My HCG Diet Journey

My HCG Diet Journey

Day #1 May 26, 2013

Ok, so, I decided to try the HCG diet to see if it will help me lose weight.  I need to lose  30 lbs, and have struggled the last year to get it off. I keep blaming my age as the culprit.  So,  I will journal my progress here, to see how well I do.  Hopefully, really , really well. So I started on May 24, with May 24 and 25th being my load days�eating lots of fatty foods! For 2 days, I didn�t have to feel guilty about eating the wrong stuff!  Anyway, Sunday, May 26 was day 1 of my the actual VLC (very low calorie) Diet.  My starting weight was 160 lbs. The day went great, very little hunger experienced�in fact I had to remind myself to eat, until about midnight, I had hunger pains, but I had food still available, so ate an apple and about 2 oz of chicken breast, and was good to go.  I woke up this morning and weighed myself, not to   bad, my weight was 158.5, so I lost 1.5 lbs.  Ok, I am good with that.  So I will see what happens today, and report back tomorrow!

Day #2  May 27, 2013

Ok, so I am on to another day! Yesterday, I was having some mild hunger pains, but I am not sure why. It could be that I would forget to eat until the pains hit me so bad that I would go eat, but it really didn�t feel good once it started.  I have to go force myself to eat before the hunger pains begin.  With that, I woke up this morning, anxious to weigh myself, and see if I had again lost weight, and to my wonderful surprise, I had dropped another 1.5 lbs.  Another good day! So my new weight was 157 lbs!  So, I have lost 3 lbs total over the last 2 days.

Day #3   May 28, 2013

Today something really kicked in!  My mild hunger pains were nearly gone!  I only felt them right around 10:30 pm, but I had my fruit snack left (strawberries�yummy!) and after eating 1 cup of those delicious fresh strawberries, hunger pains were gone!  Easy day!!! I am so happy.  Ok, so now for the update�this morning for a weigh in.  Well, I anxiously did my morning routine, and I got on the scale and YAY! More weight was gone.   My weight loss was 1 lb. Not quite as good as the 1.5lbs I had been losing, but still not bad.  I only hope that I can continue losing in the 1 to 1.5lb area�. We shall see! So my new weight is 156 lbs, total lost 4 lbs in 3 days!

Day #4   May 29, 2013

Really good day! I continue to need to remind myself to eat, and to make sure that I drink water like I am supposed to.  No real hunger feelings today except when its well past time for me to eat, then once I eat, I am full.  I am really loving this, but still a little skeptical of how much I can lose over a total of 23 days. I have done fad diets and had rapid waist lost before, so I am hoping that this isn�t going to be a rapid weight regain. I am so tired of the yo-yoing that I have done over the course of my life.  Ok, on to the results.  Well, I was again presently surprised as I stepped on the scale.  I was for sure that the extra small strawberry (which was SOOOOOOOO delicious) was going to stop me from losing, BUT once again, I stepped on the scale, and another 1.5 lbs of weight were gone.  So, my new weight is 154.5 and a total of 5.5 lbs in 4 days!!  I am excited and nervous all at the same time.  I haven�t felt any weakness, or energy drain or headaches or symptoms like that.  In fact, I am finding that I require less sleep.  I usually will need to sleep about 9 hours and then I am dragging myself out of bed, but I sleep 6 hours, wake up alert, and just pop out of bed.  This is awesome! I love it. Looking forward to seeing more positive changes.

Day #5   May 30, 2013

Its hard to believe I am at Day #5.  I ate right but I didn�t drink enough water, so I think that may have effected my weight loss. So I miss certain things (like candy), but its no unbearable yet.  Hopefully, it won�t become unbearable.  I hope that I am able to take semi-before full body pictures, but so far I keep forgetting.  I would like to be able to compare.  So, as I said, I didn�t drink much water, or green tea for that matter and my weight loss for the day was .50lbs.  That was disappointing, but I would rather have a .50 lb loss than nothing at all.  So, I have now lost 6 lbs in 5 days! I would be happy if I can continue to average this, but alas I think I may be hitting the slow down days!

Day#6   May 31, 2013

1 Week almost down!!!  Only a few more to go.   Hunger has pretty much disappeared. I am so glad!  But I did have a bad day today. Uuuggghhh! Ok, so what happened to me right?  I slipped off the plan.  I have one major weakness that I can�t seem to resist�Movie Theater Popcorn!  So, I was on my monthly lunch and movie date with one of my best friends. I did great for lunch, ate on plan all the way!  We get to the theater, and the fresh popcorn smell hits my nose, mouth begins to water, and all I can think is �what�s a movie with no popcorn?� So, the bad news is I broke plan, the good news is I controlled the amount that I ate.  Usually, I would have eaten the whole thing!  So, I made up for it, by skipping my fruit and bread for the day.  So, how much did I lose?  Well, I don�t know.  I can�t bring myself to step on the scale.  A cheat day throws you back by 3 days�so rather then me see that I either didn�t lose any weight or worse gain weight I have decided to go 3 extra days without weighing myself!  This will allow me time to recover, and hopefully begin to see the weight drop instead of weighing myself, seeing I�ve gained, and then throwing a  food filled, eat whatever I want because I totally screwed up pity party!  Trust me, that would be me if I did.  Now, if I weighed myself, and found that I still lost weight, then I might decide that cheating isn�t so bad, and make really bad decision in the future. So NOT knowing at this point is my friend.  So, I will resume weighing myself on Tuesday or Wednesday!

