LOOSING WEIGHT part 2

So I decided to try a diet I have heard a lot about.  I have a good friend, she is Amish, who did this and lost a lot of weight.  I checked into it, decided that as a diabetic, it might be worth a try.  

It is called the "HCG" diet.  

HCG-is Human Chorionic Gonadotropin.  This is a hormone produced by the placenta in pregnant women.  It controls the metabolic function through the hypothalamus in the pregnancy.

  I thought back to my pregnancies and remembered that I often felt pretty good, and I would usually loose some weight at some point in the pregnancies.  My first pregnancy, I gained, but the others, I usually lost some during the pregnancy.  But I am not one to try fad diets, and just jump into doing things.  

You can take the HCG in a shot form, or in drops.  I went to a doctor (not the  grouchy one who hates my herbal use) but a D.O. who practices as a D.O.  (so many do not -but do the medical route only)

I received a prescription for the shots, got them, and began.  But, I did not do the diet part.  I just did the shots, and ate healthy...I wanted to see how they did with my body-esp since I was a diabetic.  

I had a very interesting reaction!  

Driving down the interstate, I became shaky.  I started sweating, and realized-I am diaphoretic!  Humm-

I grabbed my glucose monitor, checked my sugar and it was in the 60's!  I was driving in the interstate (the toll road) so very limited areas to pull over.  I searched the tray and between the seats storage area for something to eat-a package of crackers or something.  I found a cough drop.  But that was not doing much.  I started thinking I might be pulling over and calling the EMS unit.  

Now for some of you that do not have a sugar problem, being in the 60's you would not react like I was-but it would be like you having a sugar of 30-since I have had a high sugar for so long, being in the 60's was really low for me!  I thought I had a way to go until an exit but then saw one coming up, so took it.  I pulled into the first restaurant that I came to which happened to be a Bob Evans, and went in.  The greeter seated me and my waitress came up and I said, orange juice right away.  She looked at me and recognized that I was having a hypoglycemic reaction so hurried to bring me some juice.  

Well, these shots were helping my body to really rev up my metabolism!  Perhaps this diet would work!

That was early spring, and later in the fall-I would test the drops. 

I was taking a trip to Virginia state to work with a midwife for about 5-6 weeks, and on the way-drove past a place where I could purchase the drops (I planned that little side trip) so bought a couple months worth.

While in Virginia I took the drops, ate healthy, but again did not do the diet.  I wanted to test the drops now, and see how they reacted on my body.  Same reaction! I often would wake up with sugars of in the 30's.  Middle of the night, awake shaky, (thankfully I even woke up at all!) and would have to eat something in the middle of the night. 

So now, I knew how the drops and the shots would work on my body.  I decided that even if I never lost any weight, that it was worth  taking them, just for the way they worked on my body and blood sugar.

There are many versions of this diet out there, but for me-I wanted to do the diet that was designed by the original author, Dr. Simeons.  So after a lot of research, reading including reading on a support site for HCG dieters-decided to jump into doing this beginning in the new year.   

We share a meal before church services each week, so after coming home from Virginia, I did attend for a few weeks and share in the meal-but then in December of 2010, stopped.  I had to not do things that were a trigger for me to eat things I should not.

So I began on a Monday-phase 1. There were two days of a loading day.  That means I get to eat a lot of food.  You need to have a good amount of high quality fats, like avocados stuff like that.  But also the junk is allowed too.

So Monday and Tuesday I ate a lot.  On Tuesday I had lost almost 2 pounds.  Not everyone looses weight on the loading days, some gain a lot of weight.  

By Wednesday I had lost another 2 and 1/2  pounds.  Wednesday was the beginning of phase 2.  This is a VERY low calorie diet.  Only 500 calories a day.  That is not much!

Your allowed two meals a day.  Each meal consist of a protein, a vegetable, a very small carb, and a fruit.  There are certain vegetables and fruits that you can choose from-this is the original diet.  The newer versions allow for more vegetables to choose from.  

I would eat a lot of the vegetable, enough to get full.  I am not sure that was really allowed, but for me-it worked.  

So after being on this diet for 25 days, (that included the 2 loading days) I had lost over 25 pounds.  

I stayed on it for about 4-5 more days, (I had been keeping a diet record-but did not during the final days) and I think I lost about 5 more pounds-but did not stay on the diet.  

When you come off of this diet, it takes 6 weeks to come off from the diet-the correct way.  3 weeks of phase 3 where you add more vegetables, increase the amount of protein. You should add one vegetable at a time, to see how your body responds to each food.

Then in phase 4-3 weeks of this, you add back dairy, fats (although meat has fat in it, they mean butter -dressings, stuff like that) and sugar.  Again, you are to add them one at a time to see how your body reacts to each one.

My brother went into the hospital, and was dying.  So I came off from the diet in a quick way, not correctly-and over the next 4+ weeks, gained back some of the weight.  Almost 10#. 

One of the difficult things was no one seemed to ever notice that I had lost weight.  No one from church said anything-no friends said anything.  Once I said something to them, they would say-'oh yeah, I see ...." or stuff like that.  But what I really wanted was for someone to just say on their own-"hey, your loosing weight!"

But I guess that is prideful.so taking the dying to self attitude...I move on.

I finally got back onto the diet-and in the first 5 days dropped almost 13#.  But then had a day that my hubby did something to discourage me...he did not mean to, but it set a road block in my path that I made the choice to not go around.  So for the next 2 days I ate what I wanted.  gained back a couple of pounds....and today-well I am back onto the diet.

LORD willing and by HIS strength only, I will stay on this diet and loose weight. 

Stay tuned for more info!