Some Thoughts

Well, I've been trying to decide whether or not to go back on the HCG diet or switch to the Acai berry diet (see my previous post regarding Acai). I have had a real drop in energy lately, to where I could sleep all day and STILL be tired! And before anyone reminds me that sometimes too much sleep can cause a sleepy feeling, it doesn't matter how much or how little I sleep, I am always at a low energy level. The other day I could barely get out of bed to go get my crying little girl. This morning the kids slept in, and I didn't wake up til almost 11!!

The reason I have been contemplating Acai is that it is reported to give an increase in your energy levels on a day to day basis. I've been drinking 5 hour energy every so often when I need to be out and about or doing something important (more about that later) but I can't just drink it all the time. I need to figure out something else that keeps my energy levels up.

The reason I have been contemplating just going back on the HCG is that I know for a fact it works. It worked wonderfully last time, there's no reason to think it wouldn't work again for me. It's comfortable to know you're doing something that works, and not be wondering if I'm wasting money on a product I haven't proven for myself yet.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm still up in the air. I have about 10 more pounds to lose before I'm at prime weight. I'm going to be starting a new quarter here, making it so that I will have to be at a higher energy level than I am now, so in that aspect, I'm leaning towards the Acai. But then with the weight loss aspect I lean more towards HCG.

Something to ponder would be to focus first on my energy so that I can focus well and get good grades, and worry about weight loss as a secondary goal. Hmm... thoughts, thoughts, thoughts!

Updates!

Wow, it's been forever since I last posted! The last time I posted I said that I was going off any special dieting, and just keeping a close eye on my weight. Well, it has worked. I haven't gone down to 137 since I started just eating whatever I chose. So... I got to eat to my heart's content on Thanksgiving! It was a little scary though, coming home and weighing myself to see the scale say 144! But by breakfast time the next day, I was already back down to 141, so I didn't have to do a steak day. I ate cautiously, and stuck to low carbohydrate and starch foods. By Saturday morning I was back down to hovering between 139.5 and 140.0. It seems that my hypothyroid might be pretty stabilized! I'm still going to watch my weight VERY carefully until the end of my 42 day maintenance phase.

I have to say I am really enjoying being able to eat banana bread, tacos, corn on the cob, and, of course, sweet potatoes! Yummy! I am also enjoying being able to eat these foods without the fear of bloating and weight gain :D

I have been thinking about what I'm going to do at the end of this diet... whether I am going to do a second round of the HCG, in an attempt to lose 10 more pounds, or if I am going to try something else. I've been half-heartedly looking into trying Acai berry, as that is said to really do a great job with energy and weight loss.

Here are a few links, so you know what I'm talking about.

One Reporter's Journey

Acai Berry Questions and Answers

The only thing is that I think it can be expensive. I'm going to do some more research on it, and will update my blog when I have more information.

Meanwhile, my hubby thinks I look great. I think his words were - "better defined and shapely figure." Oh who am I kidding. I know those were his words... I wrote them down right after he said them HAHA!!!

Loving the new me!

I give up! lol

I have the hardest time keeping my weight up to where it's supposed to be at 139. I have gone down to 137 twice, and rarely am above 138. To keep my weight up, I've eaten walnuts, which helped but then they disappeared, I've eaten a little banana bread (which did nothing) drank a smoothie with a banana - nothing. I hate a handful of corn chips. Nothing. Not even half a pound. I go to bed every night at 138.5 or so, and by morning I'm between 137 and 138. I realize that I only have to stay within 2 pounds of my ending weight, but I'm tired of worrying about it.

So, I'm going to continue weighing myself in the morning, and before every meal. Based on that weight I will decide what and how much to eat. For instance, today I had friends over, and we made a big pot of mac 'n' cheese for everyone. I went and weighed myself, and was hovering between 138 and 138.5. So I had about half a cup of mac 'n' cheese, and a nice size salad with ham. By dinner I was 138.5. So I feel like I made a good choice. I ate food that I enjoyed, but paid close attention to the portion, as well as making sure to get in some really healthy food in the process. I'm going to stop worrying about carbs, and sugars, except to make sure I'm not having something to eat that is pure sugar. An occasional cookie would be nice, but I won't be sitting there pigging out on an entire batch. I like mac 'n' cheese, but I won't be eating the entire box anymore (even if it IS my favorite spirals! lol) and I'm going to make sure I get plenty of fruit and vegetables. I am still not having very much dairy - no more than about a cup of milk a day, and possibly some shredded cheese in my salads. I'm getting lots of protein in hard boiled eggs, and steak, with a little chicken every now and then. A well balanced diet is key. And I will adjust my quantities based on what my weight is before my meal.

You know what this means, right? I can eat worry free at Thanksgiving, as long as I pay attention to portion sizes and variety. YAY!

Guess what I made?

Banana bread! It's so yummy :) At least that's what I remember anyway lol... I don't get to eat banana, flour, or sugar yet, so it's off limits to me, but my family will enjoy it :)

I've been closely monitoring my weight. Yesterday I had dropped weight, and ate more calories, bringing my weight up. Today, I dropped only a small amount so just ate normally for breakfast. Unfortunately I was unable to eat lunch, and then unable to weigh myself before dinner as I was in Everett (they opened a new Winco - bananas were 18 cents a pound!!!!!! Hence the banana bread lol) and starving. As a result I wasn't able to take care with the amount I ate, and by dinner had already gone up a pound from my balance weight of 139. So I'm spending the evening drinking lots of tea and water, and will weigh myself before my nightly soak in the tub to see how my weight is doing.

Since I made a HUGE amount of the Chili Con Queso this morning, and having bought tortilla chips at Winco, I'll serve some of that to Jim. He liked it last time, so that should be pretty good for him. Hopefully Luke likes it too, but he's been grazing on fruit for the past hour and a half, and had a little yogurt, so if he doesn't like it, at least he won't be hungry :)

DROOOOOOOOL!!!!!

I just made 2 batches of my mom's famous (honestly... it's been in the paper) Chili Con Queso Dip! Without giving away the whole recipe, it's got sausage, tomatoes, garlic, onions and a ton of cheese. I worked out the calorie/fat/sugar content, and here's what I came up with. I estimated about 1 cup per serving (ended up being the perfect amount for me) and guessing about 10 cups(?) per recipe. For one serving, there is approximately 236 calories, 1.5 grams of sugar, 20 grams of protein, and 13 grams of fat. Not bad! Anyway, I ate my 1 cup's worth, and it was delicious!!!!

So this morning, I weighed myself, and had dropped a pound and a half! Yikes! I'm 137.5, which would be awesome if I wasn't trying to stabilize my weight. I wracked my brains trying to figure out how to bring that number up. Walnuts seem to have done the trick. I'm back to 138.5. I'm not going to worry overmuch about my food intake as long as I can be within half a pound of my final HCG weight of 139.0. So... now I know what to eat if my weight drops too drastically lol.

For breakfast this morning I didn't have any strawberries, so I blended just milk and 3 quarters of a canned peach. Divine, I tell you. God knew what he was doing when he put such wonderful foods on this earth!!

It was nice to be able to snack throughout the day. In addition to the walnuts, I also snacked on peaches, and had a Luna bar. Strictly speaking, I shouldn't have eaten the bar because it has a bit of flour in it, but it had less than 3 grams of sugar for the entire bar, so I just spread it out over a period of time. Plus, I was trying to get my weight up a little, and I know any kind of grain will give me a bit of a jump. It's so weird being able to watch my weight go up and down. I've never before had an issue of what I ate. I might gain a pound by nightfall, but then by morning I'm back to my weight from the day before, maybe even down half a pound or so. Now, though, I have watched my weight drop a pound and a half overnight, and watched it jump a pound within a few hours! Once my weight stabilizes, though, I shouldn't have this issue any more :)

Well, I made it!

Sort of. This morning I woke up STARVING!!! I debated what to do. I haven't woken up very hungry since I started this diet. I started wondering if the HCG had left my system already. I'm going off of the yourhcg blog, which says it takes 2 complete days after the last day of drops before you can eat regularly on the 3rd day, but I didn't get my drops through them. I got them from Amazon, so maybe the solution is different, and doesn't take as long? I was still wary, so I called Susan to talk it out with her, and discussed me eating breakfast. I didn't think I'd make it to lunch time without eating. It felt like my body was digesting itself lol. I ended up deciding, with Susan's help, to eat 2/3 of the normal amount of food I would have eaten for lunch and dinner combined, and eating that for breakfast, so that each meal was 2/3 of the amount I would have eaten. For breakfast for the kids, I had made scrambled eggs with cheese and sandwich meat (smoked turkey), and put it on toast for the Luke as a sandwich. I measured out approximately 100 grams, and ate that (I can have cheese and turkey on phase 3).

