Day 4 of 2nd run of HCG

Down 3 lbs in 4 days! I'm not completely following the 500 simeons diet.. just making better food choices and staying within 800 calories total.

Current weight 156.3!

Starting another round today!

I've decided to lose these last 20 pounds I want to lose I'm going to start another round of my hcg diet today! Its been 3 weeks since I stopped the diet and I'm ready for round 2! I'm going to try my left over hcg and see how long that lasts.. then going to buy the Walmart HCG.. just noticed today it is the Hormone free version.. we will see if its as good as my actual hormone version of the HCG that I love!!

Calorie Loading Day 1
Weight = 158.3 lbs

HCG at Walmart!

I was just browsing through walmart earlier today with my 7 year old son Brandon when I noticed a display for HCG there. I've never seen it sold in a store around here! It was $20 for a 1ounce bottle which is bascally the price I paid for mail order. I cannot say if it works or not, or how good it works because I haven't tried that 1 myself yet. I may decide to go back onto the HCG diet for 20 days to try to lose these last 20 lbs I want to lose. Id say it'd be easier the 2nd time around because I know what to expect this time. Oh and also I seen HCG pills u swallow also.. I don't know if that works or not either because the HCG I used was the drops. I may buy some when we get paid Friday and ill let everyone know if I have success from it or not! :)

Falling asleep for a couple hours after eating!!

Lately since I've been dieting and cutting my calories to 800 a day, I've been falling asleep a lot after meals. I will sleep for like 2 hours and then wake up like I've slept all night. I also wake up feeling like my stomach is almost empty but I'm not hungry or anything.. so, I did some research and discovered this:

"When you eat too much more effort is needed for digestion and so more blood flows from the brain to the stomach to help in digestion.

"It takes a great deal of energy to digest a large meal. When your stomach is full, blood is directed away from other organ systems, including your nervous system. The result? You will feel the need to snooze after any big meal, particularly if it is high in fats and carbohydrates."

Completely answered my question and makes total sense!

Shrinking Skin after rapid weight loss!

When you have lost weight, you will be very excited at your new body. However, when there is good, there seems to always be a bad side. Now that you have lost weight, you have that excess skin that does not want to go away.

The skin is very elastic, just take a look at what a pregnant woman’s skin goes through. For those of you that have come here in order to learn how to tighten up that skin, I am going to give you 14 tips to tighten loose skin after weight loss, so pay close attention.

1. Use moisturizer each day …

Moisturizer will add up to seventy percent of moisturizer to your skin. When you are losing weight, it is great to use a moisturizer as it will help to maintain that elasticity as your body is shrinking. Cover your body in heavy moisturizer each night before you go to bed.

2. Moisturize your body each night …

When you apply the moisturizer to your body at night, you may want to wear long sleeves and long pajamas in order to make sure it does not rub off on your sheets. This will also help to hold that moisture in as you sleep at night.

3. Use Loofah or a body scrub that really works …

When you use a body scrub or loofah at least twice a day, you will be helping to tighten up that lose skin that is caused by weight loss.

4. Scrub your skin 3 times a week …

When you scrub away that surface, you will be causing that skin underneath to generate faster.

5. Drink a lot of water …

There is a lot of studies showing that you should drink at least eight glasses of water every day. Why? In order to keep that moisture in your skin. Apart from this, the water is also going to flush those toxins out of your system. It will give your skin that healthy feel and look.

6. Lift weights …

A great way to get rid of that excess skin would be to lift weight. When you are losing weight, lifting weights is important.

7. Exercise as much as possible …

You would think this goes with number seven, but when we talk about exercise, we are talking about sit ups, push-ups, running and anything else you can think of. When you are exercising, you will be building those muscles up. This will plump up your skin from the inside and give it that tighter appearance. When you exercise, you will be making sure you will not gain all the weight back that you just tried so hard to lose.

8. Massage your skin …

You may not believe this, but massaging the skin helps to build that elasticity back up. You should use mustard oil in order to get the best results. That daily massage will also help your muscles develop. In mustard oil, you will find that there are many medicinal properties in it that will help you to have healthy and glowing skin.

