Beta HCG Diet - Down 2 Sizes!

Yesterday I went to lunch with a friend who's a fashionista. She informed me that my jeans were so loose that they made grandma jeans look stylish. Baggy and saggy, they just won't do.

I still have a week left on Round 2 of this Beta HCG diet, but I'd think that would only make a handful of pounds difference at the most. So I bit the bullet and hiked over to Nordstrom to the Not Your Daughter's Jeans section. Love them. Live in them.

Took both one size down and two sizes down into my dressing room and, ever the optimist, tried on the two-sizes-down ones first. They fit! OMG! I was so excited! I even showed the sales gal and asked her if they looked okay just to make sure. They look great, she enthused. So I bought the jeans in blue and black.

So...just a little over a week left in this round, and then for the next three weeks I can eat what I want except for sugars, starches and grains. Ooooooh, I'll be able to eat eggs again. And cheese. And a whole portion of meat, fish, chicken, etc., instead of having to stop at 3.5 oz. precooked. I'll be able to mix vegetables and have them sauteed or smothered in cheese sauce. Oh, bliss!

I'm most looking forward to making omelettes again. Lovely, fluffy cheese omelettes. I got quite good at making them between Rounds 1 and 2 of this diet. I actually have been waking up fantasizing about being able to eat them again. Hey, I'm a cheap fantasizer. No Dom Perignon fantasies for me.

This round has been easier than Round 1. I felt good the whole time, never felt weak like I did the first time around. I had the whole drill down pat. My hands got scarily chapped -- since I couldn't use any hand cream with oils in them -- and my doctor recommended "by Valenti" products. I ordered "organic body butters" in almonds & coconut and cacao & vanilla. Love them both! And my knuckles aren't bleeding anymore. The body butters are greasy, literally like butter, though it's not really grease -- it's just shiny -- and after it's soaked in a bit, I wipe the excess off.

So now I've lost 49 pounds since October. I'll surpass 50 for sure by next week. Awesome!

I feel soooooo much better with those pounds gone. I last weighed this 15 years ago.

Of course, I want to look like I did 15 years ago. But nature has seen fit to drop some things lower that were higher then, which is a bit discouraging. And my stomach is still muffin-y. I haven't really been able to (or been willing to) exercise while on this very restrictive diet. But once it's over, I'll get back to it and hopefully getting some fitness back will get some of that toned look back.

People are asking me if/when I'm going back on the diet. My response is, who knows? I am taking things one step at a time. I didn't know I could do a Round 2 until the last couple of weeks of Round 1 (6 weeks long). This time I have to wait more weeks before starting another round, and I can't imagine doing this in the summer, so we'll see. I want my body to get used to the 50-pound loss before going further. Fifty pounds is a lot!

I'm thrilled. I'm not done yet but for the moment, I'm just getting through one more week, adhering STRICTLY to the post-HCG plan to lock in my new "set point," the weight my body wants to stay at kind of by default, and loving not only my new smaller-size jeans but also some clothes I love (timeless ones) that I can finally wear again. La de da! Stay tuned.

Beta HCG Diet - The Deprivation Pity Party

I've just passed the midpoint of this brutal Beta HCG diet. You have to really want this to go through it, I tell you. And I do.

But...today I had a deprivation pity party most of the day. I was physically hungry, which doesn't happen very often. I was hungry Sunday also, but I was at a surprise birthday party for a good friend where there was tons of luscious food, all the more luscious because I couldn't have it. I brought my own orange, shrimp and melba toast, and it's a good thing because nearly everything on the long buffet table was drowned in something wonderful that I couldn't have. Then the next day I was totally disinterested in food all day and had to force myself to eat.

This is a strange diet. Or, I have a strange body. Or both.

At Costco when I went to buy lump crab a week and a half ago, I bought a red net bag full of 28 mini Babybel cheeses, which I love and can only get in small red nets that hold 6 at my local Giant grocery store. In fact, I bought two of the big nets, because I want them there when I can eat them and they last a long time. Every time I open the fridge, they call my name clearly, sweetly and loudly. I simply can't WAIT to be able to eat cheese again, and eggs, and more than one vegetable at a time -- with butter or some kind of sauce. But I will wait.

