I've had it!!!

Or rather, I think my body has. I woke up this morning feeling all right. I waited to take the drops though to give my body a chance to "talk" to me. I had 2 cups of tea, fed my kids, and then started to feel dizzy, weak, and short of breath. I actually had to sit down for a second to reorient myself. I think my body is telling me that it has run out of extra fat deposits to burn. So I'm not taking the drops today, and I ate a little granola to feel better, since that worked yesterday. I still have a minor headache, but other than that I feel a lot better. So looks like I'm done with the HCG diet. What's the final score? Only 1 pound away from what I said was my goal! I'm 131.0 pounds. I have lost a total of 21.5 pounds since the beginning of the first round back in October. I look and feel awesome! (except for the last 2 days) My hubby thinks I look good :D

So... now we're on to the maintenance portion of the diet. Well, not exactly. I still have at least until the end of tomorrow before I start eating different foods, to allow the HCG enough time to leave my body. If I'm starving or feeling weak and lightheaded, then I will up my diet to include 900 calories. I probably would have eaten eggs this morning instead of granola if it wasn't for the fact that I needed something fast, and standing up cooking scrambled eggs was not the answer.

So... what am I looking forward to? Lasagna!!!! And cheese... and Chili con Queso.... and Subway subs!!! And of course, my mom is coming to visit at the beginning of April, and I'm looking forward to wedding cookies :D

Almost to my goal weight!!!

Wow, has it been a while since I blogged or what?! I've been doing really well on the HCG diet. I had more plateaus than last time, but still losing. I'm down to 131.0 pounds. 1 pound left to reach my goal weight. Anything after that is just bonus!

I've been eating a lot of eggs and cottage cheese because I've been having a small meat aversion issue. I've had it a few times, but it's difficult to do. I've been eating a lot of asparagus and cabbage and tomatoes and lettuce. Part of how I eat my chicken is by mixing it with lettuce to make a small chicken salad. I have only had steak once while on the diet, though I think I will have some tomorrow.

My fruit of choice has been strawberries, though I do eat a little apple and orange now and then. I especially like making the strawberry lemonade :)

I reached a point this week where I wondered if maybe I had hit my ideal weight (as dictated by the hypothalamus) because I had a day where I was kind of hungry all day, and then the next day was practically ravenous. I ate a little granola and felt better, but I was still somewhat hungry. Dr. Simeons said that once you've used up all your extra fat reserves, you immediately become ravenously hungry, so that's what made me think maybe I wouldn't lose anymore. But I lost a pound by the next day, and a half the day after, so I guess maybe I haven't gotten there yet. Today I've got a similar thing going on, but instead of hunger it's lightheadedness. I reached a point where I was sure I was going to faint - buzzing in the head, weakness, etc. I ate some granola and I feel quite a bit better now. I'm not sure what's going on. I was going to go until next Thursday (allowing for the 2-3 days off drops - last time I was starving by day 2, so while I know it's supposed to be 3, I've allowed for 2-3), but I may stop after I hit the 120's if it's before then. I don't like feeling the nawing hunger of the other day, or weakness of today. My husband says he doesn't really think I need to lose any more weight and thinks I might be getting greedy. I just want to be at an ideal weight, and my current BMI is 22.5, right smack dab in the middle of the normal range. 125 (my absolute minimum I'm willing to go) would put me at 21.5. Not a huge difference, so I'm not sure it's worth it if I still feel lightheaded tomorrow. I think that even if I lose weight tomorrow, if I still feel weak and lightheaded, then I will probably go off the drops starting Monday. If I'm back to normal, then I will continue on as usual.

