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 Reload - Considerations

Here I am again, struggling with my weight and my eating disorder, but looking forward to start again with the HCG Diet.

My parents and nieces were here for four weeks in July and I ate so badly, unable to force myself on having just healthy food…while watching them eating pancakes and poutines. Oh well, I guess I knew it, fool me that I thought I could lose weight while they were here with me, I mostly been a driver and paid few bills. Never again using my few yearly vacation days to let someone else enjoy their vacation, regardless if it's my family - I still need some relaxation time off just for me.

So my plan is to start again the HCG injections on Saturday, so I will have the weekend to load properly, my VLCD #1 should fall on Monday August 8^th – if I stick to this plan.

I do have some concerns though, mostly wondering if I'm really ready to start again the Diet and also I hope I will not feel hungry as the Round 2 and with good energy and mood as I had in my first Round with HCG.

One thing that I wished I did similarly to my first Round is the Detox period - prior my injections. I removed sugar and grains before starting my VLCDs so I did not have much of a withdrawal while dieting, it was great but in the second Round I missed this part. Obviously I've no guarantee that the clean loading could affect my weight loss, lots of people don't load clean on this diet and they still have great results, so I will keep my fingers crosses, trying to limit the carbohydrates assumption at least during the Loading Phase.

Another thing that I will try to accomplish for this new Round #3 is getting rid of the coffee, or at least the use of Stevia. As sweetener Stevia is not bad, but keeps me attached to the sweet taste of things and I found it dangerous for my eating disorder, I should forget sugar forever if I want to maintain my weight in a healthy way.

Once I started my VLCD days I will try to drink detox tea before bed and take weekly my Detox Baths, not sure how much can they help but I always felt good when doing it.

On top of my HCG Diet Round #3 plan I also want to do something for my mental Detoxification, as I probably mentioned million times in this blog, my biggest issue here is my food obsession that makes me think about food 24/7; for this reason I'm thinking to join a sort of group therapy for people with Eating Disorders. I found a no-profit association that has group meetings once a week, it's not far from where I live and time is good even for people working as myself, so I'm seriously thinking to give it a try and see if – emotionally also – I can improve my relationship with food. This would be more valuable for me than losing any weight!

HCG Diet - VLCD #35 - Ready for P3

Today is my VLCD #35 – I can't believe it's been already 35 days of my HCG Diet. Time really flies and so far I'm really happy with the results, with how HCG made me feel through the whole weight loss process.

In the past few days I had very small traces of Ketosis and I thought I would stop with the injections doubting the potency of my HCG solution, but no hunger, no weakness, no cravings, having lots of water convinced me to continue with HCG another couple of days or so, I think till I actually have solution to do the injections, I also noticed that the Ketones are less visible in my urine when I drink lots and lots of water before bed, which can make sense…I think.

So today I was between small and just traces of Ketosis, I'm not that hungry but I cannot be 100% sure that is not due to my long diet journey. I do feel ready for P3 though, I'm good with my weight as per today, sure I need to lose more but I'm ok on stabilizing what I've achieved so far. Most of my dresses now fit comfortably, not all maybe but enough to make me feel good about myself.

P3 will be a challenge I already know, it will be mostly about calories because I won't be any more under the easy directions of Dr. Simeons for 500 Calories and clear and concise meal plans. I'm thinking to continue with P2 food and just increase the protein dosage, maybe a bit more vegetables here and there, but without going crazy of course. I'm finding so easy prepping my meals for the next day, it takes me 2 minutes and I enjoy my spinach chicken salad as never before, I'm even loving my breakfast orange in the morning, which is odd for me that I never been a fan of oranges.  

In the morning – with my HCG injection – I'm also doing a 30IU B12 injection, in a different spot with a smaller insulin syringe. B12 is something I learned with the Dr. Bernstein Diet and, after lots of researches I came to the conclusion that it's good for energy and to keep the fat moving, how much? I don't know, but it's a water-soluble Vitamin so drinking plenty of water will eliminate it anyway with no harm for my body.