For Lunch, around 1, (I had been pretty hungry for about an hour before I was able to eat and had been guzzling water trying to keep myself from being too hungry) I ate a steak, celery (allowed on phase 2) and applesauce. I was still hungry, so I ate the biggest strawberry I'd ever seen! It was about half the size of my fist!! After the strawberry I was fine. We went to what we have named "The Pumpkin Shoot" which is when we take a ton of pumpkins up into the mountain and exercise our 2nd amendment rights :D. We got home around 3, and I was already hungry again. By 4 I was feeling ravenous. I worried about eating more calories than I was supposed to, so I went and weighed myself, feeling nervous about the extra food I'd eaten (I haven't eaten breakfast in just over 3 weeks!). Lo and behold, my weight was holding steady at 139.0 (My weight again this morning). So, this leads me to believe that if the HCG isn't completely out of my system, it's mostly out.

So I decided to eat something. I chose eggs, because they're available on both phase 2 and 3. I have been craving egg salad the past couple of days, so I checked the list. Mayonnaise wasn't on the list of allowed foods, but the list says that it is not a complete list. SO I went online and checked for sugar content. Turns out that I can have all of the ingredients in mayonnaise except sugar, which is less than 1 gram per tablespoon. So I decided it would be okay, after going to my little scale to figure out just how much 1 gram of sugar was. It's teeny!!! So I put 1 tablespoon in a bowl, boiled 3 eggs, and used 2 to make the egg salad. The total sugar content for it was less than 3 grams total (eggs each have approximately 1 gram of natural sugar in them). I have really been savoring every bite. I used to just eat it all up really fast, but I am taking little bites, really moving them around in my mouth, tasting, chewing, and thoroughly enjoying it :)

What I'm going to do every day, to be sure that I'm successful, is weigh myself before every meal. I will use my weight to determine how much I should eat for that meal. If I've gained a little since breakfast, I'll have a smaller lunch. If I've lost since breakfast, I'll have a larger lunch. Same goes for Dinner. I think this is the way to make sure that I don't overeat or under eat, making sure that my weight is properly stable.

I'll right, I'm going to go finish enjoying my very delicious egg salad. Happy November, everyone!

Good eating!

Today was the third day for my 3 day beans. If you'll remember, the first day was beans over rice, seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, served with homemade biscuits, the second day was baked beans with hot dogs, seasoned with mustard, ketchup, and brown sugar, served with homemade cornbread. Today was creamed beans. The first day I made the beans I saved the bean water (more like gravy). Today I took that back out of the fridge, added a can of sweetened evaporated milk (sweetened because I forgot to pick up molasses) and some honey (for the same reason). As an afterthought, I went ahead and mixed in some cheese. While waiting for that to cook, I fried some diced red potatoes. When the mixture was done, I mixed it into the bean mixture from yesterday, and served it up with the fried potatoes.

So far, Jim hasn't come into the house to eat it, but my friend Susan is over and she said the beans were delicious, and the fried potatoes were perfect :) So I'd say the evening was a complete success!

ETA: Jim came in and he is delighted with the beans. He's still in awe that I was able to stretch one batch of beans so far. He also said the potatoes were awesome. WhooHoo!!! I am really learning so much about how to feed my family, and in a healthy way! Yes I realize that fried potatoes isn't exactly the most healthy thing to eat, but the beans are very healthy. Lots of protein there :)

I also made oatmeal cookies again, and they were quickly eaten up by Luke, Susan, and Katie :) I'm going to make another batch tonight to take to the pumpkin shoot tomorrow. I know people will enjoy them :) I need to get a cookie jar, I've been making cookies so much lol plus I want to make more. I need to make the no-bake cookies :)

Back on the HCG thought, today was my first day off the drops. This morning I was 139.0 This is the weight I need to stay within 2 pounds of. That means I can weigh as little as 137, or as much as 141, but not outside that range. If I go outside that range to the lower end, I need to up my calorie intake. If I go outside that range on the higher end, I have to immediately stop eating any food for an entire day, while drinking quite a lot of water. At night I eat the biggest steak I can stomach, however I like it, and then that should get my weight back within the proper range. The entire purpose of the maintenance phase is to stabilize my metabolism. At this point there is a very shaky balance. I need to make sure that this balance is not thrown out of whack before my hypothalamus has adjusted to the new weight and caloric intake.

Turning Over a New Leaf

You know, this diet really has me shaping up, not just literally lol but in other areas of my life. My priorities have really switched, with my focus being more and more on my kids, my relationship with Jim, the house, etc. On the side of my blog, in the link area, there's a link to the Flylady website. She tells you how to set up a "control journal" that governs every aspect of your life, so that you follow it until it just becomes habit. You customize it to your own personal needs for your own house. There's sections for the "Zones" which are the different areas in your house. There are 5 zones, and you work on each zone for one week of every month, with a detailed cleaning list for each zone. Beyond that there's weekly schedules. For instance, Monday is my errand day, Tuesday is my free day, Wednesday is my heavy duty day (clean in every zone for 20 minutes, plus refrigerator and porch, etc) and the list goes on. It's really been helping me stay on track. I'm using it in conjunction with my day planner, in which I have scheduled special appointments. When I schedule something, I make sure it falls into my weekly plan. As a result, everything from the laundry room to the back of the house is spotless every morning. The kitchen I am having the hardest time with, because it's the place I hate the most. I keep allowing the dishes to pile up, and the counters to get cluttered. I will really be working hard to break that habit. The only two rooms that aren't spotless every day (except for the kitchen) are the living room and family room. I don't know why that is. There's dog hair that needs cleaning every day, the rooms get messy from the kids, etc. At any rate, I'm really going to start working harder on those rooms. On a fun note, at Value Village the other day I found a BEAUTIFUL table cloth for a round or oval table, and I brought it home and brightened up the entire dining room with it, and the small plate with a candle surrounded by rocks :)

Okay, now I know this blog is about food, not cleaning, so let's get back to that! The other area that I have really made drastic changes in my life are in the area of meal times. Usually, for breakfast there's oatmeal or cold cereal, lunch time is a sandwich, either with bread or a tortilla (Luke's personal favorite), dinner is whatever I can cook out of a box or scrounge out of the fridge. Well... that has stopped. Now, breakfast is pancakes (in the shape of Micky Mouse for Luke lol) or waffles, oatmeal with bananas, or french toast. Lunch is grilled cheese and tomato soup, or quesadillas, dinner is actually thought out and prepared well ahead of time. For instance, there's this recipe I have for 3 days worth of beans. You cook 1-2 pounds of red beans (after overnight soaking) either in the crock pot or on the stove, with a bunch of salt, pepper, garlic salt, and 2-4 packets of ramen flavoring. After it's cooked down, you pour it into a strainer, and save the juice in the fridge. You cook rice (of which I cooked an enormous pot so that I would have it for the next few days) and serve the beans on top of the rice. I added shredded cheese on top to make it taste better for Luke, who is not a huge fan of beans. I also made some homemade biscuits. By the time Jim got home, I had just put a big plate of the rice and beans with cheese on the table, and was JUST taking the biscuits out of the oven, so it was nice and hot. I served him and Luke on the table, something that is somewhat rare in our house. I'm trying to bring that back. No TV during dinner time, at least once a week. We'll work our way up from there. No need to rush into it and get Jim upset that I'm trying to change our entire routine overnight :)

Tomorrow, with the beans that are now in the fridge, I'll be making baked beans...adding ketchup, mustard, and a few other ingredients and baked in the oven. I'll be making cornbread to go with it, and will pick up some hot dogs to cut into pieces to add to the beans.

Saturday will be creamed beans, where I'll be adding the juice from today back into the beans, and adding a few more ingredients.

In the meantime, I made a big batch of refrigerator bread (still hasn't collapsed, almost 4 hours later... wonder why? It's only supposed to take 2). Sunday I'm planning to make a small pizza.

So you see? My cooking habits have altered drastically. I LOVE it!!! I'm going to look for a certain cookbook. My mom had it when I was young from the library, and was all about how to make mixes that you store in large quantities, and you just take some as you need it and make all sorts of things, such as cookies, breads, pancakes, etc, depending on the mix. It would be great if I could come across it again, because it would certainly simplify meal times :)

Now to talk about my weight. I am so excited!! I am down to 140.0 this morning. If I only lose 1/2 pound by Sunday (my last day on the VLCD), I will have broken into the 130's! I am so excited! Tomorrow is my last day of drops. I am so excited that I have stuck through it, and was so strict with my eating. It has really been worth it. I do have one confession to make. I cheated a tiny bit. Yesterday was my uncle's birthday dinner at his daughter's, and her boyfriend was making this delicious French beef bourgonyon (not sure how that's spelled). It smelled so wonderful, I went ahead and dipped my spoon in the sauce to taste it. That's my only infraction for the past 3 1/2 weeks, so I feel okay about it.

