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#15 Food cravings and weight gain

Today is Monday and it marks my fifteenth day on the VLCD. Believe it or not I registered a gain weight this morning. Who gains weight eating 500 Calories a day? But this is part of any diet I guess, some days we can be a bit constipated or TOM is on its way, factors can be many. During my Dr. Bernstein Diet for me tomatoes were making me gain weight! So I'm not much worried about it, especially since I had small traces of Ketosis this morning, that means I'm still burning some fat, I wonder if drinking too much water/decaf makes my Ketostix inaccurate.

Overall I can say that HCG is a miracle hormone for weight loss. Anyone can tell me the dangers or other silly explanations on why this Diet is so not-healthy but my reaction is always: have you tried it?

Because until you actually do the Diet, experience how HCG "fixes" my binge eating desires, how not-hungry I feel every day, how energetic I am – despite the 500 Calories intake; well until that I will not accept any comment or opinion in merit.

I did the Dr. Bernstein Diet many times; he has clinics all over the country – a 600 to 800 calories diet that leaves you starving and weak all the times, that puts you in starvation mode. So if there's someone to blame first, should be all those clinics that legally leave their patients go through this type of strict food regiment.

Yesterday I went do some shopping at Marshalls and HomeSense and every time during this Diet I get so many cravings looking at the organic healthy section where they sell of those different types of nuts. Ok, I should admit that I love love any type of nuts discovered on this planet and most likely if you bring me some more from Mars, I would like those too. But apart from that, I crave a lot peanut butter, the crunchy one. So much that I cannot have any in my apartment if I want to sleep at night without suffering for the desire of eating the whole jar! Anyhow, I had a revelation yesterday thinking about this – it might be obvious for many of you but it wasn't for me, till yesterday. My cravings are messages from my body that's craving fats, since the HCG Diet is a very low fat Diet, this would make sense. I recall thinking, during my Loading Phase, to eat the whole jar I have in my cabinet, to load healthy fats, but really it didn't appeal to me, so I didn't even open it. While, on the other hand, I would have eaten 2lb of Nutella with no problem. Too bad I was trying to load clean – due to my sugar addiction.

HCG Diet - R3P2 - VLCD8

It's been already 8 VLCD days, so far so good for this Round 3 – I don't have any hunger issue, I don't feel tired or weak, my mood is good and the usual foggy head is almost gone! HCG is my miracle Diet and I can never stop to thank Dr. Simeons for his discovery.

This morning my weight was exactly like yesterday but I had +4 Moderate Ketosis so I'm assuming that if not on pounds I'm losing inches, so I'm not worried at all.

One thing that I like of the HCG Diet is the way I lose weight, it's in my most difficult places, like my big belly, I noticed that it goes down quicker when I'm on HCG rather than just me losing weight counting Calories. This is priceless for me that I always had my fat accumulated mostly on my stomach area.

I'm barely eating half of the allowed food on the Diet; I really don't feel hungry, sometimes I force myself to eat at least the protein serving, so I don't experience any deficiency. I'm taking lots of supplements too though, the Calcium and Potassium used by Dr. Bernstein, not sure if it's true but it seems helping me to get into Ketosis.

HCG Diet - Fasting Failures

I had two sorts of fasting days yesterday and the day before, they resulted to be a failure really. First day was ok, I saw the scale nicely going down, but the second one I had a weight gain of almost half Kg - I think due to the extremely low calories intake, ok maybe also for all the candies I had to help me with my cravings.

I have to admit, this round so far has been terrible. I cannot get into Ketosis, I cannot stop my cravings, my HCG dosage is off, my weight is not steadily decreasing, I don't feel the usual mood boost that HCG gives me. It's hard to stick on the diet when things are so messed up.

