Round 3 - Loading Day #2

I stuffed myself yesterday with all sorts of crap - Burger King for breakfast, a Big Mac & 10 piece chicken nuggets for lunch, ham & potato soup with sour cream and cheese for dinner, and 3 old fashioned glazed donuts and a big bowl of caramel corn for "snack" at night.  I woke up this morning STILL full from the day before and made myself eat 2 sourdough pancakes and six sausages for breakfast.  Then I weighed myself.  Oh Lord, I almost started crying.  I weighed 168 lbs (up 5 lbs from where I stabilized at right before Christmas, and up 3 lbs from where I was yesterday morning).  I am not "loading" today - I don't care how hungry I get this week.  I'm not doing it.  I got down to 160 a few days after my last dose of drops and then went back up and hovered between 161-163 lbs and then finally stabilized at 163.  And then Christmas pushed me up to 165 and then yesterday...let's not even talk about yesterday. 

I'm going to re-set my weight loss ticker and forget about this horrible day.  I'm going to eat normally today and drink lots of coffee with creamer to help boost my fat intake but I'm NOT loading.  Oh I hope for great news on the scale Sunday morning.  I hope that I'm down into the 150's in a week or so.

Round 3 Begins!

Today is my first day of round three.  I took my drops this morning and forced myself to eat some breakfast even though I felt full.  I ate a huge fattening lunch even though I was still sick from breakfast, and now I'm about to make a big pot of coffee and have tons of creamer in it.  I know better than to say that I wish I was on phase 2 though - I know that in a few days I'll wish for pasta and bread again.

It snowed for basically the first time this year here in Denver.  It snowed one other time, but only about an inch and nothing stuck anywhere but in the grass.  They are predicting anywhere from 5 to 10 inches through today.  I know that doesn't sound like a lot to most people (especially my friends and fam in Coeur d'Alene who have had a ton of snow this year) but you should see the way some people drive around here.  It's retarded. 

Getting Ready for Round 3

I'm a little nervous about starting my 3rd round - I remember how tough this diet is, but I'm not sure that I actually REMEMBER.  Kinda like how you remember how horrible having a baby is but don't really REMEMBER until you're doing it again.  Regardless, I'm excited to try to get this last 18-19 lbs off.  I think I'm up about 1.5 lbs from where I stabilized at the end of round 2, but that's not bad considering that we just got through the holidays.  1.5 lbs is NOTHING compared to the damage that I've created from past holiday feasts!  I'm flip-flopping between thinking I'll just do a 3 week round and see what happens with it - or forcing myself to just push through until the whole thing is over with.  Technically I could lose about 28 lbs to be down to 135 lbs which is where I would LOVE to be at, but I'm not sure if that will happen or not.  Anyways - I'm really excited to get back on this and get it DONE for good!

Blog

I'm going back to Wordpress for blogging.  I keep trying to use blogger and it always disappoints.  I guess I'm just a wordpress kinda' gal!  My blog is at www.miaisneat.wordpress.com .  I've imported all my blog postings from this blog onto my wordpress blog.  I will still be following everybody from wordpress so I can still see what is going on. 

Diana

http://www.livestream.com/brixtv?utm_source=lsplayer&utm_medium=ui-play&utm_campaign=click-bait&utm_content=brixtv

This is a link to a streaming video of my friend, Diana's testimony.  This was recorded several months ago and is streaming over and over today.  More than likely, when you click the link you will be somewhere in the middle of the video.  Just let it play until the end and then it will start over at the beginning and you can see my beautiful friend in Christ.  

R2 VLCD Day 20

No change in weight today, but I kinda gave up a little last night though.  I ate some sugar free chocolates that were definitely not on protocol.  I noticed the difference in my attitude though, I wasn't eating them because I was sad about Diana, or because I'm PMSing (that's right, TOM is like a week late grrr), or because I was frustrated with gaining .6 lbs yesterday.  I ate them because they just sounded good.  I ate just a few and had no problems controlling myself from eating the whole bag.  I got no comfort from them, but didn't expect to either so I'm kind of excited to see that I was able to eat something because a little bit sounded good, rather than because I felt driven to eat it by some sick compulsion.

Still no word on Diana today.  Nobody in her family posted anything on Facebook yesterday (no prayer requests or anything, and normally they post a ton of those).  I think the Facebook radio silence is not a good sign.  Because she is/was in so much pain in the last few days, I hope the Lord takes her quickly if He hasn't already.  I'm not ready for the pain that we will all experience, but I'd rather be the one in pain than have her continue to live that way.  She's done her time now, and now her turn is over.  I guess the hardest part for me to deal with is thinking of her husband and kids.  I know that God is there to protect them but the kids...the kids at the funeral will absolutely kill me.  I attended a funeral a few years ago for Aaron's boss' wife, Debbie,  and I was okay until the family was ushered in.  Just one look at the kids and I lost it.  I had never even met Debbie but I will never forget her funeral for as long as I live.  She had so many amazing people who loved her, the church was huge and it was PACKED.  Diana's funeral will probably be the same way except this time I will know the person who died.  I warned Aaron that I'm going to carry a whole box of tissues in with me.  Screw the tiny travel pack.

R2 VLCD Day 19

Back in the 160's today (160.4 - this is my official LDW).  I still haven't started TOM so it kind of sucks that my weight is going up and down and back up and my LDW is going to be thrown off by all of this, but oh well.

Diana is going to die this week.  Probably today if she hasn't already died last night.  She is a 28 year old mother of two, and the perfect wife.  Her funeral will be one of the hardest days of my life.  I know she will finally be pain free and will be with Jesus, but the world still needs her!

R2 VLCD Day 18

I finally got into the 150s!  One tiny hiccup and I'll be back into the 160's but for right now I'm in the 150's.  Woohoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

R2 VLCD Day 17

Wow, I had a huge loss this morning!  Well, it was only .4 lbs, but it seems huge compared to what I've been squeaking out lately.  I have three more days of drops (which includes today) and I'm only .4 lbs away from being in the 150's.  I'm not holding my breath for that to happen, but I AM holding my breath for this cheesy crust pizza recipe that Erica told me about last night.  I can't wait to go to her house in November and eat that pizza!  The whole thing.  No sharing, not even with her kids.  If they even come close to me, I'll give them a look to scare them away.  Between my evil eye and my frothing mouth, I'm sure they are going to LOVE me.  lololol.  I already miss my kids while I'm gone, and I'm not even close to leaving yet. 

R2 VLCD Day 16

My darn body just doesn't want to give up any fat I guess because I only lost another .2 lbs.  I finally made it to 160.8.  I thought by now I'd be well into the 150's.  I'm definitely giving my body a break before I do round 3 because the diet isn't worth the tiny amounts of weight that I'm losing right now.  My mom's having a hard time right now, too.  She's on a pretty long stall which is frustrating her and me.  I want to fix it for her and I don't know how.  I told her last night to double up on her protein at dinner and maybe try not eating shrimp for awhile (I heard that shrimp stalls some people).  I hope it works because I feel so bad for her right now.  She really needs to do an apple day, but I think she loves apple day as much as I do, lol.

R2 VLCD Day 15

I lost the weight that I gained yesterday so I'm happy with that.  I wish TOM was more regular for me because I've been waiting and waiting for it to start and nothing yet.  I guess I would rather have it be irregular than have it be painful.  I know some people get cramps really bad and I've never had them so that's good.  I'm so looking forward to a week from now!  I'm not all giddy about the food itself like I was last time I was a week away from phase 3, I'm just ready to be able to eat something different for a change.   All of Bre's talk about sandwiches makes me want a grilled cheese pretty bad.  I want string cheese and I want cashews again.  Yum!