I won't bore you with the details of my past several meals. I really only ate the same things every day anyway, with just a few twists. I have been eating more eggs recently, because, frankly, I'm getting sick and tired of chicken. It doesn't seem to have effected my weight loss at all, so I'm glad about that. I am eating it as prescribed by Dr. Simeons - 1 whole egg added to 3 egg whites. I put salt and pepper in it, and I'm good to go :) Maybe tomorrow I'll add some spinach and have fake quiche. Hmm. I'll have to add the real thing to my list of desirable foods to eat :)

Monday is coming fast... I can't wait to make my chef's salad!!!

Blah

Okay, this regimen of food is getting quite boring lol. Seems like it's chicken twice a day with the same 3 choices of veggies and fruit. I do my best to mix it up a little. For instance, yesterday I made a soup with half a cup of chicken broth, and chicken bits and chopped onion with spices added. That was good. I'm looking forward to being able to eat a bit more variety. In Phase 3, as long as I abstain from carbs, I can indulge in fats a little more, and I'm looking forward to eating ham and pork, especially in a chef's salad and pot roast (2 different meals mind you lol), and definitely looking forward to being able to mix my veggies, since you can't have a proper salad with only lettuce or spinach!

Yesterday and today, I deviated from the strict meal plans, because Dr. Simeons stated that on occasion, he allowed his patients to have eggs, as long as it was 1 whole egg mixed with 3 egg whites. So, for breakfast yesterday, and dinner today, I had scrambled eggs seasoned with salt and pepper. It was a welcome change from the constant amount of chicken. It's good, don't get me wrong, but I can only eat something so many days in a row before getting sick of it. It's like eating birthday cake every day, twice a day, to the point where if you never see birthday cake again it will be too soon!

I have only 5 more days of taking HCG, and then I have to stay on the low calorie diet for 3 more days. So, Saturday will be my last day of the low calorie diet. Which is unfortunate, since my friend's wedding is Saturday, and I'm going to be going all the way to Portland to see her, and I won't be able to eat any of the delicious food after the wedding (Russians make the absolute best food in the world, second only to Italian!). I'm wondering if it will hurt if I stop the HCG one day early so that I can eat the food at the reception (particularly the sweets... refer back to my comment about Russian food, only this time it's bar none!!!). I'll have to look it up.

Weight loss is slower now that I've lost all the water weight, so I'm averaging much less per day, but that's okay. I lost a pound this morning (143.5) and I've had my smooth move tea today, since it didn't seem to really work last time. It worked this time, so I'm anxious to see how much weight I've lost tomorrow :D

By the way, kind of adding on to yesterday's post, you know what I did today? My son came in and sweetly asked me if we had any cookies. I told him that no, we didn't, but we had graham crackers. He then, Oh-SO-Sweetly asked if he could make some cookies! Well how could I refuse that cute little face being so polite?! SO I told him that yes, we could make some cookies. Turns out we didn't have any chocolate chips, so I told him we could make Oatmeal cookies. He thought that was quite funny. He's never had them before, and couldn't decide if it was normal to put oatmeal in cookies or not. But, we went ahead and made them (with him holding all the measuring cups above the bowl for me to pour into - he's such a good little baker!) and you know what? I wasn't even tempted to take a taste of either the dough or the finished product. I'm so proud of myself. I am so going to deserve that butterscotch pudding!

I have the willpower and strength of a stone statue!

On Monday my uncle took me out shopping for my birthday (I'm so excited to now have the food slicer attachment for my KitchenAid stand mixer!!) so before we left, I quickly grilled up my lunch and dinner chicken breasts, an orange, a tomato and handful of cabbage, made my strawberry drink and put it in a metal water bottle, and packed it all up with my 4 containers of water to drink. While we were out, my uncle and Luke started getting hungry, so we went to the Subway that was in the shopping center we were in. I did not sneak even one bite! The cheese looked SO good, and it would have been so easy, but I didn't. I sat there and ate my chicken and tomato! (I had already drunk my strawberry drink while we were shopping.)

Note to self - we are out of parsley. Gotta get more!!!

For dinner I had the rest of what I had packed, but I was already home. The problem though, is that I ate really late at night, because lunch was so late. As it was, I had to really force myself to eat my dinner. As a result of eating so late, I think, I didn't lose any weight by the next morning.

Yesterday was a bit of a challenge. I had to take my daughter to the doctor's because she was choking and then throwing up after every bite of food. My daughter is not a choker. She eats all the stuff they say you shouldn't give to kids - popcorn, chips, toast, crackers, it doesn't matter. She is not a gorger like Luke was at this age, she is a dainty biter kind of eater, and she has never choked, and she's been eating table food for about 6 months now. So it was necessary to take her in. Turns out she's teething. All 4 of her molars are coming in at the same time. So she's not chewing her food properly anymore, and so choking. Makes perfect sense. Also makes me feel a little neglectful for not having noticed it. I had no idea the canines might come in AFTER the molars. Luke got his canines first. Not to mention Kaitlynn only has 2 teeth on the bottom. The pediatrician said she was just getting her teeth in backward, and that it's perfectly normal. Anyway, that wasn't the challenge. The challenge is that because her appointment was at 10 in the morning, I figured I'd be back in time for lunch, plus I kind of overslept so didn't really have time for cooking, especially since I was late as it was for the appointment. At any rate, I called Jim after the appointment to let him know about Kaitlynn's teeth, and also to find out where to meet him since he'd kept Luke. When I get there, he says to hop in the truck so we can go to Seattle to look at cabinets (we went the other day but couldn't find what we wanted). I said okay, but the only problem was that I was starting to get hungry, and I had no lunch! The possibility was there that we might not even be home until 3 or 4! So I did the best I could with the circumstances.

Since we were in the McDonald's parking lot, we went through the drivethru and ordered a grilled chicken breast sandwich with extra tomato. I am not sure what spices they use, so I scraped off as much of the outer layer as I could. I didn't know how much it weighed either, so I had to eyeball it, and ate about 3/4 of the breast. I also ate the tomato, and gave the rest (bun and lettuce) to Luke who enjoyed it. When I got home at 3 I ate the rest of the tomato and a strawberry drink. I'm disappointed that I don't know if I ate the right amount of calories, what the fat content of the chicken was, etc, etc. I feel like I cheated, against my best efforts. I also did not lose any weight when I weighed myself this morning :( But there also could be another reason.

Without going into too much detail and giving out TMI (too much information) I am prone to an overgrowth of yeast. I've been researching it, and discovered that if your body has an overgrowth of yeast, not only can you be prone to repeat infection, but you can also have issues with body odor, which I do. I can take a shower, and within an hour smell like I need another one. I've changed soaps, body washes, scrubbers.... none of it matters. So it just makes a lot of sense to me that I might have an overgrowth of yeast going on. Monday I felt the onset of an infection, so while we were out, bought some Olive Leaf extract. I have discovered that it is really powerful against yeast. I took 3 tablets Monday. Tuesday I realized that the feeling of an onset was gone. As a precaution I took 3 again last night with dinner, and will probably take another 3 today to finish up. Dr. Simeons recommended that you not take supplements or vitamins with this diet, as they may interfere with weight loss, but I did not want to have a yeast infection that is very uncomfortable and tend to be pretty severe and long lasting for me if I don't treat. And since my normal treating method is not available to me (eating tons of yogurt) I have to do the best I can. But I didn't lose any weight, and it may or may not be related.

Also, without giving too much detail, I think it's time for some more smooth move tea :)

I did have an excellent dinner last night. I chopped my chicken up into small pieces, and put it in a pan with 2 tablespoons of milk. I sprinkled a bunch of spices over it. I lost track of them all, but I know there was majoram, savory, thyme, and something else. I would have added parsley, my favorite, but I'm out!! I cooked it up and had to add about a tablespoon of water. There was a little liquid left over, but the chicken was so flavorful! I'm almost out of cabbage and can no longer peel anything off of it, so I just cut some off, weighed it to be sure I was getting the right amount, and just ate it like that. Also, I remembered that I'd already had my strawberry alottment, and I realized that I really did NOT want an orange. My only other option, since I don't like grapefruit, was an apple, and I didn't have any applesauce. So I turned to the microwave. I cut the apple in half, sprinkled cinnamon all over it, and microwaved it. when it was done I scraped all the apple out of the peel, threw the peeling out, and then added a little bit of water and smashed it all up. It was good, and it'll do in a pinch, but I much prefer the taste when it comes out of the crock pot. Something about slow cooking it seems to bring out the sweetness of the apple really well. My meal seemed overly large, although I know it was the same as always. I felt stuffed at the end of my meal :)

Mom... are you sitting down? Try not to faint!

