HCG Diet - VLCD#16 Can I change my life for food?

Another check-in today to track my progress with the HCG Diet; I registered a weight loss today or - released some fat - how they say, so everything is good.

Weight loss process is usually with a downtrend in any diet: you lose a lot of weight to start with, and then things tend to slow down. Plateaus are more frequent, cravings are stronger and general motivation is not always 100% positive like the beginning. But – as I always say to myself – that's part of the game, so I try to not lose focus on what I'm doing and for what.

In the past few days I had lots of food temptations, and literally I had to repeat in my mind: food not allowed, carbs carbs, sugar sugar. I know the effect of the sugar has on me and I don't want to go down that path, plus we all need to learn to avoid junk food anyway, regardless what type of Diet or food restriction we're following. It is a life change, contrary to other diets that I tried so far, HCG Diet makes you feel so good that you learn on loving your body, in a different way, realizing that we really are what we eat.

In the past, every time I heard: it's not just a Diet but it's a life change, I've been always afraid of what I would need to do to change my life. Hey people don't change their life from dusk to down, it requires trials and errors and most importantly: determination and commitment.

With the HCG Diet is a natural process, if done properly this Diet will reward you so much that you would be asking yourself how I ate so badly till now? The fat is not just lost, is redistributed in a different way on your body. It was clear since the first few days, that my weight loss was mostly affecting those areas where stored fat gets stuck forever, so difficult to get rid of. I took measurements after a couple of weeks and I saw no changes in areas where I did not have that much to lose and great numbers on others where my biggest problems are – never happened with previous diets.

One of the biggest mistakes that dieters do very often is thinking that, when the diet is over, we will be allowed to eat whatever we want. Unfortunately that's not entirely true. For some people is ok having a piece of cake once in a while, without affecting the results; but, for most of us, and I would include myself in the crowd, in order to be successfully on maintaining the weight loss, we just need to kiss goodbye to a lot of food, all those carbs that might trigger a spiral of overeating and sense of failure. There are moments in everyone's life when food is a comfort, it's our escape from reality, it is a warm hug, and a way to say to ourselves that we need love/attention and only there…eating the whole cake can fill that emptiness. Unfortunately 99.9% of the time we always regret doing it though, question is: why then we keep on doing it? Why I can just say to myself that I don't need food to feel better, I need a healthy body and be able to look at myself in the mirror and not feel miserable.

HCG Diet - VLCD#15 Food cravings and weight gain

Today is Monday and it marks my fifteenth day on the VLCD. Believe it or not I registered a gain weight this morning. Who gains weight eating 500 Calories a day? But this is part of any diet I guess, some days we can be a bit constipated or TOM is on its way, factors can be many. During my Dr. Bernstein Diet for me tomatoes were making me gain weight! So I'm not much worried about it, especially since I had small traces of Ketosis this morning, that means I'm still burning some fat, I wonder if drinking too much water/decaf makes my Ketostix inaccurate.

Overall I can say that HCG is a miracle hormone for weight loss. Anyone can tell me the dangers or other silly explanations on why this Diet is so not-healthy but my reaction is always: have you tried it?

Because until you actually do the Diet, experience how HCG "fixes" my binge eating desires, how not-hungry I feel every day, how energetic I am – despite the 500 Calories intake; well until that I will not accept any comment or opinion in merit.

I did the Dr. Bernstein Diet many times; he has clinics all over the country – a 600 to 800 calories diet that leaves you starving and weak all the times, that puts you in starvation mode. So if there's someone to blame first, should be all those clinics that legally leave their patients go through this type of strict food regiment.

Yesterday I went do some shopping at Marshalls and HomeSense and every time during this Diet I get so many cravings looking at the organic healthy section where they sell of those different types of nuts. Ok, I should admit that I love love any type of nuts discovered on this planet and most likely if you bring me some more from Mars, I would like those too. But apart from that, I crave a lot peanut butter, the crunchy one. So much that I cannot have any in my apartment if I want to sleep at night without suffering for the desire of eating the whole jar! Anyhow, I had a revelation yesterday thinking about this – it might be obvious for many of you but it wasn't for me, till yesterday. My cravings are messages from my body that's craving fats, since the HCG Diet is a very low fat Diet, this would make sense. I recall thinking, during my Loading Phase, to eat the whole jar I have in my cabinet, to load healthy fats, but really it didn't appeal to me, so I didn't even open it. While, on the other hand, I would have eaten 2lb of Nutella with no problem. Too bad I was trying to load clean – due to my sugar addiction.