I have had a little bit of cheating on this diet. The granola for starters, though I only had it the two days, and just a small amount. I have had just the tiniest bit of shredded cheese with my salad, a tiny amount of mayo (though I switched to miracle whip when I realized it had a lot less fat and sugar), and white hot chocolate (which incidentally has given me diarrhea ever single time I had it) twice a week that takes me 2 hours to finish since I just take a sip every now and then. Yesterday we had a social event at the nearby church to celebrate Valentine's day, and Jim fed me a piece of chocolate. He was being so romantic I didn't have the heart to turn it down, all the while thinking "I sure hope I don't gain 2 pounds tomorrow from this concentrated amount of sugar at 9 o'clock at night!!!" Nope. I lost half a pound :D For the most part, I've been really good about eating only the acceptable foods, and making sure I eat at least 3 hours before I go to bed, and drinking lots of water. A few days I've been lax on the water, but I've been more strict about it lately. Speaking of which, I found the 32 ounce cup they gave me at the hospital where I had Luke, and so I've been using that. It brings me back :D

Speaking off topic, parenthood has really taken me by surprise. I still catch myself wondering who these 2 little people that live in my house are and where they came from. I remember when Luke was born watching the doctor lift him up and wondering "where did that come from?" Apparently 36 hours of labor had taken its toll on my brain lol It still just seems so weird that I'm a mom! It's been trying at times, but I've learned so much from it and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I still get choked up when I think about them sometimes, or when they do something especially endearing :) I sure do love being a mom! Even though it DID make me FAT! rofl

I also have to put in a shout out for my darling hubby Jim who means the world to me. He works so hard every day to give his family what we need. If it weren't for him I wouldn't have my two beautiful children, I wouldn't live on such beautiful land and have the freedoms that I do. I love you Honey!!!

Progress

Here I am, day 4 of the HCG diet. I'm feeling good :) I lost all the weight from my loading days by the end of my 3rd day (1st day of the low calorie portion) and another pound and a half today, putting me down at 142.0 I expect to be be down to the weight I was at the end of my 1st round within a couple of days.

For breakfast yesterday I was really craving egg salad. On this diet, you can have eggs, either boiled, poached, or scrambled, but you can only have 1 whole egg and 3 egg whites. I was looking to see if I could add just a little mayonnaise to the mix, and discovered that while it isn't in the original protocol, you can have cottage cheese in place of the meat. So I figured since I was using home grown chicken eggs which are pretty small, I could make up for it with a tiny bit of mayonnaise, which has less fat per gram than cottage cheese (thats if you eat the low fat cottage cheese, which I do). So I put in about 1/2 a tablespoon, which, with the eggs, is practically microscopic (I know, I know... rationalization). At any rate, it was delicious. Definitely not the same consistency of regular egg salad, but the flavor was there just enough to satisfy my craving. I also ate an orange and some cabbage.

After lunch I met up with a new friend who happens to be a nurse midwife, and we went on a 2 hour somewhat fast paced walk (YIKES! What was I thinking?!) and picked her brain about the difference between getting an associates in nursing and getting a bachelor's, as it pertains to midwifery, my dream career (after my children are grown). Turns out that if you want to have your own practice, you only have to be a licensed midwifery, which means you can go to the Seattle School of midwifery. But if you want to have birthing rights at a hospital, thereby opening up the options available to your clients, you have to be a nurse midwife, and to be that, you have to have a bachelor's in nursing. So, now I have a 20 year plan :) I can just get my associate's degree in nursing now, and then in about 5-10 years or so (after my kids are well established in school) I can go back to get my bachelor's degree. Once I have that I will be able to get my midwifery license, and go on to be a nurse midwife in 18-20 years or so (depending on if I have more children or not). So YAY! I have a plan! Although none of this had to do with healthy eating, I was just so excited about knowing exactly what I need to do to reach my end goal that I had to share it :)

For dinner I met up with a classmate so we could go over chemistry homework. I ate a grilled chicken salad, which really only consisted of plain lettuce and a grilled chicken breast with seasoning. It was very yummy. I ate around 6.

Unfortunately, my walk caught up with me around 10, when I realized that I was STARVING! Taking the drops only dulled the hunger slightly, so I decided I had to have something. So I had a small amount of bread (about 40 grams) with a barely-there smear of peanut butter for protein. I ate it in teeny tiny bird bites to make it last a little longer. That did the trick, and I was fine. I will NOT be doing exercise like that again. The good news is that during the 2 hour walk, I drank 64 ounces of water! I guzzled it! I had already had about 32 ounces earlier in the morning, and I had another 32 ounces in the evening, while I was trying to stave off the starving feeling, so I drank a whole 128 ounces of water. I'm sure that must have helped to balance out the bread and the extra exercise. Supposedly when you exercise, you can retain water.