I ate an entire 100 grams of FISH! Yes, that's right, I ate the thing that is my number one top HATED food. At the beginning of my diet when I was telling Jim about the foods I could eat, he said he bet fish was on the meat list. I told him yes, but only certain ones, and I couldn't eat stuff like salmon. So he looked at the list and then told me I could have halibut. I had to check, grumbling under my breath. He has been after me almost since the day we met to let him cook me some fish. I've tried it for him, a few times, and never really enjoyed it, and mostly downright hated it. But he asked very nicely, again, so I told him he could cook me A halibut serving. Well... tonight was the dreaded night.

It actually wasn't horrible, and I did eat the whole thing, but I certainly didn't enjoy my dinner tonight with the same relish I have the last week and a half. I tolerated it more like. The highlight though, was my yummy strawberry drink :) I made the boys 1 to share, and then a 2nd, and even after that, Jim was asking me to pour some of mine into his cup (Um, how about KEEP AWAY FROM MY ONLY PORTION OF STRAWBERRIES!... honey...) and Luke kept asking for a drink of mine too lol... think I found a hit here lol. Also for dinner I had a tomato, which I had run out of and had to stop at the store. On a side note, how did a stop at the store for tomatoes, strawberries, laundry detergent, fabric softener and cat litter turn into an $80 shopping spree?!?

Breakfast took about 2 hours today :) It feels really good to not feel really hungry. I was really afraid yesterday might become a regular thing, so I'm almost jumping up and down that I have felt really satisfied all day. I didn't even eat dinner until 8:30, which is SUPER late for me. Well actually, that's pretty much right on time in the regular eating world, but during the diet I seem to get hungry around 6ish.

Learning: Set out your water for the day in the morning. I realized that I might not be getting enough water. I've been drinking out of water bottles, and just refilling them, but I can't ever remember how many I've gone through. So this morning, I set out 4 bottles, filled them, and set them aside. I started drinking out of one, and just replaced a new one with the empty. That way I can make sure I am getting enough, even if that means forcing it. Today, I've already drank my 4, and I'm well into my 5th :) Doing much better I think.

Challenges: Quit talking to me about food! lol I'm not upset with you mom, don't worry. I just got off the phone with you talking about chef salads, and I started imagining it and then my mouth started watering, and I had to come up with some way of getting it out of my head. SO I drank an entire bottle of water all at once. It worked... there was so much liquid in my stomach I didn't think anything would ever sound good to eat again lol

Thoughts: I have to say I am truly feeling great about myself right now. It's nice to look in the mirror and not feel disgusted because my upper arms look like someone's thighs, or because I have a double chin if I glance down ever so slightly. It's nice to see some angles come back into my face instead of this roundness I never quite got used to after getting pregnant. I'm enjoying the amount of energy I have, and the fact that I don't feel exhausted in the middle of the day like I just need a nap. Even if I wake up early.

However, I am looking forward to adding some things back into my diet, like pasta, and bread, and eggs (I can have eggs on the diet, but only one whole egg mixed with 3 egg whites... it just doesn't sound as appetizing), and also looking forward to being able to mix my veggies, so that I can have that chef's salad! (Cheese included!)

Over halfway there!

When I started this blog back at the very end of June, I had about 32 pounds to lose to get down to my ideal weight of 130. Now I have just over 15 pounds to lose. I have officially lost more weight than I have left to lose :D

I was 146.5 pounds yesterday, as I was the day before. Two things occurred to me. One is that I haven't been keeping as good track of my water intake as I had been, and my digestion has slowed down. My friend Susan suggested some smooth move tea, saying I should probably take it at night. I'm glad I didn't listen and got impatient lol. I drank the tea in the late evening, and in about 2 hours my body was doing its thing. I also made sure I drank a LOT of water yesterday. This morning I had lost a pound :)

Yesterday was the worst day I've had since starting this diet. Kaitlynn woke me up really early, and I had a really hard time waking up. On top of that, I got hungry a lot earlier than usual, so had to start trying to stretch my meal out at around 11 instead of 12:30-1 which is when I usually start eating. For lunch I ate chicken grilled with parsley and garlic salt, and drank my strawberry/lemon drink (Oh so good!!!) at about 12:30 I ate the last of my cabbage and bread stick. I was still kind of hungry :( To make matters worse Luke has been begging to make cupcakes. So I helped him make a batch (he got to add all the ingredients and stir them up... he is really starting to get into wanting to help cook). So now there were cupcakes and cake (from the leftover batter) sitting on the counter. I was guzzling as much water and tea as I could to try and stave off the hunger, and on my way to the store for dog food (around 4ish), I called Susan for a quick pep talk. Sounded something like this....

Me: "Susan, tell me again how hot I'm going to be when I lose all this extra weight."

Susan: "You're going to be really hot..... um, why?" lol

Susan reminded me that if your bowels don't move properly, it can add to feelings of hunger, and then suggested I come pick up a few bags of the smooth move tea from her. After I started cooking dinner, and munching on my bread stick, I started to feel a little bit better.

For dinner, I had grilled steak with salt, grilled asparagus, a bread stick, and an orange, which I ate a while later. After dinner, I didn't feel hungry anymore. I drank more tea (not the smooth move this time lol) and lots of water, and went to bed feeling very content, all food cravings gone, thank goodness! This morning I felt normal again... meaning not hungry, good energy, and no cravings. It's almost 11 and I have yet to really feel any kind of hunger, just thirst, which I've been taking care of with water and tea. It feels good to be back on track :)

YUMMY!!!!

Okay, I found another amazing recipe and a great way to get my strawberries (not that I don't enjoy eating them whole, but I'm trying not to let my meals get too boring). It's a virgin strawberry margarita.

6 strawberries

Juice of half a lemon

1 1/2 packets of stevia (since I have drops, I used 8 and that seemed to be perfect)

4-5 ice cubes

(I added water because there was basically really thick slush that I couldn't even get to pour)

Now, I've never had a strawberry margarita, because alcohol is

gross and makes me want to puke, so I have no idea if this tastes similar to actual margaritas, but I can tell you with certainty that it is absolutely delicious! I made one up for Luke too, although I forgot to add the stevia for him, but he said it was really yummy, so I didn't mention sweetening it. Jim tried the unsweetened, and he liked it too, so maybe I'm just spoiled when it comes to sour. Those 2 like sour patch kids too, and I can't stand them. Although I like war heads, so go figure lol

So... now I've got fun ways to get my 2 fruits a day, now I just need to come up with something for my veggies. I have a few recipes I may try, but I don't like to post ones I haven't tried yet, so I'll do those as they come.

For breakfast, I ate garlic chicken with parsley, half an orange, and half of my bread stick. I finished the orange and bread stick around 4, and then realized that I hadn't eaten my cabbage that I'd set out, so I ate that around 4:30. I hope that doesn't effect my weight loss any :(

For dinner tonight I sliced up a tomato, grilled some garlic chicken with parsley, and had my strawberry drink. I also ate my bread stick, of course. A lovely picture of my dinner :)

Today is day 10 of my diet. I'm going to start writing VLCD. It means very low calorie diet, and I will use it in conjunction with the day that I am on. Since my loading days don't count as part of the VLCD, just add 2 to figure out what day of the diet I am on.

So. I'm at VLCD 8, and down 6 pounds. Not bad, huh? lol

The Plateau is over!

I've lost another half a pound after 3 days of not losing anything. It's pretty typical to lose a bunch of water weight right off the bat, and then to start losing at a slower pace. Remember, the average weight loss is calculated at the end of the diet.

So... let's play a little catch up here. Yesterday morning I woke up with just the slightest hunger pang, and so drank my tea, and the hunger was gone! For lunch I had chicken breast smothered in parsley and garlic salt, half an orange, and cabbage. I ate the rest of my orange around 3 after feeling slightly hungry, but other than that I didn't feel hungry again until dinner time. My friend came over and since she's on the diet I welcomed her to stay for dinner. We prepared steak with salt, steamed asparagus, and since she'd already had an apple, she saved her fruit for later, and I had apple sauce (yummy lol).

Challenges - Last night I had to go to Duvall to pick up Jim's computer. While I was there, there were a few things that had to be finished up. Unfortunately, right next door was my all time favorite Pizzeria, Sahara's Pizza. As if that wasn't bad enough, the computer tech's cousin came in with what I thought were breadsticks. The tech was on a diet too, so we both grumbled as his cousin took the food into a back room where we could hear him loudly smacking his lips and groaning in pure pleasure at all the yummy tastes. I discovered later that it was bbq chicken, which doesn't entice me at all, so I felt a little better, but THEN he brought ACTUAL breadsticks in, sat down behind me playing his X-Box and ate the breadsticks. He even offered some to Kaitlynn (after making sure it was okay with me of course), so then she's happily munching away on my absolute favorite food while I couldn't partake. So that was pretty difficult for me, but I managed okay. Now I know what else I'll be eating in addition to the pudding cup after my diet and maintenance are over! :D

Dilemma!!

