VLCD 4- Friday 1/27/12

Hello all! Woke up to a .6 loss Friday morning, thankfully.

I’ve been trying something different the past 3 mornings & it seems to be working out really well. I’d read somewhere on the HCG forums that some of the senior members eat an apple first thing in the morning to jumpstart their metabolism for the day. SO… I’ve been giving a go of my own variation.

6am: wake up with the hubby and help him get out the door. Weigh & take my drops.

6:30am: Wake up my daughter & start getting her around. Eat three turkey jerky nuggets & a handful of dried apples.

7:30am: Had my cup of green tea

12:30pm: Had some of that ham I made the other day with a little mozarella cheese melted on top wrapped with some salad in a tortilla.

7pm: My hubby made some pizza to help out around the house with us all feeling sick… SO, I had some of that.

My daughter seems to be over the ickies but my son’s still in the hardest part. Hubby hasn’t even gotten it yet and hopefully mine’s getting better. Either way, I’m still losing… And I’m planning on riding this new form of protocol until it doesn’t work for me anymore. That doesn’t mean it’s the right thing for everyone to do, but it’s the right thing for me to do right now. 🙂

[<3] happy

 

VLCD 3- Down 1 more lb

Wellp, woke up to 1lb loss… Thankfully!

Today was another bust day.. So looking forward to when I’m over being sick. Either way, I probably need to just suck it up and deal with my diet at the same time. 🙂

Yesterday however, (confession time) I had pizza for dinner. I’m sure it’s all just luck or my gaining is going to sneak up on me, but either way.. I wont be complaining.

I also woke up this morning at 4am with my son for about 30 mins and ended up drinking nearly an entire bottle of water before 6am while I tried to sleep so.. I know if it weren’t for that extra water-weight, I’d of shown up with an even bigger loss. (at 4am, I was 2.8 lbs lighter.)

Interesting thing tho, I went to sleep at 8:40pm last night from being sick so I wonder if maybe that also contributed to the loss? Curious things make me wonder. 🙂

Have a great day & remember that falling out of the saddle doesn’t mean you should sell the horse all together. Don’t give up.

[<3] happy

R2 VLCD2- Fallin back outta the saddle

Second day on the diet & woke up to a 1.8 lb loss! Today, however, was a bust. I’m sick with the cold & it’s turned into a falling off the wagon-fest.

So…. With that said, we’ll just have to see the damage tomorrow. 🙂

[<3] happy

 

Round 2 – VLCD 1: Trying this again

Hi everyone… So, I know I kinda went MIA for a little while.. But I’m back, and trying this again.

I know HCG works. But when I went off the diet for the holidays, it really kicked me to the curb with a complimentary doughnut in hand.

Today’s my first day back on my slightly-modified-HCG plan & I’m hoping to get to goal by my birthday in June. Crossing my fingers. 🙂

Now, since I have so much to lose.. I’m planning on staying on the diet until I reach my goal, but am also making it more manageable by allowing myself things which, while they aren’t on protocol, I can still lose on.. Until they no longer work.  I’m also allowing myself to take little weekends off in order to keep my sanity for the next 5 1/2 months.. I’m still not sure how often I’m going to allow that. If this takes longer to lose weight this way, then so be it. I need to do what I’ll stick with. And I’ve found that if I feel like I’m depriving myself, I binge… and gain. With the little things I allow myself, it shouldn’t feel like I’m really depriving myself.

So.. The reason I decided to get back to blogging was because.. While I was looking at other blogs to keep myself encouraged, I ran across one blog that really made me want to succeed.  With that said, this particular blog was so incredibly negative… So incredibly harsh and crude (Tho the writer herself was an overweight HCG-dieter, herself) That I decided I wasn’t going to be a bitter-dieter. That’s all there is to it. 🙂

Dieting sucks. Really, it does. But… being overweight sucks too. It seems to me that if you’re determined to be unhappy & bitter, that you’d probably have a difficult time succeeding to your goal weight.

