[Assungusa]

I just realized I was misinformed about how things work in Phase 3. I thought since Phase 3 was a mantience period and you were only allowed 1500 calories this meant you should expect to lose more weight during this time. I just familiarized myself with Phase 3 more, and realized that you shouldn't lose weight during this phase.... That kind of throws me for a loop.

I'm doing a 40 day round, but now wonder if I should extend the round? How long is the longest amount of time you are allowed to do Phase2 safely?

I am scheduled to finish my 40 day round on April 7th, so about two more weeks to go. The only reason why I hestitate to extend the 40 day round is because I am leaving for a cruise on April 28th, and if I stay on the schedule I currently have this would give me three weeks of Phase 3 before the cruise. I was also thinking I would still have three more weeks to lose weight before I'm forced to put on a bathing suit. I figured it would be much easier to do Phase 4 on cruise/vacation then it would be to do Phase 3.

What to do, what to do? Advice and tips would be great on how I should approach this.

[teentodiefows]

I see plenty of views but no replies....
Would like to get a game plan going.

[Soolfelpecelf]

40 days is a long time. I'm close and I'm really struggling here at the end. Your best bet is to probably finish as planned and make sure you're stable before leaving for the cruise. You can always do another round in 6-8 weeks. That's my two cents, fwiw. Good luck!

[WeestDype]

With limited information that I am guessing about from your tracker, I would probably suggest finishing up this round as you have scheduled, then doing a good P3 before you go off on a cruise where you will be tempted with lots of alcohol and munchies.

It looks like you will still need to be doing another full round to get to your goal of 160, so looking at it from a purely practical standpoint, it is doubtful that extending 10 days (as an example) with a loss of, say, 5 pounds will make that much overall difference. I think it would be WAY better for your overall maintenance success to do a strong P3 at home where you can control it, than to try to get a few more pounds off and have to eat P3 on a cruise ship.

JMHO!

[kaysions]

thank you for your opnions... I really do see your points about going ahead and moving on Phase 3 because it would be much easier to do at home then on a cruise ship. That was my plan from the start. You are also right about I will mostly likely need to do a second round to truly get to my goal.

I guess my next question is, why is it such a must not to try to lose anymore weight on Phase 3?

[bushomeworkk]

I agree with badkitty! plan for two rounds. A cruise would quite difficult to go on while in phase 2. Phase 3 will make it easier. From what I read phase 3 is about allowing your body to stabilize. If you're wanting to lose more go through p2, p3, and I think you can go back to phase 2 then. I may be wrong about skipping p4 but a veteran could answer that better. Sounds as though you have a good game plan in store. Best of luck!

[bZEUWO4F]

This is what I *believe* is the reasoning for no weight loss in P3. More opinions are welcome!

Your hypothalamus sets your metabolic rate. For various reasons (aging, fertility, thyroid, genetics, insulin resistance, etc), our metabolic rate could be low enough that we have great difficulty in losing weight and great ease in gaining. P2 puts our hypothalamus into a state of "resting", where it doesn't have to do a lot of work to decide what to do with the food we input into our body. When we stop the hCG (and the hCG stops putting all this fat from our reserves into our bloodstream to be burned/excreted/whatever happens to it), our hypothalamus wakes up when we start adding more foods in. If we don't give our bodies enough calories/fat/protein, then our hypothalamus "resets" our metabolic rate low again, so that it becomes easy to regain the weight we lost. If we reset our hypothalamus with a higher caloric intake, then we are able to eat that higher amount without the issues that we would have prior to the diet.

The end result we are hoping for with this diet isn't just to get into a smaller wedding gown, or to look better in a bathing suit for a vacation, or to have a smaller butt than our XH's 2nd wife at graduation in June (my personal petty goal!!!) but to be able to eat sensibly for the rest of our lives, being cognizant of what puts our personal fat back onto our bodies, and being as healthy as we can be.

So take your P3 with happiness, and then come back for another round, and know that you are doing this in the BEST way, because dropping another 5 pounds in P3 won't make that big of a difference for the long run and could very well derail the whole process that you have worked so hard on! Enjoy the cruise!

[EliteFranceska]

just my opinion.... I would do phase 2 for as long as I can stand it given that everything is moving smoothly and no issues then stop perhaps a week prior to cruise and move onto phase 3 but that is just me because the only difference between ph 3 and 4 is the no carbs and sugar and when u hit 4 u can still run into the same issues as 3 With food issues but this just me i figure i will go for as long as my body tolerates it losing as much as possible in ph 2 as i can bfore maintenance i realized that while in 3 it teaches me better maintenance then in 4 but this can vary person to person..... Thru all my pass and fail rounds i have learned much more about my body and its reaction to food, i started this journey with many breaks in between at 186 in april of 2010 and today im at 134, i guess its just really depends on your self control and how u feel, i would never do the cruise on ph 2 though :-)