HCG Diet - R3P2 - VLCD8

It's been already 8 VLCD days, so far so good for this Round 3 – I don't have any hunger issue, I don't feel tired or weak, my mood is good and the usual foggy head is almost gone! HCG is my miracle Diet and I can never stop to thank Dr. Simeons for his discovery.

This morning my weight was exactly like yesterday but I had +4 Moderate Ketosis so I'm assuming that if not on pounds I'm losing inches, so I'm not worried at all.

One thing that I like of the HCG Diet is the way I lose weight, it's in my most difficult places, like my big belly, I noticed that it goes down quicker when I'm on HCG rather than just me losing weight counting Calories. This is priceless for me that I always had my fat accumulated mostly on my stomach area.

I'm barely eating half of the allowed food on the Diet; I really don't feel hungry, sometimes I force myself to eat at least the protein serving, so I don't experience any deficiency. I'm taking lots of supplements too though, the Calcium and Potassium used by Dr. Bernstein, not sure if it's true but it seems helping me to get into Ketosis.

HCG Diet - Looking forward to my Round #3

Today is Thursday and I can't wait to start my loading days on Saturday and Sunday - not much for the gorge but for my VLCD days. I can't wait to get rid of this fat!

I found that if I don't have a specific Diet Plan I eat like a hungry pig, which makes me gain weight at exponential speed obviously.  Some people may argue on whether being constantly on a Diet is a healthy thing or not. I believe it's a good thing, having a daily diet plan should ensure a safe maintenance and prevent me to overeat or make bad food choices when dealing with food.

I already know that I need to remove sugar from my life for good, I've issues with it and after years trying to resolve those issues I felt better only when I was not taking any, so – despite the delicious taste and my endless love for double chocolate cakes, I can't consume sugar and be safe with my binge eating episodes. So I should kiss it goodbye eventually, I just still didn't figure it out when…

This coming Saturday I've my PPE exam for my license and it falls in the middle of my first loading day, the exam is like 3 hours, between 12:00PM and 3:00PM – I don't want to go to the exam with my stomach full of fat or I'll fall asleep during the 3hrs, I need to focus on what I'm doing so I'm start to feel a bit worried on how I'll manage this situation…I might wake up very early and start to eat way before the exam, at the end my HCG injection needs to be taken around 5:00/5:30 AM anyway, since this is my usual wake up time during the week.

Wish me luck!

Diet or not? Beautiful as we are

I've been obsessed with food, dieting, weight loss program and related blogs and videos since ages now and one thing that I found in many comments/advises is: "nobody cares about your weight, you should love yourself as you are" – or something similar to that.

Well my point of view is that, those types of advises are often just dumb foolishness – my apologies for my honest personal opinion.

To tell you the whole truth my ex-boyfriend broke up with me because he liked more thin women and although lots of people can say that he was just a jerk – which most likely is true – still remain the fact that he was looking at me and my overweight figure as person.

Similar thing in my office, if I gain one pound I hear comments from all the girls on how tight my dress looks today; if I lose weight they make comments on my skinny legs. Once I found on the white board a silly joke of me before & after the project….a draw of a skinny person for the before and rounded one for the after. Sure those types of things should be considered just rude jokes done by stupid people, but hey I work here every-day so this is what I have to deal with daily, and changing company could not be a solution of my problem, dieting might be instead.

Really I don't need a wise advise of someone telling me how beautiful I am and I should not try so hard to lose weight. I have an eating disorder and I have no issue on admitting that – but this should not prevent me to be at least happy on how I look. 

HCG Diet - Loading Phase and my food list for it

The Loading Phase is an important step of the HCG Diet, if not done properly could compromise the whole round, because - let's face it - if you're starving how many chances on succeeding you have?