Today I tried to inject a bit less HCG, thinking it might work and save some doses; well it was a big mistake, I was starving this morning, at the begin I just felt miserable, hungry, depressed, then I realized it was for my lack of HCG. Seriously this Diet is impossible to follow without the HCG injections, I don't even know how I was doing it with Dr. Bernstein, sure the Ketosis might help - but that's another confirmation that I was definitely in starvation, my brain and hormones were all over the places, food was and still is my main thought through each of my days and this is one of the most drowning experience I could ever had in my entire life. Having an eating disorder is something I would never wish to anyone; it's a war against myself.

HCG Diet - VLCD #19 - A B12 injection to help my fat moving

So I'm back today on my VLCD  #19, almost 3 weeks on this very low calories diet and I can say that I'm still loving it. Of course I've my moments when I feel a bit hungry, but bearable, and not that often. I believe it might be a hormonal thing though. In general I can report another small loss today, after 3 days in a row with the exact same weight! I wish I can see this steadiness during my maintenance weeks. But it seems I'm back on track on losing today, so all good.

Yesterday I was reading about the HCG potency duration, in terms of mixture of the drug. I do have a 20ml bottle for my injections, which in theory should last for 40 days, but the solution may lose its potency way earlier than that, which is a terrible waste. If I knew this thing before, I'd have purchased 2 packages of 2000IU rather than just one of 5000IU, at least I would have guaranteed a piece of mind for my daily injections going forward with the days. I've to say though I am really trying to take care on how I handle the bottle every day. It's always in a black little back covered in aluminum foil and I try to keep it outside the fridge the least that I can. So far I don't report any loss in potency, but maybe after the third week I will see some signs of lack of effectiveness, hopefully as late as possible, I don't want to waste half bottle for nothing, so much I spent for it.

I have every day a good +4 Moderate Ketosis and sometime even +6 High Ketosis, so even when I don't see any change on the scale, I assume my fat is getting released and some inches are going away.  I promised myself to keep track on my cm and my pictures during the journey, but I keep on procrastinating this thing, I know I'd like in the future to go back and see the changes, as part of my diary.

Yesterday was the first day where I felt a bit weak and hungry during the day, I was questioning the injection and almost got scared that my HCG was already gone bad; but then in the afternoon I really didn't feel hungry at all, as I said it might have been just a hormonal thing.

Because on how I felt yesterday, I got kind of scared to feel back as on my Dr. Bernstein Diet, which I won't be able to tolerate, for today I took 4 blue pills of Cal-K that Dr. Bernstein Program was giving to its patients for energy and remove fatigue, I also took a small subcutaneous injection of B12 too, different spot from the HCG but I thought the B12 would help to keep the fat moving anyway, as well as added energy for the day, the quantity was just 20IU, not much. I'll see tomorrow if it affected my weight loss in any way or not.

The HCG Diet discussions

In this post I would like to talk about the HCG Diet in general and about all the discussions I've seen around on the web and on TV. First of all, I'm a doctor or anything related to expert of nutrition and similar, I speak or I'd say write based on my personal experience.

Lots of website and videos on YouTube are totally against about this Diet, and I could understand why, first time I read: 500 Calories I thought it was insane. Whoever is against claims the fast weight loss on the restrictive daily amount of food, which is logically true; we don't need to be genius here to understand that with only 500 Calories a day I may lose weight. Often I see the results of a research conducted to a group of people who were given HCG and to some of them only a placebo, both groups lost weight without feeling hungry apparently. It might be that human brain is strong enough to elude your hunger feeling; I think it could be possible. What was not mentioned though for this research is what type of physical results they got from the Diet? Did they lose fat or muscle? Did they feel weak and tired or always energetic? Were both groups in starvation mode? How was their Ketosis?

What I want to say here is that I personally went to a very strict Diet, with nothing, just Vitamins, sure I lost weight and quickly but I was always starving, always weak, always dizzy, I couldn't think about anything else but food, that was my Dr. Bernstein Diet: a medically supervised scam!

When I started my HCG Diet, of course I had my doubts, I already lost lots of money and my health with the previous one, I am not stupid to go back and do it again. I promised myself that if I ever felt as before I'd stop immediately. Having an Eating Disorder due to a Diet is nothing I wish to anyone.

