HCG Diet Information Lose Weight Now

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.

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!

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!