HCG Diet - Lack of motivation, how to overcome?

 Ok, I can officially say that I lost track on which VLCD day I am right now, mostly because I did not follow the protocol very well lately so I didn't count as strict diet days few of them in the past week. I have a rough estimation around 50 injections, still struggling on being POP really, I'm not sure when I'll shift my mind on being diligent on this diet, I hope soon or I'll fall again in my anxiety-depression state.

It's been few days now that I'm eating these delicious soups that I make myself with vegetables but also adding Parmiggiano Reggiano and a big spoon of sour cream. What damages my diet though are the candies, chewing gum and cream in my coffees, those things are bad for me as well as the yogurt or cottage cheese that I eat with so much cocoa powder here and there. I know exactly that I cannot buy – for any reason – these types of cheese and I still do it, I keep on fooling myself, trying to be disciplined, complaining about my poor willpower, my terrible diet results, I'm tired of not seeing improvements on the scale, I'm tired on being still in the 60-ies Kg, I need help, I need stronger motivations….but I really don't know where to find it. Today I was thinking on posting an AD in my building, on the bulletin board, to see if I can find a Weight Loss Buddy to share same goals and to be accountable to…not sure if anyone will ever reply but I think is not a bad idea overall.

HCG Diet - A farewell lunch that compromises my VLCD!

This morning I checked back again my weight and my ketosis, and obviously I registered 1Kg gain since last time. I didn't have doubts really, I had a terrible weekend in terms of food and I can always feel on my clothes if I'm gaining and not losing anything, and that's was the case.

Today I had a farewell lunch with my team, since on Monday I'll be starting with a different group. I had a huge Cobb salad, with chicken breast and salty bacon; I wasn't worried about neither the vegetables nor the meat but rather the dressing that I didn't feel asking to remove - me and my uncontrollable binge eating disorder. Sometime I look at people that leave half food in their plate, saying: I'm full, and I envy them, I recall almost like a dream the times when I was having only a small slice of pizza and feeling full. My cravings for sugar are still so strong, I even had a coffee with Stevia today; after knowing that I didn't get the job after all interviews I had in the past weeks - I felt depressed and disappointed, I know it can be just an excuse but all these things happening together and my boring days at work are giving me hard time to be disciplined. The coffee didn't taste the same though, this can be a good sign that getting rid of Stevia is possible for me, and I just need to stick to the plan and not having it for just few days, same thing with sugar and carbohydrates. Willpower this unknown…

At the Healthy Store downstairs my office, I also bought some capsules of Ginseng, without the coffee I felt really sleepy and slow this morning, and through the day as well, knowing that I have my Kung-Fu class this afternoon I felt I needed an extra boost of energy or I won't be able to do much. Of course this is not a guarantee that I will succeed anyway! I still suck but in my defense can be easily related to my lack of exercise.

Today I had a quick chat with one of my coworkers here, during my farewell lunch and I was asking her about the possibility to switch my career as an independent contractor; my work is 80% of my daily life, I don't have anything else really, my family is all in Italy and I'm here by myself with no even a pet anymore. Being obsessed with food or work is a natural human behaviour, trying to escape from boring routine and trying to improve with perfection details these aspects of my life – whatever is possible.

I often thought how food could be my comfort, my missing love, my soulmate, since I think about it all the times. And it might be true on some extends, I am not interested in building a romantic relationship right now and all my attentions go to food and work. I don't know why I'm isolating myself from the rest of the world, although some people might see it as depression, I don't feel depressed, sure I have anxiety when I eat badly or I don't feel motivated with my diet but I'm strong, I still want to go places, go shopping, watch funny movies, I still have strong career goals that I want to fulfill, I don't give up and I know I can lose all my weight with HCG so I don't want to give up, I still believe in this diet, I'm just trying to find my balance on everything around me that will allow me to find all the strengths I need to be skinny again.

HCG Diet - Avoiding fruit to remove sugar cravings

Last week one of my coworkers here in office brought me a little bag of apples that she got at the farmer's market during the weekend. Although I appreciated much the gesture those apples caused me lots of issues during the days I was eating them, so much that now I had to cut completely any type of fruit from my HCG Diet. The problem that I have with apples is common to many HCG-ers, and maybe other dieters I don't know. Apples are very sweet and high in carbs, even with just having one apple a day my cravings curbed uncontrollably; I started to crave sugar more and more, I had an ice-cream on Saturday, the coconut chocolate bar that was in my drawer on Friday, I had a chocolate protein bar on Sunday as well as tons of pecans and almonds mixed with cocoa and my Greek yogurt last night. I couldn't stand the urge of eating sugar, the more I was desiring the more Stevia I was drinking to cope with my cravings, it was terrible, and because of all these bad food choices I had over the weekend, I did not take HCG yesterday and also it's been now 2/3 days without me checking my weight. The psychological impact on seeing the scale going up would be devastating to me, so I'm holding for now and trying to get back into ketosis and strict HCG Diet, or as they call it: POP – Perfect On Protocol.

