Sooooo... the cleanse is basically over. Two more little pills and a glass of fiber. Then I'm onto my loading day. I've been looking forward to this day all my life. The day where I get to eat anything and everything I want to a disgusting degree and get to call it a diet.
I will be starting off my morning tomorrow having a disgustingly greasy breakfast at Bon's Off Broadway with my bestie Veronica who is moving to the T.O. on Friday. We will be saying ciao with a ton of chow. As she put it "Bacon, bacon, bacon, sausage and bacon." I couldn't put it better myself. Then I am off to get a my first HCG injection!! I am so nervited (nervous/excited)!!
I prepared a bunch of steak for my VLCD days today and I am all set for at least the first week of VLCD. I also went shopping for camping food and LOADED up on the bad shit. I've got two bags of chips, a big bag of M&Ms, cheddar sausages, the biggest baddest hamburgers I could find and lots of other goodies. I also have my meals all packed and ready to go. Yum yum yum.
I will be out and about tomorrow and on my way to camping but I will try to blog while away, if I have cell service. I will give a full update on Sunday evening though!!
Wish me luck, y'all!
Wednesday 29 June 2011
Tuesday 28 June 2011
Preparation Cleanse - Day 3,4 & 5 (AKA: Boring!)
Hey y'all,
As you may (unlikely) or may not (very likely) have noticed, I haven't blogged for the last couple of days. Partially because I was doing more interesting things but mostly because there is nothing interesting to say about doing a cleanse. Nothing major in my life has changed except I'm making some healthier choices and mostly avoiding sugar.
On Sunday I went shopping with my mom in the states and bought some new casual work clothes. It was a bizaar experience because I kept thinking "Will this fit if I lose 20lbs?". I truly think most of the clothes I bought will look better but I've got some cash left over for a celebratory shopping trip if it all works out.
Monday was work and nothing very interesting. I had some leafy greens and a sandwich. Boring.
Today though, I decided to go shopping and prepare my meals for the weekend. I picked up a bunch of veggies including: Radishes, spinach, cucumber and asparagus. I also grabbed some apples and orange and tried to pick out my protein. I need to eat two different forms of protein each day but the steaks at Save on More just looked too marbled so I grabbed some chicken breast and some imitation crab meat (Pollock).
When I got home I started doling out my 100g portions and MAN are they small! Except for the spinach... that's quite a few handfuls. I'll be having some yummy strawberry salads with that bad boy. The chicken literally is the size of my palm. It is so small in comparison to what I normally eat! I packed up my meals for camping this weekend in something I would normally use for only my lunch but it carries everything I eat in one day except the apple and orange. Insanity. Each of the days I am on the VCLD while camping I will be having crab meat and radish for one meal and cucumber and chicken for the other. Sounds appetizing, eh? I cooked up a bunch of the chicken and then realized I didn't get nearly enough crab meat. I'll head to the store tomorrow to get some steak. Any recommendations on some lean beef cuts?
BTW, Melba toasts are fucking tiny. Seriously. Like freakishly tiny. Like a mouse would still be starving after having 5 of those pathetic little things. Ah well... c'est la vie.
As you may (unlikely) or may not (very likely) have noticed, I haven't blogged for the last couple of days. Partially because I was doing more interesting things but mostly because there is nothing interesting to say about doing a cleanse. Nothing major in my life has changed except I'm making some healthier choices and mostly avoiding sugar.
On Sunday I went shopping with my mom in the states and bought some new casual work clothes. It was a bizaar experience because I kept thinking "Will this fit if I lose 20lbs?". I truly think most of the clothes I bought will look better but I've got some cash left over for a celebratory shopping trip if it all works out.
Monday was work and nothing very interesting. I had some leafy greens and a sandwich. Boring.
Today though, I decided to go shopping and prepare my meals for the weekend. I picked up a bunch of veggies including: Radishes, spinach, cucumber and asparagus. I also grabbed some apples and orange and tried to pick out my protein. I need to eat two different forms of protein each day but the steaks at Save on More just looked too marbled so I grabbed some chicken breast and some imitation crab meat (Pollock).