Either way, that blog encouraged me in basically being the opposite. I WILL lose the weight and get to goal .. and do it all without being hateful & discouraging to other people.

Okay, so! On to dieting… 🙂

I started the diet out today with my modified plan & will see how it treats me tomorrow. Over the holiday season I gained back 17 of the 30 I lost. Not so great. But I kinda went on an uninhibited longterm binge. My husband was out of town & with me being here by myself and the two kids, I ate to compensate for my bummed-out-ness.

So.. in reading this blog, please remember that this is COMPLETELY OFF PROTOCOL. But, I’m doing what works best for me, right now. When I have only 20lbs to lose, I’ll do a strict round in order to reset my metabolism & set me up for long term life-style. So… to emphasize.. Read with care!! Mileage may vary.

I started out the day with:

6am- woke up with Hubby & helped get him out the door for work. Weighed in & started drinking my water as I got my daughter around for school.

12:30pm- Finished up my first bottle of water & rolled some deli-ham (I haven’t had any problems eating deli-ham on the diet.. as long as it’s thinly sliced lunch meat), salad & a sprinkle of mozarella cheese (in place of my milk) in a tortilla shell. (I’ve found I can have Taco-Bell tacos on the diet and still lose.) We’ll see if store-bought tortilla shells work as well as taco-bell’s. If it doesn’t, I’ll just go back to not having them and treating myself to taco-bell every so often. I’d just really like to be able to fix tacos for my family at night time and actually eat them WITH them. 🙂

3:30pm- Picked up my daughter from the busstop and went on a quick little walk with the kids & our border-aussie in the snow. 🙂

4pm- Made the kids hot-chocolate & started steeping some green tea for me.

6:30pm- Made Potatoe & Ham soup for hubby & the kids & decided to skip dinner after taste-testing the soup a few times. (I also ate some of the ham I put in the soup… Fatty-ham… Not so great for my weight loss.)

I ended up having some mandarin-oranges in place of dinner. I’m not sure how that measures up to regular oranges but we’ll see tomorrow. 🙂

The plan for the rest of the night… Share some light popcorn with the hubby & a diet coke as we watch Desperate Housewives.

I know my menu seems pretty laid back & relaxed… And totally off protocol, which it is, but I’m trying something new in the hopes of sticking with it long term for the weight loss I so desperately need.

I know alot of hardcore dieters will say ‘you can do it, if you try hard enough’ concerning completely on-protocol. And this is probably very true. But… I also think you know yourself better then anyone else does.. And you need to do what YOU think will be best for you. 🙂

It’s kinda exciting… My mother in law and I spoke about Christmas this year & she’s wanting us to go to Wyoming to see them for it. Normally, I’d probably be feeling a little tense & dreading it due to my lack of self-confidence & self-image. I really don’t like being around people.. Not since I’ve gained all this weight & it’s really hindered our social life. This year, however, I’m excited.

Hopefully, by Christmas, I’ll be at my ultimate goal weight… (I should be my ultimate goal weight in June, but I’m giving myself some leniency due to the laid-back nature of my protocol.) So I’m very excited to enjoy this winter. The first time I’ll be at a healthy weight since giving birth to my first kid.. And the first time my husband’s family will of seen me skinny since before I married him. 🙂 Hoping to try snowboarding again.. And this time hopefully can get up on my own after falling in the snow!

Wellp.. On to enjoy the rest of the evening.

Happy Losing!!

[<3] Happy

 

 

 

P3 Day 1-3 – Leptin Reset

Hi everyone! I know it’s been a while since I posted… But with the flu and me not really sticking to protocol real well, I really didn’t feel much like posting.

