DON’T DRINK YOUR CALORIES!!!

As a person who rarely drinks water and usually prefers a lovely Mt. Dew, I can tell you this for sure.  Drinking your calories is a complete waste.  That average soda of yours is essentially a meal.  That diet soda?  Sure no calories, but not really great for you.  Trust me on this one as someone who has had 4 instances of kidney stones and one surgery — soda is NOT good for you.

Whatever your weight loss plan is, I can tell you that drinking AT LEAST a half a gallon of water will make a HUGE difference.  In the days that I forget to drink water, I remain stagnant in weight loss regardless of how little I ate and saved in my plan.  When I drink a half to a full gallon of water throughout the day, I am much more effective at seeing immediate and gradual weight loss when used in conjunction with my plan.

So my tip?  I like to *see* what I consume.  So I use bottles of water from Costco.  I make sure I try to drink 3 in the morning, 3 at lunch and 3 in the evening.  This would be a gallon of water.

Hope this helps!  Drink that water!

While abroad I did my best to essentially maintain portion control and stay away from starches in foods.  When you attend meetings where dinner menus are prepared and you are a guest to the country, it’s hard to be picky without being rude.  Everything was fantastic and it was hard to hold back devouring it :-).  My hardest challenge was drinking enough water — which I didn’t.

But I’m home now, waited until the morning to do my weigh in at the same time and place.  Got on the scale…

203 pounds!

WOW! I was so surprised that I came home a half-pound lighter than when I left.  If I chronicled all the food I ate, you’d be surprised too!  I think it was a testament to my portion control.  So here I am at the end of the first part of the HCG diet with the drops and 500 calories per day.  It was tough, it was hard to adjust to, but my overall 12.5 pound weight loss is the motivator I needed to think differently about weight control.

I’m a far cry from the 185 pound goal I set out for myself.  I had lofty ideas that I’d at least lose 20 pounds.  Perhaps if I didn’t travel this last week I might have…who knows — I can’t second guess.  I’m in maintenance phase now for the next 3 weeks — avoiding the starches still (which will be hard) but getting back on a regular caloric intake (I’m going to try to stay under 1500 per day.

What are my thoughts on the HCG protocol?  Mixed.  First, I did the drops (homeopathic) and not the hormone injections.  This was mainly due to cost as well as demonstrated results from a friend who lost 25 pounds doing the same drops I did.  I think everyone’s bodies are different.  For my friend it worked a lot.  For me, it worked less than my expectations, but I’m willing to admit the last week could have yielded a lot more if I was home and following the previous weeks regimens exactly.

For me it comes down to how the process changed the way I currently look at food.  I still love it, but realize I don’t need it constantly to survive.  I need to enjoy things in moderation and otherwise count the calories — duh.

I’ve decided on a maintenance plan that works for me, which I’ll write about shortly as I gather my thoughts.  But hopefully this has helped others understand the HCG diet and perhaps be motivated to start losing weight!

No scale so no weight.  Feeling good, but definitely not feeling “lost weight” good.  Need to get a hold of my mental game and get through this week.

Today and tomorrow will be tough as we have planned business dinners at nice restaurants for each night.  I’m going to look like the odd one with my weird orders to satisfy my HCG diet requirements!  I hope I’ll have the will to keep it going.

Unknown weight today…feeling good, but not ‘killer weight loss good’ as I could.

Oh well, I’m doing my best.  I’m feeling like I could probably get another 5 pounds out of the HCG diet and really want to, but this travel will be hard.  I’m on a plane all day today and am going to try to just eat the 6 apples today to see if that helps reset anything.

As I’m going into the final week, I’m starting to think about the maintenance phase for the HCG diet.  This is probably the most important.  I’ve had friends lose a lot and then on the 27th day gorge themselves as a ‘reward’ — and then they eventually gain it back.  To me, the HCG diet is a detox.  I wanted something to reset my thoughts on food and give me a bit of a jumpstart toward better eating lifestyle while still enjoying what I want.  I have some thoughts on how I’m going to accomplish this that I’ll share later.

Now, it’s off to travel!  Wish me luck!

Day 17: 204.5 pounds (up one :-(  )

Lunch/dinner was quite good.  I made my own salad that I enjoyed while traveling…had the same for both meals:

• Iceberg lettuce, shredded
• Grilled chicken strips, cubed and dressed with mustard/hot sauce

Was very good and satisfying.  But man, that cookie was good.

Tomorrow I head to Iceland and Ireland for business.  This will be the toughest part as I’m at the tail end of the 26 days and want to keep going, but it will be a challenge.  I’m going to do my best!

Day 16: 203.5 pounds

Yesterday’s meal plan was pretty simple (and not bad):

• 2 apples (Gala)
• Lunch: grilled chicken breast and chopped asparagus.  I basically did a little stir-fry (no oil of course) with these ingredients adding some curry/cumin/lemon for taste.  I had too much spices so it wasn’t the best, but it satisfied the hunger for the lunch time.
• Dinner: decided we still had too much asparagus so I did the stir-fry again but this time with shrimp and just garlic as the season…much better.  Add some Melba toast as a side dish :-)

Today I think I may do much of the same…it was tasty enough and having smaller bite sizes made me think that I had a larger meal…who cares if my mind plays tricks on me right?  I’m out of Gala apples though (my favorite) so I’ll be going with Fuji.