Tonight I hit a hard spot as I debated what to do. To bathe, or not to bathe. Okay, well maybe not bathe... it might have been more like shave... and wash my hair lol Not to totally gross everyone out, but I haven't washed my hair since the day before I started the HCG drops, which would be last Tuesday. EWW I know. I've been wearing a cap to hide my hideous hair. The bottoms look fine, but the top looks like a 70's guys' hairstyle gone horribly wrong. Nasty. That and my legs and pits are starting to make me look positively bearish. The reason for this is that while on the HCG diet, you have to be careful of what you put on your skin. Bathing hasn't been a problem, since I've got an approved brand of soap. But I haven't been able to find anything online about shampoos and shaving cream brands other than like 2 organic ones, and lets face it... this girl ain't rich enough for the organic stuff which is 2-3 times more expensive than non organic.

Finally, out of desparation, I started just looking up all the ingredients in my shaving cream, and discovered that yes, the second ingredient is a fatty acid derived from the oils in animals. So that was out. Not to be thwarted, I slathered up my legs with my soap and went from there. Man do I hate shaving with soap... it leaves my legs all itchy. But itchy is better than furry.

There are WAY too many ingredients in my shampoo and conditioner to look up (I use Tresemme) but there's just no way I can keep hiding my disgusting hair. Sooner or later the cap is going to fall off and I'll look up to see that suddenly there's a 10 foot wide circle around me in which people hold their kids back from getting any closer to the beast that my hair is. So, I took a very conservative approach. After my bath, I drained the tub. Then I turned my hair upside down, put shampoo directly onto my roots, and then really quickly lathered and rinsed, before it had too much time to settle into my scalp and hands. I did the same with the conditioner, but only did the ends, and rinsed immediately rather than waiting as I usually do. I immediately wrapped my hair up to keep any leftover conditioner from soaking into my body. Extreme? I think so. I'm laughing at the image of myself attempting to not allow any possible oils or fats to seep into my skin and ruin my weight loss! I think it's ridiculous. But until I know if there's anything to be wary of, this is me, when my hair gets so bad I'm offending myself.

The good news is, I've completed one week of my HCG diet!! Only 2 left to go before maintenance. And I don't have to be around any family until then :) so I'm good to go with my nasty, greasy, cap-covered hair.

There's more good news too! So, earlier, I wrote that I had saved half of my tomato and strawberries for later. Well, I went and did some manure shoveling in an area Jim needed to work in, and then worked with the horse a bit. I burned some extra calories, and got hungry, so I'm really glad I saved that food. It was about 3:30 when I finished them. I had a meeting this evening, so prepared my food, put it in my handy little lunch box containers, and headed out. About the time I was headed there, at quarter to 6, I was feeling a little snackish, so ate half of my bread stick. Apparently that was enough, because even though I had intended to eat the rest of my food when I got to the library meeting room, I completely forgot about it, and didn't realize it until after 7! Even then I was only feeling slightly hungry, so I ate my chicken. Around 8 I ate my bread stick and apple sauce. I was drinking lots of water and feeling great. THEN... on my way home, I suddenly realized that I hadn't had my cabbage yet, and still needed those calories for the day! The only problem was that I wasn't even slightly hungry. I know how important it is though, to get all 500 calories, so I set them out on the edge of the bathtub while I initially soaked and read a book, and snacked on them. I was feeling almost stuffed by the time I was done with the portion.

This means it is really working. I'm doing good on 500 calories a day. What's funny to me is that people who believe everything the FDA tells them say that "of course you're losing... it's the number of calories and has nothing whatsoever to do with the HCG." If that was true, though, then why is it that people who have a really hard time losing weight because their body is in starvation mode can eat 500 calories and not lose and ounce, but as soon as they add HCG to the mix they start losing? The other thing I find funny is when people who work for the HCG injection companies point to the homeopathic version as being a scam... even though it is doing exactly the same thing as the shots. If I wasn't in starvation mode, and was losing weight on this 500 calorie diet, I'd be exhausted all the time, no energy, I'd be weak, my body would be breaking down. Instead I feel really good, I'm not hungry all the time (the periods of time in which I notice hunger are always around the time I usually eat, and as soon as I start eating I fill up really fast). I'm not tired, in fact I'm able to get up earlier than usual and feel just fine without needing a nap or going to bed early.

I guess I'm a pretty firm believer. The mirror and tape measure don't lie. This stuff really works :)

Good Day :)

So, I woke up yesterday and got all bummed because the scale still said 148.5. A while later, after it was too late to reweigh, I remembered that I'd forgotten to take my robe off! Ugh. I hate not having an accurate weight for yesterday, because today I'm 147, and I don't know if maybe I stalled today, or lost yesterday and gained today, etc. The reason I'm in such a snit is because I added a new thing yesterday. When I went to get water bottles yesterday to stock up for my trail ride (love horsies!) I discovered a flavored packet thing (goes in the water bottle) that is 5 calories and has stevia, lemons, and raspberry juices). If I don't have an accurate weight every day, how am I supposed to know if something I ate is something I shouldn't eat again while on the low calorie diet?!

Anyway, on to yesterday's food. I ate my breadstick at the beginning of my ride, and then took my drops. A while later I started drinking my flavored water. Along the ride, every time I had finished about half of my water, I'd pour more water into it, to make the flavor last longer. I drank about 48 ounces that way. We stopped in a field and I ate my tomato. A while later, after goofing off for a bit, we continued down the trail, and I ate my chicken, and then had more drops. A few hours later I peeled my orange, and grazed on that over a period of about an hour and a half, all the while drinking lots of water (I brought 5 bottles with me, 16 ounces each). My friends and I got back to the barn about 5:45ish, and I made my dinner by 6:15. I ate it around 7... chicken, applesauce (so super yummy!!!) and cabbage, and of course, my breadstick. I didn't finish all of my cabbage, because I got full, so I finished it about an hour later and took more drops.

I really had no hunger yesterday until right before I started my dinner. I'm so happy this is going so well for me!!

Today, I've learned from yesterday's experience of not eating my whole lunch all at once. So, I ate my chicken, half a tomato, and half of my strawberries, and my breadstick for lunch. If I start feeling hungry in an hour or so, I'll go ahead and eat one or the other.

Dinner and cheating... NOT WITH FOOD

Okay, so I had a really good dinner tonight, and actually felt quite full when I was done. I had a steak, grilled, about 8 small strawberries, about 8 spears of asparagus (first time ever I ate them without mayonnaise!) and my bread stick.

My friend saw me today (she hadn't seen me since day one of the HCG drops) and said she noticed a definite difference! So, now we come to the cheating part. I said I was only going to take pictures and measurements once a week, on Wednesday. Well.. I was obsessing over the fact that Susan said I looked thinner, so I grabbed a tape measure and took a few :) I am so encouraged now! I've lost inches in my thighs (2), stomach (1.5), and hips (1) (that's all I measured... the rest will follow on Wednesday as planned lol) for a total of 4 1/2 inches lost and 4 pounds lost in almost 6 days.

My resolve is so much stronger now!

SUCCESS!!!! (and lunch)

I have found a very agreeable way to eat my apple!!! So what I did was dice up the apple, put it in my mini crockpot with approximately 3 tablespoons of water (I say approximately because I couldn't find my tablespoon so i used a quarter cup that wasn't completely full) and sprinkled liberally with cinnimon. I forgot to unplug it before I went to bed, so at about 3, Jim woke up to go potty, remembered his roast in the big crock pot and went to put some potatoes in it, and unplugged the mini while he was up. This morning I opened the lid and smelled it. It didn't look very appetizing because the apples were completely brown, but I wasn't going to waste it. So, just a bit ago, I transferred the contents of the mini crock pot into a bowl and squished all the apples up. I just took a few bites and it is SO DELICIOUS!!!!! So... now I know how to make healthy apple sauce without anything but water and cinnimon, and can transfer that knowledge to after I'm off my diet and can make big batches of the stuff. It has to cook for a minimum of 2 hours, so it's not something you can decide on the spur of the moment. "Hey, I think I'll have applesauce for lunch (and it's already noon)... think I'll get it started!" lol... doesn't quite work that way... gotta plan ahead. I've been doing pretty good at that, I think.

So, in addition to the very yummy applesauce, I'm also having cabbage, a piece of chicken breast I sprinkled liberally with parsley and grilled in our Foreman grill (gotta love that thing!) and a breadstick.

