Day 8 Food

melba crackers
celery
mahi mahi fillets with lemon juice & pepper cooked in tin foil on the grill
small orange
(lunch eaten about 1pm - it's easier and easier to lose track of time and not be that hungry)

Planned dinner:
eye of road steak
asparagus
melba crackers before if hungry before dinner is ready
apple or strawberries for dessert

Babysitting again today so don't know if I'll be able to get some extra exercise, depends on how cooperative Emily is. We were going to go to the pool and swim but she ended up taking a nap; hopefully we will get a nice long walk in later.

We measured today and I lost the most inches around my ribs, but nothing in my waist & stomach, 1/2 inch from arms & calves, 1 inch from my hips; not bad but you'd think the stomach & waist would be the first areas to go down; guess I need to exercise them!

Day 8 - down .5 lb, total - 9.0 lb

Only 1/2 lb! Hmph! Oh well. Still better than I would have lost on a regular diet, huh? So I'm ok with that. Even at 1/2 lb a day for the next 30 days, it would be 15 lbs more which would be 24 lbs total and I would be very happy with that. So we'll see. I did go for a walk yesterday morning so I'd hoped the extra exercise would be helpful but I guess not; I need to keep doing that though and build my muscles while losing weight so it all comes together in the end. Still need to do my measuring today but Jenn has my measuring tape :-) She's doing so well!

My ideas for why only 1/2 lb are: yesterday didn't eat my evening melba cracker, too much green tea (3 bottles I believe), hamburger too many days in a row (maybe need to vary that more although I always had something different between lunch & dinner), or maybe it's just random because I don't have a larger weight loss goal and I expect to plateau earlier than Jenn will because of that. I will be sure to eat all of my foods today and stay away from the hamburger today; probably the mahi mahi for one meal and a steak for the other (I'll need to shop for the steak today though!) And I'll be sure to do different veggies today too; and I'll try to get more exercise in. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

Day 7 food

1:45pm Lunch - chicken cooked in garlic & onion (didn't eat the onion, saved that)
spinach sald w/lemon juice
melba crackers

3:30pm Snack - apple

Dinner - hamburger, cucumber

Nighttime snack - strawberries

(melba crackers somewhere in between!)

Day 7 - down 1.0 lb total down 8.5 lb

Blah! I feel tired today; didn't sleep great last night; weird dreams, hot, moved to another room. Gonna go read my scriptures for awhile, then start the day with a walk to the high school; I need to find some energy to go do that and the scriptures may make me more tired so we'll see if I get over there or not. Definitely need to walk today though, get some exercise. I babysit Emily today and Saturday & Sunday and that makes for a very long weekend; I need more energy and she needs to be more cooperative, it just wears me out. Football game tonight but I don't know if Tim will be able to play or not.

10:45am - walked to Timpanogos after my reading time; it's not even a mile round trip but it is hot out there today! It's going to be blazing later. So at least I got some exercise. Took Hans' ipod and listened to some music to keep me walking at a good pace; the rhythm of music is good for that. So naturally a couple bottles of water were needed already this morning; one before I left and one for the walk itself; now I'm going to rest for a little while before I decide which "project" I want to try to get done today before Emily gets here. I'm working on getting the scrapbooking stuff in better order so I can find what I want; that will probably be my choice!

Day 6 food

It's about 3:30 pm and I feel really good, noticably good. Not tired, not hungry; I'd like to go for a walk or something but I'm waiting to find out if Tim can play in the JV football game today or not and if so, I'll be going over there in a little while. I haven't taken pain meds since this morning.

10:00 ate my two Melba crackers
11:00 left for Kaysville doctor appointment with Tim
12:30 ate my celery while Tim drove us home from Kaysville
2:00 Cooked a hamburger on the grill and had that for lunch
3:15 ate my apple with some sugar free green tea drink

Spreading my food out seems to work well for me; I hope that's ok with the diet program. I feel like I couldn't even eat all of the food at one sitting anyway.

Dinner: maybe shrimp & spinach salad; definitely strawberries for dessert - they are SO good!

Update: Tim did get to play quite a bit the 2nd half of the game so he may be able to play varsity tomorrow; fingers crossed! So we didn't get home til after 6pm.