9. Do stomach crunches …

I really wanted to point out to you just how important those stomach crunches are in order to tighten that skin. If you are not used to doing stomach crunches, then start with one and then increase it by one each day you go along. This is not only a fast method to tone that skin, but it is a fast method to lose weight.

10. Take up Yoga …

The best asana for you to do in order to tone up and achieve the perfect skin is called Bhujang Asana. Lay down flat on your stomach and raise your face up off of the ground as much as you can.

11. Apply Preperation-H …

Many individuals who are looking to tone up their skin actually apply preparation-H to their skin as it will help to tighten it up. It contains lanolin in it, which will penetrate the skin.

12. Tighten your stomach muscles throughout the day …

As you are driving in your car, standing in lines, watching television, playing video games and sitting at your desk, you could help tighten up your skin. You can do this by pulling your stomach muscles in and holding them for a couple of minutes.

13. Start using collagen cream …

Applying collagen cream to your stomach area three times a day will help out. You should give the collagen moisture enough time to soak into your skin.

14. Don’t eat sweets or products that have fructose syrup in them …

There’s fourteen tips to tighten lose skin after weight loss. Also, for exercise, you can lay flay on your back and lift your legs half way into the air. Hold them there for a couple of seconds, then lower them and repeat. There is always surgery, but that is risky and I believe you should try other methods before you lie under a knife.

Absolutely Amazed at myself!

I have now hit my next milestone! I am in the 150's! I set a short term goal for myself and I've mastered it! Today I weigh 159.4 lbs!! I have now lost 20 pounds since my 29th birthday June 8th of this year. I have lost 14 pounds since starting phase 1 completing phase 2 and moving on to phase 3 of the hcg diet! I fit into so many smaller clothes and I feel the best I've ever felt in my life. I'm not starving myself either. I am letting myself have 1 indulgence a day. Whether its a pnut butter egg, a diet mt dew or a few chips etc. I just make sure the rest of the day I'm eating the correct foods and correct portions to balance it out. I'm allowing myself 800 to 1000 calories a day depending on how many I burn on the treadmill each morning. I burn at least 200 up to 350 a day on that. I have set a new goal for myself to be in the 140's! I will absolutely cry when I see that magical number I swear I will! :)

Muscle Aches.. (Side Effects)

Lately my muscles have been acheing so much. So I went and did some research for the side effects of rapid weight loss. Hcg or not just rapid weight loss. The fat that's normally cushioning your muscles has been burned away so your muscles are working without all that cushion which makes it a bit painful. I just gotta build them up more and the pain will go away eventually it says. The only other side effect I'm experiencing has to do with going number 2.. lol either don't go much or its hard to go. Lmao guess my body is reacting to not having the greasy fatty stuff it normally just "shoots" out.. lmfao tmi right?

Living the Life!

Another day to live for yay! I did wake up early again to venture onto my treadmill for 45 mins this morning! Scale says I lose .5 lbs since yesterday so I think this morning treadmill is going to stick! :) another typical lunch for me today!! I have some sort of rash on my lower to middle back, upper and middle chest and even on the sides of my "ladies" that I've had now for 2 weeks. Seems like it starts to get better than gets worse again.. thinking I'm probably going to have to go to doc to get some medicine for it! I haven't changed detergents, no new medicine or such.. I remember the exact time and day it occured and I wasn't doing anything crazy. LoL so we shall see!

Normal Lunch for me!

This would be a normal lunch for me.. maybe a few slices of turkey and a salad with 1 tblspn fat free dressing would be almost the only difference..

Does diet soda make you fat?

If your like me, I wondered how can that be when it doesn't have calories and it doesn't have sugar? The artificial sweetners in diet soda confuse your metabolism. When you eat something sweet your body tells your brain to activate your metabolism. But diet soda is empty of calories so your metabolism gets confused prompting you to eat more later. The school of medicine at the U of Texas Health Science Center of San Antonio did a 9.5 year study.  They found people who drank 2 diet sodas a day had a waistline growth 500% greater than the non-drinkers. I think this applies to flavored water with "splenda" etc in it too! On my HCG diet, I tried to drink as much Vitamin Water I could because it contains Stevia which is an all natural sweetner that does not confuse your metabolism. Think its time to start drinking more vitamin water!