Notes: GET GRISSINI BREADSTICKS! I didn't get any this time thinking that I would just do without, but if I get starving like that I want to make sure I'm eating something I'm actually allowed. I'm not really supposed to have peanut butter, but I would have felt a little better about having it on bread I was actually allowed to have.

This morning I'm having egg salad again, and an orange. I'm going to put an apple in the mini crock pot for dinner :)

Starting a new round!

So, I don't really feel like the Acai was doing much good for me. In fact I may have gained half a pound. Anyway, I got a little encouragement from talking to my mom. She's on a diet and losing weight, and I'm so proud of her. Hearing about her progress really got me thinking that it's about time for me to finish my weight loss. So, I bought Susan's HCG drops off of her, and started on Monday. Today was the first day of my low calorie diet. During my loading days, I went from 143.5 to 146.0, a 2 1/2 pound jump. Previous to this, I'd been hovering between 139-142.5. Tomorrow should result in a good sized loss.

This morning I spaced and completely forgot that I was doing this diet, and ate a couple of crackers with my daughter. When I went to the bathroom and saw the drops, I decided I was an idiot. But then I realized that there was a difference between this round and my last round. Last round, I had a LOT of prep time, a lot of mental preparedness. This round was kind of spur of the moment. I had about 4 days time to get mentally prepared, and obviously that just wasn't enough. But, no more slips allowed.

For breakfast (after the 5 Ritz crackers) I had green tea. For lunch I had diced onions and chicken bits and an orange. Then for dinner, I had steamed asparagus and chicken, and iced strawberry lemonade.

Acai, School, and Healthy Recipes

Well, I decided to focus on my energy level during this quarter of college (I'm taking Chemistry - again - and Interpersonal Communications). So, while I was at the store, I purchased some Acai that happened to be on sale. I've been taking it since Sunday, along with something called "Colon Health." I got sick over New Years' weekend, and didn't quite recover, so I took the colon health in the hopes that it would get my body back on track. It seems to have worked. I have been waking up easier, for the most part, except this morning. I was exhausted, and Jim let me sleep in. When I went to get something for breakfast, I realized that I hadn't taken my dose last night, so maybe that had something to do with it. Yesterday I had to wake up at 6:30am, to get to school by 8:00am. It was awful. I woke up pretty easily, but halfway through the first hour I felt like I could barely concentrate. Just in case, I had brought along a 5 hour energy drink, so at our first break, I drank it (we aren't allowed any food or drink in the chemistry lab). That definitely perked me up, and got me through the rest of the day. It was kind of humorous though, when I looked back at my notes and could tell when I'd had the drink. My notes beforehand were kind of sloppy... tiny letters, scrawling. My notes afterwards were neat. Larger, round letters, I could actually read it :D

I have been making some yummy recipes, that are good for you. You can be proud of me mom... I cooked with (and ate) yellow bell peppers :D "Jim" (read *I*) got me a hand operated food processor for Christmas. It works wonderfully. The other day I was doing a little grocery shopping when I saw that mini pepperoni was on sale. There was a picture on the package of some yummy looking pasta, and decided to make it for my family. So, after getting the ingredients and going home, into the food processor went a tomato, half a yellow bell pepper, green onion, garlic, and a bunch of parsley. Grind that up for a moment or two, and dump into cooked and strained swirly pasta with olive oil dribbled on. Stir it up, add a bunch of mini pepperonis, and wha-la! Very delicious dish with an Italian spin :)

Today, I made stir fry. I didn't have very many ingredients, so I improvised. I cooked up 3 containers of ramen noodles, sans flavoring. I chopped up a bunch of broccoli and cauliflower. I put in the processor a quarter of yellow bell pepper, green onion, and garlic. I mixed in a mason jar the 3 ramen flavor packets with about 1/4 cup olive oil. I mixed it all together, added some salt and pepper. Over on the other counter I cooked a flank steak on the foreman with a little seasoning salt on it. When it was done I cut it into halves, and then strips, and added it to the stir fry, cooked it in the wok for a little bit, and wha-la! Very yummy improv :D