When my P2 officially ends I will be for 72 hours still on the VLCD, but no HCG injections. I'm not worried about the 72hrs I have to say, I already experienced no-HCG effects for a couple of days during my period and I was ok, maybe some cravings but those come all the times, I'm taking L-Glutamine to compensate a bit, it doesn't do miracles obviously but somehow placebo-effect or not, it helps. The most important thing for me is that my binge episodes are not going to come not now or never. I want to end up feeling normal of not eating sweets or fatty junk food and not forcing myself not to do it.

This can only be achieved with time, the body needs to adjust on this new food intake lifestyle, if that makes sense, everything would become normal, reality, not privations, no frustrations on desiring what I cannot have.

HCG Diet - VLCD #21 - New refill for my HCG addiction

Today is my VLCD #21, so far I'm still happy every day, which for me is priceless more than losing weight. Motivation is always the key for success in anything we do. As per my weight loss is really slowing down, I've to say it, not sure if I'm taking too much food or it's just my body holding on the fat for survival.

This morning my Ketosis was around small to moderate, a bit less than usual, I'm wondering if my huge soup last night may have had an impact on that; but I promised myself I will not load my body with such big amount of water and soup anymore, I felt stuffed and uncomfortable.

Last night I also had my usual Detox Bath, I didn't bath for too long, I'd say roughly 15 minutes, the water was too hot and I was sweating since the temperature outside was already warm enough. It's important though to have hot water for the bath, and also not to rinse after, just dry with the towel and that's it. I took a shower before the bath to wash my hair, in the previous weeks I use to take the shower after, which was wrong.

This morning I ordered a new refill for my HCG injections, same company where I bought last night, they're from Nebraska, although the pharmacy that sent me the injections and syringes was from Florida, not sure how it works but last time the shipping took only 2 weeks and I was pleased with the service overall, they're very prompt to resolve any issue.

I don't know how and when I will do my next round, initially I thought I would do only one round, hoping to lose everything I needed to in the 35/40 days of injections; but my body didn't agree with that, my weight loss is not steady, it's taking more than expected but I'm ok with that, it's my life my wellbeing, I shouldn't rush anything when matter of health and happiness. I was ok on buying another HCG vial also because of the way this hormone helps me with my mood; I'm not having sugar and sweets since Christmas now, so more than a month and I'm happy, not 100% of the days or through a day but I'm happier than I was before, happier than I don't remember since when, I'm enjoying myself every day, doing nothing, being alone, being around people, I feel more positive, if this makes any sense.

HCG is addictive, apart from the weight loss results, it gets you into a good mood, good energy and feelings, and you don't want to stop this positive pattern. I look ok now, I mean I obviously I need to lose more weight, but nobody would ever tell the difference between how I look today and if I lose another 3Kg for instance, nevertheless I don't want to finish my round yet, I want HCG to be still active in my body, I want to keep going with my diet as long as I have injections. It does sound crazy I know but being without HCG looks scary to me at the moment.

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 - 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!

First Loading Day done

My first Loading Day is done; it was almost painful by the end of day. I truly believe I had a couple of Binge episodes during the day and it was concerning me a bit, since I'm going to approach a very low calories Diet starting from tomorrow, I cannot deal with urges to binge. I hope I won't.

This morning the scale reported an increase of 2.1 Kg, which is almost scary to me, I was expecting the weight gain with all the food I had yesterday but somehow I was hoping the HCG will give me the benefit of keeping the weight off, oh well maybe tomorrow, who knows…