However, I wanted to post in to let you all know how I did for my LDW and total weight loss.. 🙂 I quit taking the drops Monday, 11/7/11 and just finished my last VLCD 11/10/11 for Round 1. I woke up to a 1.4 loss the next morning totaling my entire weight loss for Round 1 (not counting relosing the weight I gained on breaks) 26.8 lbs. Not too sharby for 40 days.

Out of curiosity, my husband mentioned I should count up all the weight I lost in total (for losing weight I gained on breaks/interruptions) and it equals up to.. 35.8 lbs!! Seriousely.. How crazy is that? And that’s with a couple stalls!

Anyways.. Now on to my Phase 3, Leptin Reset. I’m planning on going back on the round with loading on Christmas Eve and Christmas for Round 2 but will be doing the LR in between.

Morning 1, I woke up.. and within 30 minutes was eating my BAB (Dr. Kruse’s way of saying Massively Gynormic Breakfast.. In a few diff choice words) Your supposed to eat high protein, high fat (i think?), low carb.. So I had:

6oz of Thin-sliced sirloin steak, grilled on the George Foreman Grille

4 eggs, fried in coconut oil.. Sunnyside up.

1 slice of cheddar cheese, melted over the eggs

Okay… Now, even I have to say.. That’s a TON of food!! Whyyyyyyy? Well, because that’s what Dr. Kruse says to do. 🙂 He asks you to get in between 50-70 grams of protein in the morning (i exceeded by 7 grams.. 77 grams of protein).

We had a conference with my daughter’s teacher so after meeting with her (and seeing my daughter’s great report card!) we decided to take the kids out for McDonalds to reward her. 🙂

I grabbed a cheap Cheeseburger & a McChicken (not a good idea for LR since it’s a low carb/starch diet) and took them home with me.. Getting rid of the buns and using these things called ‘Oopsie Rolls’. They weren’t as satisfying as sandwich buns, but they sure were healthier! 🙂 You can find the recipe at this link:

http://blog.yourlighterside.com/2009/05/gluten-free-low-carb-buns-aka-oopsie.html

It was totally worth it and my kids loved them as well! I drizzled a little honey on a roll each for the kiddos as dessert.

After lunch, I had my cocoa crack pretty immediately. (Dr. Kruse asks you not to snack between meals so eat it all in one meal, whatever your going to have) I tried it a lil different, I’d been wanting to bring some to my Grandma to show her she can actually have some kinda chocolate (she can’t eat chocolate) and so after making my usual batch, I added in Almonds & shredded unsweetened Coconut.

I had about half of this, saving the rest to let mom and grandma try. 🙂

Dinner-

Steak Stirfry

Cocoa Crack (tried another batch with peanut butter and almonds added to it.. This was my mom’s favorite)

At that point, I quit eating and drinking anything other then water and ended up going to sleep at 10:30.

Woke up the next morning to no gain or loss. I was shocked!! After everything I ate the day before, and how completely filled I was, I fully expected it to backfire and for me to gain.

The next day, I was running out of groceries.. And also wanted to cut down on my egg intake since I felt like I had too much the day before so had:

BAB-

4 oz hamburger meat, made into two small patties.. Grilled on the GF grill

3 oz sirloin thin-sliced steak, grilled on the GF grill

2 eggs, fried soft in CO

LUNCH-

Tuna salad, made with MAYO! 🙂 I couldn’t wait to have it again! I put a lil bit of Miracle Whip, mustard, dill pickle juice, chopped up dill spear, chopped up onion. I smeared it on an oopsie roll (mine turned out pretty flat so I just folded it kind of like a taco.)

DINNER-

Hubby and I picked up a roasted chicken from the grocery store while we were shopping and I had a good bit of it along with some green beans. 🙂 Also, sneaked a couple bites of instant mashed potatoes hoping it would be okay.

Also had some Diet Coke. 🙂

I went to sleep probably around 1:30. (I tried hard to go to sleep, but was stressing out about my weight and my stomach was doing flips from the potatoes. (not used to that much starch.)