From now on - and most likely for the whole P2 phase - I will not have fruit, instead I'm adding plain 0% Greek yogurt, here and there, but just ¼ of a cup as breakfast snack and maybe late night treat. I'm not concerned much about the missing fruit really, because I know that without fruit and grissini or Melba toast, I can have an extra serving of vegetables without compromising my weight loss. This morning for breakfast I had half peeled cucumber, it was absolutely delicious, but of course when you're hungry everything taste good!

Right now is almost lunch time and I'm starving, not sure if it's a HCG dosage issue or just the recent changes I had in my diet, I'm trying to drink something without Stevia but really this coffee is absolutely disgusting, so much that my water in comparison never tasted so good instead. I know that takes time to get used to a new flavour, to trick your brain on what it is expecting to drink and what I am actually drinking, but maybe I should not start with coffee, maybe the various types of sweet teas could work better in this adaptation phase. Wish me luck!

HCG Diet - Is Stevia affecting your Ketosis?

It turned out that all the Stevia I was having was keeping me out of Ketosis, how I did not see this thing before I am still unsure. Today, of course, I have everything clear in my mind – the Stevia, the fruit, everything fits perfectly in my puzzle of missing weight losses.

Stevia is a strong sweetener and if you never had before, first impact is really powerful, after a while – as everything else – you can get used to it. I started using Stevia with my first Round of HCG and at that time I was having only a couple of drops. After using it for so many months the amount increased gradually, the taste became so familiar and so delicious that I was adding 10/15 big drops in anything I was drinking, this count for up to 15/20 times a day! You can imagine that having such a constant sweet taste on everything I was having couldn't possibly let me go into Ketosis, so in this round – despite avoiding altogether the grissini and the melba toast – I never been able to reach a good level of burning fat, this thing was somehow puzzling me since first VLCD days, but I thought it might due to the large amount of liquids or just the inaccuracy of the Ketostix.

Switching to 15/20 highly sweet drinks a day to basically zero is not an easy task to do, I had to mentally prepare myself for this change – I tend to do a mental preparation on lots of things I do anyway, it may work differently for other people. But what helped me in this hard task it's been a YouTube video that I watched the other night, a girl that was using Stevia since 9 years! She quit one day, not for ketogenic reasons but just for the realization that here, we're trying to avoid sweets and sugar and at the end we consume such a big amount of this sweetener that confuses and tricks our taste buds like regular sugar. This concept made so much sense to me! Am I avoiding sugar giving to my body lots of sweet things? How this thing actually can be logic? It wasn't and what made me understand what was the best way to get rid of the Stevia was something she said in the video. She admitted that, the first time she tasted something without Stevia, it didn't taste right at the first sip but on the second one she thought was better to focus on what she was drinking, rather than what was missing in it, so she started to discover new flavours, enjoying teas, coffees and everything else in their natural form, in their true flavour.  

So today is my first day Stevia free, everything tastes awful of course but I'm sure I'll get used to it, I want to enjoy a black coffee as it is, a green tea or a chamomile for what they are and not for what Stevia make them taste like. Another drinking option I am seriously thinking on having regularly is a warm broth, rich in protein and tasty. I hope this change will help me getting into Ketosis soon and maybe one day, during P4 I can start again on using some Stevia here and there.

HCG Diet - VLCD #47 What's wrong with me?

 It's been already 47 days into this 3^rd Round of HCG and I'm still over 61Kg, this stumbling block that I cannot overcome and that feels like forever. I should also admit that it is partially my fault, I'm not following Dr. Simeons protocol religiously this time around, I have lots of cravings and I'm not distracted enough here at work to feel motivated and stick to my diet. Some days I feel stronger, some others I almost give up to the chocolate bar that is sitting in my desk's drawer since few days now.

