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