Dinner: Spinach salad w/balsamic vinegar (tired of that though, next time it will be lemon juice)
shrimp (bought frozen already cooked) cooked with garlic (served it on rice for Hans)
Melba Crackers later (while Hans at like 8-10 oreos!)
Strawberries for dessert about 9:45pm YUM!

I wanted to go for a walk but Hans didn't want to, well, I wanted to walk to Jenn's and he didn't want to go that far; it's only about 1 1/4 miles! Oh well. It's probably too late now to go walk in the park but tomorrow for sure (well, for sure if I can get Emily to cooperate because we'll have her tomorrow night while Jenn works)

I have felt much better today; don't feel the need to keep drinking water and not distracted with hunger. Not tired; really feeling very well.

Day 6 - Down 2.5 lbs, total down 7.5 lbs

How did I lose 2.5 lbs when all I did was lay in bed with a migraine the entire day and night yesterday. Gee, if I knew that was all I had to do to lose weight, I'd have tried it years ago, haha! And I did eat all of my foods that I was supposed to; crazy but exciting! I hope I can keep up the loss. I will try exercising & walking today or tomorrow; I have to go to Kaysville with Tim today to see the doctor there so that will take up a chunk of the day; and then there's a JV football game that Tim may be playing in, so I'll probably go to that as well. This weekend I'll have Emily the entire time so maybe if it's nice we can take her to the pool and I can swim some laps. But now I worry that exercise won't be good, I should just lay in bed and see what happens.... haha!

Did not feel that hungry yesterday afternoon/evening as I had before, but I had a migraine and didn't feel well so that may have been part of it, probably was; that's ok with me though.

I spread my food out more yestereday and didn't eat it all at one sitting just because each bit kind of filled me up. For instance, I ate my crackers, maybe half hour later some celery (my veggie), another half hour or so I cooked my chicken (so this was about 6:30 or so)-- then about 10pm, I ate my strawberries; this would normally be when I would eat ice cream haha! So I was totally full; much more than the day before.

Tricks that work - cut up the food into smaller pieces than you usually wood; it really does fill you up faster and feel like so much more than you would think.

Drinking just the water & green tea has not been hard at all; ie, giving up soda has been no big deal whatsoever. Although yesterday I kind of wanted to try one for the migraine (but that never works anyway, nothing ever works for those dang things, but I try anyway)

Gotta go do my shot now; trying to do it around 8:30 -9:00 (did it late around 10am yesterday though because I was in bed so late and forgot)

Day 5 - weight down 1.5 lbs, total down 4.0

Woke up with a migraine this morning; actually started last night as a sinus headache and did not feel like a migraine at all so I took sinus meds; so the sinus headache is gone and replaced by this. I've been writing it on my calendar this month (as I should have been doing for the last five years) and it's been 18 days since the last one. I think I don't write it down so I don't focus on it too much and just be grateful when there are longer periods in between headaches. So today will be yucky, hanging out in bed, watching TV til my head hurts too much for that or until I get sick, whichever comes first. Yuck :-(

Not sure if the lack of food has anything to do with it because I get these nasty things anyway; I was actually hoping this would surprise me and I wouldn't have a migraine the entire time I do the diet. Oh well. No Coke for me either on this diet so I can't try that; not that it has ever helped me before, it just sounds good.

Shots are no big deal at all; I'm hungry now though at 10:30 am so maybe I'll get a cracker or something; lunch will be chicken or shrimp I think; can't even think of it now, hungry or not my head doesn't want me to eat; nothing sounds good. Except the crackers because that's how I usually keep from being sick, but I can't have the usual soda crackers so hopefully the Melba toast will work. I'm looking forward to feeling more energy and less hunger; although I haven't been THAT hungry; I think it's more of a habit than a real hunger when I actually think about it. I'm so used to that afternoon slump and grabbing something to eat or especially my 10:00pm snack of ice cream. We just love ice cream around here.

Day 4 Food

Water, green tea
10:30 melba crackers (25 calories)
12:15 spinach salad (10 calories - 1cup)


For later: Strawberries (30) & chicken (110) (ate around 1pm)

Dinner: Mahi mahi (110), asparagus (1 cup,30) apple (80), crackers (25)

Total planned for day: 420

Lunch was great, plenty of food; but now I have a sinus headache and a cold sore starting so I must be getting a cold of some sort. Not good!

