HCG Diet Information Lose Weight Now

No matter if you are doing the HCG diet protocol, south beach, Atkins, Weight Watchers, whatever — one thing will be consistent…

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!

Woke up to 203.5!  Woohoo!  I had a really stressful day yesterday with work and some life decisions.  Avoiding temptation was tough.  Admittedly I cheated.  My kids went to Paradise Bakery.  I ate one of their cookies.  Sorry about that :-).  I needed that though (I’m a stress eater).

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

Woke up this morning of Day 15 on the HCG diet telling myself that if nothing has changed I want to re-evaluate.  Of course the scale teased me with another 1/2 pound weight loss from the previous day.  Enough motivation?  I hope so.  I’m really concerned about my travels starting Sunday.  I will be in a foreign land where trying new foods is my passion.  Hopefully the food will suck :-).

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

We conquered Disneyland (and in the rain)!  Being away from the comfort of your own prepared food portions for HCG diet was tough.  We brought the following with us:

• 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.

Well we forgot the scale so I don’t know how I am doing really. That part is difficult because I’ve never been able to assess my ups and downs without a number :-).

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!

Forgot to post about day 8 but nothing exciting.  On Day 8 I weighed in at 207.5, a full 8 pounds in 8 days weight loss.  Admittedly though the tough part is getting worse.

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.

I woke up this morning after not a great day yesterday.  Nothing to do with food or weight loss, just a blah day with life and work.  Did my routine, got on the scale, 208.5!!  1.5 pound weight loss from the previous day.  This is great!  I’m starting to question myself and wonder if this initial weight loss is really HCG diet or just normal water weight loss.  Regardless it feels good.

For food yesterday, we stuck to the plan pretty much.  For dinner I put talapia resting on 2 sprigs of asparagus, coated with lemon/oregano, then baked in an aluminum pouch in the oven for about 18 minutes.  Delicious.  I don’t know why I’ve seen people claim that food tastes bland on the HCG diet plan.  We’ve been using some really great recipes that follow the protocol and add a lot of great flavor.  In fact, so far it’s been some of the best dinners we have had at home in a long while! 

We’ve also realized that the George Foreman grill is a great asset to our house.  We got it as a gift years ago and thought of it as a novelty.  Now I think we’ll be using it more.  Once you realize that you were cooking too much, then you realize that your portioned food can be cooked quickly, easily and faster using something like the George Foreman Grill.  Our family is two adults and two VERY picky children eaters.  We would always cook book recipes and end up with a TON of leftovers because our kids wouldn’t like them.  Well, I think we’ll be changing the way we cook.

Today’s meal plan:

• Mid-morning Apple (Gala variety)
• Lunch: BBQ Chicken with Tomato splashed with a homemade Balsamiq Strawberry dressing, Melba toast
• Dinner: not sure yet, perhaps another variety of fish, or a light grilled chicken salad
• Evening snack: sliced apples dusted with cinnamon

TIP: I save my second fruit for a ‘dessert’ after dinner.  It’s been working out well to quench any hunger desires in the evening.

Day 6: 208.5 pounds!

Woke up today and did my normal routine, weighing myself and…210.5!?!?!  More quick weight loss.  That brings me to 5 pounds lost on HCG diet in 4 days.  Impressive.

Last night we cooked a tasty dinner that I’d like to share with you:

• Appropriate portion of whitefish
• Cilantro, garlic, water, chile powder pulsed in a food processor
• Coat the fish with half lemon (total, split between the filets) and ‘paste’ the blended sauce above on them
• Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes.

We had it with two slices of tomato and Melba toast.  You know what, it was good!  At least I liked it.

Being a person who needs his sweet tooth fix, I kept on my plan of reserving one of my fruits for the day as my dessert and did the strawberries and Stevia again.  It’s actually quite a satisfying sweet fix.

