Still successful!!

So, another post. I finished my second round almost 2 months ago and I'm still in the success zone. I have not gained any weight back at all and I'm fit and happy. Here are my before and after pictures for your viewing! Will try to post every now and again. I'm crazy but still have thoughts that I'll do it one more time...

Before

I am on the far right in this photo above.

After

Anyone with questions, feel free to comment and I'll reply!

Where am I now?

So it's been months since I finished - how am I doing? I'm doing great!

I finished my last round and went 6-8 weeks eating normally and not gaining a single pound back. Not.Even. One!!

On top of that I did a second round (which I am finishing tomorrow) and I have lost another 17 lbs!!

I'll get on and post my finals on Thursday but know that I think this diet is amazing and I would recommend it to anyone who struggles eternally with their weight.

Back in a few days!

Finished with Phase 2

So, today was my last weigh in for Phase 2 of the diet. I took my last dose of HCG on Wed and finished the diet out yesterday. Last week was a really slow weight loss week and it made the temptation too high to continue. So I'm rolling into Phase 3, 3 weeks of no starch, no sugar but everything else is okay.

Final number for the diet, I lost 24 lbs in 31 days. Not bad at all, I don't know my inches lost etc. but I know at least 4 inches around my waist and 1 inch per thigh! I'm very happy with the way I am looking now and also look forward to eating relatively normally.

Today was my first day of eating what I want and I found that I didn't have alot of real hunger still yet today. We had a BBQ for some friends and eating today was fairly simple. I'll keep you posted on my progress of maintaining as I go. Overall, I'm very happy with the final results!

Frustration

Ok, so here's the deal....I've cracked my 20 lb loss but haven't moved since then!

So I cracked over the 20 lb mark on Saturday but can't seem to budge at all after that. The other frustration is that I've only lost about 2 lbs in the last 8 days! I even did what's called an apple day yesterday, eating only 4 (you can have 6) apples for the entire day yesterday and didn't drop at all!!

I'm not sure what's going on. My period only lasted one day but I suspect that it is the culprit. My normal period lasts about 7 days (sometimes 8) and I'm thinking that it's holding me back. I'm going to call my rep at my place today and see what they think. I'm going to be diligent and keep plugging away. But if it doesn't change by Wednesday I may stop the med and finish this cycle out with just 20 lbs lost.

I'll keep you posted!

21 days and a protocol break

Sooooo, I've officially made it my 21 days without a single cheat! I knew I could do it, but it was much harder than expected. I'm half a pound away from being down 20 lbs, so I expect to achieve that in the next couple of days.

TMI coming - warning - warning! My period started yesterday and you aren't supposed to take HCG during menstruation. With hesitation, I stopped the HCG yesterday and today and guess what....I can't even tell that I'm not taking it! The reason you stop it is that you have HCG in your system already when you are on your cycle, so it's really not a big deal. I plan on starting it back up tomorrow, so that I can finish out my dosing by the 25th or so of April.

The down side to my period is that I've lost very little weight the last few days, I expect that I'm carrying more water or something. Hopefully I'll have a bigger loss soon to compensate.

I'll post more later - wish me continued luck!

18 pounds down and help to boot!

So, I'm still dropping, it's happening slower than before, I'm at a rate of about half a pound a day give or take. I'm hoping to hit the 20 mark by my 20th day (which will be Wednesday).

I was feeling hungry more and talked to my weight counselor, she suggested switching my dosing times to move them closer together during the day. So I'm dosing at 8am, 2pm and 8pm. It seems to have really done the trick, my mild hunger has subsided.

I'm still fighting the temptation wagon, I would say that it's the hardest part of the whole deal. It's not like you're really hungry but food smells great and with the kids eating all kinds of fun things, it can be difficult. It's better now that my hunger is less but it still exists. Not to mention that we had to attend a wedding this weekend with alllll kinds of food/sweets/etc around us. But I made it through and still haven't cheated once yet!!

I have had another dilemma. I've developed some terrible hives all over that won't seem to go away. My suspicion is that they are from my excessively dry skin and the spray tanning that I've done twice now. I'm having to take Benedryl at night so that I don't itch myself to death and have broken down twice and put some real lotion on. It didn't seem to affect my weight loss but I'm still only going to use it when necessary.