Dinner was really yummy. Hans ate the same thing except I added some leftover yellow rice to his plate. He thought it was good and he only ate as much as I did so these really are fairly normal portions, not too small; and I'm never hungry after eating a meal. I wanted to have my apple until about 8pm.

Hopefully tomorrow I will have more energy and won't feel very hungry; that way I can try to start doing some exercise. Right now I'm afraid if I walked or exercised that I would get either too hungry or too exhausted.

Day 4 - weight down 1 lb - total down 2.5

Well, now I know what to look forward to today, hungry & tired Kathy. Oh well, it should get better tomorrow. Breakfast is not that hard to skip after all; drinking water & green tea suits me just fine. Yesterday, it was really the late afternoon/evening that really bugged me. Not that I was starving to death but feeling hungry, or even just feeling like I wanted to go grab something to put in my mouth, was absolutely distracting. I don't like that and I hope this diet helps me to only think about food when I am truly hungry; and then to grab foods that are actually good for my body.

It took me awhile to get up this morning, til about 8:30. Then I got started doing some cleaning, checking email (of course!). Don't seem to be real energetic today though so I'm not quite down with Emily's room; but I have her sheets in the washer so that's my excuse. I'd like to finish Tim's room today (the one he doesn't sleep in). That's a lot more work because I want to get rid of a lot of stuff in there and set it up so he can keep his school work there instead of on the kitchen table. He will have to move out of Dave's room in a couple of months so I need to make sure this room is ready to move back into and then move Dave's clothes & stuff back into his room. I also need to get my bedroom ready to paint; so I have plenty to do and no energy to do it.

Day 3 food hunger etc

Drinking water & green tea was totally fine til about 11am when I really got hungry. I still waited until noon to have lunch: my 3oz of steak, a celery stick (I could have had more, just didn't want it); the steak was plenty on its own, probably because I cut it small and its more of a "chewy" food. Had the cracker around 2 and the apple around 2:30.

Definitely hungry at 4:30 or 5:00; it's very distracting to be hungry when you can't just go grab something to put in your mouth. I ate the cracker about 5:30. About 6:00, I made a lettuce salad with a vinegar dressing, cooked two chicken breast tenders with lemon & pepper. It was plenty; 8:00 or so, I ate the apple.

I can see how I would normally just go grab something and it would definitely not be the most healthy choice! So this is good to help me retrain myself into eatting better food.

I got up really early today and I'm surprised that I haven't been more tired; I felt tired but not "sleepy" like I usually do. Interesting.

I have had more pain today though and I'm not sure why. I haven't over exerted myself or my joints, in fact, my shoulders are bothering me and they never bother me unless I'm lifting my arm for an extended time or something similar. This may be random or it may be related to the food issues. I'll have to watch that. And I'll call my doctor for my latest blood results to see how my ANA was. I've been in a semi remission for awhile now so I imagine my blood work came back negative this time.

Dang! I messed up after all that. I figured the calorie count was "built in" to the foods allowed but Jenn said I need to add up the calories and sure enough I went over the 500 mark. Probably about 550; hard to say because of the steak and the different caloric values for that depending on the cut plus I didn't eat the whole 3 ounces anyway.

This is going to be very difficult tomorrow, that's for sure! Hopefully Wednesday will be much easier..

Day 3 - weight down 1.5 lbs

Now how in the world do you lose weight after eating that insane amount of fattening food? I still think that is water weight though because I had gained 4 lbs overnight when I weighed on Thursday (I've been weighing every day since last Monday in preparation for this) So I'm actually still 1.5 lbs over what I weighed on Tuesday & Wednesday; until I break that threshhold, I'm not attributing any loss to the diet plan.

I was up way too early this morning, 6am; usually I will go back to sleep until about 8 but I got up today to start doing laundry, cleaning, checking email, doing this, haha. So I am already hungry, dang it! But it's not bad YET and I could still eat an apple or a melba toast but I don't think I'll worry about it until lunch; just kinda wish I'd slept more because I'm going to be tired and grumpy later! I need to go do the shot soon though; I'm going to try to do it about 8:30 am every day. I plan to stay very busy to be sure I don't start focusing on hunger and food. I hope my house will get very clean today!

