dang tasty and only 35 cals a piece.

I limit my cheese servings to 2 per day to maintain. It does slow down weight loss for some beachers. Cheese should be RF or FF.

Alright, I'm gonna try to move the cheese servings down to 2 per day. I do usually go for the LF kind, and I am a big fan of the laughing cow!

Weighed myself this morning after 2 really good days on the beach and I'm 134.2...?? Argh. Well, at least my cravings will be gone after this week.

How long do y'all usually stay on P1 to "detox"? 5 days should be sufficient, yeah? And then I'll maybe just add back 1 fruit/day next week.

I always did lowfat cheese rather than fat free -- the fat free has more sugar in it which always triggered cravings for me.

I also tried to keep it to about 3 servings a day.. So long as it's low fat and I measure my servings, I never had a problem..

I think cheese and nuts the best foods to cut first if you're stalling because they're so calorie-dense..

I personally choose a full 2-week detox.. I think though that as long as you can get a day or two completely craving free, you should be fine even if it's only been 5 days..

I really love the Cabot 75% fat free cheddar. It tastes a lot like close to full fat cheese to me.

I have a reallly hard time finding fat free cheese. I just get shredded mozzerella...thats OK, right?
good luck zestfest!

I'm pretty sure part-skim mozzarella is fine.. Our Wal-Mart has 2% mozzarella (by Kraft) but honestly, I've never compared the fat/sugar in the two to know if one is better than the other