Phase 2 Day#9

Weight: 392.6

... 9 Days in

This brings the approximate total loss of: 14lbs

I say approximate because I don't know my actual starting weight. My digital scale only goes up to 400. I'm estimating a start weight of 406lbs.

Eating a 500 calorie diet has been close to effortless. I don't get hungry, I do however still crave certain foods. I crave them because I do miss them. Pizza is my current craving I've been thinking about. Of course I smell all sorts of food during lunch time or dinner time if I drive by restaurants or am at work.

I got my first comments yesterday & today about people noticing I'm losing weight. Two different people both commented that I look Thinner in the face.

Frooties - Miracle Fruit (tablets)
Let me tell you about this little known secret fruit. This fruit, native to West Africa, when consumed, somehow its molecules bind to your tongue to change the taste of the next sour, bitter, or tangy foods (like fruits) that you eat for about 30 minutes to an hour. These fruits are freeze dried and made into tablets that you let disolve on your tongue to get the same effect as if eating the fruit.

Here are the things i've tried with it:

Lemon - Makes it taste like lemonade. It doesn't lock your jaw from being so bitter, it tastes sweet. You can still 'feel' the acidic nature of it but it tates sweet

Grapefruit - Note that I dont like grapefruit by itself.. but it makes it taste so good. I can't explain it. You can tell its grapefruit, but it tastes like 'Heaven fruit'. Its like the best i've tried so far.

Strawberries - This is tied up there with grapefruit on the tastiness scale. It is so delicious, i can't quite put it into words. You would have to try it yourself.

Apple - I love Fuji Apples, they are my favorite. I like them because they are the best tasting in my opinion. I tried this apple with the frooties tablets today for the first time and wow.. it tastes even better. Not sure how thats possible as I already thought it tasted good.

Cucumber - Didn't work.. still tasted like a cucumber lmao..

I was just reading the cnn article here: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/03/25/miracle.berries.weightloss/index.html

It says that it makes hot sauce taste like honey bbq but it still burns like hell
I'll have to try that at some point (not while on this diet though)

I might have to try growing one of these bushes :)

Phase 2, Day #3

I am in Ketosis

So Last night (thursday night), I did another Kitostix test. It was quite a bit darker than the first time meaning I'm further into Ketosis. Means I'm releasing more ketones and burning more fat. I was on the 2nd to last dark box on the scale (pic soon). This is exciting for me. Just more verification that this diet does what it says it does.

Hunger

Still not getting hunger. Cravings for stuff like pizza, burgers, etc.. etc.. that everyone else around me is always eating remains a constant though. I do however recognize what is more important and it hasn't really phased me so far.

Last night I only ate my 75g of chicken. I didn't feel compelled to eat anything beyond that, so I didn't make a salad with it. I was perfectly fine with just that and water.


I didn't mention this before but I had tried pickling some cucumbers. I took 4 total cucumbers, chopped 2 of them into slices and put salt on either side and put them in apple cider vinegar. The other 2 I just put them in how they were. Yeah, that didn't work out well. They are in the trash. It tasted pickley, but lets just say it was a little strong!

Today on day 3, it is currently 2:09pm and I am not hungry at all yet. I have eaten half of my apple so far. I had to force feed that to myself, because starting off the day I no hunger at all, and no desire to eat. Very odd sensation for me because I do love food and eating. This is one thing I hope to get a handle on while on this diet. So far so good. So the 1/2 apple has satisfied me and will probably keep me satisfied through out the day. I plan to eat raw spinich leaves in a salad consisting of my serving of 80g of chicken (80g today, 5g more than the 100g raw cooked down to 75g), half a tomato, and my home made dressing which was left over from yesterday.

Weighing In

So up to this point, I haven't been able to weight myself at the first day(s) of the diet because my current scale doesn't go up to what my weight is. A few months ago in prep for this protocol, i bought a 400lb scale. Well at the time i was 390 pounds. That was in February. Here in June I got to over 400lb. I'm going to estimate I was at about 405lb or 406lb. After 3 days on phase 2, I am now back down to 399.9 lbs. Hot stuff! So just a rough estimate puts me at losing anywhere from 5 to 6 pounds in this last few days.

VLCD Day #2

I now have One whole 500 calorie (about 522 calories actually for the 1st day). I actually ended up eating a whole apple instead of half. Shame on me. The important stuff is. I wasnt hungry all day yesterday. I was satisfied the whole day. At dinner, I had the same thing, chicken & salad. My salad dressing contains my grapefruit as well as other ingredients so that counts as my 2nd fruit serving.

Today, I still don't feel hungry. I got up early to get some business done. I Left the house by 8:30am and drove around town doing errands. I got to work and heated up my chicken by 11am. I decided to mix the chicken into the salad for dinner last night & for lunch today. Its good that way. Not sure which way I like to eat it more, in the salad or seperate. I'll continue to experiment.

One thing I keep noting is, though I'm not hungry, I'm SO used to eating so often. It feels wierd not to eat that often. I keep thinking, I know I'm not hungry, but I want to eat. Then I stop and think about it and concentrate really hard on how I feel. I then realize, i'm not actually hungry. Another thing to consider is how much water I am drinking. A lot of people confuse dehydration for being hungry. So I'm making sure to keep hydrated.

VLCD Day #1

So far so good..

I wokeup this morning not hungry. In fact I didn't eat until about 12:30 PM
I didn't feel hungry when I decided to eat. But I ate just because I had the time & it was starting to get late in the day.

After my misadventure into cooking last night, I was surprised how small 100g of chicken really cooks out to. It cooked down to 75g of chicken once it was all said and done. I was once again intimidated that I would be taking in so little food but I trucked along anyway.