But in my experience, after a first rough VLCD day on HCG I felt amazing, absolutely amazing, full of energy and free from my food addiction. Still today, after 14 days using it I'm amazed on how I don't feel almost ever hungry, how I can still walk and do my things with no issues, my body feels amazing! I am burning fat daily with high traces of Ketosis, I'm happy for no reason; sometimes I ask myself how come you're happy?! I know it's silly but I'm studying my own body's reaction to this Diet, I'm evaluating every single day. I don't want to risk my health again, and I don't want to fail again.

 So in conclusion, you can blame HCG to be a scam but I've the proof that this Diet works, not much for the weight loss, but for all the rest: I'm really feeling changes in my body and my hormones, all I can thank is HCG.

HCG Diet - VLCD #13 - Non-Fat Cottage Cheese alternative

This morning my scale did not show any change in weight since yesterday, oh well I hope somewhere, on my body, inches are changing though. It's my VLCD #13 today and I'm feeling a bit dizzy, not hungry but I've cravings here and there, I can't tell if I'm just bored and I want something to chew on, or it's my food-deprivation that is talking. Nothing unbearable though, I might just be victim of my own ovulation period. I'm not necessarily craving sugar though, and this is a good thing.

Yesterday, for the first time on my HCG Diet, I had 100gr of Non-Fat Cottage Cheese for my protein serving, to dip with some celery. It was good, I was worried my body would not process the cheese properly, but it didn't so I'm thinking to change sometime and have some cheese, instead of the usual chicken. I believe eliminating all those food categories for so long might hurt my tolerability to it, same thing for carbs, I usually have my grissino or my melba toast during the day. I don't want to give up gluten forever, I might reduce it of course, but I still want to be able to eat pasta or pizza once in a while, never forget I'm Italian at the end.

I also think that bringing some sort of variation in the everyday diet is always good, so the body doesn't become too comfortable with the same food and decide not to lose anymore. I do have to admit though that I'm loving my baby spinach chicken salad, and for now I'll keep it as a staple on my Diet, till I get bored of it, then I'll change with something else.

Today I did my injection on my belly again, I felt I was doing so well in the first few days and wanted to change back to see if my body will keep on behaving for my weight loss.

Since it's Wednesday I'll have my Detox Bath tonight before bed, it's relaxing, I put baking soda in it too and I enjoy the warm water for about 20 minutes or so, my cat comes always around curios on what I'm doing, I can tell that he would like to come inside the bath tub…if there was no water in it!

Right now I'm sitting at my desk in my office, and I'm freezing, I hope it's the Ketosis, this morning I was a +2 Small Traces of Ketosis, yesterday I had 2 fruits and my grissino. Too much carbs and also the Cheese has milk, which contains sugar so, it might be for that, but I also noticed that I cannot have 2 fruits per day, I've to try with the strawberries but 2 of Apple / Orange doesn't work for my body. So I might need to stick to 1 fruit per day. I'm pretty sure if I don't eat any fruit in a day, my Ketosis will sky-rock to +12 in few hours! At the end I'm eating only 500 Calories per day.

One great thing of the HCG Diet is that – contrary to the Dr. Bernstein Diet – does not put you in starvation mode. The body "think" that I'm pregnant (which I'm not), so it gets all the abnormal stored fat to release the missing amount of daily calories and save the "baby" from starving basically. Doing a Diet that puts you in starvation mode is not healthy at all, I've my personal experience, weight gain is back in no time and developing an Eating Disorder is very common in this situation.

HCG diet - VLCD #11 a former weight to deal with

I'm officially into the double digits VLCD days; today's my very low calories day #11 and – although my scale did not show any change this morning – I'm happy of the overall Diet.

So far this has been for me the best experience I could ever imagine while losing weight; I know it might take some time for me to reach my goal, but I'm good with that, I cannot expect to become thin overnight so I'll be patient and enjoy the journey. Actually sometime I even think that I'll be afraid of getting off of HCG, it gives me so much boost in terms of mood and energy. I am EVERY SINGLE day amazed on how good I feel, no weak, no dizzy as with the Dr. Bernstein Diet.