Day #7-#14 June 1 � June 10, 2013

Ok, I took a break from my blog on the HCG diet, but I didn�t take  a break from the HCG diet.  So, let me catch up. I decided to wait a few extra days before weighing myself, and finally I weighed myself on day #10, and yes, I had a set back because when I weighed I had only lost 2 additional pounds, which is a total of 8 lbs in 10 days!  Not to bad, because I haven�t ever lost 8 lbs in 10 days, but all I can think about is if I hadn�t done the popcorn cheat I would be so much further�Oh well, so it goes.  Well my monthly hormones are kicking in and so my weight loss has slowed to a trickle. Over the last few days I have lost another 1 lbs bringing my total loss in 14 days to 9 lbs.  Not to bad, but my suggestion to you if you do the HCG, don�t cheat!  It�s not worth it. My weigh in today is 151 lbs.

Day #15-#28   June 11-June 24, 2013

Well, the last 2 weeks have been a journey. Things have not went as well as I had hoped. At this point, I am still losing weight, but have had several stalls.  The good news is that I have dropped 2 dress sizes, and my size 12 jeans are falling off me�literally, and I need a belt to hold them up. I was wearing a 14 in pants, but bought myself a size 10 (YAY), and I still have at least 20 lbs to go before I am at my goal weight.  I am excited to see a thinner face, and a body that is getting smaller by the day.  But I haven�t seen the scales move like I would have thought they would.  So, over the last 2 weeks, I had a hormonal stall that didn�t hardly budge once I was back to normal.  I did an apple day which got me to release another 1lb, but I have only been losing about .50 lbs every other day. But, I did have another cheat on father�s day!  Hmmm, eating a few things I shouldn�t have.  So I am now at 146.5 lbs, so I have only loss another 4.5 lbs.  So I am re-evaluating what I have been doing.  So, I have lost a total of 13.5 lbs in 28 days.  Now, that is really good for me overall, because I have been trying to lose weight for the last few years, and couldn�t make the scaled budge.  So although I am disappointed that I haven�t lost at least 20 lbs, I am thankful that I have dropped 13.5 lbs in less than 30 days! So I plan to go through round 1 for a total of 42 days, move to phase 3 maintenance, and back for the next round to lose my last few pounds.  But, I still have 14 days left on this round, so I am really hoping to drop another 7 pounds over the next 2 weeks, and then I will only need to lose about 10 more!  Ok, that�s it til the next time!

Day #29-#36 June 11-July 1, 2013

Ok, Sorry!  I have been MIA! I had gotten so so busy, I haven�t been able to update my blog! So, I have finished 36 days on HCG, and stopped short of the 42 I had planned because I hadn�t really lost a lot more weight, so I thought maybe it was time to give it a break.  I ended my weight at 144.5 lbs, so I lost a total of 15.5 lbs or .43 lbs per day.  Probably not to bad since I had 2 major cheat days that I had to recover from, and 1 really long stall.

Of course I wish I had lost more But, I am happy that I lost this amount because I have been struggling to lose for the past few years, and would only lose a couple of pounds to gain it back!  Well now I have transitioned and I am starting my Phase 3�Maintenance, for the next 3 weeks, and then it is back on to the next round!!  Wish Me Luck!

Day #1 Round 2 Phase 2,  Aug 7, 2013

Ok, I am back!!! I have finished my Maintenance Phase and my weight stabilized at 147 lbs.  Just a quick catch up on my weight.  I did pretty well during the maintenance phase and discovered that the biggest opportunity for me was that I had a hard time getting my calorie counts up. I needed to be around 1600 calories per day, and it was hard for me to reach that.  I bounced around from 145 to 146.5 and then shot up to 148!! I panicked, but got help!  Once I increased my calories, I immediately dropped down to 146 lbs, and stayed between 146 and 147.  So the last 2 days I loaded, and I gained 2 pounds, but I am hopeful those will go quickly.  Now, I am on to Day#1 of the VLCD, and I have adjusted back just fine, but I did notice that I had to remind myself to take my drops, because I had gotten out of the habit of it.  My goal is to lose a minimum of 20 lbs, because that will put me close to my goal weight. I hope to get to 123 lbs and stabilize at 125. Although, I am short and could probably go lower than that, my significant other tells me that he does not want me too skinny!  No problem, I can handle that.  So, a good day back into the VLCD, and no real hunger pains! :)