R2 VLCD Day 14

I saw that somebody on an HCG blog had used one slice of Sara Lee Delightful bread in place of her grissini breadsticks and had no problems with it, so I decided to give it a try last night.  I guess I had a problem with it because I woke up to a .4 lb gain this morning...boo.  Oh well, it was worth a try.  I'm still 7.4 lbs away from officially being in my normal weight range for my height.  Round two is really sucking, I've only lost 8.6  lbs in two weeks.  I'm starting to think that the last 16 lbs will take more than the 4 weeks that I have left on round two (if I were to do a six week round).  I think I need a break, I'm not sure if I can handle this much longer.  I may go back on my original plan of doing a three week round and doing round three after the holidays are over.  I think I need a break, both physically and mentally.  I hate being so wishy-washy.  Some days I feel like I could do this diet forever, and other days I feel like I can't take another day of it.  I also want to quit smoking, but am afraid of doing that until after I'm done with the diet because I really don't think I can handle both things at the same time.

Update:  I just went to look at Erica's blog and saw her loss after TOM was over.  I know mine is somewhere right around the corner, so maybe that's why I'm not losing much lately.  I'm not going to blame the gain on TOM though, I KNOW that was from eating that stupid bread.  

R2 VLCD Day 13

Another .4 lbs down this morning and I even went out to eat at Tokyo Joe's for lunch yesterday (my boss decided to give me my review yesterday).  I have the best boss ever, seriously. 

Last night I was shaving my legs and somehow got my fingers in the way and literally shaved the tops of my fingernails off of the first two fingers on my left hand.  You know how when you bite your nails down to the quick and they hurt?  Well this is that same pain, times about 10.  It hurts so freakin' bad!  And then I fell up the same stairs that I fell down really hard the other day (the slate tile stairs that lead up to my room...the ones with the really sharp corners).  I basically caught the edge of the stairs with my toes and they slipped off and one of my toes got all cut up too.  I hate our stairs and I have bandaids all over me today.  I hate being so clumsy, lol.

R2 VLCD Day 12

.2 lbs lost this morning.  At first I thought I stalled again so I was kind of disappointed, but discovering that I actually lost weight really lifted my mood.

There's nothing else to say diet-wise.  Work is still busy, home life is still busy.  That's about all!

R2 VLCD Day 11

Halfway through round two!  I'm not even sure whether or not I have a goal for this round.  Last round I lost 16 lbs, this round I've lost 8.  I only have 16 lbs to go before I'm completely done.  I was going to take five days off and basically start round 3 right away, but I'm not sure that really makes any sense.  I may just go through until I'm done.  There's no point in gaining another 3 or 6 lbs during loading just to put myself that much farther from my goal.  My heart is palpitating just thinking about being done.  I feel bad talking about this when so many of my friends have farther to go than I do.  Please don't think of it as me bragging because I'm not.  I figure this is a good place to talk about weight loss goals since my hubs is sick of hearing about it, lol. 

Happy Wednesday everybody!!!

R2 VLCD Day 10

I didn't get very much sleep at all last night.  Normally the HCG helps me sleep better, but not last night.  I was up until 2 just laying in bed hoping I'd get to sleep eventually.  I'm so tired and I didn't lose any weight yesterday.  Don't mess with me.

Update:  Now that I've had a few minutes to wake up I feel a little better than I did first thing this morning.  I hopped back on the scale thinking that I would, by some miracle of God, have lost some weight between earlier this morning and now.  No miracle.  Oh well!  I'm looking forward to work today...we should be busy enough to keep my mind off a tiny stall.  On Friday I have to go out to lunch again.  My boss is giving me my review and she said she promises it will be a good start to my weekend!  We'll have to see what that means.  I think we're going to Tokyo Joe's again since I know that place only stalls me and doesn't cause me to gain.  I figure that's the safest place to go if I have to go somewhere.   Oh, I forgot to mention the other day...a pair of size 10 slacks that I bought a few weeks ago is now getting loose.  The other pair is still snug, but the other one is definitely getting loose!

R2 VLCD Day 9

The scale finally moved...finally!  I lost .8 lbs and because I lost such a "small" amount (considering that it's basically only a .2 lb loss average for the last four days) I'm pretty certain now that my stall was due to eating out two days in a row while my office moved, and due to the amount of physical activity that I did during the move itself.  Bre - I considered doing an apple day but I struggle with the diet as it is because I have no willpower.  I don't think I have enough willpower to do an apple day at all.  Apple days seem like they would suck.  I guess if I had a five or six day stall I might change my mind though, lol.

So this morning has started out really good just because I'm in the 162s now.  I'm so close to the 150s that it could technically be any day now that I hit them.  I haven't seen the 150s in a long while.  When I had my first pregnancy check up with Chloe I weighed 154.  I keep saying that I weighed 154 when I got married, but technically I don't know what I weighed then.  I had my first preg-check in December (2 months after I got married) and I know that I hadn't really gained any weight since I got married only because my clothes weren't fitting any different.  So who knows, I might have only weighed 150 when I got married.  But either way, I'm close to being back where I was five years ago!!!

R2 VLCD Day 8

Another stall day.  This is the 3rd day in a row that I haven't lost (but haven't gained either).  This is day number 5 of no real quality time in the bathroom either, lol.  I'm going to up my magnesium intake to 800 mg because that's what Erica takes and my caplets are only 400 mg each.  Hopefully something gets moving here soon.  I also think that because of our office move and the amount of physical labor I put into packing, moving, and unpacking, my body may not want to be letting go of any extra weight because I might have done too much activity.  So far I'm not panicking at all, especially since I fit into my wedding dress last night, and fit it better than I did the day I got married.  When I got married I had to wear a stomach flattening girdle type thing so that the bodice would zip up and last night it zipped with no problem, and could have probably been taken in an additional half inch.  It's amazing that I'm 9 lbs over the weight that I was when I got married but the dress fits better now!

Update:  Thank you magnesium.

A Quick Interruption...

Look at what I fit into again (and it zipped up all the way and I didn't even have to suck in!!!)

R2 VLCD Day 7

One week down, two to go.  Then five days off...reload...and my final (hopefully) three weeks!!!  I lost nothing yesterday but gained nothing either which is actually really good.  I went to the store and bought magnesium softgels and am wondering how long they take to kick in now.  I'm on day three I think with no "party" in the bathroom and it would be nice to see some action!

Mom - I'm so glad you are doing this diet with me now.  Yesterday it would have been very easy to give up but just knowing that you and Erica and Bre are "watching" made it easier not to.  I hated even having to admit that I went off protocol for two days, and I hated having to go off protocol for two days (well, at least at lunch time) and normally just having two off days like that would have opened the doors for me to quit any other diet.  With so much support around, who can be a quitter?

Bre - The tea I use is called "Get Regular."  I call it Smooth Move because more people recognize that name, but if you look around in your grocery store for a tea that has senna in it, you should be able to find something.  I think mine was in the organic section, but your store may have it right next to that digestive tea that you bought before.  Mine was right by the digestive teas at least.

Erica - I can't wait until November!!! 

R2 VLCD Day 6

Well I ended up losing .4 lbs in spite of the fact that I went WAAAAYYYY off protocol yesterday.  My office is moved today so I get the pleasure of unpacking (try not to be jealous) all day long.  Apparently we're still having phone issues and may not have phones for the next few days.  That means I get to use my cell phone all day at work.  Woohoo?

