Day 18

Hello everyone! Day 18 and I feel like I am back on track. Going off protocol is not a good idea but now that I am back watching my food intake, I have started to lose once again. Weigh in this morning at 169 lbs. I lost one pound from yesterday. YEAH!!! I am now down 14.5 lbs in 18 days. Incredible. My pants are fitting very well and although I haven't had many people commenting on the weight loss, I am feeling so awesome that I can walk into my closet and most of my clothes now fit!!! So my personal challenge is to get to 165 by next week. I haven't seen that number... I can't remember when??!! I was sooo tempted to take a bite of dessert tonight. I was good though and drank my water instead and now I am glad I did. Stay tune!! I am off to bed so that I have no other temptations. 

Day15

It is day 15 and I have skipped a few days of blogging due to the holiday weekend and a busy life. I also have stalled out in the weight loss. I have cheated a bit on the diet and that has really slowed down my fast weight loss. The last post was on May 22 and I was 171.5. Since then I have gained and lost the same 1.5 lbs. I am getting back on track and this morning I weighed 170 lbs. So to date I have lost over 13 lbs. I am pleased with that amount but I know that if the diet was followed perfectly, I am sure the weight loss would have been greater. My clothes are fitting so much better now and I still have plenty of energy during the day to exercise.  

I am not hungry and my "cheats" consist of a bit more protein than suggested. Instead of one vegetable, I might eat two.  Restaurants have been a problem. I haven't learned how to order properly, so I am sure I have had hidden calories in my food and the portion size is too large. And I had two glasses of wine over the weekend... that certainly would affect the weight loss number. So there you have it. Success starts with saying NO to all the food traps. You can be lulled into believing that you will lose no matter what... NOT!!

BUT... I haven't craved any sugar or starches, like candy, pastries and breads and snack foods.  I use to be a huge snacker and that has also stopped.  I would say that for the most part, I am feeling in control... a feeling I haven't felt in a long time.  Having lost 2 lbs per day for several days, I am missing the quick loss on the scale. Hopefully that will change this week. I will keep you all posted. 

Day 10 Results

Day 10 and counting. 

Results are really amazing. Like I said in my last email, I have been slightly pushing the boundaries of the 500 calories a day and I am losing at a consistent level. I have increased my water intake and I do an hour of exercise a day so I have continued with my 1/2 lb a day loss. I weighed in at 171.5 this morning. I haven't seen that weight in a long, long time! The daily weight loss continues to fuel my will power. I have been hungry in the afternoon but have managed to curb my hunger with a cup of tea. I am back to exercising and have not experienced a problem with energy. Actually last night I even took my dog for an extra walk in the evening and it felt great! So all in all, I am feeling very good about the results.  I can see a faint light in the distance! I am hoping to break the 170 mark by Memorial Day! 

Day 9 Slowing down now!

Good Evening!

I was a little disappointed today... lost only 1/2 lb. Can you believe that I would be disappointed at 1/2 lb LOSS! I guess that's what happens after having such incredible losses the first week.  I wake up daily thinking that I was good with my eating so therefore I should be down at least 1-2 lbs. The reality of the situation is that the diet gets harder, the smaller losses now are more disappointing and I am now counting down the days until my 1st round of shots are over. 

Eating a very low calorie diet is starting to get harder for me. Yesterday I did notice a bit more hunger. I think I didn't drink enough water and I am tempting fate with cooking meals for my family. Although the Hcg makes me feel pretty good, I find that the longer I am on the diet the harder it is getting to be around food. I think that the food variety is very limiting. I know that I need to get more creative but I really don't have the time nor the energy to be creative.  I have eaten the same chicken and veggies for a week. I am now starting to push the boundaries of quantity as well. I am not weighing my food which could be another problem. 

So the point of this blog is to be honest with my low 1/2 lb loss... I know why I have slowed down and I also realize that I have been in LA-LA-LAND with such great results. I will regroup and continue to lose.  I am here for the journey and that means all the ups and downs on the journey.

I did purchase a new scale today because I was convinced that my scale was not giving me an accurate reading. I am going to keep posting my weight from my old scale because I want to keep it consistent. My old scale weighs lighter than my new one which is no surprise to me. So I plan to weigh on each scale each day to see how stable the weight numbers are. 

I hope this doesn't sound negative because I don't feel negative about the results so far. I am feeling pretty good physically considering the low number of calories I am consuming. I am just seeing the signs of what small cheats can do ( and I mean small!)... one bread stick too much, a bigger piece of chicken than the 3 oz, not enough water...UGH!  So, I guess as a learning experience this is a good thing. Hopefully this will make me stay focused for the rest of the journey.

PS. I am NOT really disappointed with my 1/2 lb loss. I will take anything I can get! Any loss is a good loss in my book. 

Day #8

Good Evening Everyone!

Well the first week has passed and I am happy to report I am down 10 lbs in 8 days!!! Yes I started this journey at a whooping 183.5 and today my weigh in was 173.5. WOW!! I did 2 day load, and the pass 6 days I have stuck very close to the recommended 500 calorie diet. I will come clean on one cheat... Saturday evening we finally had all the kids with us and we had dinner in a restaurant. My meal consisted of 1/2 of a grilled chicken breast, broccoli, 2 grilled shrimp and 1 glass of white wine. So there you have it! I was nervous about the weigh in the next morning and to my surprise the weight was down 1/2 lb. So I guess my cheat was not as drastic as I thought. I am hopefully going to continue to lose weight consistently in week 2. 