I saved some steak from last night for lunch or dinner today and it weighed a bit under 3oz; a tiny bit smaller than I would normally eat so not bad; I think I probably normally eat about 4 oz of meat. I never weighed or measured portions ever before so this is a learning experience.

Day 2 - last day of "loading"

Same weight as yesterday

6:30am - glass of OJ
7:30am - Oatmeal squares cereal with milk
8:00am - cream filled Krispy Kreme doughnut
(went to Oquirrh Mountain temple dedication at 8:15)
11:00am - two waffles with margarine, syrup, bananas and whipped cream (ugh!)
Diet coke (last one for a very, very long time)
1:30pm - cream filled Krispy Kreme doughnut (blah!)
Sugar free green tea
3:45pm - half banana, blueberry doughnut (that's all the doughnuts for me!)
6:30pm - big steak with sauteed mushrooms & onions (YUM!) corn on the cob, yellow rice (from the package)
9:30pm - bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream

(I haven't added this up but it's GOT to be over 4000 calories - blah! I never want to do that again, even though individually each thing tasted wonderful, it was just way too much and way too rich. But the program says that the most common pitfall is that people don't eat enough those first two days so I'm not going to sabotage my efforts right at the beginning that way)

Day 2 diet - Weight same as Day 1

Here's the plan for the day: get up 7am, eat cereal for breakfast, maybe one of the Krispy Kreme's too; go to the Oquirrh Temple dedication at 8:00 or so (we have to be there 8:30); come home and make a big Sunday brunch of waffles, eggs, sausage, french toast, whatever; we have some nice big steaks for dinner, baked potatoes with butter & sour cream, corn on the cob; and all those Krispy Kreme's for snacks in between and finished up tonight by a big bowl of ice cream. And try to fit in a snack of something in there too.

Amazingly enough, my weight is the same this morning as yesterday morning even after all that food! And yesterday, we did measurements and will re-measure next Saturday. I did the shot about 9:30 yesterday but will do it about 8am today since we will leave shortly after that for church; that's the closest I can get to 24 hours apart today. I'll need to figure out the best time for doing that each morning and try my best to do it at the same time; I told Hans he could give it to me while I'm sleeping when he goes to work in the mornings, haha! Bet THAT would wake me up! I'll edit this page throughout the day (hopefully!)


6:30am Glass of OJ

Day 2

Up at 6am! How did that happen? Weird dreams all night, vivid ones that I remember. How strange? Maybe it was all that food yesterday?! So I'm here updating my memory of yesterday's caloric intake, yuck! And yummy at the same time though, hmmm.

I need to mention that there are a couple of things right off that do not strictly adhere to the Siemons diet: I do take prescription medication which is technically not "allowed" on the diet but my doctor said it was fine to take them along with the HCG diet; I can't risk not taking them. The first is Plaquenil, which regulates my immune system or something like that. I have an overactive immune system, being treated for lupus, and currently am as close to a remission as I have ever been since getting this 5 years ago; so there is no way, I'm discontinuing the medicine that got me here. I also take pain meds once or twice a day, tramadol (Rx) and ibuprofen (otc); I had a hysterectomy 5 years ago as well (that was a REAL tough year, healthwise) so am on .625 premarin tablets daily. I don't always take them as I should (daily) and have never ever had a menopausal symptom so I will probably take them every 2-3 days during this diet; I wonder about the effects of taking them along with a pregnancy hormone, haha! So this will be an interesting experiment in itself to see how my hormones are affected. There's another called Verapamil which is a vaso dilator and was prescribed to help with some memory/focus issues caused by the auto immune disease as well as to help with migraines (although I've never noticed any change in the migraines' since taking it, it has helped immensely with my brain function). Iv'e been weaning off of that the last month or two anyway to see if I get migraine's more frequently or if the memory/focus problems intensify. Since the pain is so much better, it might be that my memory/focus problems will be better even without the meds and everyone is better off without extra meds in their system (I think anyway)

Day 1 continued

I'll try to recount the food for the day; by the end of the day, it got much easier to eat more food. In the beginning, it was super hard; time went by quickly and I would realize that I needed to eat something but I wasn't hungry in the least. A baby shower with some truly yummy goodies definitely helped as did a dinner at Pizza Factory (we NEVER eat out anymore so this was a treat!)