When I got home I started doling out my 100g portions and MAN are they small! Except for the spinach... that's quite a few handfuls. I'll be having some yummy strawberry salads with that bad boy. The chicken literally is the size of my palm. It is so small in comparison to what I normally eat! I packed up my meals for camping this weekend in something I would normally use for only my lunch but it carries everything I eat in one day except the apple and orange. Insanity. Each of the days I am on the VCLD while camping I will be having crab meat and radish for one meal and cucumber and chicken for the other. Sounds appetizing, eh? I cooked up a bunch of the chicken and then realized I didn't get nearly enough crab meat. I'll head to the store tomorrow to get some steak. Any recommendations on some lean beef cuts?
BTW, Melba toasts are fucking tiny. Seriously. Like freakishly tiny. Like a mouse would still be starving after having 5 of those pathetic little things. Ah well... c'est la vie.
Saturday 25 June 2011
Preparation Cleanse - Day 2 (AKA: Whoopsie Daisy!)
Today I've been a bad bad wittle wabbit. The day started off good, had a nice breakfast of one peice of bread with some peanut butter and for lunch I had steamed veggies and multigrain pasta but then my mom came in to town. We're going shopping in the USA tomorrow so she came in early so we could hang out. We went to one of my accounts, Hidden Lounge in downtown Vancouver, and had one of the best meals EVER... also one of the baddest! It was so decadent and delicious, everything from fried buttermilk chicken with watermelon salsa and waffles to mini pizzas with pulled pork and blue cheese. So deadly. Highly recommended.
It was so good I barely even felt guilty! It's just a cleanse, right? Not the end of the world. Then we went to an art show just off of Main St. (Hipster's paradise) because my mom is an artist (http://www.artofthecoast.com/). After that we hit the downtown chinese market and once again, disaster hit. We had a little pancake thing... not too bad... and then a Hurricane potatoe.. definitely bad and to finish it all off, I had half of a lamb skewer. My mom tricked me, I didn't even think I liked lamb! But you know those asian markets, sooo greasy I could see through my stomach after!
Well, tomorrow we're off to the states so I will make sure to be extra super duper good. I am just slowly easing myself into diet mode. I was googling HCG recipes and I've discovered that SO many people totally cheat on HCG! Either by mixing veggies or just eating whatever they want as long as it's under 500 cals. That drives me crazy because then they bitch about how they didn't lose any weight and it made them lose muscle mass etc. It's giving the diet a bad name and confuses us newbies.
I'm heading to the island on Thursday for camping so I will premake all of my meals this week. I am looking forward to experimenting with some salad dressings and yummy drinks. I have never tried apple cider vinegar but damn I hope I like it!
Any recommendations on some yummy HCG recipes? Please let me know!
It was so good I barely even felt guilty! It's just a cleanse, right? Not the end of the world. Then we went to an art show just off of Main St. (Hipster's paradise) because my mom is an artist (http://www.artofthecoast.com/). After that we hit the downtown chinese market and once again, disaster hit. We had a little pancake thing... not too bad... and then a Hurricane potatoe.. definitely bad and to finish it all off, I had half of a lamb skewer. My mom tricked me, I didn't even think I liked lamb! But you know those asian markets, sooo greasy I could see through my stomach after!
Well, tomorrow we're off to the states so I will make sure to be extra super duper good. I am just slowly easing myself into diet mode. I was googling HCG recipes and I've discovered that SO many people totally cheat on HCG! Either by mixing veggies or just eating whatever they want as long as it's under 500 cals. That drives me crazy because then they bitch about how they didn't lose any weight and it made them lose muscle mass etc. It's giving the diet a bad name and confuses us newbies.
I'm heading to the island on Thursday for camping so I will premake all of my meals this week. I am looking forward to experimenting with some salad dressings and yummy drinks. I have never tried apple cider vinegar but damn I hope I like it!