I woke up and weighed with dread…. To a 1.4 loss! 🙂 Yay! I’m not getting too excited, since I’m sure it’ll go up and down during the time I’m on LR/P3 but it was still nice seeing it. 🙂

I was a lil stressed, after shopping for groceries.. and seeing the food cost, my husband and I came to the conclusion… LR wasn’t seeming affordable for us at the moment. My hubby actually is out of work again so.. We’re back to juggling bills, putting off what we have to and buying the cheapest groceries possible.

So, I just treated the day as a P3 day and ate the best I could.

BREAKFAST-

Greek Yogurt mixed with blueberries, strawberries & a bit of stevia

LUNCH-

Sloppy Joe on Oopsie Rolls with cheese & onions

DINNER-

Coconut flour-Pizza 🙂

You can find the recipe for the crust here:

dear pizza, i missed you so much.

I added a bit of stevia to the crust. The pizza sauce I took a can of tomato sauce, added a bit of stevia, garlic powder, garlic salt and italian herbs.

Toppings for the pizza were:

Mini Pizza 1-

* bacon, grilled on the GF grill

*Canadian Bacon

*Onion

*Cheese (Cheddar/Mozarella)

Mini Pizza 2-

*Bacon, grilled on the GF grill

*Shredded chicken from the night before

*Onion

*Cheese (Cheddar/Mozarella)

They sure helped curb my incredible pizza cravings, but… The crust was too soft.. crumbly for me. I need to find something that’ll be more stiff and sorta crispy.

I had 1 small pizza and saved the other one for tomorrow’s lunch. 🙂

Hopefully the scales are kind tomorrow morning! But I’m trying not to stress out too much about it. As long as it all evens out in the end.

My mom mentioned that she could maybe help me with grocery-costs for Leptin Reset, I think she really wants me to be able to stay on it since there is the possibility of losing more weight as where on just normal HCG P3, your not supposed to lose more then 2lbs and only sposed to stabilize.

Off to watch the hubby and kids play hide& seek!! 🙂

Happy losing!
❤ happy

VLCD 35- Experiment 2!

Alright, so.. Yesterday was done differently but I still experimented. I really wanted to see if popcorn was what made me lose less.

Breakfast-

Just had drops, was still pretty icky feeling so laid down.

Lunch-

Drops, Chicken breast chopped up and cooked then sauteed with onion. I added some tomato sauce I seasoned with garlic powder, onion powder, stevia, italian herbs, onion salt and simmered for a while.. Creating a yummy chicken-marinara-stew. 🙂 Was exactly what I needed for how I was feeling.

Dinner-

Drops, 1 can of Albacore mixed with 1 tablespoon of fat free yogurt (justified this with the fact I didn’t drink my milk, and never actually really drink it :/) Mustard, garlic powder, onion powder, onion salt, ground mustard seed mustard.. Put this on a salad of spinach leaves. It wasn’t bad, but far too much mustard for my taste.

For a snack, I experimented again… I shared a bag of popcorn with my husband and then had an apple and a Diet Coke.

Before I went to sleep, I weighed… just to test the waters and was already .2 below what I was yesterday morning. Usually, I’m about 2 lbs over what I end up at in the morning so was hoping that was the case. 🙂

Being Sunday… And having been up late *again!* I slept in until late and didn’t weigh until 3-4 hours after when I normally do… With a 2.6 loss. I have no idea if it’s because I weighed so much later then I normally do, but hoping the scales reflect that loss plus more in the morning. 🙂 Popcorn is definitely not on Protocol.. And really not even Rogue. So I guess I’m a .. Rogue rogue? We’ll just see how well my loss is tomorrow.

❤ happy

p.s…. Just one lil annoyance of losing weight… My glasses don’t stay well on my nose anymore!! 🙂 They keep slipping down in which I’m forced to push them back up like Velma.. I’ll take it tho!