What didn’t help was that my daughter came home from having dinner at a friends house and brought home a plate of homemade brownies with homemade frosting.  Both chocolate.  This is from a friend of ours that is one of the best cooks we know.  Watching my kids devour it was painful, I’m not going to lie.  And they left little bits on the plate.  This morning I had to resist temptation in my mind saying Ah, c’mon it’s only a little taste! But I resisted.  That part sucks and I hope that when this is all done that I’ll have the mindset to find an appropriate per-day calorie diet that will enable me to balance the crappy/yummy food with the healthy/yummy food :-).

Today’s meal plan:

• No breakfast
• Mid-morning Apple
• Lunch: grilled chicken salad
• Dinner: Filet of beef, asparagus
• Dessert: strawberries and Stevia

I also subscribed to a few HCG diet related blogs and have read some interesting things…maybe a post on that later.

Day 4: 210.5 pounds

I know I’m only a few days into it right now, but I can tell you now that the single most piece of advice i think is valid is:

PREPARE YOUR FOOD PORTIONS IN ADVANCE!

If you are going to do the HCG diet for maximum weight loss then you are going to need to stick to the plan in a strict way.  For me, when I was hungry I scavenged.  I found anything that was ‘ready to eat’ – and most of the time it was crap junk fatty foods or fast food.  I was lazy (still am really).  There was food to prepare in my house, but it wouldn’t be done for longer than what I wanted to wait – this was my justification.

Don’t get into that trap with the HCG diet plan!  In order to stick to the 500 calorie diet, you’re going to need to think ahead.  Not in terrible detail down to the measurement of spices and such, but plan for the big moments.  You already know by reading the plan that your main meals will consist of 100 grams of some meat protein: chicken, veal, white fish, beef.  But guess what – no grocery sells in 100 gram portions!  Chicken I think will be most common for everyone on the HCG diet.  Here’s what I did (and recommend).

Go to Costco, Sam’s Club or some other large supplier.  Get their pack of chicken breast (boneless, skinless…ideally without rib meat).  Take it home and begin to portion it.  GET A FOOD SCALE!  Food scales are $9 at Wal-mart.  Unless you can perfectly eye-ball 100 grams, get a food scale!  Get your cutting board and knife ready and a bunch of plastic zip-loc bags.  For me, I found that the Costco chicken breast was about 100 grams when cut in half diagonally.  Once I measured the first two cuts on the scale, I could breeze through the preparation.  When the breast felt larger, I stopped to measure.  At the end of this task I had portioned out 100 grams of chicken individually.  Now when mealtime came, I had less to prepare, only something to cook.

NOTE: If you get the chicken with the rib meat, make sure you trim that off before you portion.

Some things might make this difficult (fish, for instance).  Since beef was allowed in small moderation, I only bought 3 filets of beef and portioned them out as well.  Having these readily available has helped already and I know will help in times of hunger.  Our time from ready to table is significantly reduced.

We also did this with our fruit – not cutting it really but having it washed and ready to eat.  When I go for my strawberry fix, I just pull 8 strawberries out of the bowl and eat them.  No fussing with washing and unpackaging things.

So two tips here: Buy a food scale and portion your food as much in advance!

I woke up this morning after going to bed early to stop thinking about food.  Got up, went to the bathroom and weighed myself.

TIP: Make sure you weigh yourself on the same scale, the same time and wearing the same clothes (or none).

I’m happy to report that I am at 213 pounds…that’s 2.5 pounds lighter than when I started on the HCG Diet.  It’s pretty motivating results.  I suppose of course if you only ate 200 grams of meat in one day you’d suspect a pretty decent drop.

I’m hoping to see this trend continue (safely and healthy) while on the HCG Diet for me.  I’m excited!

I’ve also set up a Twitter account so if you want to follow my little thoughts and daily weight updates that way, please feel free to head on over there (link on the right side of the blog here) or directly here.

Today’s meal plan:

• Morning Apple (Gala variety)
• Lunch: chile chicken (chicken cooked in spicy sauce), lettuce, Melba toast.
• Drinks: going to try some of the fruit flavored green teas with Stevia and I’ll report back.
• Dinner: Talapia fish cooking in garlic sauce, tomato, Melba

Seriously though…immediate results!  The HCG Diet could be the thing that gets me on the road to healthier sustaining eating and exercise.  I hope so!

Day 3: 213 pounds