Stagnent pleateau.. :p

Kinna stuck at 161 which I'm not complainingis 18 pounds lighter than I was 4 months ago on my birthday in June.. but I'm dying to get into the 150's.. so switching my routine up and getting up an hour earlier to jog on the treadmill before work. Hoping that gets my metablosim up sooner and gives me more energy and motivation throughout the whole day. The only other thing I'm having a hard time with is not being habitual and still weighing daily. Takes 3 weeks to create a habit.. which I did for 4 weeks straight, now I keep doing it and its hard to break.. lol so I'm going to try hard and not weigh everyday.. 1 a week on Fridays will work!

4th and final week on the HCG diet! Sept 21st - Sept 28th

By the time the 4th week came along, I was ready for a change.. i had been following this strict diet for so long that I allowed myself 1\2 a www.cakehopeandlove.com Buckeye cupcake and even ate 2 pieces of Papa Johns pizza.. which i was soooo sick over the entire night. I do not recommend the papa johns pizza coming off the Hcg diet.. well any pizza for that matter. this week I still followed the 500 calorie rule and bought myself a treadmill! i started drinking a little diet rite pop because it doesnt have the sodium in it tthat other pop does. also discovered vitamin water zeros!! Best thing ever! delicious..and tons of vitamins. by the end of this week i was eatin 800 calories about but burning off 340 everyday on the treadmill every night. I was still taking the vitamin b12 and potassium supplements but weaned myself off the Hcg by just increasing the time in between the doses til i stopped altogether on sept 29th. this week i lost 1 lb.. but i fit into size 11 clothes! so theweight loss slowed down but i was dropping inches like crazy! i started a size 16/18 and i was now a size 11! i had lost 12 pounds total but i was down 5 to 7 clothing sizes and felt like i was on top of the world with energy. everyone was noticing how skinny i looked. even could be seen in my face! this was the end of my 4 week journey on the hcg diet.. my 1st bout with it at least! i may have spent like 30 bucks on it but it was a great investment because im pulling stuff from the back of my closet that i havent worn in years! Despite what everyone else sayslacebo or not i know the hcg helped me through those 4 weeks and i know i will be doing another month of it at least again!

Week 3 September 14th to September 20th

Week 3 was considerably easier than week 2. I continue the 6 drops of Hcg under my tongue every 2.5 hrs basically and its really curbing myappetite and cravings. I am easily able to follow my amended Hcg diet from www.hellojody.com. We do eat out and i usemy mio in my icewater i get. also never any fries or side dishes besides broccoli or saladwithno croutons and only 1 tblspn fat free dressing. i would noteat the bread if i got a turkey sandwich or a hamburger. Actually.. I still dont eat the bread.. lol I has been 3 weeks since Ive had a pop or candy bar or cake or anything like that and i am feeling great! By the end of week 3 i had only  lost 2 pounds.. but was at a total of 12 pounds lost in 3 weeks! I really didnt miss much because i was fitting into a size smaller in my clothes already!

:p

Well  the past 2 days have been a tad rough.. gained 1.1 pounds back so that puts me at 162 even. I have not worked out on the treadmill in 2 days and we ate at Applebees last night. I did opt for the "skinnybee" margarita which I highly recommend! Only 100 calories! But the food I ate, obviously not the best because I ended up gaining. Back on the treadmill for at least long enough to burn 340 calories. Walking it takes me an hr and 15 mins to burn that much, but I'm trying to include some jogging in there. Its hard to jog longer than 2 mins at a time right now, but I'm working my way up and ill be jogging the whole time in no time! Bryan has his endocronologist appointment today so that is adding a bit of stress eating on me today.. just gotta keep track of every calorie I eat and work out on my treadmill today. These days I'm eating 800 to 1000 calories and burning at least 340 of them off. I also skip bread totally, no mayo, no cakes or candies, no fried food as much as possible.. eat as much salad as I can with 1 tblspn fat free dressing, 10 glasses of water a day still.. I'm allowing myself 1 or maybe 2 pops a day..

"The week before!"