VLCD 34- Experiment # 1

So.. yesterday, I decided to do a lil experiment.. I wanted to see how things affected my weight loss.. I actually wasn’t really hungry and had to pretty much force any water or food down but did actually get my drops in. 🙂

Took my drops early in the morning… And had some green tea around lunch time (after taking my lunch-drops).

Dinner, I had double protein for steak and had soaked it in a bit of diet 7up for about 30 mins each side. I grilled it on the GF and didn’t get it thoroughly cooked… So nuked it in the microwave for another 30 seconds. (that kills the steak :/)

It settled pretty well on my stomach, it seemed like. Feeling a bit rougeish, I heated up some green beans and tried that. It was probably the only veggie that sounded halfway decent (that wasn’t too far off protocol) after having no appetite and being sick.

Later that night, I also drank the rest of my Diet 7up and shared some light popcorn with my hubby. I was pretty curious to see how things would turn out. Your not supposed to have starch on P2 but they do allow Melba Toast.. So thought maybe I could substitute it 🙂 Since I never eat melba anyways.

I didn’t get to sleep until really late. My son was awake until about 4:30 I think (has the flu 😦 ) So I got about 2 hours of sleep before weighing. (which always affects my weight loss :/)

I lost .2 is all. But at least it was a loss. 🙂 I know something I had or did yesterday knocked my loss down.. But I’m guessing it was either the popcorn or lack of sleep. Green beans, I can’t imagine being that big of a deal. However, just to make sure… *evil grin*

Experimentation again!

❤ happy

VLCD 33- Surviving the Flu

Started my drops and… Wouldn’t you know it.. The night before the HCG gets into my system, I spend the entire night puking. Woke up with a headache and general nausea… But managed to start taking my drops and got one bottle of water down. By that time, my headache was massive and the nausea was even worse.. My entire body was achey and water wasn’t settling well on my stomach at all.

I got one more set of drops down (I decided… 6x a day is impossible for me, so am doing 3x a day like before) and made it to dinner time.. Where my husband picked up some popcorn chicken and diet 7up and brought it home for me. Nothing else was sounding like it would settle, and I decided the day was a bust from my lack of water/food. I ate most of the chicken, but started feeling like I was going to throw up, so gave the rest to my husband and laid down again.

One bottle of Diet 7up later and my head was pounding miserably.. We put DS9 on in the hopes that we’d get to watch it and after 3 hours (for one long episode of 1hr and 30mins + all the time Netflix spent retrieving) I was feeling pretty miserable.

In the hopes of settling my stomach, my husband got me a milkshake (why do milkshakes sound good when your sick??) as DS9 was retrieving one time. It did seem to help for a lil while but at that point, my head was hurting so bad that it was also contributing to my nausea.

Thankfully, I fell asleep pretty quickly and woke up with my headache feeling much better. My stomach felt better, tho still achey and sore and my body was pretty achey too.

When waking up, I weighed and had a 1lb loss.. now 2.6 over my last prebreak. I’m on the diet for another 2 weeks (and sure don’t plan on letting any more breaks or interruptions get in the way this time. 🙂 ) I’m planning on starting the Leptin Reset for my Phase 3 just before Thanksgiving.. I’ve been reading alot about it and it’s really exciting to see how well people are doing on it! With all the breaks/interruptions, I think I’ll need as much help in stabilizing as I can get. 🙂

Wellp.. Off to get my day started!!

❤ happy

between drops

Just checking in since I’ve been MIA for 4 days? Allllways remember to get drops ahead of time. I really don’t want another repeat of these past couple breaks.

What a wrench, to see how much weight your losing.. and on a roll.. Only to come to a point where you run out of drops.. And have yet another break. Only a week after the last break.

Sure, it was perfect timing, Halloween and all that. But really.. I miss the weight I lost last week.