Update:  Had another crappy dieting day again and ate the same lunch that I had yesterday (chicken with a tiny bit of teriyake sauce and some veggies at Tokyo Joe's).  Again, our office was all disorganized and I had no access to anything to cook my food with.  I stayed late at work tonight to finish getting everything unpacked and ready to go, so hopefully the scale doesn't scream at me tomorrow.  I think I may take a detox bath, and my smooth move hasn't been working so that's a pretty big bummer.  It will be hard to tell tomorrow whether or not I gained (IF I gain) because of the food or because none of the food I've eaten in the last three and a half days has left my body yet!  Either way, I felt horrible eating out for lunch and especially for the teriyake sauce but I just can't eat plain chicken.  Yuck!  

R2 VLCD Day 5

Another 1.8 lbs lost yesterday and I have now officially lost more than I have left to lose.  Only 18.2 lbs to go!  I went over my calendar yesterday and decided that I will just do a very short phase 3 this time (just five days) and then do my last round so that it will be over with and I'll be in p3 when I go to Idaho in November.  It feels weird to know that I may be at my goal weight in just over a month.  I am shocked that I lost so much weight last yesterday.  I ended up eating a greek yogurt smoothie (I figured that eating the greek yogurt would be about the same as eating cottage cheese) for dinner, I accidentally had flavored creamer in my coffee yesterday, I forgot my water almost completely yesterday, and I spent the whole day packing up my office for our move this morning, which means I was doing some pretty heavy labor all day (and I hear that you can actually gain weight on HCG if you work too hard).  All of those things combined made me sure that I would gain a bit or at least stall and I didn't.  I'm happy to know that greek yogurt doesn't stall me because I love those smoothies and it's just another thing I can add to my very limited list of things that I will eat for dinner and I'm just sick to death of everything else.  I'm a little nervous that once I get my water intake back to normal today, I will end up re-gaining some of the weight.  If I do though, it's okay.  I know it's just water weight!

Update:  I wasn't able to take lunch to work today because we are moving offices and the refrigerator and the microwave were on a truck at lunch time.  I decided to go to Tokyo Joe's and get some steamed vegetables and some chicken breast.  I ended putting about 1 T of teriyaki sauce on the chicken and was feeling bad so I skipped my fruit hoping the lack of fruit-sugar would make up for me eating real-food-sugar.  I really wanted to dump the whole thing of sauce all over, and get rice instead of bamboo shoots and edamame so I was at least partially successful.  Because our water dispenser was also on a truck, it was hard to drink a ton of water at work today, so I'm doing my best to catch up today while I'm at home.  I also need to drink some smooth move tea because I forgot to yesterday.  What I would really like to do is go get some magnesium liqui-gels like Erica takes but I don't have the money for it right now.  That will have to wait until payday. 

R2 VLCD Day 4

I lost another 1.4 lbs last night.  I suspect that this will be my last day of "big" losses.  I think the last round the losses tapered off after the third day.  I just went out to have a cup of coffee and realized half way through that I used the regular creamer so now I'm a little scared about gaining tomorrow because there is sugar in that creamer.  I guess I'll have to see what happens tomorrow! 

I have now lost 19 lbs and I'm really excited about that.  I have 20.4 left to lose, so unless that creamer causes a gain tomorrow, I may actually hit the half way mark!  I've been eating all the same foods that I did on the last round and that gets boring really quickly.  I wish that I enjoyed fish and shrimp because that would help a lot, but I keep reminding myself that I only have to be bored with my food for another 2.5 weeks until this round is over, and then I get to eat regular foods until after the new year.  I'm still torn on whether or not to just go ahead and do p3 for another 1 or 2 weeks and then do another 3 week round.  That would put me on p3 again when I go to visit Erica and Vicky in Idaho in November!

R2 VLCD Day 3

Aah, that's more like it!  2.4 lbs g-g-g-GONE.  So that's 4 lbs total this round and 17.6 gone since I started HCG.  I'll be hitting the 20 lbs mark sometime soon, and that will mean I've lost half of the weight I needed to lose.  Sometimes I feel really stupid complaining about needing to lose weight when I only had 40 to lose.  I imagine it makes people feel the same way I feel when I hear somebody say they have to lose 10 lbs.  It makes me want to say "boo-hoo."  But 40 lbs is pretty significant.  My daughter weighs 40 lbs.  I have a whole 4 year old to lose. 

Not anymore.

R2 VLCD Day 2

I lost 1.6 lbs from yesterday and I was actually a little disappointed.  I ended up drinking my full 2 liters of water and I think that I would have probably lost more if I had kept up on my water intake during p3.  Once I was off the drops, I had a really hard time forcing myself to drink water all day long.  I'm still 1 lb over my last drops weight, so it was hard to see a negative loss on my first day (I had lost 16.2 lbs total on the last round, and now I'm only at 15.2 lbs total as of this morning).  I wonder if a smaller weight loss is expected with your second round than with your first?  Regardless, I'm probably being a baby about this.  1.6 lbs is nothing to sneeze at and now that I'm on the drops again, I will be seeing losses again finally.  P3 was hard because my weight was up a little and down a little every day.  Now I know it will be another set of steady losses.

I hope everybody else has good luck on the scale this morning, too!

UPDATE:  Do not ever eat Shiritake noodles.  Ever.  Unless you like biting into little skinny umbilical cords because that's exactly what they felt like.  Oh my gosh, I'm going to barf.  

R2 VLCD Day 1

Loading days are over and now it's time for low calorie again.  I gained quite a bit of weight yesterday (like 3 lbs or something) and I hit 170.8 this morning.  That was pretty rough seeing that number, I thought I was back in the 160's for good.  By tomorrow hopefully I should be in the 160's again and my goal after this round is over is to be in the low 150s.  I had a pretty bad stomach ache last night, partly because I was so full and I believe the other contributing factor was the sugar that I had eaten in Aaron's chocolate cake.  I'm excited to start seeing weight loss again tomorrow.  I hope the first few days have big losses like last time!

R2 Loading Day #2

Loading is not as fun as I thought it would be.  I'm surprised at how food doesn't taste the same anymore and it doesn't sound all that good.  I'll have to remind myself of this once I'm in the throes of phase 2 and am not allowed to eat anything.


I drank wine coolers for dinner last night.  I wasn't hungry at all for dinner, but those stinkin' wine coolers metabolized a lot faster than they used to.  I didn't set out to get drunk, but at the end of the night the room was spinning pretty well.  Oh well, it was fun and I never drink so that made it even funner.  The best part is that I don't have a hangover this morning.  I think the HCG had something to do with that because the hangovers are the main reason I chose not to drink very often anymore. 

Well, I'm not sure what I'm going to eat today.  Food still sounds yuck. 

R2 Loading Day #1

Loading day!  I thought I'd be much more excited than I actually am this morning.  Oh well, today I'm going to eat donuts, and pizza, and Aaron and I are going out to lunch.  Tomorrow I'm eating Sonic and going out for Aaron's birthday.  I'm kind of nervous this morning.  I take my first drops in an hour and for whatever reason, I'm having second thoughts.  Can I do this again? 

I guess I'll update later on my progress. 

P3 Day 12

Tomorrow is loading day already.  I can't wait for maple bars and starch and sugar again, although except for maple bars, nothing really sounds all that good.  Aaron and I are going out to dinner for his birthday on Saturday and I'm going to have a margarita or two.  Even drinking doesn't sound that good (I'm not much of a drinker anyways) but I figure that I'll wish I had one once I'm on p2 again.  I hope to lose more than 16 lbs on this next round, but if not I will be okay.  Whatever I get to on this next round will be my new weight until after the new year.  I might end up going an extra week on p2, but that's a decision I'm not willing to fully make until after I'm in p2 for a few days.  I imagine that I have already forgotten how difficult p2 is. 