My injection procedure today was terrible I have to admit. I took the little vial from the fridge and I gently shake it, thinking that the HCG powder might be residing on the bottom of the vial; after that I took one of my insulin syringes of 1ml and I started to draw – what to me looked as mixed solution, after removing the needle from the vial I found it completely crocked! I must to say those syringes are extremely cheap and I'm already thinking on buying better ones for my next injections. Anyhow, I decided to try to straighten the needle and continue with my procedure, so I did, but I couldn't tell if there was just air in the syringe or there was HCG in it, seriously it was hard to see due to the grey colour of the syringe! So basically I proceeded injecting only air in my belly….yes that was what I stupidly did! So, afraid of the subcutaneous air I had just injected in my tummy, I had to continue with I was trying to achieve there: having my HCG daily dosage. The second time I pay more attention on how I was drawing the solution from the vial, I was able to see liquid going inside the syringe, so I took around 52/53 units from the bottle and injected again in my belly, but in a different spot. BTW yesterday injection gave me already a big bruise, what a surprise. I decided to increase slightly my dosage today, thinking about the amount of HCG that can get wasted in the top of syringe and also because I wanted to be sure I had enough HCG in my body to saturate my blood with all the fatty food I'm eating in these 2 Loading Days. Hopefully my assumption can work for me; I figured I might need to understand exactly what dosage works for me just going forward with the VLCD days. This is actually a good point on why is not advisable to pre-prepare all the syringes with HCG solution in advance, if you need to change the dosage it might be impossible to do so without wasting HCG. The required daily amount is so little that really working around it, it's definitely not easy and the margin of error is always quite relevant.

Someone might argue why I don't use the drops, way easier in terms of administering. Well I do not believe in drops; it's scientifically proved that HCG cannot be absorbed in the body via mouth, it simply doesn't; it needs to be injected every day. HHCG is the Homeopathic version, which is just a scam from my point of view, there's no HCG whatsoever in this product, so why bother using it? Do your researches first before choosing this type of Protocol, we are never enough careful when dealing with our health and well-being.

From Dr. Bernstein strict Diet to Dr. Simeons Protocol

Today officially starts my HCG Diet Journey. This morning, very early, I prepared the solution of HCG and Bacteriostatic water. I decided to add 20ml to the 5000IU of HCG so the solution will go up to a 0.5 ml daily; an amount easy to draw with the insulin syringe and for me more convenient in terms of margin of error. I assumed that during my course of HCG I would have some drops of solution lost in the syringes or the bottle itself, with this ratio I figured the HCG percentage lost should be proportionally less, or at least I hope so. Dr. Simeons was somehow against the use of insulin syringes due to the amount lost inside the needle itself, but I did not feel comfortable proceeding with intramuscular injections for this treatment so I will take the chance and eventually increase the dosage along the way, if I'm feeling extremely hungry.

So today is my first Loading day of Phase 1, I thought – since I'm still a recalcitrant Binge Eater – that I would enjoy this Phase of the Protocol, however it's only 9:00 AM and I'm already so full that I feel I cannot eat anything else. I doubt is already an HCG's effect, way too early for the hormone to be in my body fading my hunger. Let's see how I will feel by the end of tomorrow with my second loading Day.

I joined a Community on YouTube, there are a lot of HCG-ers out there, everyone with different weight problems, different lifestyles and so on. I must to say, most of them do not use injections but drops. Homeopathic drops are way cheaper than injections, are easy to buy and I guess also very easy to use, they need to be absorbed under the tongue. I personally do not believe in drops, either regular HCG drops, even less the homeopathic ones (HHCG). It's scientifically proved that this type of hormone cannot be absorbed by the body if taken orally, it's like the insulin: it needs to be injected every day. The homeopathic one are clearly without any trace of HCG and can be purchased on Amazon….some people buy even at grocery store (absurd to me). The drops do work, because of course a 500 Calories regiment cannot fail with whatever product you are using. But the whole point of assuming HCG – which I mean real HCG hormone injected daily – is to preserve muscle mass, to rebalance the hypothalamus, to reduce the abnormal fat without affecting the metabolism. Any other Diet with this small daily amount of Calories is sure to fail, because done to the expenses of normal fat that will be regained quickly once extra food is introduced.   

Why do we play with our health to save few dollars I'm not sure, I'd rather take just Vitamins B6 and B12 like the Dr. Bernstein Diet than unknown homeopathic drops sold at Walmart.

For my personal experience what most count is a realistic maintenance, it's clear that portion control and weight monitoring is an essential part of every maintenance program, but with my previous round with Dr. Bernstein Diet I had so many problems introducing even a small amount of food, the regaining process was extremely fast, my metabolism was compromised and I had no muscle strengths for the whole duration of the Diet. That alone tell me that there was something wrong with what I was doing. I do not want to make the same mistake, but people are hard to convince, we prefer to believe in a magical drop that will resolve all our fat-problems – forever! Which it never happens obviously.