I’m mulling around a couple ideas.. Debating on whether I want to do what my grandma did, and do a very long round.. Only taking breaks for holidays/special occassions (basically make P2 a lifestyle change for the time being) or go ahead and run this round until just before Thanksgiving where I can go off it for P3 and then P4 until Christmas where I load for the next round. I could lose 10 more lbs before Christmas doing it the first way… Or I could lose only a few since I tend to think of ‘breaks’ as free-time. Not a good thought-process for such a strict diet.

I have found that HCG is much more forgiving then I’d originally thought (so far anyways!) As long as I make sure I’m not on HCG when I’m going off protocol. However….. My mind still isn’t conditioned properly.. I DO hold back better then I used to. However, I never stick strictly to P3 on my breaks. Which is super bad. And… I’m rogueish. Which means, don’t do what I say I do! 🙂 I’m really only testing the waters for a bit before because I’m curious how this diet works as a more relaxed form. (Strict VLCD, mostly protocol foods until a holiday/special occassion… Which may very well make staying on the diet easier to do as long as I can stop taking the drops 2 days before the event.)

Buuut.. with all that said. 🙂 Halloween was so much fun. I used a body shaper, and was amazed at the difference I saw! (i’ve used the same shaper before, and certainly didn’t see that!) It was really fun to wear jeans, that I couldn’t even begin to button up before and zip my billabong sweatshirt up (that I’m using to judge how small I’m getting 🙂 It was really too tight to zip up before I started this diet.. Now I can zip up with fairly semi-ease!

Debating on seeing if I can do a chicken day tomorrow to get ready for starting VLCD, Thursday. Really looking forward to getting back on the diet. I really want to see 229 before Thanksgiving. 🙂 I don’t even know when the last time was I was in the 220s.. I think it’s probably been about 4 years.

Wellp, on to watch DS9 with the hubby! 🙂

❤ happy

VLCD Day 4 (or VLCD Day 29?)

I’ve just about decided, it’s much more encouraging to think of this as one long round. 🙂 Rather then two normal rounds.

Yesterday, I woke up with a cold… Sore throat, stuffed up nose.. Just enough that it was annoying. I was also really exhausted, since the night before I was only able to get about 3 hours of sleep. *for some reason, I have a super difficult time getting to sleep lately! No idea why.. :/*

Morning-

Drops, Green Tea with Stevia

Lunch-

Grilled Chicken with herb-seasoning on the George Foreman, topped with Marinara sauce (homemade)

Dinner-

Grilled Steak with Teriyaki Broccoli stir-fry

Evening Snack-

Small Apple, a couple bites of cocoa-crack (I put WAY too much truvia in it this time, and it ended up really grainy, too sweet and gross….), Diet Coke

It got in bed at a decent time and instead was awake till about 3 again. I don’t know what’s up lately… But I can’t seem to fall asleep before 2:30.. Which only gives me about 4 hours of sleep at the most.

I was stressing out, figuring my loss would be pretty nonexistent since I ate much less calories yesterday and since I didn’t get a ton of sleep… But woke up to a 1.6 loss. So that was a nice little surprise. I’m now down at my lowest pre-break weight. 🙂

I have one more day left on VLCD before the HCG is out of my system… Then I’ll be starting back up on P2 Tuesday. That is, IF my drops come in today or tomorrow. If not, then as soon as I possibly can.

Next round, I’m going to try and make sure I don’t have this issue.. Too many breaks when I’m encouraged are seeming kinda hard. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll definately enjoy being able to relax a lil this weekend, since it’s Halloween weekend. (We’re sposed to go to the pumpkin patch this weekend also) but… Before I realized I was running out of drops, a break for Halloween wasn’t even an option.. As much as I’d of liked to spend the weekend eating a semi-normal diet, I had come to terms with the fact I could lose 4 pounds simply just by staying with the diet over the weekend and halloween. 🙂

Wellp! The little guy just woke up (later then normal ^^) So off to get him some breakfast as I try to pretend my water-bottle’s a satisfying substitute for cereal. 🙂