I have felt a little tired but nothing that is keeping me down. I love to exercise and I have cut back slightly. Tomorrow I am back to the gym and ready to continue with my normal schedule. I do feel some cramping since I started the injections but again it is nothing I can't handle. I do drink at least one to two cups of tea every afternoon to starve off the hunger pains. I must say that eating this amount of calories has not been difficult at all. I haven't even had much desire to eat sweets or breads. That is a miracle. Hope everyone else is experiencing success on their HcG journey! 

See you tomorrow and hopefully I will be a bit lighter!

HPG

Filling in the blanks!

Hello everyone! 

I haven't posted very much as you see from my first four posts... but that will change now! I am on day 5 of the protocol and have had very successful results. I will reenact the past week for you and hopefully you will smile a bit because it was like an "I Love Lucy" moment. 

I have finally settled in to being back at home and finally said that if I am ever going to start, this is the time! I was very nervous. First to inject something into my body was certainly out of my realm of comprehension and secondly, I am nervous that this would be the true test of courage to finally take this step to losing the weight I have loathed for sooo long! Maybe I was hiding behind the weight as a way to stay in the "victim" mode. 

Anyway, I am afraid of screwing up, so I read the directions for mixing maybe 100 times and called a friend to ask her a million questions about how to mix the HcG. I felt very odd sitting at my counter mixing these little vials together. I was so nervous the area wasn't sterile enough so I scrubbed the mixing area like a maniac. Had lots of trouble with withdrawing the the Bacteriostatic water from the vial. So I had to keep going back to withdraw a little more, then I thought I had contaminated the needle, so I had to use a second needle. Then I was worried that I had calculated wrong and my mixture was not mixed right. I called my friend back again and by this time she must have been rolling her eyes and thinking I was a real idiot. 

So after what seemed like hours, I finally got comfortable with my HcG and made the decision to start the next day. I was emotionally drained! So next day was the first day of the week and the first injection day and load. FIRST INJECTION!! Oh no... more needles!!! Oh no. I guess this was D-Day for me. No turning back. So once again I sterilize the environment. Take out my injection needle and the little bottle from the refrigerator. Just touching the bottle of HcG was enough to throw me over the edge. But today was the day. 

Ahhh, thank goodness this was not the fiasco that I had the day before. I did hesitate a bit but once the small needle was in, I was okay. So I bet you all are dying for the results seeing I am a few day behind in posting. 

Day one and two load days were okay. I laugh because as soon as I was given permission to eat everything, all of a sudden I got picky to what I wanted to eat. I guess it is more a case of everyday I tell myself how bad I am for eating and drinking everything and now someone is telling me you definitely need to eat a ton. Your mind can play some pretty mean tricks on you and I really saw how the self talk has been my worst enemy for sooo many years. 

Day three was the true test of strength. I know how I would have felt like if I was on this type of low calorie diet without HcG, which would have been simply awful.  On the HcG, my experience was very good considering that 500 calories was normally late afternoon snack amount. I stayed true to the protocol diet and basically had a slight headache for a portion of the day. Drank tea in the mid afternoon when normally I would be searching the pantry for a snack and then I went to bed exceptionally early due to fear. I thought that if anything, if I am sleeping, I won't be thinking about food any longer. It worked!! Got up feeling pretty good and preceded to follow the diet for the next 3 days. 

That's where I am today. Day four and well on my way to losing. Now for the big reveal...

Day 1: 183.5 lbs  (load day)

Day 2: 183.5 lbs (load day)

Day 3: 184.0 lbs (VLCD day)

Day 4: 181.5 lbs (VLCD day)

Day 5  175.5 lbs (VLCD day)

Day 6 174  lbs (VLCD day)

As you can see, I have had some amazing results to date. I will admit that I am skeptical about my scale being 100 % accurate and I don't get the .2, .4, etc readings. So today I am going out to purchase a good quality scale and I will let you all know if I have been deluding myself into thinking that this weight is dropping off of me or if the scale is just trying to play games with my head. I did take beginning measurements but they are sooo bad, I am going to not post them until I take new measurements at the end of this cycle. I will post the old and the new together and hopefully the progress will be enough to smile about. 

I promise to post on a regular bases now. And I will also let you know what my NEW scale reads tomorrow.

Best to all!

HPG 

Finally starting!

Good Morning HCG Challengers and Friends!

Yes I am now just beginning the journey that most of you have already been on for the past month. I had so much travel and functions that it was hard to decide when to start. Just returned from my sons graduation from college and Mothers Day is behind me now... (Happy Mothers Day to all you great Moms). 

I weighed the most I have weighed in a long time. This morning my weight was 183.5! And now I am on the first day of loading. I am not really in the mood to eat too much because of the eating frenzy I have been on since I started with all my travels. I will try to eat high fat and as much as I can over the next two days. Measurements will be posted later today. Wish me luck on this journey!

HPG