I'm sure this self pity is compounded by the fact that I haven't lost a pound since last Friday. I've done everything right that whole time. Grrrr. I lost 15 pounds the first two and a half weeks, which was astonishing. I could practically feel the pounds melting away. So maybe being stuck for a week is just my body adjusting. If it goes on much longer, though, I'll...I'll what? I'll call my doctor who is an HCG expert and ask him what to do. But I have faith that tomorrow or the next day I'll be back on my downward slide.

I take heart by wearing clothes I bought a long time ago "because I planned on losing weight." Ha! Some are brand new with tags. They never looked good on me but they fit just dandy now.

This is just a little emotional temper tantrum and, like a three-year-old, just leave me alone and I'll get over it.

Stay tuned.

Beta HCG Diet - 2-1/2 Weeks into Round 2

Round 2 of the Beta HCG Diet for me is a whole 'nuther animal compared to Round 1. So far...all good!

The first few days on Round 1 I felt lightheaded and on the edge of nauseous. On Round 2, I had one day of pretty severe lightheadedness, to the extent that I called my doctor, Pieter DeWet at the Quantum Healing Institute, and together we figured out that I needed to stop taking my blood pressure medicine. I've felt fine ever since.

In Round 1 my HCG came from a homeopathic spray, which is not a prescription. That was necessary because I hadn't yet seen Dr. DeWet in person. I went to him in December and spent a day at his clinic and had a bunch of blood and other tests, so at that point he could prescribe the cream for me for the second round. Whether it's that the cream works so much better or I'm just in a better frame of mind and body this time around, Round 2 is so much easier for me than Round 1 was. For one thing, I know what to do, what to expect and how to do the diet. I also found some HCG-compliant recipes that make all the difference, especially one of the salad dressings. I really, really don't like a lot of the (not that many) vegetables I can eat and anything that helps in that area is good with me.

The results so far have been stunning. In two and a half weeks, I've lost 15 pounds. And that's on top of 25 I lost in the first round. Amazing. I'm fitting into clothes that either I couldn't wear before or they looked awful on me. I feel good since I'm free of the sugar and junk that was in my system. I don't feel weak and tired like I did during Round 1. And, I'm just now, after losing 40 pounds, starting to see a semblance of my "old" face coming back, the one that wasn't all fat all the time.

I have little interest in food much of the time. I forget to eat. I always wondered what that would be like. It used to happen once or twice a year but this is frequent. What a novel concept: eating to live, not living to eat. I doubt that I'll be "reformed" like that very much longer once I end the HCG, but it's refreshing for the moment.

My hands are so dry during the winter dryness and after washing them frequently that they're actually bleeding around my knuckles. On HCG I can't use lotions with oil in them because they stop the HCG from working. I learned that the hard way on Round 1 when I forgot and used some several times the last week of the diet and didn't lose a pound. It didn't occur to me until after the diet. I called Dr. D's office and they suggested organic products like By Valenti Organics' almonds and coconut body butter. I went to my local health food store tonight in search of it and found something similar but wanted to compare the ingredients so now that I've done that, I'll go back tomorrow and pick some up.

So what's living on 500 calories per day like? This time around, it's painless. I can find something to eat no matter where I go. One of my friends is a great cook and made chicken pot pie to die for when four of us went over to celebrate one's birthday. Once the host promised me a doggie bag to freeze for when I can eat it, I was fine eating the asparagus she fixed for me and the sliced steak I brought with me, left over from lunch the day before at Greystone Grill. Most days I have to remind myself to eat all of the eight things I am allotted each day. Now, at midnight, for instance, I still have a fruit to eat before I go to bed. Tonight it will be an apple.

But I do react almost carnally to some of the foods I normally love when commercials for them come on TV. It's mental, not physical. But then that's been the challenge all along, my head.

I still have three and a half weeks to go of the low-calorie diet plus HCG, and then another three weeks of no sugars, starches or grains. But at least I will be able to eat eggs, cheese, more than one vegetable at a time and a whole steak or piece of chicken at one sitting. That will be bliss! So, I can certainly hang in for three more weeks of this strict part of the diet. It already is well worth it! Stay tuned.