The week before that time of the month is always challenging for me.. this is month 2 of the dreaded "week before".. I am sooo hungry this morning that I'm feeling sick to my stomach even. I don't know if anyone else is like this but its like I can feel the change in my body the week before. Sucks! My breakfast today.. I normally skip breakfast, but the week before kills me! So these are in my side drawer.

Week 2 September 7th - September 13th

Week 2 was quite a bit harder.. At this point my hunger was not the problem, I had all the energy in the world, it was just the mental problem of seeing my kids or other people around me eating the foods I used to eat. Kinna like an addiction.. I guess you could say it was actually an addiction.. I decided that the variety of food I had eaten for a week prior just wasn't satisfying me. I went on to this list that I found here: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1RsLsF/www.hellojody.com/2010/05/my-story-hcg-diet-food-list-and-some.html .. It was the following:

HCG Phase 2 - 25 or 45 Days

This is where it gets real! 500 calories a day of only lean protein and low carb fruits and vegetables. Besides the food restrictions, there are a ton of rules for this phase. I don't pay attention to most of them but I'll call out the ones that I do.

Basic Rules:
• 20 units of HCG every morning at the same time each day - If you are doing the drops: 5 drops under the tongue, wait two minutes then 5 more drops under the tongue.
• No sugar and all sugar products
• No sodas, including diet sodas and drinks such as Crystal Light - Basically Avoid Aspartame - I do drink Hansen's Soda (they have Splenda in them) and have found them not to affect my weight loss.
• No fruits except those listed
• No starches including bread, pasta, tortillas, cookies, etc. - Although some HCG dieters are able to eat melba toast and grissini sticks. I used to eat them but the longer I stay on the diet, it seems the less will power I have. So I avoid them now. When you first start getting off the bread they can help to wean you. However, as soon as you are used to not having bread in your diet I would cease to eat them. You'll get better results if you do.
• No fast food - Duh!
• No alcoholic beverages
• No creams, moisturizers and lotions that are oil based - Your skin is your largest organ. Your body will pull calories from your beauty products. Who knew?
• Eat different protein for your two meals - Eat the heavier protein for lunch and the lighter protein for dinner. Example: Filet Mignon for lunch, Shrimp for dinner
• Eat less Beef and more Fish
• Try not to eat out at restaurants - it challenging right now to find a place where you can trust their ingredients as well as find something on the menu that fits into the food list below. Although I did eat a child's bowl of meat only chili at Chili John's in Burbank and did not find that it affected my weight loss.
• DO NOT SKIP MEALS!

There are a ton more rules out there like avoiding sugarless gum and not combining your vegetables. I have not found doing either of these things makes a difference. You can experiment and if your body does not have any weight loss after chewing gum or combining tomatoes with cucumbers then don't do it.

Phase 2 Food List: (I try to buy all organic, free range and grass fed products that I can find. Eat Clean!)

PROTEIN - (100 grams at pre-cooked weight/ 200 grams per day)
• Chicken Breast
• Buffalo (Ground or Steaks)
• Filet Mignon
• Veal
• Fresh White Fish (No Ahi Tuna, No Salmon)
• Lobster
• Crab
• Shrimp
• Scallops
• Albacore Tuna
• 3 Egg Whites

VEGETABLES - (1 cup per meal/2 cups per day)
• Spinach
• Fennel
• Chard
• Beet-Greens
• Green Salad/Mixed Greens
• Celery
• Tomatoes
• Red Radishes
• Shallots
• Cucumbers
• Asparagus
• Cabbage
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower

FRUIT - (2 servings daily - recommendation is to eat them in between meals. I don't follow this rule too closely and often have fruit with lunch or dinner.)
• Apple (smaller size - I typically buy Gala apples)
• 1/2 Grapefruit
• Strawberries (1 cup)
• Blueberries (1 cup)
• Raspberries (1 cup)
• Blackberries (1 cup)
• Orange (Some people say oranges are not ok, others say they are fine - you'll have to figure out what is best for you.)