Dr. Bernstein injections and nurses

Dr. Bernstein Diet is a strict weight loss program, it works – but it needs to be followed religiously, or it can be an unpleasant experience (due to the extreme food restriction) and costly as well.

For me switching to self-shots option is mostly due to the expenses that I cannot possibly afford anymore, and also is becoming annoying going to the clinic 3 times a week. Some of the nurses there are really dumb, so if they can do an injection: anyone can do it!

Once I was concerning to one of the nurses on my slow weight loss, and the fact that I've hard time to give up my coffee. She explained that coffee is bad for dieting since…."…it expands cells fat in the body"!!  I'm not kidding, that was her answer! So this should give you an idea on how the personnel are trained in those clinics.

Nurses in the Dr. Bernstein clinics are not highly skilled, not even regarding the Strict Diet itself, most of the questions I asked in the past months, were redirected to the doctor…or answered with no clue on what they were saying.

Today I was trying to get as much information as I could regard the injections. I asked the nurse if the B6/B12 ratio in the double injections is the same, she didn't know, she told me that they receive the B-comp like that, so not sure exactly how much of each is in it. However based on my researches, it should be 50/50, no reason not to be that way really.

I also asked the amount of Vitamins I was injected during the Strict Diet (on each double shot taken), she told me – for privacy reason – she was not allowed to tell me how many cc/ml it was, but I can obviously see the syringe and I saw that was at 1ml of dosage.

The needle used is the Insulin short one - I believe is the Needle Insulin Syringe, 3/10mL Syringe -30G x 12.7mm (1/2") – that is what I bought also yesterday, I thought it would be easy for me to use, once I do my first self-injection on Friday. I'm a bit scared of the idea of taking the shots myself, but then again I think on how much money I'm spending, that without the B6/B12 injections I cannot possibly continue this strict Diet (without compromising my health as well as my metabolism), so I must to learn on how to do it, at the end Vitamins B6-12 don't get stored in the body and drinking lots of water helps to get rid of them.

Today I also bought another bottle of Cal-K pills at the clinic ($16), although I'm not going next Friday I needed to have an extra bottle to continue the treatment by myself. Apparently it works in conjunction with the B-shots to boost metabolism and reduce the amount of stored fat.

My first Double Injection

Wednesday is usually weigh-in and injection day for Bernstein Diet, so yesterday I went to the clinic, although not officially on diet, I got double injections, they checked my weight and the ketones in my urine sample.

There were lots of people waiting, I guess after a while you get use to the whole process, which might be annoying eventually.

This is what I'll do for the next weeks – it takes about 15 minutes - 

• Go early in the morning to the clinic (Mon, Wed, Fri only) 
• Sign my ID/name on the sheet and wait for my name to be called 
• Go on the scale for the weigh-in and wait again for my name to be called 
• Follow the nurse for the injections and the ketones verification

Double injections hurt, seriously! But fortunately just for few seconds, I'm wondering how would feel on my stomach or when I'll be losing fat from my butt.

I went to do some other grocery shopping yesterday, I bought lots of vegetarian products from Yves, as protein choice they have a lot, plus they were on sale so I was happy for that. The only downside is that I'm not allowed to have those types of processed protein more than twice a week so I might need to figure out what else I could have.

My dinner was nice, I got some mushrooms and 230g (1 serving) is a lot. It was the whole package! So I cooked the mushrooms in the microwave with some oregano, salt, and parsley. After they were cooked I put everything in a pan adding my half cup of white eggs to it…and a pinch of black pepper. 

For me it was a normal meal, didn't feel at all in a food-restriction state.

After dinner I prepared something to bring in the office today, I need to plan it in advance or I'd be late every morning. I'm still in the process of understanding on how prepare my meals, the 4 food categories are clear but – as additional food items – there are lots of garnishments, liquids and seasoning choices for cooking so I will need to get familiar with those portions too.

So far the only challenge I had yesterday was drinking 2+ liters of water!