Another Year, another diet?

Well, 2011 was a pistol. After all of those rounds of hCG, I've regained much of the weight. Clearly, the diet works, but what doesn't work is my ability to do "maintenance". Add to that, Walt (my husband) has had a year of dealing with atrial fibrillation, culminating in cardioablation  surgery at the end of November. The poor guy has been too exhausted to exercise or care for several months and only now is beginning to return to some semblance of himself. He's regained all of the weight he lost last year and in 2009. So we are looking for a better way. I've told him that whatever he comes up with, diet or exercise, I am going to support. I love him and I want him around for a long time, and any movement he is willing to make in the direction of taking better care of himself is great.
I think that this year was a year of real learning for us... about how much we love each other, about how much God loves us, and about the necessity for discipline in every part of our lives - but especially in how we take care of ourselves. Discipline has always been an issue...and I'm really believing that if we can get it  right here, the result will be seen in every other part of our lives. I'm willing to be teachable and to look at everything again with fresh eyes.

Rather than weight loss, we will be focusing on health this year, and I believe that if we just do that, weight loss will follow. We just got a great deal on a used bike from a friend, and we're reading several books and lots of research on nutrition (which we thought we knew something about -and maybe we do know a little - but there's always more to learn).

Meantime, it's almost Christmas, and we need to be fed spiritually as well. We are looking forward to celebrating the birth of Christ and the incredible gift of salvation over the next few days. May your Christmas be blessed, bright, beautiful and merry!

mmmm...steak! again!

Yesterday was a "steak day". I had put on more than two pounds since my last hCG day, so I took Dr. Simeons' prescription. Nothing but pure water till dinner time, then wolf down (believe me that is the appropriate terminology for what happens next) the biggest juiciest steak you can find. In my case, that was two New York strip steaks, because that's what the grocer had on sale. So how is it possible that I ate a pound of beef and lost three pounds? I still don't get it, but I like it. I'm back on track - just 6/10ths of a pound over my ending weight and a total loss of 24 pounds since the first of the year, but really only "dieting" for 9 weeks total during that time.
You might remember that we discovered a couple of months ago that our scale wasn't working properly, which is crazy-making on a diet like this when you are supposed to weigh in every day, especially during the re-set phase (3). I went on line and did a bit of research and turned up this little beauty. It got great reviews from tons of customers (haha). Seriously - at the time I purchased it, there were 702 reviews, all positive. It really has lived up to its reputation as an inexpensive, good looking and extremely functional piece of technology, and something an hCG dieter can't live without - a bathroom scale that works!

Water Works

There's so much to learn on this hCG diet. I thought that the second phase would be pretty much the same this round as the last time, but wow, was I wrong. This time I found I am able to eat much less cheese, need more animal protein, and need to drink a lot more water in order to maintain my ending weight. It seems the body can retain water in a sort of "water starvation" mode if I'm not getting enough, just like it slows down my metabolism and holds on to fat stores when I don't eat enough. Our bodies so are cleverly designed to ensure our survival.
We did make another exciting discovery these past few weeks and that it this - our bathroom scale sucks. I have my eye on a little beauty over at Amazon which I will share with you once I know that it really is as good as they say it is. Meantime, Happy Easter! We have something extra to celebrate and be thankful for, besides the amazing and glorious resurrection of Christ (as if that were not enough!). Today is the first day of full-on maintenance which means we get a piece of 100% rye toast with breakfast - the first carbohydrate in three weeks.

Winding Down

Weight loss 21.2 lbs


Today is the last day of round 2 of the hCG diet, and I am getting hungry as the hormone is leaving my body. Total weight loss is now 21.2 lbs. I did average about 1/2 pound per day again, but had such a food orgy during the loading phase this time that I had to first lose all of the weight I gained doing that. It is amazing how much weight I was able to put on in 48 hours - about six pounds. I've learned a couple of things this round, and not going beyond 3500 calories on a loading day is one of them. The other has to do with developing an immunity to hCG. Dr. Simeons indicated in his manuscript that we do develop immunity to hCG - hence the 23 day cycle, and if we go longer, we have to take one day a week off from injecting or ingesting it to stave off immunity, while still maintaining the 500 calorie a day diet. This time around I had no hunger at all until about the 10th day and then suddenly - there it was. It occurred to me that its likely immunity wouldn't develop all at once but gradually over time. Then when we enter the resetting/resting phase we just as gradually become re-sensitized to the hormone. So it makes sense to start each round at the lowest possible dose at which we don't feel hungry and then gradually increase the dosage each time we experience hunger for a couple of consecutive days, of course staying within the 125-200 mg recommended range. This seem like such a "duh" to me now, but I really didn't get it until a couple of days ago. It baffled me that I started out with no hunger and then became hungry a week and a half in. I plan to test my theory the next round, which, if all goes well will begin on May 2nd. I'll start at 125 mg and increase if/when hunger sets in and stays. Tomorrow begins the 3 week hypothalamus reset - the "fun" phase complete with eggs, cream and all sorts of other goodies - but no sugar or starchy carbohydrates. I'll be getting out the measuring tape, too, to see how many inches I lost. I think I've finally started losing girth in my thighs, which were impervious the last time. I did have to put almost all of my pants in the donation bag and purchase three pairs at resale to get me through till weight loss resumes again. A problem I didn't mind having at all!