P3 Day 11

It's Wednesday and I'm hungry and I want a maple bar pretty badly this morning.  :)  I got my mom's blog set up yesterday so now I just need her to log in and start posting.  She should have her drops on Thursday and then she, Erica, and I will be starting Phase 2 together.  I'm looking forward to loading, although I'm certain that it will be even harder than last time simply because I can't eat very much anymore without getting too full.  Hopefully the smaller stomach also means less hunger during the first week of phase 2. 
I forgot to weigh myself this morning.  That's a good sign for me, because I was certain this diet would make me obsessed with the scale.  Just knowing that I can still "forget" to weigh makes me feel better.
Well, I better get ready for work.  I hope you all have a great day!

P3 Day 10

I had a rough night with Nicholas last night.  He's been pulling some seriously sneaky stuff lately and so Aaron and I had to deal with it.  I went to bed angry at Nick and woke up still angry.  I just don't trust my son anymore and I hate this feeling.  I swore that if I raised my kids right, they wouldn't be pulling these kinds of stunts, and I think I got my wake up call last night.  I think that I try to give God control of everything else in my life except for my kids, because I can handle my kids.  I need Him to handle everything else, but I got my kids.  It was like a slap in the face last night to realize that I haven't given control of them over to Him yet. 

So that being said, I really wanted to eat last night.  I wanted to eat a greasy hamburger.  I wanted to eat some lasagna.  I wanted spaghetti.  I wanted enchiladas.  I wanted anything to help stuff this anger down inside and bury it under a pile of food.  I didn't give in and I'm glad now that I didn't, but it was hard.  Being a parent is even tougher than trying to lose weight.  I feel like a failure.

P3 Day 9

Nothing new to report today.  My weight seems to be holding fairly steady right under my LDW.  I haven't had to do a steak day yet even though some days I'm sure I'll have to do one the next day.  With round two just a few days away, I'm not sure that I'd even do one at this point.  C'mon Friday!

P3 Day 8

Only six more days until maple bars and pizza and a Super Sonic Breakfast Burrito with tater tots from Sonic for breakfast!  Aaron's birthday is on Saturday and I'm having my friend Erica bake him a cake (I just realized that both of the Ericas that I know are both awesome cake bakers...most people surround themselves with positive people, but I like to surround myself with people who can make some FOOD lol) and then we're dropping the kids off at her house for her son's birthday party and they're going to spend the night there while Aaron and I get to have a date night.  I'm very excited!  We're going to El Aguave for dinner and I'm going to eat chips and salsa until I could pop, and I'm having a chimichanga and a margarita or two.  I'm pumped, except for the part where I will possibly gain another 5 lbs like last time, and the drops will make me not want to eat anything!

P3 Day 7

I've been on phase 3 for a week now and my weight has been up and down and all over the place...arg!  Today I'm .2 lbs below my LDW which is better than being 2 lbs over.   Some days I feel so full after eating that I'm certain that I will wake up to a massive gain and there never is a gain.  I've always equated gaining weight with feeling full, and losing weight with feeling hungry.  It's hard for me to get rid of the feeling that going to bed still full from dinner means that I'll gain in the morning.  I have a lot of thin friends and they get full after meals and they're still thin...I just can't get that across to my own brain.  I'm so grateful for this HCG diet because it's helped me to lose more weight faster than I've ever been able to before.  I'm in the 160's (high 160's, but the 160's nonetheless) and am looking forward to the 150s here in a few weeks.  It just seems to good to be true.  I got down to 166 lbs one time in 2008 but it took me a few months to get there, and as soon as I stopped dieting, I gained 15 lbs in the matter of two weeks.  I didn't understand the abnormal vs. normal fat, I didn't understand that all that weight I lost was just my normal body fat and that I would have to continue on the strict diet forever, or risk gaining it all back again like I did.  With HCG I don't have to worry about that.  It's not getting rid of my normal body fat (which is why I can't tell that I've lost any weight when I'm just looking at my face) and I've eaten a ton of oils and nuts and butter while I've been on P3 and nothing has really happened.  My weight has been fluctuating every day, but it always settles right back to where it's supposed to be.  I love this darned diet, and I'm ready for round two again!

P3 Day 6

I was so shocked this morning to get on the scale and have lost .4 lbs yesterday.  I ate that teriyaki chicken and was certain I would have gained at least a pound or two this morning.  About an hour after I ate the chicken for lunch yesterday I felt so sick and full that it was hard to stand at work.  I had to keep sitting down because I thought I was going to pop.  This diet confuses me sometimes.  I'll be glad to be back on the drops and losing weight, but I'm already a little nervous about the next phase 3.  At least I know right now that if I gain some, I'll be back on p2 in a week and losing again.  After this next round is over, I'm done with HCG until after the new year.  I'll really have to try harder to maintain my weight after the next round is over.  It feels like I'm all over the board in terms of weight right now, but I haven't gone OVER my LDW yet, and only actually hit my LDW once.  Other than that, I've been below the mark.  Honestly I'm worried that I'm creating a lifetime obsession with the scale.  Before HCG, I could go a few weeks without weighing.  Now it's like I wake up early just to hop on.  Once I stabilize after my next round, I think I'll be doing a weekly weighing. I can't get in a habit of worrying too much because my obsessive personality will take over for sure!

P3 Day 5

Well I'm back to my LDW and I hope I stay here for a bit.  I'm a little confused about whether or not I should be eating dinner if I'm not really hungry, but I can't find any definite answers on that.  I'm trying to make sure I have protein at each meal but I'm just not really hungry at dinner time.  I don't want to be eating when I'm not hungry but I also want to make sure that I'm getting enough calories.  Dr. Simeons said to eat when you are hungry on P3, but I just don't get very hungry now.  Erica, what do you think?

Update:  I cheated today.  I had teriyaki chicken and veggies from Tokyo Joe's for lunch.  I knew there would be sugar in the sauce and I just didn't care.  I will probably care tomorrow, but oh my gosh was that sauce ever GOOD.

P3 Day 4

2 lbs gained but I ate at a restaurant yesterday (Chipotle chicken salad with no rice or beans) so all is well.  I hope.  Dr. Simeons said it's not unusual to gain a few lbs after eating out, and now I will remember not to wish I could eat out all the time.  I'm still 1.4 lbs away from having to do a steak day.  I'm a little nervous about eating today because I don't want to gain again!  I bought some sugar free chocolate candies at the store the other day and I think I'm going to quit eating those for sure.  The chocolate delight is just fine by itself.  I'm looking forward to P2 already.  I like the steady weight loss, not the all-over-the-place weight that is going on right now.  It's too stressful!

Edit:  I just took a shower (this is about 15 minutes after I posted about gaining 2 lbs) and after the shower I weighed myself again and was down to 167.4 (from 168.8 15 minutes before).  I'm taking the lower weight lol!  When I first got on the scale this morning I was having a hard time getting the scale to settle on a number and it was probably because I was still really groggy from my sleeping pill and having a hard time standing still.  So yahoo!  Only a .6 lb gain from yesterday at the restaurant.  I feel much better!

P3 Day 3

I gained weight this morning (.6 lbs) but I'm not stressing.  I was 2.6 lbs under my LDW yesterday and I knew that I was bound to gain a bit after I started P3 simply because I kept losing weight even though I wasn't trying to.  I've had a hard time eating as much as I'm supposed to.  I'm going to keep trying to up my protein intake and avoid a stupid steak day.  I don't want to do a steak day....waaah! 

