Day 4

Today after stepping on the scale and it registering 1.2 pounds less than yesterday, I realized my weight gain from the loading days was officially lost.  I've now entered into the slow but hopefully steady progress toward my goal.

I have to admit today was a tough one for me.  I'm not sure if it's because I've been extra tired today (I've heard fatigue messes with your appetite) from a poor night of sleep or what, but I've been pretty hungry all day.  As always, I tolerate it, but I have not been a very happy camper.  The advantage of being hungrier though is it has forced me to drink more water to try to satisfy my appetite.  I still can't get near the gallon a day goal as suggested, but I can get to about the halfway mark.  That's still a lot of water in my opinion (and water's all I ever drink on a typical basis)!  I've been finding that every time I eat, the actual act of eating makes my body crave MORE.  There are times I can ignore the hunger and it eventually goes away but eating brings the hunger back with a vengeance.  It's only until about 20 minutes after eating that I feel ok.  The other annoyance is the timing of the drops.  Many times I'll forget to take the drops 15 minutes before my meal either forcing me to wait to eat as my meal gets cold (as I'm doing now - grrrrr...) or to take the drops at least 15 minutes after I eat.  I'm hoping to get better at that...

Many may wonder how healthy it really is to only live off 500 calories a day, but in Pounds & Inches: A New Approach to Obesity, the medical manuscript written by the founder of the HCG Protocol, A.T.W. Simeons, M.D., he explains it within the definition of a calorie:

CALORIE . . . The physicist's calorie is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 cc. of water by 1 degree Centigrade. The dietitian's Calorie (always written with a capital C) is 1000 times greater. Thus when we speak of a 500 Calorie diet this means that the body is being supplied with as much fuel as would be required to raise the temperature of 500 liters of water by 1 degree Centigrade or 50 liters by 10 degrees. This is quite insufficient to cover the heat and energy requirements of an adult body. In the HCG method the deficit is made up from the abnormal fat-deposits, of which 1 lb. furnishes the body with more than 2000 Calories. As this is roughly the amount lost every day, a patient under HCG is never short of fuel.