Weight loss 16.2 lbs and counting

I hit a milestone the other day. For the past several years, every time I have dieted, been careful, "watched my weight" etc., I have not been able to get down below 150 lbs. It was both a real and a psychological barrier for me. I had secretly come to believe it was a threshold my body just wasn't going to cross, ever again. That perhaps I was the only person in the world whose weird body would not respond properly to the hCG diet and  I would be forever stuck in my chubby pants. The doctor's manuscript even addresses these plateaus - they do happen - but assured me that eventually I would break through. It took an entire nine days, but on Thursday, I cleared 150, and I lost nearly another pound since then.

It is strange going to a restaurant and drinking coffee or tea and watching your friends eat. This has happened several times during the weight loss phases. I think they are more uncomfortable about it than we are though - for the most part, I am still not hungry most of the time.
One thing that is very strange is the way I am losing. During the last round, there were a couple of days when, despite still having quite a bit of padding everywhere else, my right ribs became very distinct. Not my left ribs, just the right ones. After a few days, they evened out, and I would up with a three inch loss around the waist. This time, I have a small but distinct crease in my lower right abdomen. It really looks funny. If there is a pattern here, my belly should be flatter in a few days. Now for those hips and thighs!

So far...

Six days in, four days on VLCD. So far so good. I haven't been very hungry, nor have I had a detox reaction like I did the last time around. My brain is a little fuzzy at times, though. Walt is going for 23 days, and I've pretty much given up the idea of doing a 40 day round, thinking that it will be much easier for both of us if we are in the same phase of the diet as we go through this. At some point Walt will have to go on alone, as he has more total weight to lose. but I'm not sure where that will occur since he also, because he is a guy, loses it more quickly than I do. This of course falls into the not fair category, but it is what it is. In looking at the calendar and our upcoming travel plans, it also will work out pretty well doing it this way.

I made a mistake this morning, which turned out to be a nice discovery. I thought I was adding Vanilla Creme stevia to our morning coffee, and I added Apricot Nectar instead. I would not think this would be a winning combination, but it is. We had already been adding the Apricot Nectar to a cup of English Breakfast tea as a nice nightcap or afternoon pick me up - it's yummy and dessert-like, especially paired with some fruit. Now we will be adding it to coffee too. Who knew?

This time around I am really surprised by how little hunger I am experiencing. It wasn't severe last time around but this time seems to be even better. I hope I am not going to regret saying this out loud in the near future. So far ...

Round Two

Yes it has been a long time since I have posted here, and I do feel a little guilty about it. February was a tough month at the Broadbents. Besides the ice and snow, there was a virus, followed (for Walt) by the flu, for goodness sake. There were also business challenges, spiritual crises, and all sorts of human hi-jinks, some of which continue to baffle. Everything conspired to delay, among other things, the start of our second round on the hCG diet, but we finally got off to a great start today following two days of loading.

I learned some interesting things about food and the changes that are supposed to occur during the post-VCL (very low calorie) phase during this hiatus. After three weeks of no carbs, we were allowed to start adding them back in, a half cup at a time, with a daily weigh-in to make sure they were being tolerated and not adding back unwanted pounds. I started with a little oatmeal, then progressed to brown rice and Trader Joe's 100% rye bread. I also tried a bit of chocolate and a couple of brownies and I discovered that I really don't crave carbs and sugar the way I used to. I enjoyed the whole grains but the white stuff & sugar literally nauseated me.
The other thing that has changed is that I can consume a lot of fat and not gain an ounce - as long as I am avoiding junk food carbs. I consumed olives, cheeses, olive oil, organic half and half, eggs, uncured bacon, peanut butter, salmon, and steak with no weight gain, and felt good while I was doing it. So from my highly subjective point of view, the diet does what it claims, which is reset the hypothalamus, and consequently, the way the body handles metabolism and fat storage. Yippee is all I have to say about that.
Loading was a challenge again, with the second day of high calories being more difficult than the first, but now we are past that and on 500 calories a day again. I can't wait to get into my skinny jeans!
During the flu when he was too sick to do anything else, Walt was watching day time TV and Dr. Oz had a show about this diet. His conclusion - the diet has merit and deserves further study. We're going mainstream, baby.