Oh, yeah and one more thing...my skeptical husband has joined me in my venture (which is definitely making things easier). He started Friday and has already lost 11 pounds! Unbelievable!! It will be easier with the 2 of us doing it. Even though we paid for our plans, we'll probably end up saving money because we aren't eating out and ordering in, etc...

I'll post again when I break 20....

14 lbs and still trucking!

I haven't written because there hasn't been a ton to write about. I'm just churning along. I did have 1 day where I only lost .1 lbs but for the most part, I'm losing about .7 lbs on average per day.

Still having temptations but I'm guessing that will never really go away. Generally feeling full, some hunger but nothing that I can't live through. The only negative is that I have been getting spacey when I get hungry in the evening and I don't concentrate well then.

Really nothing else to say but that it's WORKING!

10 pounds down in a week!

Unbelievable! I have lost 10 lbs of weight since last Thursday!

Ironically, I feel virtually no hunger at all and have even eliminated some food from the diet because I've been getting so full when I eat. On Wednesday night I literally was gagging down part of my dinner on Wednesday because I was so full (Dr Simeons insists that you at least finish all of your protein).

I did make a minor error in judgement. I was missing the feel of my muscles a bit and did some squats and lunges 2 days ago. Ohhhh, the pain is overwhelming, I have never had muscle pain like this and can promise that I will not attempt that again. My body is not capable of building muscle on such a low amount of calories...I may try walking a bit, I am used to exercising now and I miss it.

One more interesting twist, I took some allergy medicine yesterday (my allergies are off the chart right now). They worked tooo well, they dried my skin, my nose, my mouth, my eyeballs.....ugh! I will suffer through my symptoms before I even consider taking any more medicines. Tylenol seems to be the only thing that I can take, even it works better than normal.

Another tidbit. I loooove cake, love it, love it.....today a co-worker brought a cake into work and it smelled delicious, but I wasn't even remotely tempted to eat it. I couldn't even fathom putting a tiny bit in my mouth. I can't explain why but the desire just didn't exist. It's so amazing.

Sooo, there's my first real week on the diet in the last few posts. 10 lbs down and truly feeling great!

And so it gets easier...

Sooo, I had a long weekend with family and great temptation. I have lost most of my hunger as well as 8 lbs! I'm starting to feel a bit better - it's easier to deal with temptation and tonite was the first time that I couldn't finish a meal, it just seemed like too much to consume. So I reserved my dessert (an apple) for later in the evening.

Another interesting twist - I've always been allergic to citrus. I was wary of eating oranges and all the lemon juice in the diet, but I haven't had a single reaction to any food! I have no idea why that would be but I find it amazing and sort of fun. I even ate a bunch of radishes for one of my veggies and didn't get heartburn like I used to. It's unbelievable!

So I'm clicking along and things seem to be going well. I'm starting to talk to my friends about it a bit, with hesitation, it isn't your average diet.

So far, so good - I'm feeling great!

It's always harder than it looks.

Sooo, I'm officially just 4 days into the diet and here's what I've learned briefly:

Temptation is tough even when you're not hungry.
Man, oh, man was I hungry on Thurs and Fri of last week.
Saturday was better - almost no appetite at all.
Today was good too.
Steak is the key to feeling not too hungry.
I'm tired and hope my energy picks up soon.
40 days is a lot longer than I thought.
It's working though and keeping me going!
I'm waiting for a sense of euphoria to kick in and more energy. (This is something that most users have felt).
I am amazed how adaptable I am food wise. The food choices have worked out just fine for me!
The weighing is not as bad as I thought either.

That's all my quick thoughts so far.

Day 1

Sooo, today I begin. I weighed myself this morning at an even 194.0 lbs (less than I expected). I started the HCG this morning. Today and tomorrow I have to eat to capacity.

It seems like it would be easy but the HCG makes it so you don't feel very hungry. It's like forcing food down. Not much fun but in a sort of strange way. Here's my food today so far:

2 waffles, yogurt, banana, 4 sausage links for breakfast
2 cups coffee with halfnhalf
1/2 poptart
1/4 lber with cheese and fries and soda from McDonalds
1/2 concrete from Culvers

and I still have dinner!!