So here comes the gorge phase, where you take HCG injections that will help you saturate your blood with as much fat as you can, your reserves for when no fat at all will ever come, not even through your dry broken skin – since no creams with oil are allowed during the Diet.

When I started my HCG Journey with my first Round I made a list of food items I should buy to eat during the loading Phase. Here's my original list:

1. Walnuts (based on my researches the nuts with the highest amount of fat)

2. Eggs + Egg whites (I usually prepare some mini-frittata in the oven with it – lots of proteins and fats)

3. Various cured meats (pork mostly – high in fat)

4. Cheese (different types, mostly those high in fat)

5. Pancetta/bacon

6. Sour cream (the one high in fat % – I use it for the mini-frittata as dip)

7. Cottage cheese (the one high in fat %)

8. Chicken with skin

9. Quest Protein bars (the ones with Stevia – avoid aspartame/sucralose)

10. Cheese Sticks/Snacks

TO PREPARE FOR THE LOADING DAYS

1. Mini frittata (adding pancetta/bacon and cheese to it or any pork meat available, lots of olive oil to add – I cooked them in muffin-trays so they become almost bite-size)

2. Chicken with added fats (skin NOT removed, lots of olive oil to add)

3. Boiled Eggs for snacks

Those ingredients are very easy to cook; I mostly mix them and put in the oven with lots of oil and butter. I try to avoid having junk food or sugar; I don't even eat bread so I can get into Ketosis faster once on the VLCD. I have enough to eat in the Loading Days so my cravings are under control, my only indulgence is the Cottage Cheese that I eat with unsweetened cacao powder and a couple of drops of Stevia – that would be my "dessert" during the gorge days.

I read a lot of people eating just spaghetti, pasta, pizza, chocolate bars, chips, or all those candy bars that do not add anything good to a Loading Phase. Where is the high fat content? I don't think stuffing ourselves with sugar and grain is a wise idea, it defeats the purpose of the load!

HCG Diet Reload - Considerations

Here I am again, struggling with my weight and my eating disorder, but looking forward to start again with the HCG Diet.

My parents and nieces were here for four weeks in July and I ate so badly, unable to force myself on having just healthy food…while watching them eating pancakes and poutines. Oh well, I guess I knew it, fool me that I thought I could lose weight while they were here with me, I mostly been a driver and paid few bills. Never again using my few yearly vacation days to let someone else enjoy their vacation, regardless if it's my family - I still need some relaxation time off just for me.

So my plan is to start again the HCG injections on Saturday, so I will have the weekend to load properly, my VLCD #1 should fall on Monday August 8^th – if I stick to this plan.

I do have some concerns though, mostly wondering if I'm really ready to start again the Diet and also I hope I will not feel hungry as the Round 2 and with good energy and mood as I had in my first Round with HCG.

One thing that I wished I did similarly to my first Round is the Detox period - prior my injections. I removed sugar and grains before starting my VLCDs so I did not have much of a withdrawal while dieting, it was great but in the second Round I missed this part. Obviously I've no guarantee that the clean loading could affect my weight loss, lots of people don't load clean on this diet and they still have great results, so I will keep my fingers crosses, trying to limit the carbohydrates assumption at least during the Loading Phase.

Another thing that I will try to accomplish for this new Round #3 is getting rid of the coffee, or at least the use of Stevia. As sweetener Stevia is not bad, but keeps me attached to the sweet taste of things and I found it dangerous for my eating disorder, I should forget sugar forever if I want to maintain my weight in a healthy way.

Once I started my VLCD days I will try to drink detox tea before bed and take weekly my Detox Baths, not sure how much can they help but I always felt good when doing it.

On top of my HCG Diet Round #3 plan I also want to do something for my mental Detoxification, as I probably mentioned million times in this blog, my biggest issue here is my food obsession that makes me think about food 24/7; for this reason I'm thinking to join a sort of group therapy for people with Eating Disorders. I found a no-profit association that has group meetings once a week, it's not far from where I live and time is good even for people working as myself, so I'm seriously thinking to give it a try and see if – emotionally also – I can improve my relationship with food. This would be more valuable for me than losing any weight!