Next week I’ll be on a plane for a long time.  Plane food sucks…we all know that.  I think my travel day might be an opportunity for me to try the 6 apple day plateau breaker (assuming I’m still hovering on Sunday).  If I can get past security at the airport and find a place that sells apples, I might be okay.  Otherwise the airport travel day will suck…usually NOTHING healthy in the airports.

Day 15: 204.5 pounds

• Stevia
• Bunch of apples (Fuji/Gala)
• Strawberries

We were going to bring some chicken and the George Foreman, but realized that just wasn’t going to work being with another family and our kids, etc.  We trudged along.  It was tough…real tough.  Being surrounded by delicious smelling food was really hard for me.  Here are our tips for where we went for some options:

• Jack-in-the-Box: Get order of grilled chicken strips (4) and Chicken Club salad.  On salad, remove everything but onions/lettuce/tomato (no cheese, bacon bits, etc).  Take one of the chicken strips from the 4-piece and add it to the salad (you get 2 with the salad).  Separate the salad in half (order an extra bowl).  Cut up the chicken into pieces and put some mustard and hot sauce on it and mix it together.  Add some salt/pepper, then add to salad.  This order is for 2 people.
• In-n-Out: Protein burger, just burger, grilled onions, tomato.  Add mustard, salt pepper.  This sucked for me.  NO flavor what so ever.  But it killed any hunger pains, just didn’t taste great.
• Del Taco: 3 chicken soft tacos – order with just chicken, lettuce, tomato.  NO cheese/sauce.  Take the contents of the tacos out and mix together with hot sauce (mild).  Eat.  This was hands-down my favorite.  Better than the Jack-in-the-Box variety.  Perhaps because it was shredded lettuce.  (note: 3 soft tacos contains about 100g meat).
• Chili’s- Fajita’s – don’t get the mix, just get the chicken.  Ask wait staff to ensure no cooking in oil and no oil on the skillet.  Split the portion between 2 people.  Tasty.  Grilled vegetables were really good.  Watching our friends enjoy fried jalapeno and onion strips was hard :-(.

We made it out alive though.  Because we didn’t have a scale we were not motivated at all.  There were times we said we’d quit.  All we could think about was better tasting food (not necessarily larger portions).  Having the apples was huge (strawberries just didn’t keep well traveling).  We kept some in our backpack as we walked around Disneyland.

This morning we both got up and I was at 205 – down 10.5 overall an 4 from the beginning of the trip.  I was hoping for it to read 200, but I’m semi-motivated to keep going.  Tomorrow may be judgment day for us.  As I’m traveling next week on business it will be even harder than Disneyland.  Wish me luck!

Day 13-14: 205 pounds.

Eating while traveling on this diet is tough, real tough. So far we haven’t had to eat at Disney which is good. Our eating out plan on the HCG diet has been chicken. We are using grilled chicken strips from Jack-in-the-Box (only 3 of the 4 it comes with). They are the safest of the fast foods. We cut them up and mix in a dry side salad. It actually isn’t that bad.

Last night we went to Chili’s and got chicken fajitas, making sure to request no cooking in oil. They were good…but with the tortilla would have been better :-).

I hope my loss is happening. Frankly is there isn’t more loss I’ll be depressed. I have learned a valuable lesson about food though!

Day 9 I woke up today and weighed in at 209.  WHAT?!!?  Weight gain.  Clearly for a person like me this is not motivating.  I looked back on the previous day and didn’t know what might have contributed…I ate the same stuff we’ve been eating.  I did have less water yesterday, but wouldn’t have thought that would make up for this gain.  I’m going to ensure I hit the water intake goals now.  Depressing morning though.  Remember, I need immediate results :-) — I’m not motivated today but going to do my best.

The toughest challenge for me lies ahead for the HCG diet.  Today, my family ventures out to Disney for 4 days.  Yeah, that’s right…land of giant turkey legs, churros and no healthy food in sight.  My wife says that luckily she HATES the food at Disney.  I don’t think it is particularly great, but it’s festival food and I don’t mind it (hence my need for weight loss).  This does suck though as we’ll be in a hotel, away from our food preparation.  We’ve debated about bringing the George Foreman grill and some prepared meats, but have opted not to.  We’re going to be with friends and likely eating out.  We are dreading this week.

Next weekend I also start a week long business trip to several countries.  This sucks for me as one thing I like to do in other countries is experience their cuisine.  This will be, perhaps, my biggest food challenge.  For this week at Disney we’re bringing all our apples though to ensure we have that along with us.  Additionally I’m packing the Stevia along with us to ensure I can get some sweetness into my mouth as we trek Disney.

We leave today in the car…meal plan:

• Breakfast: none.
• Lunch: Eggs (3 whites, 1 with yolk) and salsa, Melba toast
• Dinner: WHO KNOWS!  Hoping we can find a place that will give us a plain chicken breast :-)
• Snacks: two apples of the Gala variety

Wish us luck!  I’m bringing my same scale as I need the constant feedback of how I’m doing to do my best to stay on track on this HCG diet.