P3 Day 2

Yesterday I had two pieces of Cinnamon Raisin Ezekiel bread french toast for breakfast and was full all day.  I also ate a piece of baked chicken from the grocery store, and some Greek Slaw and that was about it.  Oh, and a greek yogurt strawberry smoothie.  I know it wasn't enough so I'm going to try harder today to eat more.  I just wasn't hungry at all.  I made two eggs scrambled with some ham and cheese for breakfast and I still feel stuffed 3 hours later.  I also made some chocolate delight with cranberries and nuts and ate it and it was SOOOO good.  Today we're having hamburgers and deviled eggs and veggies with ranch dip for a late lunch/early dinner.  I'm going to try another strawberry smoothie today but add some splenda this time because it was a bit bitter yesterday.  I just didn't want to add any Stevia to yesterday's smoothie because I seriously can't stand the taste of that stuff.  I have a whole bottle of vanilla creme stevia that's going to go to waste, too.  Unless you want it Erica?  I would be happy to send it to you.  Anyways, that's my progress so far.  Didn't lose/gain anything from yesterday, but I'm still like 2.4 lbs under my LDW.  I'm excited to go to work tomorrow just because I get to wear my "new" size 10 slacks!

Update:  I think I will be trying Splenda instead of Stevia during my next round of HCG and see if it stalls me.  I know that Splenda is a fairly new non-calorie sweetener and probably wasn't around when Dr. Simeons wrote his manuscript.  If it doesn't stall me, that might be my new sweetener of choice.  I can't stand the Stevia and the Splenda isn't bitter and doesn't have any sort of an aftertaste at all. 

P3 Day 1

Well I made it and I couldn't be happier.  I'm looking forward to raisin cinnamon ezekiel french toast for breakfast this morning and am a little sad that I'm not even hungry yet.  I'll definitely wait to eat until I'm hungry because I don't want to start any bad habits by eating when I don't need to.  Yesterday was such a busy day.  I ran some errands with Chloe and Aujane and had a Starbucks again.  I should have waited until today to have it, but because I was a little over 2 lbs under my LDW, I didn't care if I gained a bit or stalled from having the extra milk in my cafe latte.  We came home and Ben (my boss' husband and our landlord) came over and hung out for about an hour, and then he left and texted us and asked if we wanted to bring all the kids over to his house to go swimming (they have a pool in their back yard) so we went and did that for an hour or so.  Then we came home, got changed, and drove to Brighton to visit my sister and brother in law and their four kids at Aaron's parents house since they were leaving this morning.  I was a bit nervous because I always feel like Sara and Jon don't like me for some reason.  It turned out to be an awesome evening with no tension and we had a ton of fun playing games together as a family.  I'm so glad that I married into the Campbell family.  I didn't have a close family at all so it's kind of a different experience for me.  My sister and I didn't really become close until she moved here last year and I am still so thankful that that whole situation played out like it did, because it's nice to have a sister to call just to talk to now. 

We ended up eating at 6:30 and we had hamburgers and chips and beans and veggies with ranch dip.  Because I was only 1.5 hours away from my 48th hour off my last dose of drops, I decided to eat a hamburger and veggies/ranch.  I used two pieces of low-carb bread as a hamburger bun and after I ate it I was full for the rest of the night.  REALLY full.  I was so scared to get on the scale this morning and really regretted it, but I got on the scale and had lost another .8 lbs.  I'm a little confused because I was SO FULL.  Regardless, it worked out alright and I just had my first cup of coffee in a while (I quit drinking it in the mornings because I thought I'd throw up if I had to have one more cup with a measly T of fat free milk and some stevia in it...YUCK) with some sugar-free creamer and it was heaven.  I'm about to get up and make some of that chocolate in a minute after I find wherever it was that Erica posted her recipe.  I'm excited to be here in p3 now but will be a bit bummed to not be losing weight for awhile. 

I just wanted to tell Erica again how grateful I am for all her support.  She lets me call and whine to her when I can hear a chicken sandwich from McDonalds just calling my name.  She has answered every one of my questions and been such an amazing encouragement and support during phase 2.  Erica, I truly appreciate how you've helped me.  This diet is HARD but so worth it and I probably wouldn't have stuck with it had I not known that I had you "here" with me every step of the way. 

VLCD Day 21

Yup, you read that right...day 21!  Tomorrow is the magical day where I get to eat FOOD again!  I've noticed that a lot of the candy commercials aren't really phasing me anymore, but if I turn on food network it's the savory stuff that gets me.  Everything I look at makes me salivate!  I've been working on how to modify some of my favorite meals so that I can eat "normal" food as much as possible.  I'm going to find Miracle Noodles at Whole Foods if possible. Last time I asked for them, they said they didn't carry them.  I found out later that Miracle Noodles is the brand name, and that the noodles are called shirataki noodles, so I'm going to ask for those today when I go to hunt down some unrefined cold pressed coconut oil.  Hopefully they'll have them.  I'm going to make that chocolate today so that it's ready for tomorrow, and I'll be picking up Ezekiel bread because I'm having a turkey sandwich tomorrow for lunch.  Oh man, turkey sandwich.  It sounds so good!  Ooh, and salad with ranch on it.  Real ranch dressing!  And a Denver omelette.  Oh man, this is so exciting!  So exciting that I forgot to mention that I lost another .6 lbs today.  I'm sure a lot of that had to do with TOM but that's fine.  I weight 167 now and I'm good with that weight (or right around it) for the next two weeks.  It'll actually give me time to get used to being smaller.  This morning I was able to put on a pair of workout pants that Aaron bought me a long time ago but I never wore because they were too tight on my legs and now they're not!

VLCD Day 20

I lost another .6 lbs this morning which is cool.  Yesterday was my last day of drops, which means my weight yesterday (168.8) was my final weight to be counted for Phase 2.  I think I lost so much weight yesterday because I woke up this morning and TOM had arrived.  I wish I was more regular because it just shows up whenever it wants to and always catches me off guard.  I'm so ready for this 3 day weekend.  I will probably have to go to work for a bit on Saturday to scan stuff (we're getting ready to move offices in a week or two, and we're trying to get everything scanned before we move so we don't have to move all of our paper files with us because the new office is smaller).  After that I will go get Michael and Aujane who I haven't seen since June and who I miss a TON and they'll spend the rest of the 3 day weekend with us.  I'm looking forward to making french toast or eggs and bacon on Sunday morning.  It's amazing how good french toast sounded two weeks ago, and now all the sudden it sounds only okay.  I've got our Labor Day BBQ planned already.  We'll have hamburgers (mine without a bun), deviled eggs, and veggies and ranch.  All things I can eat on P3 and all things that sound pretty delicious!

VLCD Day 19

Well today is my last day of drops.  I think that means that my weight tomorrow is my official LDW, right Erica?  I'm looking forward to Sunday but I'm nervous about tomorrow and Saturday and feeling really hungry.  I hope that it's not too bad.  I got nuthin' else to say.

VLCD Day 18

The scale didn't budge an ounce this morning, but I'm totally cool with that.  I'm sure it has something to do with TOM almost being here (although I'm so danged irregular that it's really hard to know for sure) and the fact that I haven't needed to use the bathroom for the last two days (did I just say that out loud?  For shame!).  Heck, ever since I hit 15.6 lbs yesterday, I feel like I'd be okay if I didn't lose any more weight at all.  It's such a small amount of weight to be excited over but it made such a huge difference. 