My weight today's the same as yesterday, but I knew it would happen since I'm in the 62Kg, which is one of my former weights I had for long in the past, it's common to hit a plateau when reaching a former weight. I did again my measurements this past weekend, after a week on HCG and overall I lost 1cm here and there, some places none, but what is most rewarding for me is that I lost 8cm just on my belly -which is the spot where I usually gain more weight, in general middle section let's say.

In many blogs, videos I learned that usually when you are not seeing any change on the scale, it might be in inches on your body. To be honest, I'm not here every day to take measurements of my body's changes, but I can tell when I won't see much changing the day after on the scale. Since the food is so little there are no regular daily bowl movements in this Diet – as well as with any Low Calories Diet, I had same issues while on Dr. Bernstein; this might be another reason why the scale doesn't show a weight loss. Maybe that's why Dr. Simeons defined a real plateau only after 4/5 days of no weight change, not less than that.

I noticed that if I have 2 fruit servings in a day or twice chicken then I'd feel big and most likely my weight is not going to change the day after. This was happening even during my Dr. Bernstein strict Diet.

For my body white fish or strawberries are things that will make me lose lots of weight, but I had so much in the past that now I can't stand it anymore! Like the Jell-O…

This morning I also change my injection spot, till today I had my shots on my abdomen, but I switched on my buttocks, since my belly is full of bruises right now, nothing painful or anything but I just wanted to try a different spot, thinking that maybe the HCG will be absorbed better close to such a big muscle. Who knows…it might be just a crazy theory!

Weight = 62.2Kg

BF = 25.7%
BMI = 22.6

HCG Diet - on my VLCD #7

So today I am on my VLCD #7 and I'm still astonished about this Diet and HCG. What I believe is absolutely amazing is the fact that I am not hungry at all. Yesterday I had barely 400 Calories and I was ok, yes maybe at night I felt a bit hungry, since I skipped dinner, but it was bearable, plus I did skip dinner by choice, I really didn't want to eat. Without HCG I would be starving every second of the day, but with this hormone I know that my fat has been released in this right moment (without me being hungry) – and that's all I need to know.

Dr. Bernstein Diet puts you in starvation mode and, although being in Ketosis could be a good thing that means you're reducing carbohydrates, being in starvation is extremely deleterious for your metabolism. Every person on a Diet wants to lose weight and fast, but nobody wants to gain it all back and some, and that's pretty much what happens if you are starving yourself. It does suck I know.

I lost pounds every day so far, it's been only few days but I can feel the effects of HCG, it affects my mood making me feel happy, everyone is telling me that they see me different and better, I feel I'm not depressed anymore about my weight, my shape, although I'm still overweight and far from the end of my Diet, but I'm extremely motivated and I believe 100% in this Protocol, I've tons of energy – something amazing for me since I'm having such little Calories per day.

I don't know which Diet are you following but if you find yourself more than often starving, well my suggestion is: quit, whatever you're shedding off with so many sacrifices, it's going to be back on pretty soon.

I've to say I did everything exactly as Protocol …and beyond. I started a pre-Diet phase detoxing with Detox Tea and Detox bath with Himalayan salt (I've one scented with Vanilla that I love). I stopped to eat sugar almost a month before starting my HCG injections, I eliminated all the carbs like bread, pasta, rice, pizza and so on, many days before my Diet. I started to add more fat to my Diet and my loading Days were clean of sugar, carbs or starchy vegetables. I tried to eat healthy fat as much as I could, gorging to capacity. That helped me to get into the Diet smoothly and with no issues whatsoever, I felt a bit hungry on the very first VLCD and after that day my food-life completely changed, my mood changed and now I'm so happy, that just thinking about what is happening to me makes me smile; this is priceless!

