HCG Diet Follow Up
Well, it has been 10 weeks since I started the HCG diet. I have been off the reintroduction period for a couple of weeks and eating healthy every day. I found a really cool app called LoseIt! for my iPhone that really makes tracking calories very easy.
Now, I exercise four days per week and ride my bike about 30 miles each week to and from work a few days a week. For the first time in my life, I feel like my goals are in site.
You can see the before and after pictures and see how I did. I haven’t lost any weight in the last 3 weeks so I lost about 48 pounds and 7.5 inches in my gut is only about 8 weeks.
I thought that I would include a few things that I found on this diet that really helped me out.
For Starters
We have a nice digital scale that we bought a number of years ago that also measures our body fat percentage. It was very helpful to see the change in the body fat at the same time… a little more motivating.
Through the diet, I had a simple $4 scale from Wal-Mart to weigh my food. Since then, I purchased a digital food scale. It has made measuring food so much easier. When you get calorie light foods (like lettuce, spinach or celery) on the diet, a small scale is really a pain. After the diet is over and you can mix veggies, a good digital scale is easy because you can reset zero and as you build a salad, for example. Now, I still weigh everything and can do it very quickly and easily.
So, if you are going to do this, I recommend getting a good digital scale for your weight and a good digital scale for your food. I also recommend getting an iPhone or an iPod Touch and get the LoseIt! app… it will be worth it when it is easy to track your food.
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Planning is Key
Planning your food is the most important part. I think this is critical as you are maintaining your weight after the diet is over. When I started this diet, I didn’t give it too much thought before. Now, I plan my entire day. Planning what you are going to eat and even about the time that you are going to eat it really makes any diet so much easier.
Right now, I go to the gym in the morning and straight to work right after… so, I don’t eat my breakfast until after the gym. Since I ride my bike, I have to find a way to haul everything. I take all my breakfast, snacks and lunch with me. I put things in separate containers and as I am preparing my food for the day, I estimate what the food will be in terms of calories. I then have a couple of FiberOne bars available incase I need some extra calories.
One thing that makes it easier for me is that I keep a couple of boxes of good cereal at the office and have a thermos that I take milk with me every day. If I need fewer calories, I drink the milk with a meal. If I need more, I add cereal to the mix.
During the HCG diet, I found that having pre-packaged servings of meats frozen make it so much easier for me. When I would get a large package of beef, turkey or chicken, I would spend a few minutes putting them in individual plastic bags and freeze them so that I could pull them out as needed.
You may think that planning your food is so time consuming and that it is much easier to go to the drive through at McDonald’s. If the 1,000 plus calories per meal at McDonald’s isn’t compelling enough to not plan for your meals, then think of it this way: It really doesn’t take any more time to prepare your food in the morning than it does to drive to McDonald’s, wait in line, collect your food and drive back to your office. If you are already on the road, having your food with you makes it easy to munch on your food as you drive.
Get Some Staples
I know that people have different strategies than others. I found that it was a pain when I changed up my meals too much. It was much easier to eat the same or similar things every day. I always had berries for breakfast, soup for lunch and beef for dinner. At the beginning, I didn’t do this because I wasn’t sure what the staples were, but as I started to find foods I like, the staples started to emerge.
I have carried this strategy in my maintenance diet. In fact, I should probably post recipes. I have a few soups that I like so I still eat a lot of soup for lunch. When we cook our soup we make sure that we have extra. Then, I package them up in single serving Rubbermaid tubs that have a screw on lid. I then pop them into the freezer and take them out in the morning before I leave for work and heat them in the microwave. Because they are the same size every single time, there is no guessing as to how much I am eating.
Apples and bananas have become another staple for me. I just cut them up in the morning and put them in little sandwich bags. It makes it easy.
Don’t Be Afraid to Educate Yourself
I am amazed at how many people say they can’t do this type of diet. The reality is, they can’t do it because they don’t understand it. My fundamental philosophy of food has changed significantly. I understand what foods are good for me and what foods are bad for me. I understand how good foods positively affect me and how bad foods, eaten in excess, can cause problems as well.
During the first two weeks of the HCG diet, I found that I had really bad headaches and was exhausted. I think it was sugar and caffeine withdrawals. Now, I feel great. I have plenty of energy and I find that I can splurge a little every day because I eat so many healthy foods. I haven’t been over my calories goals once since April 1 and last night I still had a big bowl of ice cream.
Get Good Support
I have spent some time looking at other blogs and support forums. I have found a couple of key things.
First, there are a lot of people out there that really don’t know what they are talking about. I have even seen so-called weight loss clinics give very poor advice. Make sure that your advisor really knows what he or she is talking about. I recommend that you check out my doctor, Robb Bird… his website is http://www.azpain.com/.
Second, there are saboteurs among you. Tell your so-called friends that keep offering you things not on your diet where to go. You need people around you that understand that you are doing this because it is the healthy thing to do and not because you are vain. Losing 5-10 pounds is vanity. Losing 50 pounds is life altering and life extending… treat it as such.
My wife was extremely helpful in this. She made sure that the really “good” foods, like waffles, sausage, cinnamon rolls and the like, weren’t out very often when I was home. She helped measure foods and make sure that I was on track. Now that the hard part of the diet is over, our whole family is eating better and getting more healthy.
Everyone Is Different
Everyone is affected differently on this diet… and any diet. Everyone has a different metabolic rate and everyone has different circumstances to deal with. One person may lose 20 pounds in one round where I lost nearly 50 in one round.
Treat your nutrition as more of an art than a science. I have friends that can eat and eat and still never gain weight. I am finally resigned to the fact that if I want to maintain my goals for the rest of my life, I am going to have to watch what I eat for the rest of my life. I have never truly understood that in the past… now I do.
This relates quite a bit to getting good support above. Make sure that your doctor knows what he is talking about so that you can get good advice if you need help.
It’s Not Easy
I was very successful on this diet. But don’t let my success fool you. It was hard. I worked every day to fight cravings and eat the right foods. There were days I wanted to give up. There were days that I just didn’t care but pushed through it all. There are still times when I want to just splurge and forget that I have to watch it.
If you are contemplating changing your life like this, you can’t just put your toe in the water and think you’ll see results that will sustain you. This has to be a life changing decision. You have to be willing to jump in with both feet and burn the dock behind you so that you can’t get out.
The Results Are Worth It
For the first time in my life, I feel like my goals for my fitness level are within reach. I have spent plenty of time on diets and exercising in the past. I have always had high hopes, but the results took so long to attain that I gave up before I really started reaching my goals. I am lighter now than I have been in 15 years… in fact, my wife has never known me to weigh so little.
How can I complain with the process when I am nearly 50 pounds lighter and have lost almost 8 inches just from my gut. I am starting to get smaller than my skinny clothes. I think I am even going to have a fat clothes burning party… just like Hannibal burning the boats, I don’t want the option to get fat again.
I will never do the HCG diet again because I won’t need to. I finally have the strategies in place that make all the difference in the world.
This fat man’s journey to being skinny now has to take the form of a different journey… that is to continue to improve my physical condition.