Happy September everybody!

VLCD Day 17

I can't believe I made it 17 days.  It's amazing how the fear of gaining weight keeps you from cheating (unless you're rationalizing with yourself at the Starbucks counter...a mistake I won't be repeating again!).  It's amazing how the same food that you were bored of cooking week in and week out for your family suddenly looks like a gourmet meal.  It's amazing that I miss pasta as much as I do as normally I don't crave pasta all that much.  I can't believe I'm almost done with the drops (Thursday is my last day on drops) and then just two more days until I can start eating real food again.  I lost another 1.2 lbs yesterday (Detox bath!) and if I only lost another .2 lbs per day for the next two days,  I will have lost 16 lbs in 19 days...not too bad at all! 

P.S.  I wore my tight slacks to work today.  They aren't tight anymore and I found out today I can take them off without unbuttoning them woohoo!

VLCD Day 16

Confession time:  I cheated a bit yesterday and didn't think I'd get found out by the scale this morning, but I did.  I gained .4 lbs lol.  I was feeling so sorry for myself that everybody got to eat barbeque yesterday at Aaron's grandparents house and all I got was the same stuff I've been eating for the last two weeks, so I bought myself a Starbucks.  I had a non-fat sugar free cinnamon dolce cafe latte.  I asked the girl to go light on the milk (I should have told her 1 T of milk, but I didn't want to because I really didn't only want 1 T of milk), and I'm certain she didn't hear me because I intentionally said it kind of quietly.   So I guess now I have to believe that I'm not above the consequences of cheating (I mean really, I didn't think that an extra 3 T of milk would do anything at all) so it's back to being a good girl for me. Right after I finish this Starbucks that I bought this morning...JUST KIDDING!

VLCD Day 15

My ticker won't update this morning, but I'm down 14.8 lbs!  Just .2 to go until I get to 15 lbs which is awesome.  Yesterday was kind of a sucky day.  We got a call in the morning from Aaron's mom letting us know that the doctor said Aaron's uncle Cliff would pass away shortly.  Aaron called to say goodbye and a few hours later we got another call saying he was gone.  It was hard because I wanted to eat to make myself feel better and I couldn't.  The other day when we closed on our house I wanted to go out to lunch to celebrate and we couldn't.  I'm looking forward to P3 when I can at least eat a grilled chicken salad at a restaurant or something.  A week from today I'll be eating oopsie french toast with cream cheese and strawberries.  Oh baby!

VLCD Day 14

I lost .8 lbs last night (and think I might re-weigh myself later because the scale was kind of jumping around between 169 and 170 this morning).  Anyways, thats .8 lbs gone overnight, and I swear it had something to do with Erica's detox bath.  I think TOM is almost here, so I was certain that I was going to have GAINED some weight.  I ran to the store and got epsom salts and baking soda and soaked in in the tub with those for about 30 minutes and woke up this morning to a large loss.  I wish I knew for sure it was from the bath, but I think it was?  Regardless, I am officially at 170.0 lbs as of this morning.  The next time I lose weight I will officially be in the 160s.  I can't believe this.  I haven't seen the 160s in years.  How exciting!

VLCD Day 13

We sold our house today finally.  It's completely behind us and no more worrying that the buyer might back out.  That also meant that I didn't get to eat lunch until 2 and that sucked.  And I really wanted to go out to lunch with Aaron to celebrate but I couldn't do that either.  Depressing.  I'm probably not going to post my food since I eat the same dang thing every day.  I really wish I liked fish.  I really wish that I liked chicken. 

VLCD Day 12

Well there's only 8 days left of drops (I'm counting today in that number) and then two more days of low cal, then I can start phase three.  I'm very excited about this.  I'm glad that Labor Day falls when it does, because the Sunday before labor day is my first day of phase 3 and I'm making cream cheese strawberry oopsie bread, and then on Monday I can make a Denver omelette...oh baby!  I'm tired of the food already, despite all the wonderful recipes there are out there for p2.  I don't like fish, and I don't care for big pieces of meat so it really limits what I can eat.  I've been eating the chili because it's so good that I actually look forward to it.  Scrambled eggs because I love them so much.  I'm not fond of chicken unless it's shredded inside an enchilada.  It's hard to find things new to try because I'm not an adventurous eater by any means.  My weight loss seems to be slowing a bit but I already expected that so I'm not upset.  I lost another .4 lbs last night and I'm totally fine with that.  I'm thinking that since I'm doing such short rounds, that even if I can only squeak 15 lbs out per round, that's fine by me.  I may have to do a third round at some point, but I will probably wait until after the holidays.  I want to be on maintenance during the holidays so I can eat with my family.  I am tired of separate meals and not eating with the kids because our dinners get done at a different time. 

VLCD Day 11

Only ten more days...woohoo!  I'm so excited!  I'm SO looking forward to the Sunday after next!

Breakfast - Coffee & Tea

Lunch - Chili & Cottage Cheese, Applesauce

Dinner - Garlic Shrimp (sans legs) and asparagus, Apple.

VLCD Day 10

I lost another .8 lbs today which totally ROCKS!  It's 9:45 p.m. and I'm just now able to update my blog for the day.  I've been super busy at work, and then after work I had some stuff to handle, and then came home and had to work some more.  The good thing is that I was so busy that I was able to handle the hunger with no problem today.

Breakfast - Coffee

Lunch - Chili & Cottage Cheese, Apple, Pickles

Dinner - Eggs & Salsa, Orange

I think I've given up on those Grissinis.  They are dry and thin and not worth the time it takes to walk all the way into the kitchen to get them. 

VLCD Day 9

Ooh baby...almost in the double digit VLCD days.  That's so cool!  I'm down another .4 lbs this morning which is awesome.  I drank some more special tea (lol) and hope to be down even more tomorrow.  I'm trying grilled shrimp tonight for dinner which is a good thing.  I'm not a huge fan of the seafood, but I'm so desperate for something new that shrimp is starting to sound good.  It'd be nice to learn to like fish and shrimp so that after I'm off the diet I can continue eating them.  They're so healthy!

Breakfast:  Cranberry Pomegranate Green Tea (Kind of non-protocolish but oh well...plain green tea is gross)

Lunch - More chili with a little bit of cottage cheese.  Seriously, I can't get enough of that stuff it is SO good.  One apple.  A few teeny pickles.

Dinner:  Garlic Shrimp and grilled onions.  Not sure what the fruit will be yet.  **UPDATE**  I cooked the shrimp and it was delicious.  I ate one.  I went to peel the shell off the other shrimp and noticed it had legs on it.  I examined the rest of my shrimp and they all had LEGS on them.  I almost threw up.  Needless to say, the kids ate the shrimp, and I had to make do with what I had defrosted - an extra lean hamburger patty.  That makes beef two times today but it's better than eating shrimp legs!

I'm close to 12 lbs lost.  I'm setting these really tiny 5 lb goals right now.  The whole 40 lbs seemed so far away and unattainable.  I can do 5 lbs though!

VLCD Day 8

I can't believe I've been at this since last Sunday!  This is officially my 8th day, I lost another .8 lbs since yesterday, and my grand total is now 11.2 lbs.  The weight came off so quickly that I can tell a difference.  You know what I mean...sometimes when you're losing weight it's so slow to come off that you don't notice a difference until the difference is significant.  Well, I've been looking at myself in the mirror every day (something that would normally make me want to cry) and I can see major changes.  Heck, even sitting on the couch here with my laptop looks different.  Last night I noticed that my stomach roll no longer sticks out in front of me.  I still HAVE one, but it so much smaller and it doesn't protrude anymore.  Amazing!