HCG Diet - VLCD #5

Today I'm on my VLCD 5 – so I'm on a very low calories diet since 5 days and 7 injection days. Although I've been on the Protocol just for 5 days, it's been an extremely positive experience. My weight is going down, first couple of days really fast, now obviously it is slowing down, but totally normal; I cannot expect my body to lose 1Kg per day, which wouldn't be healthy for sure. For me, as long as the scale goes down: I'm happy! Even for just a little…

What makes me happy even more though is the way I feel, the energy that I have, is almost unbelievable to me, injections are easy to do it, painless, the hunger is almost inexistent and I still can't believe I'm eating only 500 Calories in a day, if all! In the past days I either skip a fruit serving or a carb serving, but really not feeling any desire or restriction on doing so. The Diet is easy and simple: just one protein type, just one vegetable type, just one fruit.

I was always struggling with Dr. Bernstein Diet with all the chopping and the preparation of breakfast and lunch and dinner, I was constantly cooking, and although I love to cook, that was too much even for me. With Dr. Simeons Protocol the choice is so limited that it removes the headache of what to eat and what not, definitely I can cook in many ways the same ingredients but guess how I feel about it?! I cannot care less about eating neither of what I eat! It's not that I don't enjoy food or anything; I'm just more focused on everything else in my life.

I had a Binge Eating Disorder for more than one year and my mind was constantly occupied thinking about food and what to eat next, for me this feels like freedom, finally healing from a mental disease that I thought I should live with for the rest of my life and restrict myself every time I was desiring food. Now conscious of the fact that portion control is obviously important I don't feel any challenge going forward, I'll check my weight every day, and if I gained a couple of pounds, I'll cut back my food intake for few days to get back on track. Now I know I can do it because food is not controlling my mind anymore.

It does sound that I'm blabbing just about my psychological status yes, but what I think is that we struggle almost all our lives about dieting and food and don't eat this and that, and I personally never accepted the advice of: "You have to love yourself as you are", sorry but I don't. I do not like seeing me fat and I will never love it, hence I want to lose weight. Those struggles are our enemies, all the thinking about what we can eat and what not makes dieting an important primary thing in our lives, we live for that…that's why we tend to care too much about food – well at least it was for me – but the point is that if you just could make food and eating something really not important, something that even when your stomach is growling you could think: "stomach it's growling, so what?!", that almost-impossible-to-believe thought will make your diet way easier. Nobody under a torture diet could have any long term success, I tried…multiple times; I ended up with anxiety, semi-depression, obesity, eating disorder and I could go on and on.

For you reading my post, if you never did before: search HCG, you have to give it a try!

A bad day during Maintenance

Today is a bad day for me and my weight; I'm eating as I didn't have food from the past 2 weeks! I had a normal breakfast this morning, actually way more than the recommended amount. I had 500g of boiled broccoli with 1/3 cup of shredded non-fat cheese on it. The broccoli felt like nothing in my stomach, I had to eat something else later on because starving, so I went downstairs and I bought a Spinach & Feta Croissant, it was delicious! Knowing I had 500g of broccoli only for a meal made me think that my whole allowed amount for a day – during the strict diet – was only 460g of vegetables, barely nothing.

I brought my lunch in the office today, thinking that I should better save some money and prepare my own healthy food so I cooked a zucchini omelet yesterday and I had it with half whole wheat tortilla. Although I had the omelet, I felt still hungry after; water did not help, herbal teas did not help, decaf coffee did not help…not even the 2 Jell-Os helped! So I went again downstairs to buy another croissant and a pecan tart, my favourite. Needless to say that I don't feel right today, I usually cheat on my healthy diet with a protein bar or simply with bigger portions of my allowed food - but not recently, I'm off in motivation, I miss my ex-boyfriend, I'm looking at the holidays and at the snow storm outside and I feel sad. Food is my only comfort at the moment. Most likely I'll spend Christmas days by myself, as well as New Year's Day so I'm not in a general great mood lately.

