Day 5 and Allergies

 Today I woke up to only a 1/2 lb. loss which after the difficult day yesterday was a bit disheartening, but I realize this is the way it goes - sometimes you lose close to nothing then other days you can lose over a pound.  Another friend of mine who is doing this with me also stated that yesterday was a very bad day.  Maybe Day 4 for us was our Diet Hump Day.  I definitely feel much better this morning and hardly hungry at all.  I guess we'll see how the rest of the day goes...

An interesting advantage to the 500 calorie portion of this diet is discovering certain food sensitivities one may have.  When you first sign up to do the HCG diet through Pure, Simple Health, they send you a body scanner "cradle" where it hooks up to your computer which then networks with theirs.  You rest your hand on it and by sending digital signals throughout your body, it can read what sensitivities or food intolerances you have.  In doing this, they can determine which HCG drops to send you - Weight Off or Detox.  I don't know what the difference is between the drops, but I do know the entire protocol not only takes weight off but it is a pretty intense detox as well.  One of the interesting findings from my scan is the insensitivity I have for onions.  It was confirmed last night when after eating onions with steak, I broke out in a couple of hives.  I don't think I would have ever put two and two together if I didn't have only three things on my plate.  The nice thing is in knowing this, I can then treat my allergic symptom to onions and other foods by going to my Advanced Allergy Treatment Center and being "cured" of my allergies.

Cure allergies, you ask?  How is that possible?  Well, I would not have believed it myself until it worked on me.  After 36 years of suffering from debilitating allergies to just about everything -- trees, grass, cats, foods, dust, you name it -- I am living a life free of severe allergic symptoms for the first time EVER!  I started my treatments about six months ago starting with trees since it was Autumn at the time and that's what my body was reacting to the most, then on to dust, cats, molds, grass, etc.  I can honestly tell you, these treatments have changed my life.  Never in my wildest imaginings would I have thought I could live without my allergy medications and tissues along with eliminating those experiences like being at a friend's house with cats and just feeling like I was going to die.  And yes, I've been through it all - allergy tests several times in my life starting in elementary school (back then they would do the prick tests on your back and by the end it looked like you had been flogged - no joking) then many, many years of allergy injections to build up my immunity (which only worked by decreasing certain symptoms by about 20%).  I've taken all sorts of drugs to combat my symptoms, spent hundreds, if not thousands, on tissues, installed ACs in every window in my house, and at the worst times of the years (Spring and Fall for me), I can't even step outside, forget opening up my windows on those most beautiful of Spring days.  The treatments at Advanced Allergy Treatment Centers are quick, painless and actually quite relaxing.  There are no needles, no probing, no drugs and no huge time commitments.  I have to admit I was the biggest skeptic of all going in and retained my skepticism for quite a few weeks (I would joke I was going to get some more snake oil that day), but I was also desperate.  After starting to see some marked improvements and testing myself by visiting my friend with the cat and having no typical symptoms, I slowly but steadily became a believer and now am a huge proponent of AATC.  I've never known what a "normal" person without allergies feels like, and now I do.*

So this HCG diet has already been instrumental in pinpointing certain sensitivities I have (and will probably do so even more in Stage 3 when I start to add certain foods back into my diet) and helping to continue to detox my system.  I'm so excited to be getting healthier along with losing weight!  :-)


*By the way, if you're interested in making an appointment with AATC of New England, just tell them I sent you and you'll get $20 off your next visit before May 31st.  The can treat every allergy or sensitivity (except in cases of anaphylaxis) from food to environmental such as pollens, grass, trees to hormones to fungus/bacteria to animals to barometric pressure sensitivity. 

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.

Day 3 on 500 Calories

This being my third day on the diet, I'm really anticipating my food cravings and withdrawals finally being over.  In the past, it has always seemed like the first three days on a diet are always the worst.  So here's to hoping...
 
I do feel a little better this morning - not sure if it's a mental thing or if it's physical.  Maybe a little of both since pulling on my "normal" jeans today felt good.  The weight gain over the two loading days this week pushed me into uncomfortable territory beyond my typical size.  The good news is I've officially lost all "loading stage" weight so I can now get on with the weight loss I've been hoping for.  A friend of mine just updated me this morning with her stats - she's three weeks into the diet and has lost 18.2 pounds so far.  Congrats, Teri!

I will admit to this being the hardest of days for me to have to resist certain foods.  It's my daughter's 18th birthday party weekend so besides having to make an ice cream cake for her and her friends, I also had to deny myself french toast for breakfast (one of my faves) and then Gilley's in Portsmouth for lunch...and if you've ever been to Gilley's, you know to hurt with me.  However I did make a great lunch with romaine lettuce, lobster and orange segments drizzled with citrus vinaigrette dressing - it came out much yummier than expected.  I know you're thinking, "Well, yeah, it's lobster, for Pete's sake!  Of course it was yummy!"  But have you ever tried to eat lobster without butter?!?

Dinner was haddock with the Dill Dip Blend from Wildtree and sauteed radishes with lemon juice and Bragg's apple cider vinegar.  I know, cooked radishes - weird, huh?  And I'm realizing how much I don't like apple cider vinegar, but with it being one of my only choices besides lemon juice to cook things in, I don't know what else to do.  Maybe I need to get more creative with cooking techniques...

Step 2 - Day 2

Despite waking up feeling weak and congested (allergies? cold? death from starvation? jk), I stepped on the scale and found I was 2.2 pounds less.  After gaining about 3-4 pounds on my loading days, it's expected to lose the "loading weight" within 48 hours so I'm off to a good start, I guess.  It was tough going to my mom's group this morning and denying myself the yummy-looking chocolate chip scones and pineapple and kiwi, but I satisfied my appetite with tea.  Ok, "satisfied" isn't quite the right word, but it'll do.  I made it to lunch which was shrimp sauteed in lemon juice and Wildtree Scampi Blend along with half a raw cucumber and a breadstick.  I don't actually enjoy shrimp that much, but since it's one of only 7-8 meats allowed (lean beef, veal, tilapia, chicken, lobster, crab, white fish), I decided to go ahead and make some occasionally.  Dinner was Baked Apple Chicken with Melba toast snacks and celery. I went to home church where there was a very tempting spread of desserts, but I maintained my composure and my diet by trying to stay away from it all.  I'm still feeling tolerably hungry and am hoping this feeling will go away after my first week as they say it will.  But overall, it's not too bad.

I found a great tutorial video explaining a little bit about the HCG diet:

Step 2 - Day 1 on the HCG Diet

So today was my first day on the 500 calorie diet part of the HCG protocol.  It didn't start off well as I woke up after less than 5 hours of sleep and woke up STARVING!  I hate that. On a typical day, I can almost skip breakfast, make it to lunch and eat normally for the rest of the day without much fanfare (or stomach grumblings).  But chalk it up to the 5000+ calories a day I've been ingesting the last couple days; my stomach must have been wondering why it was finally empty...and protested quite loudly.  Anyway, I got away with sipping my chamomile tea and being busy until lunchtime which was 100 grams of haddock with sauteed spinach in garlic and lemon juice and one teeny, tiny Melba toast snack.  It tasted wonderful.  Dinner was lean beef cubes sauteed in Bragg's Liquid Aminos along with cabbage and a Grissini breadstick.  It didn't exactly sit well in my stomach, but it was food and my body was grateful to get it.  Overall, I was hungry throughout the day but not intolerably so.  I had some cravings and probably am going through certain food withdrawals.  But, all in all, not too bad for my first 500-calorie day.