Any recommendations on some yummy HCG recipes? Please let me know!
Friday 24 June 2011
Preparation Cleanse - Day 1 (AKA: Here we go!)
Last night I started the cleanse in preparation for the big diet. Took the big ass pills, drank my nasty fiber water and went to sleep. I was up like every 2 hours going pee though. Fun times. Oddly enough, the dogs slept the night through so hopefully that keeps up. Now all they've got to figure out is how to tell me they have to go potty while OUTSIDE of their crate.
This morning I took the other two big ass pills and had some nice and healthy pineapple for breakfast... I was ravenous again by 9:30am so I hit up Whole Foods for a salad. After eating that much fiber and consuming over a litre of water within 2 hours I had to find a bathroom ASAP and about every 10 minutes after that. I barely got anything done all day! I'm sure you all want to know about my "inner garden" and its movements so there you are. Lucky you!
I also bought a new food scale, a bathroom scale and checked out some recipes online. I'm looking forward to some strawberry salads, some orange chicken and many other delicious recipes some creative folks have come up with for the HCG diet! I am shocked at what people can do with only 500 calories and some Stevia. I am super nervous though because next weekend we are going camping with a bunch of friends on the island. On Thursday (load day) we are heading over to the island and camping until Sunday. Friday is also a load day so that should be awesome. S'mores, hot dogs, steak, chips etc. but then Saturday and Sunday are the first VLCD days... I think I'll have to pre-make all of my meals and just stick them in some Tupperware containers until those days. Hope I can make it! At least I'll have the support of my friends.
So, a couple of days ago I tried to go donate blood, like I do every 56 days (yay for O- blood!) and for whatever reason my pulse was too high and I couldn't donate. I went back this afternoon to go donate again but this time my iron was too low for donating! It was still in a normal range for a woman but too high to donate. I always have relatively high iron so I'm surprised by the numbers. I'm curious how the diet will affect my iron as well. My next day to donate will be August 21 which means I will be in my stabilization stage of the HCG diet. I'm very curious about what my iron will be like after it's all over. The scale I bought keeps track of your bone mass, BMI and a bunch of other stuff so it will be interesting to see what changes.
Thanks for reading!
This morning I took the other two big ass pills and had some nice and healthy pineapple for breakfast... I was ravenous again by 9:30am so I hit up Whole Foods for a salad. After eating that much fiber and consuming over a litre of water within 2 hours I had to find a bathroom ASAP and about every 10 minutes after that. I barely got anything done all day! I'm sure you all want to know about my "inner garden" and its movements so there you are. Lucky you!
I also bought a new food scale, a bathroom scale and checked out some recipes online. I'm looking forward to some strawberry salads, some orange chicken and many other delicious recipes some creative folks have come up with for the HCG diet! I am shocked at what people can do with only 500 calories and some Stevia. I am super nervous though because next weekend we are going camping with a bunch of friends on the island. On Thursday (load day) we are heading over to the island and camping until Sunday. Friday is also a load day so that should be awesome. S'mores, hot dogs, steak, chips etc. but then Saturday and Sunday are the first VLCD days... I think I'll have to pre-make all of my meals and just stick them in some Tupperware containers until those days. Hope I can make it! At least I'll have the support of my friends.
So, a couple of days ago I tried to go donate blood, like I do every 56 days (yay for O- blood!) and for whatever reason my pulse was too high and I couldn't donate. I went back this afternoon to go donate again but this time my iron was too low for donating! It was still in a normal range for a woman but too high to donate. I always have relatively high iron so I'm surprised by the numbers. I'm curious how the diet will affect my iron as well. My next day to donate will be August 21 which means I will be in my stabilization stage of the HCG diet. I'm very curious about what my iron will be like after it's all over. The scale I bought keeps track of your bone mass, BMI and a bunch of other stuff so it will be interesting to see what changes.
Thanks for reading!