I say: everything is an excuse though; I should be more focused in any case. I already attuned myself that first thing I want to do in January is going back to the strict Diet, it's expensive true but for me it was worth it, I was always starving, always weak but the scale was always rewarding, almost every morning! I want to learn again how to manage my weight before I gain everything back and I'm overweight at the point where I started.

Some days I really don't care about my extra pounds, some days I'm depressed for it. I think dieting is a very psychological stressing thing to do. You're against yourself, by yourself. Motivation has to come only from within or you won't stick to it. Most probably part of my motivation in the past months was my ex-boyfriend. Now he is not in my life anymore and I'm missing the boost portion that he was giving me every day struggling with my starvation. My period missing is oddly not alarming me much, it should though, and it's been almost 3 months now that I didn't have it. I should see a doctor and I'm not doing anything for it. With Christmas approaching the idea of say no to sweets is killing me so I won't pretend to myself that I'm that strong and I'll just try to resist as much as I can to the…extra not allowed!

My weight sorrow

So today's Friday and I went for my weigh-in and injection to the Dr Bernstein clinic this morning as usual. I wasn't really happy when I woke up and I saw my weight exactly as yesterday. You'd think with such small amount of calories intake, exercise and all the water that I drink, I would see myself at least half pound skinnier, at the minimum. Well it doesn't actually work like that apparently. Your body can get lazy and stop to lose weight if you eat the same things every day! WTH….now what else?! Should I just drink water for the rest of my life and avoid all the food that I like? It doesn't seem fair to me.

Anyhow, based on Dr. Bernstein result I lost 1.2 pounds since Wednesday – so for their point of view I'm just fine. Definitely not from mine though, this diet is tough, you want to see results every day.

But the most annoying thing that happened to me today was not my stale amount of pounds, but their "Goal Weight" estimation. When I first started the program they asked me what would be my ideal weight, what I'm looking for to achieve from this Diet, so I said: 52Kg, considering that most likely I'd gain back a couple of Kilos during maintenance, seemed a reasonable target for me. The fact that none of the nurses had any idea of how much 52 Kg are in pounds was just annoying to me. I live in Canada BTW, and as far as I know Canada does NOT follow US in its measurements system, but not sure why still those pounds are around.

They do their own estimation of course and they write down on the Diary sheet a range (in pounds) on how much my weight should be…approximately. Well the range is within 10 pounds! My personal goal range is between 120 and 130 pounds, which on my tiny body 10 pounds are really a lot.

With my weight I'm almost close to 130 lb, not there yet for sure but close, it might take up to 4/5 days to lose the rest I guess. But to be honest this is not my target weight. I joined the Dr Bernstein Diet when I was 137 lb, do they think I'd pay $1000 to lose only 7 lb??! That is just ridiculous.

I want my target weight and if it's not possible for me, well they have to give me a Medical reason why, not just a stupid algorithm that says based on height, how much I'm supposed to lose. For the same amount of Kilos, the same person could be overweight full of fat or incredibly muscular. A Diet, and especially one that pretend to be highly medically supervised, should be tailored by the individual, case by case – not by the chart on a book.

Every time I say to anyone: I'm on Dr. Bernstein Diet – I've the same reaction: you look great; why are you on this Diet?! I'm so tired of this reaction. I'm definitely not losing weight so people will look at me and say: oh you look great!, I want to lose weight because I'm not fitting anymore in half on my dresses and I don't use a pair of jeans since 10 years now. Sure, I'm pretty good on hiding that fat on my belly or my huge ass, but that does not mean that at the end of the day I'm happy for that. I hate how I became since the past few years, my knees do not cooperate with my exercise routine and I'm struggling to lose half pound in a day having only 500 calories in food! WTH!

I don't blame people that never seen me in bikini…ok, but the nurses that do the injections every other day should have an idea what do I have to lose, DO NOT LOOK AT THE CHART DAMN IT!! I'm here! Look at me! Did you see my belly fat coming out of my skirt this morning? Well that is not nice if it stays there.