Breakfast:  Coffee

Lunch:  Leftover Chili with a tiny bit of cottage cheese.  Orange.  Grissini

Dinner:  Cottage cheese & sorbet.  I just wasn't hungry AT ALL.  It's 88 degrees in this house today and made me feel sick.  I ended up "cheating" around 7:30 and eating another orange.  That's three fruits in one day.  I was so hungry that I couldn't handle it anymore.  I was hungry even after I ate that orange, and then I took the drops at 8 and felt fine again.  I wish I would remember that the drops curb hunger because I could have held out another 30 minutes I think.  Regardless, I cheated with a protocol food, and am still under my 500 cals for the day so I'm not going to cry about it (unless I gain weight from that razzle-frackin' orange tomorrow morning!)

I gotta tell you...I've only been on this for 8 days and I would really love to have some bread.  My most major cravings have been for bologna sandwiches and macaroni and cheese.  Before being on this diet, I didn't care much for either of those things and would pretty much only eat them if Aaron made them, or if that's all we had on hand and I didn't feel like cooking.  I just want a white bread bologna sandwich with miracle whip and mustard.  With Kraft Macaroni and Cheese on the side.  I'm hoping that when I get to eat cheese and different meats on p3 some of these cravings will subside.

At the store this morning I was getting a cookie for Chloe (or store does free cookies for the kids) and I opened the donut door to get a cookie and the smell of a maple bar hit me so hard.  Oh man, maple bars.  It wanted to come home with me, I could tell by the look in its eye but I resisted.  Barely.

VLCD Day 7

Woke up this morning to a .2 lb gain.  I want breakfast.  It's easier not to eat until noon when I'm at work because I'm busy.   I keep going over in my head that if I quit now, I can just start eating low cal again, or counting my calories again.  I know I won't stick to it though because I never do.  I feel like I've lost my motivation today and I want it back.  I didn't realize how much of a downer a tiny gain would be.  If I wake up to another gain tomorrow, or even just no loss at all, then I'm trying an apple day.  I didn't drink as much water yesterday as I was supposed to so I hope that's part of the problem.  Oh I need to get through this!!!

Update:  My body has finally *ahem* cleared up some of its issues and I weighed myself again...Down to 174!  That's officially 10.4 lbs gone in a week!  I'll be taking magnesium & potassium like Erica told me to so that I never have an issue like this again lol!

Breakfast:  Coffee and tea

Lunch:  Apple, Spinach dipped into horseradish mustard/ACV/stevia viniagrette, Chicken basted and grilled in the same viniagrette.

Dinner:  Beanless Chili (lean ground beef, canned tomato, small amount of tomato paste, onions, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, and 1/3 packet of stevia).  I actually had a 1/2 portion of chili because I cannot eat chili without sour cream, so I did a half portion of the chili and 1/3 portion of cottage cheese.  Oh man, now I'm mixing proteins!  Either way, it was yummy with some jalapenos in it, and it helped curb the SERIOUS urges I've had today to cheat.  I'm going to see what mixing the proteins does to the scale tomorrow...hopefully not much because it would be nice to have a little cottage cheese to act as sour cream. 

I feel sick to death of this diet today.  I feel like nothing tastes good, even though everything I ate today tasted good.  I am just pretty crabby I guess.  I'm only a week in, and the next two weeks seem like they'll never be over with.  Because of my terrible will power and the fact that I don't have too much weight to lose (I set my goal at 135 lbs, but I'm going to adjust to 145 since 135 almost makes me look sickly), I'm thinking of trying just a three week round this time, do the maintenance, and then re-load on Aaron's birthday and the day after, and then do another round to finish off.  If I still feel like I need to lose the last 10 lbs, I can do another short round later, but I doubt I'll have to.  When I got married I weighed 154 and was a size 10, and at 145 I'm a size 8.  I have a medium to large bone structure, and even at 185, people guess me to be around 150 lbs.  At 145 I should be pretty slim.  I keep planning on what I am going to do too far in the future and it's making me feel desperate.  I'm going to just tone it down a bit and take it one 3 week round at a time. 

VLCD Day 6

Down .8 lbs this morning.  I freaked myself out by weighing myself after I ate dinner last night.  Then I freaked myself out by telling myself that I wasn't going to lose any weight if I didn't get right to sleep.  I'm surprised I fell asleep at all under that pressure.  But I woke up and the sun was shining and the birds were chirping, and I was .8 lbs lighter than I was yesterday.  That's 9.6 lbs today.  That's only .4 lbs away from the 10 lb mark.  If I can get to the 10 lb mark tomorrow, I will have lost 10 lbs in 6 days.  I still have to say that I'm amazed that I'm not weak and starving all the time.  Yes, I get hungry.  Sometimes I'm really hungry, but never anything that I can't deal with, and every day my stomach shrinks up a bit and I'm not as hungry as the day before.  Every day it gets easier and easier to stick to only 500 calories per day.  Sometimes I enter the food I eat into my online food log and am surprised that I'm not starving, yet have only eaten 426 calories all day.  I know that means the HCG is working.  Thank you Erica for showing me this!

Breakfast - Coffee

Lunch - Iceberg Lettuce with a bit of chopped onion, and I made dressing by blending some cottage cheese and salsa.  It tasted just like taco salad (that's how sad and underworked my tastebuds have been...lol).  I also had an apple and some pickles. 

Dinner - 1 egg & 3 whites scrambled with salsa.  Sorbet for dessert.  Probably not going to have a veggie tonight because all I have is cucumbers and celery and I've had so many cucumbers lately that they make me want to barf.  And celery makes me want to barf anyways.

VLCD Day 5

So only a .6 lb loss this morning, but that's not bad at all I guess.  A little disappointing after multiple pounds lost in one day, but I knew I couldn't lose like that forever.  I also didn't sleep very well at all.  I was up several times for different reasons so maybe that contributed.  I want to hit the 10 lb mark so that I can feel like I did something.  10 lbs is a nice even number.

Breakfast - Coffee milk blah blah blah.  From here on out I'm just calling it coffee.

Lunch - Cottage cheese, an apple, and a single serve pack of Mt. Olive leeeetle teeeny tiny dill pickles.  The texture of those pickles is just amazing, and there weren't any no-no's in the ingredients list.  Yum!

Dinner - I'm going to make Chick-UN Noodle Soup.  And that's what I'm going to call it.  I'm going to grill some chicken and toss it in some broth with some spinach that way I won't miss the noodles.  I might even throw some onion in there just to buck the system.  I like onions on almost everything, and almost consider them more of an herb than a veggie.  If I gain 87 lbs tomorrow because I ate spinach and onions together in the same meal, then so be it!

Dessert will be more of that sorbet.  I ran to the store today and got a whole package of frozen strawberries (don't worry...I checked the ingredients list and the only ingredient in there was strawberries) and six lemons.  I'm going to make up a big old batch of it and freeze it in a large container and just scoop it out when I want some.  I'm pretty certain that the portion size I got last night was just a little over a half cup, so I'll probably stick to 1/2 cup to be safe. 

I want enchiladas.  With sour cream, and dripping with cheese and green chili.  That's what my family is having and I want want WANT....

VLCD Day 4

Oh baby...another 2 lbs gone (that's 8.2 total in 3 days)!  Aaron says he can already tell a difference.  Normally, 8 lbs would take me 3 or 4 weeks to lose and by that time I'm sick and tired of dieting and exercising and not seeing very many results.  I don't care what anybody else says, I can see the difference!