In these days I'm switching position within my company and also thinking to use some of my vacation days left to go somewhere warm South, I do feel afraid a bit though, last time I was in Mexico I ended up falling back off the wagon in my depressing binge eating habits losing all the progresses I had made with my first Round of HCG. It was the worst thing that could ever happen to me! Not just because of the weight gain but the psychological aspect of being a binge eater is unforgiven for my mental health!

I'm wondering if all these cravings are due to TOM coming soon, usually when I'm under HCG my period gets messed up because of the very low calories intake. I imagine that the body cannot support a regular menstrual cycle under these conditions.

Today I had great plans on not drinking any coffee for the whole day, and I have to say…I started very well, I had a couple of chamomile teas for breakfast this morning and then eventually I gave up to my coconut chocolate bar and I already had 2 coffees with cream! What's wrong with me? Why I cannot stick to this protocol anymore? Losing faith in the Diet is extremely negative, I'm not sure I can go back into my eating regiment if I keep going in this direction. Please strengths come to me!! HCG please help me! Dr. Simeons – if you're somewhere over there – help me please!! Ok, I know I'm on a delirium here… 

HCG Diet - Constipation issues during strict diets

This is a topic that might not be pleasant to most readers but, lets' face it, we have all been through this type of discomfort while on a strict Diet! So to recap, in my previous rounds with HCG I never had issues on being regular for my bowel movements, but lately it's not going very well for me. I'm wondering if my body got addicted to the probiotics or the laxative methods that I used in the past days.

I know that based on the Dr. Simeons protocol I should not necessarily expect to have it daily (from Pounds & Inches):  "While a patient is under treatment we never permit the use of any kind of laxative taken by mouth. We explain that owing to the restricted diet it is perfectly satisfactory and normal to have an evacuation of the bowel only once every three to four days", but I'm really not used to have movements so rarely, and in this case where all the food that I had in the past 4 days goes? Will I see a gain just because I'm plugged? Will my ketosis be affected by this? Some days I really feel heavy just because of this problem and truth or not, after the evacuation happens I'm usually down 1Kg! 

HCG Diet - VLCD #45 Exercising during P2

Again this morning I registered a gain, I know it's my fault and for all the candies I had yesterday, sugar-free but not sugar-alcohol free, plus I had an extra portion of asparagus before going to my Kung-Fu class. I knew this morning, during my usual weigh-in that I will see a gain, I still had hopes though, I always do anyway.

It's becoming a really long round this one, it's been already 45 days on the diet, and although I've seen people doing longer than that, I must to say: motivation tends to bend down after so many weeks. This morning I had my large apple with a tbsp of cacao powder, not sugar only a bit of stevia but this for me is a sign that my cravings are taking over me. I also had already 3 candies but I promised myself I won't buy any for now, I finished the package within a day, I'm obviously out of control.

Sometimes I think this is due to my binge eating habits but I don’t' think it is, I'm just hungry, I want something sweet, but having it under HCG would be a big mistake, my fat/carbs content should stay as low as possible during P2.

I'm also not that busy at work, since I'll be transitioning in a new role by the end of the month, so motivation is all over the place and being bored is a diet-killer let's face it, we often eat for boredom, well at least I do.

Yesterday I went to my first Kung-Fu class, apart from the unfriendly instructor that didn't even look my face, overall was not that bad. I was surprised to see that in terms of strengths I had no issues, I didn't faint, I felt normal, sure I'm out of shape, but that's another problem. I need practice to build my core, to become stronger. I've paid for 10 classes so I'll take all of them and after I'll decide on what to do, if I want to keep going or not. It's been a good test for me that I wanted to understand if I was able to handle a full hour class…without feeling weak or dizzy. I'm positive I can start slowly to go back to the gym and get back into my body attack classes to consume extra calories and enjoy the health benefits of exercising!

HCG Diet - Bad habits and lack of energy

Based on my ideal world I was supposed to go to the gym yesterday, but really I wasn't in the mood after my night at the Ukrainian Beer Festival volunteering. It was not tiring but just a late night and feeling in need of sleeping over. Ok, yes there was also a component of slackness I admit it. I also had plans for the afternoon so for me – that I like to wind down on Sundays, it was too much to handle – sometimes I think I'm getting old; I never been so lazy in my entire life, but I also believe that these bad habits are just ….habits. If you let yourself being a couch potato for long enough that will be normality in your life, the comfort activity that we look forward to every day, feeling out of place if missing.

