221.4

I really am starting to love this diet! I had not idea the weight would be coming off like it is. Someone asked me to better explain what this diet is. It is called the HCG diet. There are some different approaches. My approach is being done through the OBGYN office that I am a patient at. The nurse practitioner there is the one that I am seeing for this. It isn't cheap for the first initial visit, but it is not horrible. If you want pricing, you can e-mail me at emilygourley@gmail.com. The NP's name is Ekaete, but she goes by Katie. She consulted with me, and then did a very extensive physical. I had blood work done to check levels, and then she saw me again, weighed me, and answered any other questions I had. She called in the prescription to a certain pharmacy in Provo (she is using only one because she is wanting to make sure that in the clinical trial there are no differences with the HCG. You can choose to do either a 40 day plan, or a 23 day plan. I went with the 23, because 40 days is LONG time for me with no carbs. I also chose the shots over the spray under the tongue twice-a-day, so I do give myself the shots once every morning. The first two days, you eat whatever you want. You literally are supposed to force feed those two days. I gained two pounds, there are people who have gained about 10 (I honestly did not want to gain that much because the 2 pounds was depressing enough.)Then, the next 21 days, I have to eat ONLY 500 calories a day. I can do some light walking (15-20 minutes) but you can not do high calorie burning exercising. They ideally want you to skip breakfast, and instead do a hot tea (by the way, I HATE tea) but I have done about a half cup to a cup of fruit the last few mornings. You want about a 5-6 oz (weighed before cooking) piece of meat and veggies. The desired veggies are usually your green ones, laying off of the corn, carrots, and there is another one I can not remember right now but obviously do not like. The fruit you eat needs to be fresh or frozen, no canned. You can eat all the veggies you want through out the day. I also eat about a little over a cup pf fruit a day also. At dinner, another piece of meat and more veggies. You can have diet pops and crystal light, but I was told to drink them sparingly. If you use sugar, you are supposed to use a special natural kind called Stevia. They do not want the artificial or the real sugar from sugar cane. And you are supposed to drink a TON of water. So when I weighed in, I was 226.4. Well after the two days of gorging myself, I weighed 228.4. And then weighing myself this morning, I weigh 221.4. So that is about a 6-7 weight drop in one week. When I exercised and ate right for 5 months, I lost about 9 pounds over that time. The funny thing is, I had a sip of diet sprite last night and it tasted so sweet to me. I can tell my taste buds are changing, that they are becoming more accustomed to healthy natural flavors. Also, no oils with this diet. She even talked about limiting make-ups and lotions and conditioners. Days 22 and 23, you do not take the shots, you just eat the diet. So that completes the first cycle. The second stage is going up to about 1200 calories, and adding back whole wheat pastas and breads, but still being careful and mindful about what is going into your body. You have to do that for at least 3-4 weeks before you start another cycle of HCG. The HCG needs to leave your body, because at about 40 days, your body gets used to the HCG and weight loss in not as effective. Ekaete told me that yes, you could just take yourself down to 500 calories and lose weight, but you would be burning muscle instead of fat. What the HCG does is utilizes the fat stores throughout your body and uses the fat as the extra calories you are not consuming. During the second stage, you do need to start exercising. I figure for the days I am not working, I can find time to exercise those days for sure. Anyways, feeling good and I will take a picture to post so that I can hopefully see the changes from week to week. I hope that answers all your questions.