OILS -
• Olive Oil (1 tablespoon per day)
• Pam Cooking Spray
• Braggs Oil (get it at Whole Foods)
• Spritzers Salad Dressing

MISC. -
• Tea (all day)
• Coffee (all day)
• Mineral Water, Perrier, Regular Water (3 liters per day)
• Lemon Juice
• Lime Juice
• Braggs Amino Acids
• Spices of any kind
• 2 Melba toast, breadsticks or grissini (not at the same meal, no one can stop at one, avoid if possible)
• 1 tablespoon of half and half daily (I use this in my morning coffee)
• Stevia - I personally hate this stuff so I use Splenda and Whey Low


This helped me get through week 2.. but I did end up cheating 1 day. We had gone to Burger King and I was dying for an original chicken sandwich.. So i ordered it and told myself I would only eat 1/2 of it.. well next thing I know I had eaten the whole thing.. I ended up staying the same on a lot of the days during this week but did end up losing total for the week about 3 pounds.. I was up and down alot this week like a yo-yo basically.. I turned down alot, including some cupcakes! That was surprisingly easy to do..

Week 1 August 30th - September 6th

First I wanted to start off saying I purchased a weight loss aid from Groupon to kick start my weight loss. It is a pretty controversial product, and I found mostly good things on it. I know there are going to be a lot of skeptics, but I REALLY strongly feel the HCG helped with keeping my energy up while I was going through the detox phase and it kept my cravings and hunger pains down. I was eating the right types of foods, and taking Vitamin B12 supplement and a potassium supplement so I was feeling very healthy and my body was feeling very healthy as well.. but, I purchased HCG drops from  www.sothinsofast.com . I purchased the 2oz bottle because I knew I'd be on it for at least the 28 days up til the 40 days that is allowed on it. After I received the drops I did some research on Google for personal experiences of others on the drops. I came across a great blog at www.hellojody.com .. She has some excellent ideas and menus and foods that are allowed and not allowed on the diet and her experiences etc. That's when I decided to follow her food list because the original food list I had been on for the 1st 3 days was sooo restrictive. The original food list consists of 500 calories a day and included the following:

Breakfast:	Tea or coffee in any quantity without sugar. Only one tablespoonful of milk allowed in 24 hours. Saccharin or Stevia may be used.
Lunch:	1.    100 grams of veal, beef, chicken breast, fresh white fish, lobster, crab, or shrimp. All visible fat must be carefully removed before cooking, and the meat must be weighed raw. It must be boiled or grilled without additional fat. Salmon, eel, tuna, herring, dried or pickled fish are not allowed. The chicken breast must be removed from the bird. 2.    One type of vegetable only to be chosen from the following: spinach, chard, chicory, beet-greens, green salad, tomatoes, celery, fennel, onions, red radishes, cucumbers, asparagus, cabbage. 3.    One breadstick (grissino) or one Melba toast. 4.    An apple, orange, or a handful of strawberries or one-half grapefruit.
Dinner :	The same four choices as lunch (above.)

I followed this for the 1st 3 days and realized I have go to add other things into my diet because being a mother of 3 young kids and having a husband who loves to eat good foods that I love I have to have some way to be able to eat things and still lose weight. That's when I came across Jody's blog. There are 3 phases to the diet. The first phase lasts 2 days and it's before you start the drops. You eat anything and everything you want to eat to Load up on food. I started day 3 which was phase 2 at 173 pounds. I started on this strict diet listed above and by day 6 I had lost 4 pounds. I was at 169 in no time! I hadn't weighed 169 in a few years! I was feeling awesome! So day 7 came and that is the day I was like I don't know if I can do this.. I was taking 6 drops of the HCG under my tongue every 3 hours the entire time. The 4th and 5th day I did have a small headache but really was tolerable and I was ecstatic I had lost so much weight already that it was a motivator. So by the end of week 1 I had lost 5 lbs in 7 days, weighed 168 and was on a high from the rapid weight loss! There wasn't any exercise involved and I only went with the list above. I cut out pop completely even diet pop.. was drinking 10 glasses of water with Mio in it a day and i have to say was feeling really good. Think it was a detox phase for me. I found that Burger King has a good tasting Chicken Breast Sandwich I got but didn't eat the bread.. only ate the chicken, lettuce and tomato. No mayo either! I also enjoyed the grilled chicken breast from wendy's without any bun or anything either. I ate a lot of strawberries for snacks and at the Melba toast when I had a carb craving.