Challenges: So I discovered that while I am not particularly hungry in the morning before I have tea, I do feel sort of weak, and that doesn't seem to go away until lunch time. In searching for a solution, I think I will try eating half my fruit in the late morning, early afternoon. The reason is that weakness can be a sign of low blood sugar, so if I go ahead and eat part of my fruit an hour or so before lunch time, I won't mess with my diet, and I won't feel weak. I'll have to see if that works tomorrow. My other challenge is that I did not buy nearly enough fruit :) I have one more serving of strawberries, 2 more apples, and 2 more oranges. I need to go shopping again :) It's almost time to pull some more meat out of the deep freezer too, since I've got about 3 more servings worth, which, since I'm alternating meats every day, means I've got 3 days worth of meat left :) I'm very pleased with myself for not cheating.

Into the 140's!!!!

Oh my goodness my weight loss is better than I could have even hoped!!! The scale said 148.5!!! Sheesh, I would have been happy with 149.5! I'm so excited that my diet is working. This is excellent news :D

Day 5

Well, my lunch experiment failed miserably :( I was trying to come up with an interesting way to get my fruit in, so I blended an apple with some water, a few drops of stevia, and some cinnimon (one of the allowed spices). My stomach is still reeling from that catastrophe :( I think it's a texture thing. It was basically like water with gunk in it. ((shudder))


I had my chicken/onion mixture for lunch (man, I cannot get enough of it!) but I did have one difference, and that is that I did not mix up my breadstick with it. I discovered yesterday that I received enormous pleasure and satisfaction from eating the breadstick whole. So for lunch I had the chicken and onion (with garlic salt and parsley), the horrible apple mixture (yes, I forced myself to finish it) and a breadstick.



I'll update this tonight after I've made dinner. I haven't made up my mind yet on whether or not I will have a tomato or cabbage for dinner. They both sound really yummy!

*I forgot to update last night. For dinner I cooked a whole steak, seasoned it with just a bit of salt (an allowed seasoning), a diced up tomato, an orange, and my grissini breadstick which I had to rescue not once, but TWICE! First my husband tried to hand a piece of the breadstick to Kaitlynn, upon which I squealed and shook my head (my mouth was full and I was trying not to spit). So he snatched it away before she could grab it, then tried to take a bite himself!! I about socked him one lol Not really. I swallowed my food and explained that this was the only food I could eat, and that he should not be eating part of my portions. He apologized and all was good :D I was tempted to have a little dressing with my tomato, and checked the label. I was thinking just a tiny bit to dip the tomato pieces into, and the serving size on the label was 2 tablespoons. For that amount, it had less than a gram of sugar. I really had to think about it, but since it's not on the list of approved foods, I decided against it. I really don't want to jepardize my weight loss. It's really important to me to stay strong, BECAUSE.... Thanksgiving is coming up and if I stick to the diet, Thansgiving will be 2 days away from when I can add starches and sugars back in to my diet. I plan to cheat, knowing that I might need to have a steak day the next day. If I dont' stick really closely to my diet up until then, I may not have reached my weight goal, and I may not be close enough to the end of maintenance to be comfortable cheating. So I have to be strong!



In the fridge, I have hidden a butterscotch pudding cup. It is my prize for acheiving my goal. After I have gone off of this diet and can eat regular portions of any food, that pudding cup will be my reward. I keep looking at it and thinking to myself "This diet will so be worth it to be able to eat sugar foods (in moderation) without worrying about gaining weight!" That and "Stick with it, because look what you're going to have the day after your diet is done!" lol Now if I can just keep it hidden from Jim and Luke long enough to actually be able to eat it! lol

By the way, check out my weight loss! I'm down to 150.0 today! Tomorrow I should break into the 140's! I'm so excited!

Stevia and the FDA

The following information came from the Wikipedia article. Now, generally wikipedia is not a great source, since anyone can go in and edit, so it's important to check sources. In this case, this information can be found with a simple google (or bing) search from other places. I opted to post this from Wikipedia since it was a lot of information in one place :)

"In 1991, after receiving an anonymous industry complaint, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) labeled stevia as an "unsafe food additive" and restricted its import. The FDA's stated reason was "toxicological information on stevia is inadequate to demonstrate its safety." This ruling was controversial, as stevia proponents pointed out that this designation violated the FDA's own guidelines under which natural substances used prior to 1958, with no reported adverse effects, should be generally recognized as safe (GRAS) as long as the substance was being used in the same way and format as prior to 1958.

Stevia occurs naturally, requiring no patent to produce it. As a consequence, since the import ban in 1991, marketers and consumers of stevia have shared a belief that the FDA acted in response to industry pressure. Arizona congressman Jon Kyl, for example, called the FDA action against stevia "a restraint of trade to benefit the artificial sweetener industry." To protect the complainant, the FDA deleted names in the original complaint in its responses to requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act.

Stevia remained banned until after the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act forced the FDA in 1995 to revise its stance to permit stevia to be used as a dietary supplement, although not as a food additive — a position that stevia proponents regard as contradictory because it simultaneously labels stevia as safe and unsafe, depending on how it is sold.

Although unresolved questions remain about whether metabolic processes can produce a mutagen from stevia in animals, let alone in humans, the early studies nevertheless prompted the European Commission in 1999 to ban stevia's use in food in the European Union pending further research. Singapore and Hong Kong have banned it also. More recent data compiled in the safety evaluation released by the World Health Organization in 2006 suggest that these policies may be obsolete.

In December 2008, the FDA gave a "no objection" approval for GRAS status to Truvia (developed by Cargill and The Coca-Cola Company) and PureVia (developed by PepsiCo and the Whole Earth Sweetener Company, a subsidiary of Merisant), both of which use rebaudioside A derived from the Stevia plant."

Now then... isn't it interesting that the FDA broke its own rules regarding substances generally regarded as safe as long as the substance was used the same way now as it was before 1958? And isn't it interesting that they did so to protect big name companies, such as those that manufacture sugar cane sugar, aspartame, and other big name sweeteners? Not really. I'd say it's par for the course. They're doing the same to HCG being used for weight loss. Regardless of the fact that HCG when used in conjunction with a very specific diet has been causing people to lose weight for over 50 years, and regardless of the fact that those same people have kept the weight off (except for a small percentage of people who went right back to gorging themselves after they were finished with the diet), the FDA continues to state that there is no evidence of HCG causing or contributing to weight loss. There has been a mountain of scientific studies done in other countries, proving the efficiency of the HCG diet, yet here in the good old US of A, the FDA continues to try and block its use for weight loss purposes, using their 2 or 3 measly studies, that weren't even done properly, including such things as not refrigerating the HCG (required for the injections) and premixing large batches, which rendered the HCG useless (the injections have to be mixed immediately prior to injecting as the HCG quickly breaks down and is completely useless if not immediately injected.

I guess my point is this: Just because the FDA says something, that doesn't make it true. What's the motivation? Who is the big company that benefits from what the FDA says? There are people from the big meat companies on the board of the FDA, as well as people from the dairy company, and big name pharmecuticals. The thing to remember is that the FDA doesn't want you to be thin. Look at the slope here: if you're fat, and I'm talking obese here, not just a few pounds too heavy, you're very likely to have underlying issues, such as diabetes (Insulin producers profit), high blood pressure (pharmecutical companies profit) and other health problems. You may even be prone to heart attack (aspirin companies profit, as well as other medication companies producing heart medication. If you're overweight at all, you may be trying to lose weight with pills (weight loss pill companies profit), shakes (those companies profit), or other things found at the supplement store (that store profits... which in turn profits all companies that have their product at the store). So you see... being fat is best for our economy, because you spend more money!! So, all kidding aside, the FDA really is out to get you :)

Day 4

Today has been harder for me mentally than yesterday. The reason? I went and helped out with an advertising event for my horse rescue. The event was at the Camp Corey Octoberfest. They had a food booth there, with all sorts of yummy stuff, like grilled cheese and pumpkin pancakes (YUM!!!!!) Of course the other girls were eating those while I grumbled to myself about choosing the wrong time of year to start a very restrictive diet. However, thinking about that got me thinking about Thanksgiving at the end of next month, when I should be at the tail end of my maintenance phase, meaning that I can go ahead and have some small servings of starches and carbs (potatoes and rolls), and how much weight I will have lost at that point, and how I'll be in a smaller size, and be so skinny. That just strengthened my resolve to stick to my diet.

Then, of course, I came home to find a plate of my FAVORITE mac 'n' cheese (spirals... I don't know why, but they just taste better) that Jim had made for the kids in my absence, and extra in the pot on the stove, and I thought just how easy it would be for me to just eat 2 noodles. I CAN'T!! I WILL NOT BE SWAYED!!! See how strong I am? lol I am really optomistic about my diet. One thing I will be changing in the future though is this: Every morning I'm going to make a big pot of tea to take with me throughout the day if I know I might have to leave. I will still be drinking half my weight in ounces of water on top of that, but the tea kills some of the more severe hunger issues. Yes, I did have some hunger issues today, but I think it may have been more mental than physical. I was seeing people eat all this yummy food, was smelling it, and my body wanted it. Once everyone had eaten, and the smells and sights were gone, I wasn't hungry anymore. By the time I got home I was getting a few grumbles from my tummy, but since it wasn't time to eat yet, I drank some tea, and now I feel fine. I sure am glad for those 2 drops of stevia, because green tea by itself is sure bitter.