Bowl of Oat squares cereal with 2% milk, glass of orange juice (9:30am)
mid morning - 1/2 blueberry muffin from Costco (actually 1/4 of one about an hour apart)
lunch (1:45pm) double cheeseburger, cooked on the grill at home (at most of it, stopped at half, waited awhile, then took a few more bites before going to the baby shower at 2pm)
baby shower "snack" (2:30pm) tortilla chips with spinach artichoke dip, chocolate cake/pudding cup
late afternoon "snack" (5:00pm +-) piece of colby jack cheese (1/2 ounce - just to eat something, blah!)
dinner (7:00pm) Pizza Factory! Veggie Calzone & a scrumptious Fetuccine Alfredo with artichoke hearts & sauteed mushrooms. Hans & I shared and still brought half of each home and gave that to Jenn. Plus we shared the yummy breadstick (huge!)
snack (9:00pm) Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut - went to Krispy Kreme and bought some doughnuts, last time for a few months (at least); we don't get there much and Tim loves them so this was a no brainer. Ate the sample they give you at the store and brought a few to Jenn and the rest home for Sunday's splurging.
snack (10:00pm) Bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream (it's really starting to get easier to eat all this food! I can see how people can get so many calories in one day without even thinking about it; like when you see someone on a TV show that eats 3000 calories a day; I'm sure I ate more than that today!

Day 1

OK, I'm really brave; I gave myself the shot this morning. Yep, I did it! Took me awhile to get courage though. Kind of touched my leg with the needle and felt the little poke and thought "nope, can't do this; I'll get Jenn to do it for me" then I decided I should at least try. Seriously, did not hurt though, haha, probably too much fat there. Just that little prick at the skin; a pinch would have hurt much worse. So I can do this part of it, no problem!

Now we're supposed to "load" this weekend. This will be harder mentally than the 500 calorie diet later. I've spent years keeping myself from eating those kinds of food too much; obviously, I'm not thin so I'm not great at self control but still... I don't buy a LOT of foods because I know if it's in the house I'll eat it. And I don't have anyone in the house that would eat sweets if I brought them in. Tim will eat certain things, a little bit only though. So when I was at Costco, I was looking at some of those goodies that I never buy unless we're having a big gathering of some sort, then I can try a piece and everyone else can eat the rest. Still couldn't buy any of them and think of eating more than one piece. So I'll go shopping with Hans today and get him to help pick out some high calorie goodies for tomorrow after church.

Hans got up and offered to make me a huge breakfast of whatever I wanted: stacks of pancakes, bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, whatever. It sounded so awful. I had my usual bowl of Quaker oat squares or whatever those are called. But I did fill my bowl, haha! And I drank a glass of OJ which I usually don't do; I almost never drink anything with calories except OJ with our big breakfast on sunday. You'd think I'd be thin with all the worrying I do about foods, haha!

I'm thinking Krispy Kreme might be on our agenda today. If I need calories, that's one of the best places to find them!

WEIGHT - I'm actually pretty water logged right now for some reason. Definitely retaining water. Gained 4 lbs yesterday from the day before; I had started weighing last monday just for reference and had pretty much been the same each day, then that gain. We had bought some doughnuts in Kaysville (mmmm, the absolutely best double blueberry doughnuts ever!) and then Jenn brought over some doughnuts from Macy's and I nibbled here and there on those too. So maybe all those carbs? But I can feel the tightness in my fingers, etc so I know it's a water problem. Down 1 lb today though, even though I ate blueberry muffins from Costco last night with Hans' primary class that was here for dinner. Probably would be down the whole 4 lbs if I hadn't eat them. Shoud have saved them for today and tomorrow!

In any case, starting weight is to be determined today, but I want to keep in mind that I feel like I am actually 3 lbs over my "actual" starting weight because of retention.

You have to weigh yourself every morning and keep track. You can gain weight during these first two "load" days (duh!) which seems so WRONG to me, but OK, I said I'd do it and I will.

Minus 2 and counting....