Oct 15, 2013  Phase 3 Day #13

OK! I have been really MIA.  Well over the last few weeks, I have been in Phase 2 for about 28 days, but it was a rough ride for me.  Not because I was hungry, but I just had a very busy hectic life going on. So, there were a couple of weekends where I did not eat on plan for my HCG at all. Then I had to take a planned break in the middle of it all.  Uugghh!! With all that I started at 147 lbs, and I ended my LDW @ 137.50!!  So, I lost 9.5 lbs.  Not awesome, but steady progress, and so I am really happy with that.  I can't believe I have made it this far.  And, it really hasn't been that bad.  I have another round that I will begin around Nov.1, but my goal is to maintain my weight close to 137.50.  One thing about this is that I am truly re-training myself how to eat.  This journey has been very good for me.  I am down over 30 lbs from my highest weight last year (2012) so I am HAPPY!  But here is what is really interesting...at my current weight, I am wearing a size 8!!! That is so unbelieveable for me. Never have I weighed this heavy and been a size 8. I usually have to be at 129 in order to be an 8.  So, I believe that I am certain that I am truly losing FAT, not muscle. I love Phase 3 because I get fats, and yogurts, and nuts, etc... alot of my favorite things...and I am back up to 1500 calories per day!! :) I will report back towards the end of Phase 3. Oh and one other thing, have I told you that I have gotten to eat an unbelievable amount of chocolate during the HCG?  I love chocolate, and I LOVE the choco delight, which is part of this wonderful way of eating!! Yes, I can have my chocolate and eat it too. :)

Jan 21, 2014 Phase 2 Day #2

Ok, If you have been following my journey on HCG, then you know that I have had a number of successes that I am proud of. But, I have had some failures to.  Here is the reality...there is no magic formula.  You have to find a method that will work for you, and realize that you are going to have days where you mess up, but when you mess up, just get back on the wagon and keep moving!  Well, November and December were not good months for me, because of travel and holidays, and well yeah, stuff! I was on HCG for about 30 days between the 2 months (I cheated like crazy during this time!!! So disappointed in myself.  So, I ended up starting out at 139, and ending before the Christmas holiday at 134. That is not a huge weight loss at all!! I didn't complete phase 3, which is the stage to stabalize your weight, and instead I ate massive amounts of sugar, starch and carbs!!! Did I gain weight?  YES!!!! uugghh!! I went from 134 to 139.5, and hung there until I did my load days to start over.  So, now I am on day#2 of the VLCD, and I hope that this will be my last round.  I am starting at 141 after my load days, but I am going to stick to being strict and not cheating at all!!  I hope to lose my last 15 lbs, so I think I will target this for the next 40 days and see how it goes. Overall, I am still happy with my progress. NOT surprised by my weight gain....it would have happend no matter how I lost the weight, because frankly, I was eating like a PIG!! Every fattening high calorie holiday candy, cookie, chocolate, etc that I could.  And, by the way....I always gain about 5 lbs from the holidays, so this was no different.  Hopefully, next year, I will be more controlled. I have found that steak days, apple days, and fat fast can all quickly help me lose the weight that I gained when I need to do correction days, but let's be real....these aren't always going to do the trick when I binge for days, like a druken sailor...Hahaha!  Anyway, its only one time a year that I do this, and well, I couldn't pass it up this year...no willpower for that.  Still, I have learned new ways to eat, I eat healthier, and I have reset my bodies "setpoint". I have noticed that where ever I stabalized last, that is my new setpoint, and it seems that if I eat in excess, my body does not go beyond the new setpoint.  Yay!  Ok!  I will be back to let you know how the rest of my weightloss journey is fairing on HCG!  I LOVE HCG!!! It has changed my life!! 

 

April 29, 2014 Phase 2 Day #6

I know, I have been very very absent!  So here is the catchup.  On my last round, that I started on Jan 21, I lasted about 30 days, and decided to take a break.  On that round I got to a new low of 131 pounds, only 6 pounds from my goal of 125. Which was a reset goal from 130 lbs,  that I had originally decided that I wanted to do. Ok, so yes, I was very close to goal, but after 30 days, my body just seemed to stop losing, and I kept bouncing around. So I took about 8 weeks off, to see how I faired.  At first I did good, but then I was stressed, and started eating everything....so I ended up gaining 6 pounds back to 137 lbs, by the end of the 8 weeks. But again, my weight tended to stabilize at this point, and no matter what I ate, it started becoming more difficult to go above the 137 lb mark.  Good time for me to restart HCG to hit the 125 mark.  Ok, so I have now started again, I did my loading days taking me to 140lbs, and within the first 4 days of VLC, I was down to 136lbs.  I'm excited, because I think my body needed the break to move past 131 lbs.  I will let you know how I turn out.  But, overall this journey has been great.  I have lost weight on a steady basis, have learned to control my weight by taking action when there is a gain, so that it does not get out of hand, have discovered that yes, I can have a binge day, and it not be the end of it all...I can actually correct the damage done, and be back to me weight within just a few days.  I LOVE this!  In the past, if I gained 5 lbs, couldn't lose it unless I starved, and then, it would come right back as soon as I ate.  HCG is really amazing to me, and no matter the negatives that everyone says, it works for me, and is teaching me better weight control methods!  Ok!  Until next time---I hope that soon I will be reporting to you that I have reached my goal of 125lbs!!  I am just a few pounds away!