So - meals.

Breakfast - 2 cups of tea
Lunch - steak strips, a handful of cut up strawberries, a handful of raw spinach (so glad I discovered that I like raw spinach, because it sure is good for you, and tasty too!), and a breadstick
Dinner (haven't eaten it yet) - same chicken/onion mix as yesterday and an orange.

I've been drinking lots of water, and now that I'm home I'm going to add some tea in as well :)

My New Diet

Well, my HCG is here, I am all set up with the necessary food items in the fridge (wrapped in plastic bags so Luke and Jim can't see it and be tempted to eat the ONLY food in the house I can eat lol), and today was my 3rd day of drops, and 1st day of the Low Calorie diet. Wednesday and Thursday were my load days, the days in which you are creating a quick fat store for the days before the HCG kicks in fully. On the load days you are supposed to eat whatever you want, and as much as you can possibly fit into your body, on top of all the water you can swallow. The general rule of thumb is to drink half your weight in ounces, so if you weigh 200 pounds, you drink 100 ounces of water, and so on.

When I weighed myself on Wednesday morning, I was 152.5 pounds. After stuffing my face all day on Wednesday, Thursday morning I'd only gained half a pound. Yesterday I stuffed myself even more, to the point that all the food and water sloshing around in my stomach made me think I might have to throw up. I figured I'd gained some weight, since it's not uncommon to gain during the loading phase. Nope. Not even half a pound. Still 153.

So, knowing that today was my first day of eating 500 calories, on top of all the water (approximately 76 ounces), I figured the best thing for me to do would be to prepare my food ahead of time. Since my meats of choice are chicken and beef (seeing how we have this enormous deep freezer stocked full with all the cuts your heart could desire, and also seeing how you aren't supposed to eat the same thing for lunch as for dinner) I cut up all the chicken and weighed it (100 grams per serving). For each meal you get 100 grams of meat, a handful of fruit, a handful of fruit (or one small apple or orange) and one grissini breadstick. Preparing for lunch today, I decided to combine some of those. I ground up the breadstick, chopped up enough onion for a handful, put it in a zip-lock with the cut up chicken, added a little garlic salt (very small amount) and shook it all up. For my fruit I chose cut strawberry. The steak I forgot to have Jim grab, so had to do that today.

For breakfast I had 2 cups of green tea, and lots of water. I didn't have any hunger issues until it was almost time for lunch, which I had cooked and put into a cooler since I had to run Jim his phone which he'd forgotten at home. I had my drops, went into a store to get my stevia, and by the time I had come back out, I was ready to eat (you aren't supposed to eat or drink anything for 30 minutes after taking the drops, so as to give them time to absorb). I ate slowly, and really savored every bite. About halfway through eating my chicken/onion mix I thought to myself that I wasn't sure if I'd be able to finish it because I was starting to feel full. It's really important to get those 500 calories though, so I finished it all off, and drank more water.

For dinner, I defrosted some steak, cut my 100 grams into little itty bitty strips, and chose lettuce and apple slices for the rest of my meal. Again I knew I was going to be out, so I brought my food with me in little storage containers. I ended up getting home early, so was able to sit and eat my food in piece. Well.. that is until Kaitlynn saw that I was eating apple and tried to scale the side of the lazy boy to get to it lol.... the girl loves her fruit. On a side note, the store I went to around lunch time has this absolutely amazing thing where anyone under 12 can choose a fruit for free - apple, orange, banana, etc. So both the kids got to eat a banana each for their lunch, on top of the sandwiches I had packed for them :) Gotta love PCC!! Anyway, back to my meals... about an hour before I ate my dinner I noticed that I was STARVING!!! I drank some water and tea though, before dinner, and as a result, halfway through eating, I was starting to feel full again! Often thirst will personify as hunger, and they say that if you feel hungry, drink a little water and your hunger may go away. So, I learned something from today. Being on the run made me drink less water today than I did the past 2 days. So I need to make sure that I bring my mason jar full of water, and keep a full gallon in the trunk. That way I won't experience any hunger pains.

As I'm writing this, it's about 10:30, and writing this reminded me that I feel a little hungry... more like I've got the munchies than any kind of serious hunger. This is usually about the time Jim and I are enjoying a bit of sugar cereal, so I'm guessing that's what my body is looking for, but it's going to be denied lol. No sugar for me, just stevia drops. Speaking of Stevia, that stuff is SUPER sweet!!! I opted for the drops instead of the packs, even though it was more expensive, because I wanted to have a little better control of how much I was using. With packets I'm more likely to just pour the thing in rather than pour in a tiny amount and then save the tiny packet. On the bottle, it recommends between 5 and 8 drops. The first time I put it in my tea I used 5 drops, and boy was that a mistake!! The tea was so sweet i almost couldn't drink it down! I didn't want to waste it though, so just went for it. The next time I used 2 drops, and that was perfect. It's so weird, to see 2 tiny little drops go into my large mug of liquid, and then taste the massive difference! I might be a convert! I always put sugar in my tea (although didn't this morning since Stevia is the only sweetener allowed on this diet and hadn't gone to PCC yet).

So there's my day :) I'm going to do my best to do daily updates, as time allows for it. On Wednesday, I had my friend take some pictures of me, front, side, and back (boy was THAT a wakeup call... now I'm almost afraid to let my own husband see me naked! I have rolls I didn't even know about!!) and I also measured various parts of my anatomy. I found a spreadsheet that I downloaded from the internet specifically for this diet. It has a place for your weight and for your measurements, and as you fill it in, it automatically fills in other information, such as inches lost, and pounds lost. I will not be taking pictures every day, nor measuring, but I think I will do so every week. I think it will be depressing if I can't see a difference from one picture to the next, so that's why I'm going to wait for a little longer between pictures and measurements. I'm very excited to finally be heading towards my weight goal!

2 more pounds!!

I am happy to announce that I have lost more weight!! I'm now at 156.0 pounds! I'm eating much smaller portions, limiting the amount of junk food I'm eating, and getting a lot more exercise (mainly running after a certain crawler who is about to start walking any day now, probably meaning a bigger weight loss coming up lol).

Thursday, I finally ordered a bottle of homeopathic HCG. Basically, what this means is that I'm going to be adhering to a very low calorie diet, while taking this HCG 6 times a day. What it does is melt off the pounds that usually stick even after you have dieted for a long time and gotten down to a healthy weight. It essentially reshapes the body, AND THEN as if that wasn't good enough, it also resets the hypothalamus causing your metabolism to stabilize at a healthier level. Here's a link for more information.

I've been doing TONS of research and am happy that I've finally settled on a supplier. I am also going to be doing homeopathic drops instead of injections, because, well... let's face it. I hate needles. Once a day for almost nine months was enough for me :D That's not the only reason though. The other is that while you have to take homeopathic drops more frequently, the side effects are virtually non-existent, something you can't really claim with the injections. I believe one of the side effects there was multiple births. Um... I can barely handle ONE at a time, let alone two or three!!! No thank you!!

It's starting to work!

Well, I stepped on the scale this morning, and lo and behold, I've lost 2 pounds! Whoohoo! I've been eating healthy (smoothies, small portions, etc) and I'm very thrilled with this. The other thing I've noticed is that my clothes are fitting a little looser. I know, for only 2 pounds, I shouldn't have lost an inch yet, but I think I may be gaining muscle as well. I have been helping Jim at the job site, tearing off old roofing, etc, and this is really building up muscle. Hopefully, not just in my arms though. If I lift weights for any length of time, my arms become ripped. I don't want to have muscley man arms, thank you, I like my arms to look somewhat feminine :D

So anyway, it's time to do my measurements. I can't seem to find my tape measure, so I am going to have to borrow one tomorrow from Susan and get that done.

Updates

Well, my son has been initiated into boyhood, following his father's footsteps. Yes, he has now broken his arm! So, that means no bouncing on the trampoline. So, I have been sorely lacking in the exercise department, since I don't want to upset him by jumping without him :( I have been continuing to eat healthy, although there have been a few cheats. After getting X-rays with Luke, I promised him a donut, so we both ate one (I think I deserved one after watching my poor baby scream while the nurse held it to get the X-ray).