Breakfast - 1/2 cup coffee, 1 T milk & 2 stevia packets

Lunch - 3.5 oz cottage cheese, leftover apple crisp, and 1/2 of a cucumber

Dinner - 1 egg plus 3 egg whites scrambled with a tiny bit of onion and jalapeno, and a tomato chopped on top.

Dessert - Strawberry Sorbet (I am going to try a new recipe that I found)

VLCD Day 3

Another 2.6 lbs gone...that's 6.2 lbs in 2 days!

Breakfast - Coffee with 1 T milk and 3 packets of stevia.

Lunch - 3 oz cottage cheese with a handful of strawberries sliced on top.  1/2 of a sliced cucumber.

Dinner - 3.5 oz extra lean ground beef mixed with garlic powder, salt, and liquid aminos to make a hamburger patty.  I cooked that on the George Foreman grill with about 5 small stalks of asparagus.  I ate the hamburger with mustard and a tiny bit of chopped onion, and one baby pickle sliced and 1/2 tomato.  I know I ate way too many different kinds of veggies in one sitting.  I knew it when I was preparing it.  Somehow I felt sorry enough for myself that I was eating dry bun-less ketchup-less burger for dinner while I had to make some delicious wagon wheel spaghetti for the rest of the family that I just didn't care about veggie mixing.

Tonight I'm trying the grapefruit with stevia and cinnamon microwaved for a few seconds for dessert.  Oh I hope it's good because a bag of 3 musketeers minis sounds great right now.  In fact, I'd settle for a big old pot of mac & cheese.  I'd eat it in the bathtub with the door locked so that nobody could see me.  And I'd be crying the whole time I stuffed my face with those crummy yellow noodles...lol

VLCD Day 2

I am in shock.  3.6 lbs bit the dust overnight last night.  THREE POINT SIX.  That's 15 sticks of butter.  15 in one day.  I'm starting to think this might work.

Breakfast - 1/2 cup coffee with 1 T milk and three stevia packets.  Tasted a bit better than yesterdays did.  I also ate my orange that I'm supposed to have with lunch.  I just couldn't hold on any longer...I was hungry and pissy!

Lunch - 4 T cottage cheese (I didn't have a scale, so I tried to make sure I was WAY under the 3.5 oz) with a handful of strawberries sliced on top.

Dinner - 3.5 oz lean grilled beef with home made bbq sauce (oh I found the best recipe for that today and now I can have BBQ sauce!) , 1 grissini breadstick, and either pickles or cucumbers.  I haven't decided which sounds better.

Well, I went with the pickles.  Not very satisfying at all.  Tomorrow for dinner I may try an extra lean ground beef patty with mustard and pickle and bbq sauce (homemade of course) between a few lettuce leaves.  If not that, than I may make a home made spaghetti sauce with some ground beef and serve it over shredded cabbage leaves for "noodles."  Hmmm...what to make what to make?

VLCD Day 1

Yesterdays gain of only 1.4 lbs seems like nothing in comparison to this morning's gain of 3.2 lbs. In one day. IN ONE DAY. That HCG better be the culprit of such an atrocious gain or else! I hear that if you cheat even a little bit on this diet, you can gain some serious weight in the course of one day, so I hope the fact that I gained so much in one day is just because of the drops. I looked in the mirror today and could see the gain in my butt and my waist. It's so disappointing! Oh well, I guess that means when I lose 5 lbs I'll see that in the mirror too.  Right?  RIGHT?  Today is day one of my very low calorie diet.  I'll post later on about what I ate.  I'm so glad it's not another loading day.  I'm not sure that I could make myself eat like that again knowing that I gained 5.6 lbs in the last two days.

Breakfast:  1/2 cup coffee with 1 T milk & 1 packet of truvia.  Didn't taste that good.  I hope I can somehow get myself to like black coffee eventually.  Adults take their coffee black.  :O)

Lunch:  4 oz extra lean ground beef stir fried with 1/4 onion, 1 cup cabbage, garlic powder, ground ginger, and liquid aminos.  Tastes a little like chinese food so I'm happy!  Also, one very thin very DRY grissini breadstick and an apple.  I've not even finished the stir fry yet and I'm already full.  Don't know how I'll stuff this apple down.  It might end up being today's snack.

Dinner:  4 oz chicken breast sprinkled with Chipotle seasoning and cumin cooked on the George Foreman with part of a grilled onion, and 1/2 a grilled hatch chile.  After that was cooked I put it into two butter lettuce leaves with some fresh chopped tomato.  I just now realized as I typed this out that I mixed three different types of veggies.  Since I'm so new to hcg I'm not sure whether or not to be worried about this. I also ate my apple and breadstick.  I'm going to try some green tea with stevia a little later on when I feel like having a snack, and I've drank about 1.5 liters of water so far.

All in all today went well.  I was definitely hungry in between meals, but nothing unbearable.  All I can think about is food though, but I was always like that anyways.  Hopefully not being able to eat whatever I want whenever I want will break me of this obsession with food.

Well, I'm off to watch the Broncos kick the Bengals' butts!  GOOOO BRONCOOOOOOS!!!

Loading Day #2

It sure is hard to get on the scale and see a 1.4 pound GAIN in one day and tell yourself that it's okay. All day yesterday I kept thinking that maybe I didn't load right, or wasn't eating enough. I guess with a gain like that, I must have done alright. :) Today I have to go shopping for regular food for the family, and shopping for my food afterward. I'm so happy to live in Denver sometimes. I live 4 blocks away from a Sunflower Market (it's technically a farmers market, but indoors like a grocery store, and set up just like a grocery store) and 2.2 miles from TWO Whole Foods stores. I'm excited to go look around today for stevia.

Wow, I went to that Sunflower market and got a TON of fruits and veggies, and the grand total was less than 12 dollars. I was completely blown away. I will definitely be shopping at that store whenever I need produce. They had flavored liquid stevia there for only 12 dollars a bottle, but my budget (I only have $100 per week to grocery shop for my family, and for the diet) wouldn't allow any stevia this time. I have some truvia (same thing as stevia) packets to tide me over. I think I'll probably be skipping the coffee on this diet, and just drinking green tea. I'm not a huge fan of tea, but as I'm not used to tea tasting a certain way, I think it will be easier to drink than drinking coffee that doesn't taste the way I like it to.

Loading Day 1

When I was reading everybody's posts about how sick and full they felt on loading days, I figured I'd have no problems pushing through that and eating anyways.  After all, that kind of eating (eating when I'm not even hungry, or sometimes even when I'm full) is what got me in this mess to begin with.  Well everybody was RIGHT!  Oh my gosh, it's so hard to eat today.  I feel like a hog.  I haven't really eaten that much, but made myself snack on banana chips (which aren't dried at all, they're deep fried) all day.  I'm about to go to Arbys and get a big old roast beef sandwich and a milk shake.  Normally that would get my innards all in a quiver just thinking about it, but right now it sounds horrible! 

I'm ready...I'm ready...I'm REEAAAAADDDDYYYY

I got my drops today!  I am so excited (thanks so much Erica!) and ready to get on this.  I spent at least 4 hours last night ignoring my family and reading blogs and now I am PUMPED.  Tomorrow is my first loading day.  I'll weigh and all that jazz tomorrow morning.  I'm going to try to find my flexible tape measure to get some measurements, too.  Oh, and before pictures for sure (not sure that I'll post them though, it's kind of embarrassing).  Wish me luck!

Getting Ready

I'm going to start the HCG diet on Friday (as long as my homeopathic drops get here on time).  That's all I have to say for now!