Hunger

I'm doing remarkably well today though. I am not feeling any hunger since the end of Loading day 2. I was full all day on load day 2, and i still felt residual fullness from those chipotle burritos.

All I have left to eat for the day is one more serving of fruit. Which will be half of this Fuji apple (they are huge, so im eating half).. and one more serving of chicken breast with a veggie.

I'm confident I wont feel much if any hunger today based on how i've felt thus far.

Ketostix

I'm getting ready to do another ketostix test to see where on the color spectrum I am as far as ketone output. Again this scale will tell me how far in ketosis I am and give me an indication as to how hard my body is working to burn fat. Yesterday, it showed me being in the middle of the color spectrum meaning I was in a moderate state of ketosis. Today I'm excited to see if it is further down the spectrum.

Here is my Ketostix Results:

Before Photos & Weighing

I plan to put up some before photos to give me a visual starting point soon. I'm also waiting to get my scale in the mail so I can weight myself. Unfortunately I wont know what my TRUE starting weight is, but I should get a general idea soon enough.

Sublingual HCG

So the last 2 doses I took I've had trouble keeping it under my tongue. You're supposed to keep it under the tongue for 15 minutes. Blah, i swear thats annoying to do lol. The second I put it under my tongue to hold it there for 15 minutes, I get a sensation of salivating which makes it hard to just hold it there without swallowing. Its just a minor issue but I don't want to waste the stuff!

I watched a few more youtubers that have done the HCG protocol and they say after the first couple times, injections is no longer a big deal. I'll consider it for the next round I do. But lets get through this round first eh?

I've started.. Finally

Loading Day 2 of 2
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I am currently in day 2 of my hcg Protocol. This is day 2 of 2 of the loading period. Man am I stuffed. More on that in a second..

I have everything for the sublingual HCG all mixed. I used:

5000 IU's of HCG
13ML Liquid Vitamin b12
2ML colloidal silver

It was very easy to mix. I spent so many days just glancing over at my hcg kit and feeling intimidated. I finally decided enough was enough and did it (I've been finding it easier to do things lately as I just bought a house. Now that was a big decision to make!). I waited all that time for nothing.

As far as Loading Day 1, it was quite easy. I wake up by 8am now, in bed by 1am (which is against my very essence of being) HCG taken by 9am. This gives me time after waking up to shower & brush teeth. I don't want to brush my teeth right before, or right after taking it. The chemicals in the toothpaste could mess with the dose.

For food I ate chipotle all 3 meals. It says you are supposed to eat a lot of fat. And that I did.
Barbacoa burrito with lots of cheese, sour cream. Yum!

I did this for day Load day 2 as well. Today however I was only able to stomach 2 meals from chipotle. Normally, eating 3 meals from there was doable. I am however extremely full right now. Kinda like how you feel when you took that laaaast bite of a meal you knew you were full but u wanted to clear the plate. Yeah, thats me right now as I write this post.

Oh by the way. I saw a youtube video last night about Ketostix. This is a cool thing for us to use to help guage how much fat is being burned in our body while on this protocol. Ketostix should be in most pharmacy's. It cost me about $15 for 50 strips. Probably all I will ever need. They have a color code from light to dark. Light on the scale meaning you are testing "negative" for ketones (Acetoacetic Acid), and dark meaning you are testing high for ketones. The more ketones in your urine (yes you have to pee on the stick) the more fat your body is burning. The youtube video i saw, the guy was just finishing his 40 hcg period. Through out the protocol he was testing very high on the scale (dark on the color meter) meaning he was burning fat like crazy. Then as part of the protocol, you stop taking hcg for 3 days but continue the 500 cal diet. He noticed he went to the opposite end of the scale to the light spectrum meaning he had completely slowed in burning fat even though his diet stayed the same. Interestin!

Tomorrow is VLCD day #1 (very low calorie diet)
on the menu:

Breakfast: 1 apple

Lunch: 1 100g of Chicken Breast, Spinich

Snack: Half of a Grapefruit -or- Handful of strawberries -or- 1 Orange (I love the fruits on this diet, my favorites)

Dinner: 100g Chicken Breast -or- 100g Beef depending on calories, Green Salad w/ Tomatoes (i need to research making a dressing via an HCG Cookbook I have)

I will drink water & Tea as desired. I borrowed a tea maker from a friend, and I will sweeten it with stevia (an all natural sweetener based from a plant).

I also need to get everything entered into Fitday.com before tomorrow to make sure calorie intake is correct & to ensure accuracy during this diet.

To do:
Add items to fit day
Get last minute items from grocery store (fruit, other items i'd never normally eat lol)
Cook enough food for the rest of the week (3 days worth at minimum)
Brew some Tea

Preparation - Getting Things together

Anyone who's done or researched this process understands the enormity of the task before them. The Simeons Protocol is not for the meek, or half hearted. This is kind of what scares me about it. As my mom would say, "You're not a finisher". Its true, I'll admit it. That also depends on what I'm doing as well. Losing weight AND being healthy for life is one of the most important things to me. So I plan to give it everything I have.

Aside from the diet and the HCG treatments itself. There's mental preparation, items you'll need to gather, research you'll want to do etc. This is where I am right now. I already have my HCG. I have more on order because I didn't get enough the first order. I've bought a new scale. The old one was a piece of junk and almost as old as me. Even got a food scale to weigh my food with. I got the HCG cookbook. Cost me about 25 bucks. I'm kind of intimidated by the whole cooking thing. We'll get into that a bit later.

To do:

Purchase Mixing set for sublingual use.
Purchase mixing items (gotta decide on which mixing procedure I'd like to use)
Figure out recipes for several weeks worth of cooking
Learn to cook (lol)
Adjust my natural late night schedule to allow time for cooking food and preparing for day to day low calorie dieting.

More to come later.