We start the shots on Saturday, just two more days! I'm trying to still be really aware of what I am eating and that sort of thing, although I have definitely not cut out any particular foods; just finished eating a handful of goldfish crackers and had a few pieces of cake doughnuts that were out on the counter earlier. I can "pig out" on Saturday and Sunday when we're supposed to really "load" up. I've been reading the Simeon Manuscript to get familiar with the diet and the reasons behind it. Like why you are supposed to "load" and what happens when people don't follow certain aspects of the diet; also if you reach a plateau too early in the process, what you can do to get past it. This diet is for men and women and men will tend to lose a little quicker but overall it is the same for both sexes; I wouldn't have thought that. Next I will study the allowed foods (not that many, it shouldn't take long!) and figure out how we're going to weigh the food to make sure we stay in the limits. I'm really looking forward to finding out if you truly do not feeling hungry after day 2 or 3; that would be so amazing.

Cooking a pork roast & mashed potatoes & green beans for dinner tonight; I won't be having any of those things for quite awhile again!

HCG Diet ----- getting ready

We're going to start the HCG diet on Saturday, so wish me luck! I'm going to post here to keep track of my success or lack thereof. I will NOT be posting my weight, haha, just losses and hopefully not any gains.

A friend is doing it with me so we'll be a great support for one another; my sis-in-law and her daughters and another niece have gone through their first phase with lots of success; a minimum of 20 lbs lost up to over 50 lbs! I don't have 50 lbs to lose, well, I do, but I haven't been that weight since 6th grade, haha! I will be happy to lose 20 lbs and ecstatic to lose 30. If I lost 30, I'd be the weight I was when I got married 18 wonderful years ago. But I was never able to maintain that weight for long so 20 would be more realistic, particularly at "my age" (48 last Friday!)

The basic drill (for those who don't know) is you take these HCG shots every day; you can give them to yourself in any part of the body, leg, arm, booty, whatever. The first two days, you "load" and eat whatever you want, go out to eat fast food, whatever, because you won't be doing that again for a LONG time, hopefully never if you really want to change the types of foods your body is used to ingesting. Then, you follow a super strict 500 calorie diet for the next 43 days (or less if you have achieved your weight goal); the shots allow your body to use the fat stores in your body for the extra calories your body needs to function properly; after the 2nd day, you no longer feel hungry and are satisfied with the foods you are allowed. The foods allowed are certain fruits & veggies & lean meats (drink only water & herbal teas). When you stop the shots, you continue a restricted diet but 1800 calories and many more choices (just no sugars/starches and some others) for 3 more weeks; the following 3 weeks are even less restrictive; and after that you simply maintain and hopefully have changed your diet habits. If you have more weight to lose, you can do a 2nd round of shots/diet. This is the stage the other people I mentioned are at but we are just starting. They tell me that after that 2nd day, you feel good, have energy, etc.

There are charts for keeping track of your weight each day and you are supposed to take before & after photos and also track your body measurements; I'm assuming each week on the measurements.

I have a huge skeptic of these types of things but my family's results are too fantastic to overlook. I believe that any time you go on a diet of any kind (cabbage soup anyone?haha!) you are going to lose weight because you are paying attention to the food that goes in your mouth; and when you deny yourself the foods you love, you tend to exercise more because you want that sacrfice to be worthwhile. When you weigh yourself daily, you have a reminder of your goal and each 1/2 pound loss is a motivator; each gain makes us analyze the previous day and see what we could have done better. Simply being aware of these things leads to weight loss. But not at the rate that these ladies have discarded those unwanted pounds.

Alone, I would never have tried it; but the combination of my desire to lose weight and wanting to be a support to my friend sealed the deal.

My goal is to lose 20 lbs during the 45 day period. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea of only eating 500 calories a day and feeling "satisfied"; I'm going to find some way to be very busy those first two crucial days when you do feel hunger. I've said for a long time that I could get a lot more done if we didn't have to eat or sleep, so I am taking care of one of those and I should be able to get some projects done, right?

I wonder if my family will suffer because I won't feel like fixing nice dinners that I can't share? Or will they have to eat salad and lean meat for the next 45 days?

It will all be worth it in the end if I lose the weight though. Dave comes home Oct 29 and I'd rather him think his mom looks great than say "gee, mom, you've gotten fat!", haha! And we're going to Florida for a week right after that and will be taking a lot of family pictures; and what if we go to the beach while we're there? That means a bathing suit and trust me, I'm NOT looking good in a bathing suit this year!

If anyone has had experiences with this diet, I'd love to hear about it!