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!