Sometimes I try to read my body signals and understand why I'm becoming so lazy, I still love to do the same things, I just need an extra stimulus to do it. When I was living in Rome every weekend I had my fixed schedule: going to the hair salon on Saturday morning, grocery shopping in the afternoon, cooking and TV in the evening (sometimes of course dates and friends/family get-together but not that often). Sunday morning were always dedicated to my house cleaning and related OCD activities, I always loved going shopping so often I was going to various malls, IKEA and places around the city to find a new store or a good deal, I never minded driving in Rome on weekends, it was not crazy like business days rush hours. But now, all those things that I use to do feel like a dream, that I could never find that much energy to do what I used to do. Not to mention that for years here in Canada I had a part-time second job as server that kept me awake till 3:00/4:00 AM sometimes, and I had no days off for months! Crazy just trying to convince myself that it was actually me doing that.

But my question here is: could this lack of energy due to my low calories intake? Are my adrenals getting maxed up because of the HCG Diet? Well I hope not, because based on my calculation I will be doing this VLCD for at least another month, my weight loss rate is extremely low and at this pace, I will never reach my goal in less than 30/35 days – that if I assume an average of 200gr of weight loss per day (pretty optimistic scenario).

HCG diet - VLCD #43 Bad Drink choices and off-protocol breakfast

I registered a small loss this morning, only 200gr but a loss is a loss, if I could stabilize my losses on only 200gr each day, I'll be happy with that till the end of this round! Definitely it's been an extremely slow round for me, wondering if my body is getting used to this very low calories diet regiment after 43 days, hopefully not - because going back to healthy Calories number will be very tough otherwise.

This morning, for breakfast, I ate something off the protocol; I had a boiled egg, a small amount of mozzarella cheese and very small amount of grapes, in addition to 1/4 of an apple. With the cream in my coffees and the rest of food that I planned to eat for lunch, I'm basically already done with my 500 calories daily limit. I will not eat my protein portion tonight, hopefully during the day I can burn most of what I had out of the HCG food list.

Tomorrow I have my first Kung-Fu class and I want to take some supplements that could help me boost my energy without fainting for two minutes run. I feel fine I have to say, never weak as I was on the Dr. Bernstein Diet, however I am aware that my body is still not receiving enough calories to maintain an exercise routine without consequences. I guess I'll see tomorrow how I feel during and after the class, but my hopes are that I will have no issues so I can keep going and burn some extra calories for better results.

Oddly enough but I can't manage to get into Ketosis in these past days, I don't know what else I should do really. I know that the Ketostix might not be accurate, since I'm drinking so many liquids during the day, but this was always the case, even during my first round on HCG. Maybe all this almond milk is affecting my ketosis; yesterday I was reading the label and the sodium content is very high, just wondering if this could be the cause of all my water retention. I also had 3 coffees with cream today, which I usually never do – but my mood is good, I'm excited for my new position at work coming soon so, when I'm excited, I tend to eat more, drink bad stuff too! I should force myself to do a day off from coffees or decaf to get detoxed of all these processed drinks. Will I ever be able to do it? Be strong! You can do it!

HCG Diet - VLCD #40 How can I break my weight loss slowdown?

Today is my VLCD #40 in this Round #3, so far I lost roughly 7 Kg (15.5lb) – it seems a lot but really is not a good number on a HCG Diet; with 40 days of injections I should have seen losing at least 25lb/30lb. Disappointing and definitely not encouraging results. But I knew that every round is different, and let's admit that my decaf coffee addiction is not helping either. Now I have the feelings that my body is getting used to the amount of food I have every day, I'm not hungry most of the day, my mood is good, but sometimes I would like to see the scale going down quicker. Today I also ordered another vial of HCG, apart from the money I really didn't want to go to this path, on staying so long with such a small amount of Calories, but if I stay where I am right now, is like didn't diet at all on this round, this morning I registered a gain and I'm back on 61.4Kg.

One of my fellow dieters on FatSecret was pointing that whatever I gained should not be fat but body food or water, which I agreed thinking about the logic of it; I don't eat much fat during the day anyway, and I'm often constipated lately.

One thing I decided to do is increase my exercise routine, maybe slowly though. I know that with only 500/660 calories per day is not advisable to exercise, plus sore muscles are definitely going to retain some water. But I'm thinking to build up a routine slowly, I also purchased a groupon offer for 10 classes in a Kung Fu school, unbelievable I know! Me doing Kung-Fu? I can barely walk and chew a gum at the same time, but I love challenges and if I don't learn I rarely get hooked in anything.