I've only told 4 people so far, I'm not ready to try to explain it to the world. The responses from my loved ones has been thoroughly negative and skeptical. I completely understand this because I would respond similarly. Will keep posting as I go!

Why HCG?

So, I'm still not sure who is going to see this but on I go. (Clue me in if you find this and figure out what's going on).

So, what does HCG do exactly? I don't feel much like going into all the details but essentially, it helps your hypothalamus properly regulate your fat storage in your body. HCG will help me to burn the deeply stored fat inside my body. My measly 500 calories of intake a day will just kickstart my metabolism every day while my hypothalamus will tell my body to burn my stored fat. It does this in such a fashion as to not burn muscle and other needed parts of the body. This seems completely outlandish but I've done enough research to believe that this is possible.

This means that I could possibly lose as much as 1 lb of fat per day (not likely every day). My first few days on the diet though I have to raise up my healthy fat stores while using the HCG....I will have to gain and eat as much as I can stand to eat for 2 days. What foods would you gorge on for your last free meals for 40 days? Mine will be breads, fats, fried foods....a virtual free for all. Then the hard work begins.

Supposedly the HCG will keep me from feeling hungry during the 40 days. I read many accounts of folks saying that felt so full that they could barely eat 500 calories on some days without feeling stuffed. I believe that when I see it.

Also, there are many difficult parts of this diet to me:

• I have to weigh myself daily. I hate the scale! It stresses me out!
• I cannot use too many lotions and potions on my skin and face - I'm addicted to these things.
• No sugar! I have to use Stevia in my coffee for 40 days - WOW!

I'm sure there's more, I'll continue to blog and keep you in the loop.

How it all begins

Soooo, I'm not sure who's going to find this blog other than folks searching for more info on HCG. I'm deciding to do it for my own tracking.

Here's how it began. I've struggled with my weight for most of my life (the worst of it began after I used DepoProvera for birth control - I think it permanently messed up my body). I've been up and down and up and down in weight for as long as I can remember. I've peaked out at about 230 and the lowest I can think of being was about 12 years ago when I weighed about 160. For most of my life when I wanted to lose weight - I could - by altering my diet and increasing exercise. I once used weight watchers very successfully as well.

After having the kids, something has changed. I gained a virtual TON of weight during my pregnancies (definitely my own fault) and after my second was born, I did lose some of the weight but not as much as I would have liked. I did it the normal ways but this time it has been sooo much harder. I reached a point last summer/fall where I was exercising to pain 3-4 times per week and watching my food and I still only managed to drop down to about 185 lbs. I was literally killing myself with workouts and watching food intake and having very little success. The second I slowed things down, I rapidly jumped up 195 again and I now find myself closer to 200 lbs.

I AM SOOOO FRUSTRATED! So what do I do? I pray about it. Deep, whole-hearted prayers. "What am I supposed to do God? How do I fix this?" I get to the point when I feel excessive guilt about every piece of food going in my mouth. One night I pleaded out my heart in prayer....

The very next day a client ends up on my spa bed. We happen upon a conversation about weight loss (she tells me she has lost 30 lbs over the last year) and she tells me briefly about the Simeons/HCG diet plan. It sounds insane! 500 calories per day - that's crazy! But I literally feel like she was sent to me as an answer to my struggles. I download a copy of the Simeons protocol and read it cover to cover in 2 days. I CONSUME it mentally and to me - it makes a lot of sense. If you'd like to check it out - you can download it here (don't worry about giving out your info - they won't bother you):

Simeons Manuscript

Sooo, after 2 1/2 weeks of research, I've decided that I'm going to do it. I'll be signing up on Monday and probably beginning Tuesday. It was go as follows: 40 or fewer days on HCG and VLCD (very low calorie diet), 21 days of Atkins style diet followed by supposed normal eating. I am determined to execute this as perfectly as I can to achieve the greatest possible results. I will be blogging here every week about my progress. Wish me luck! This will be a very difficult process but I feel very determined. Feel free to post questions in the comment section.