Yesterday though, I ate pretty good. Snacked on ham (we have a LOT), ate a ham and cheese sandwich (did I mention we have a lot of ham? lol) and egg salad. I also ate some homemade pork and beans - I'm really starting to develop a taste for beans, finally. I'm pretty pleased about that, since they are so healthy for you! Susan gave me a few bags of beans yesterday, that she had bought but just hadn't used. She knows I'm trying to cook more with beans, so she passed them my way. (It wasn't free though - she's going to take my share of salmon in September. A huge hardship, you know, since, well.... I HATE THE STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!!) I'm going to need to look up some different ways to cook beans.

So, there you have it people. Exercise down, eating healthy up :)

Ugh!!

I picked the worst time to start eating healthy. I told Susan before we started our new kick that I was going to set aside one day a week in which I could eat junk food. Well, that day this week, was yesterday. I think the healthiest thing I ate last night was popcorn. It sort of went downhill from there.

In the morning I had peach tea, a mini bagel with a very small portion of whipped cream cheese (it's all about proportion control right?) and homemade canned pears for breakfast. For lunch I had oatmeal, eggs, and some more tea (I have been trying to fight off being sick, and my throat has been fairly sore). I also had some baby carrots, since I've been craving carrots lately. I wonder what it is in the carrots my body is crying out for?

Last night was girls' night for me. It was planned months ago, and since it is rare that I am ever childless with other women who are also childless, I wasn't about to change my plans. Let's see if I can even remember everything I ate lol.

We ate Red Robin food, so I had their yummy mushroom burger with cheese and mayonaise, fries, and fried cheese sticks (my weakness!!). As the night progressed I had a lot of popcorn and quite a bit of Root Beer (my other weakness lol). On the plus side, Susan brought her yummy healthy oatmeal cookies. They weren't really very sweet, but oh my goodness are they addictive! There is such a yummy blend of flavors in there that it's hard NOT to pick up another one!! So there's my healthy snack anyway :D

Special thanks to Charis, Jennifer, Robin and her daughter (okay so we weren't totally childless, but her daughter was pretty cool) Susan, and Julie for making last night the best girls' night EVER!!!! I didn't get home until 4!! Wild girls lol Not really, we just watch the 3 Twilight movies all in a row!!! Go Team Edward!!!! hehe. Seriously though, I do enjoy my girl's nights, however few and far between they are :)

Since my blog is about living healthy, not just eating healthy, I should point out that I have been bouncing on the trampoline with Luke every day, for at least half an hour (or until I collapse from sheer exhaustion, whichever comes first lol) It's fun, gets my heart rate up, gets the burn going in my legs, and did I mention it's fun? Best birthday gift for Luke EVER!!! He is hard to tear away from it!

I am now (apparently) a mental patient!?

Oh my goodness... if ever the time came to use the acronym "rofl" (rolling on floor laughing) now would be that time. This is (of course) stolen (ahem, copied) in it's entirety from another person from: here

(NaturalNews) In its never-ending attempt to fabricate "mental disorders" out of every human activity, the psychiatric industry is now pushing the most ridiculous disease they've invented yet: Healthy eating disorder. This is no joke: If you focus on eating healthy foods, you're "mentally diseased" and probably need some sort of chemical treatment involving powerful psychotropic drugs.

The Guardian newspaper reports, "Fixation with healthy eating can be sign of serious psychological disorder" and goes on to claim this "disease" is called orthorexia nervosa -- which is basically just Latin for "nervous about correct eating." But they can't just called it "nervous healthy eating disorder" because that doesn't sound like they know what they're talking about. So they translate it into Latin where it sounds smart (even though it isn't). That's where most disease names come from: Doctors just describe the symptoms they see with a name like osteoporosis (which means "bones with holes in them").

Getting back to this fabricated "orthorexia" disease, the Guardian goes on to report, "Orthorexics commonly have rigid rules around eating. Refusing to touch sugar, salt, caffeine, alcohol, wheat, gluten, yeast, soya, corn and dairy foods is just the start of their diet restrictions. Any foods that have come into contact with pesticides, herbicides or contain artificial additives are also out."

Wait a second. So attempting to avoid chemicals, dairy, soy and sugar now makes you a mental health patient? Yep. According to these experts. If you actually take special care to avoid pesticides, herbicides and genetically modified ingredients like soy and sugar, there's something wrong with you.But did you notice that eating junk food is assumed to be "normal?" If you eat processed junk foods laced with synthetic chemicals, that's okay with them. The mental patients are the ones who choose organic, natural foods, apparently.
What is "normal" when it comes to foods?I told you this was coming. Years ago, I warned NaturalNews readers that an attempt might soon be under way to outlaw broccoli because of its anti-cancer phytonutrients. This mental health assault on health-conscious consumers is part of that agenda. It's an effort to marginalize healthy eaters by declaring them to be mentally unstable and therefore justify carting them off to mental institutions where they will be injected with psychiatric drugs and fed institutional food that's all processed, dead and full of toxic chemicals.

The Guardian even goes to the ridiculous extreme of saying, "The obsession about which foods are "good" and which are "bad" means orthorexics can end up malnourished."Follow the non-logic on this, if you can: Eating "good" foods will cause malnutrition! Eating bad foods, I suppose, is assumed to provide all the nutrients you need. That's about as crazy a statement on nutrition as I've ever read. No wonder people are so diseased today: The mainstream media is telling them that eating health food is a mental disorder that will cause malnutrition!

Shut up and swallow your Soylent GreenIt's just like I reported years ago: You're not supposed to question your food, folks. Sit down, shut up, dig in and chow down. Stop thinking about what you're eating and just do what you're told by the mainstream media and its processed food advertisers. Questioning the health properties of your junk food is a mental disorder, didn't you know? And if you "obsess" over foods (by doing such things as reading the ingredients labels, for example), then you're weird. Maybe even sick.

That's the message they're broadcasting now. Junk food eaters are "normal" and "sane" and "nourished." But health food eaters are diseased, abnormal and malnourished.But why, you ask, would they attack healthy eaters? People like Dr. Gabriel Cousens can tell you why: Because increased mental and spiritual awareness is only possible while on a diet of living, natural foods.Eating junk foods keeps you dumbed down and easy to control, you see. It literally messes with your mind, numbing your senses with MSG, aspartame and yeast extract. People who subsist on junk foods are docile and quickly lose the ability to think for themselves. They go along with whatever they're told by the TV or those in apparent positions of authority, never questioning their actions or what's really happening in the world around them.

In contrast to that, people who eat health-enhancing natural foods -- with all the medicinal nutrients still intact -- begin to awaken their minds and spirits. Over time, they begin to question the reality around them and they pursue more enlightened explorations of topics like community, nature, ethics, philosophy and the big picture of things that are happening in the world. They become "aware" and can start to see the very fabric of the Matrix, so to speak.This, of course, is a huge danger to those who run our consumption-based society because consumption depends on ignorance combined with suggestibility.

For people to keep blindly buying foods, medicines, health insurance and consumer goods, they need to have their higher brain functions switched off. Processed junk foods laced with toxic chemicals just happens to achieve that rather nicely. Why do you think dead, processed foods remain the default meals in public schools, hospitals and prisons? It's because dead foods turn off higher levels of awareness and keep people focused on whatever distractions you can feed their brains: Television, violence, fear, sports, sex and so on.But living as a zombie is, in one way quite "normal" in society today because so many people are doing it. But that doesn't make it normal in my book: The real "normal" is an empowered, healthy, awakened person nourished with living foods and operating as a sovereign citizen in a free world.

Eating living foods is like taking the red pill because over time it opens up a whole new perspective on the fabric of reality. It sets you free to think for yourself. But eating processed junk foods is like taking the blue pill because it keeps you trapped in a fabricated reality where your life experiences are fabricated by consumer product companies who hijack your senses with designer chemicals (like MSG) that fool your brain into thinking you're eating real food.If you want to be alive, aware and in control of your own life, eat more healthy living foods. But don't expect to be popular with mainstream mental health "experts" or dieticians -- they're all being programmed to consider you to be "crazy" because you don't follow their mainstream diets of dead foods laced with synthetic chemicals.

But you and I know the truth here: We are the normal ones. The junk food eaters are the real mental patients, and the only way to wake them up to the real world is to start feeding them living foods.Some people are ready to take the red pill, and others aren't. All you can do is show them the door. They must open it themselves.In the mean time, try to avoid the mental health agents who are trying to label you as having a mental disorder just because you pay attention to what you put in your body. There's nothing wrong with avoiding sugar, soy, MSG, aspartame, HFCS and other toxic chemicals in the food supply. In fact, your very life depends on it.

Oh, and by the way, if you want to join the health experts who keep inventing new fictitious diseases and disorders, check out my popular Disease Mongering Engine web page where you can invent your own new diseases at the click of a button! You'll find it at: Link.
Sources for this story include:Link