I have also wasted half year of my gym membership not going at all, I want to try to get back into this good habit, I always loved my Body Attack classes, so Sunday there's one at 11:00AM and I usually go to take a long relaxing sauna after (steam room), so I will try to go this weekend; I might not be able to complete the whole hour since I'm out of shape, but I will try to do my best.

With these exercise activities I am planning on "shocking" my body, consuming more calories and proteins and see if my stalls reduce and I see some good weight losses. In addition to that I will benefit in terms of health and I'm hoping to stay away a bit more from the decaf-coffee-madness that I'm experiencing lately.

Since I'm becoming really desperate on what is happening with my HCG Diet slowdown, I'm also trying to avoid as much as I can supplements in these days. I took lots of probiotics in the past few days; I even bought some strong one: 80 billion strength but nothing is happening anyway, so I will let my body rest from all those bacteria and see if I see any change.

 This coming weekend I'm also going to try an Intermittent Fasting day(s) – I've lots of things to do Saturday and volunteering to the Ukrainian beer festival (I deeply hate beer) – so it will be a good chance for me not to eat or drink anything, just working at the bar and meet people.

Sunday I've my Body Attack class planned in the morning (with steam room in the plan as well), and in the afternoon I have a first date with a friend of a friend, just going for a walk or coffee, let's see if I can fast that day too or I'll have 6 eggs so I can do a protein day to help my muscles after the gym. But, of course, all this is my ideal world plan…that I screw up every time with my insane lack of initiative. In my defense I have to say that I never been like that, I've been always super active, I guess I'm getting old!

HCG Diet - VLCD #39 slow motion losses

My HCG Diet for this Round #3 is going so slowly and I'm not sure exactly why. In terms of food I'm following the protocol, maybe not 100% - since I'm having lots of decaf coffees with unsweetened almond milk. I'm also having lots of constipation issues, not that I feel ever bloated or uncomfortable but I'm not having bowel movements as my usual lately. I've increased the amount of probiotic and laxative teas, but they seem not working at all and it's so frustrating.

I registered a weight loss this morning, which is good but I'm in the 61/62 Kg since almost 3 weeks now, going up & down. I can't wait to be in the fifties!

I'm seriously thinking on buying a new vial of HCG, because if I keep staying on this rate, it will take me forever to reach my goal. I've been on this new vial about a week now and it won't last more than another 15 days or so, I'm sure I cannot reach my goal anytime soon. My Round #1 was so so much better, I lost weight in a consistence pattern; sure I had days were I was stalling or not losing that much but overall, at the end of the week, I always seen a good progress.

I just ordered a new bacteriostatic water vial again, on amazon takes forever to deliver, so better be prepared in case I want to keep on staying on this Round #3 till I'm satisfied with my losses.

R3P2 -VLCD #31 a new HCG Vial and my weight gain

It's been already 31 days on this 3^rd Round of HCG, time flies but my extra pounds not so much. Today I started a new vial of HCG, I felt the other solution, after a month of use, lost its potency. I cannot get anymore into Ketosis, I am hungry sometimes, my cravings are way more than usual, my mood is not great either and my weight seems stall since days now. It's frustrating.

This morning the scale reported a weight gain of 700gr! 700! Unbelievable! It's more than 1.5lb! How could that be possible with such a tiny amount of calories?! All right, in my partial-defense I should say that my stomach is acting weirdly lately, I tried to take so many probiotic, laxative teas, dulcolax, coffee – but nothing worked so far, at least not relevantly. It never happened to me before; really the probiotic and the smooth move teas are usually extremely effective, sometime even too much! Not this time though, just wondering if it's a reaction of my body for not releasing too much fat. I hope with this new HCG solution things will go better. I cannot keep on drinking caffeinated coffee, I start to bite my lips and the headaches for the withdrawal are always terrible.

Regardless of tomorrow outcome – weight or stomach department issues – on Saturday I will do an apple day. I will buy 6 big apples and cut all of them to eat it during the day, without much of water intake as well. I hope it will work, apples for me are a comfort food and I noticed that my body likes them very much, so much that I usually gain weight instead of losing it. I will give my hope on the new HCG vial potency to help me out on that. I should be fine in terms of temptations since Saturday I'm going on a short trip to St. Jacob's country, so I'll be on the bus all day, from 7:30 AM till late evening.

A while ago I estimated I would be in the 5X-fifties by now, it didn't happen; I'm re-estimating this target weight a couple of times already. I really want to leave this 6X-sixties number for good, my dresses are still not fitting and with this bowel movement's issues I feel like a balloon!

Wish me luck, I will update soon with my Apple Day results!