Thursday 23 June 2011
A Quick Look at HCG
Hey kids,
I was just thinking that some of my friends might not know exactly what the HCG diet is so I thought I would give you a quick rundown on the diet. For more info check out some FAQs here: http://www.healthyhcg.com/faq.html and the full book on the diet here: http://hcgdietinfo.com/HCG_Diet_Simeons_Manuscript.htm
This diet uses the horomone found in pregnant women to kick start your metabolism into using up the fat you've already got stored instead of taking it from your food only or from your muscles and bones. In combination with the HCG (which I'll be taking in the form of injections but can also be taken under the tongue - more expensive and less effective) you go on a Very Low Calorie Diet (VLCD) of 500 calories per day for up to 40 days. There are three phases of the diet:
Phase 1 - Loading (2 days): Loading days start with your first injection of HCG. A loading day is basically a day where you eat the fattiest crap you can possibly get in your body. I'm talkin McDonald's, pizza, deepfried mozzarella sticks wrapped in bacon.. basically the stuff you have avoided your entire adult life. This causes your fat cells to be nice and big which helps control your hunger when you move to Phase 2 and the HCG starts kicking in.
Phase 2 - Stabilization (23 - 40 days or up to 40 injections): This is where you go on the VLCD of 500 calories. But it's not just any 500 calories, not like you can just eat one kid's meal a day, it's a strict diet with insanely strict rules that includes only a few options of veggies, meats and condiments and is so strict that you can actually use no moisturizer during this time because of risking putting on weight! Craziness. But the HCG helps control all cravings and you body is actually consuming calories just by taking them from the stored fat. Check out the research, it's not as scary as it sounds.
Phase 3 - Maintenance (3 weeks) - In this phase you simply maintain the weight that you were at when you ended Phase 2. If there is any change either up or down 2lbs it must be corrected in this stage. You can eat whatever you want as long as there is no sugar or starch. Lots of cool recipes online. After this Phase you slowly start introducing your body back to sugars and starch which is helping retrain your metabolism. You can do another round but must wait 6 weeks until you begin Phase 1 again.
Anyhow, that's the diet! It's pretty inexpensive and, according to all the blogs and others I've talked to who have done it, it's highly effective. People lose an average of 20 - 25 lbs on their first round and more on every round afterwards. Let's hope it works that well for me! Hope I can make it!!
I was just thinking that some of my friends might not know exactly what the HCG diet is so I thought I would give you a quick rundown on the diet. For more info check out some FAQs here: http://www.healthyhcg.com/faq.html and the full book on the diet here: http://hcgdietinfo.com/HCG_Diet_Simeons_Manuscript.htm
This diet uses the horomone found in pregnant women to kick start your metabolism into using up the fat you've already got stored instead of taking it from your food only or from your muscles and bones. In combination with the HCG (which I'll be taking in the form of injections but can also be taken under the tongue - more expensive and less effective) you go on a Very Low Calorie Diet (VLCD) of 500 calories per day for up to 40 days. There are three phases of the diet:
Phase 1 - Loading (2 days): Loading days start with your first injection of HCG. A loading day is basically a day where you eat the fattiest crap you can possibly get in your body. I'm talkin McDonald's, pizza, deepfried mozzarella sticks wrapped in bacon.. basically the stuff you have avoided your entire adult life. This causes your fat cells to be nice and big which helps control your hunger when you move to Phase 2 and the HCG starts kicking in.
Phase 2 - Stabilization (23 - 40 days or up to 40 injections): This is where you go on the VLCD of 500 calories. But it's not just any 500 calories, not like you can just eat one kid's meal a day, it's a strict diet with insanely strict rules that includes only a few options of veggies, meats and condiments and is so strict that you can actually use no moisturizer during this time because of risking putting on weight! Craziness. But the HCG helps control all cravings and you body is actually consuming calories just by taking them from the stored fat. Check out the research, it's not as scary as it sounds.
Phase 3 - Maintenance (3 weeks) - In this phase you simply maintain the weight that you were at when you ended Phase 2. If there is any change either up or down 2lbs it must be corrected in this stage. You can eat whatever you want as long as there is no sugar or starch. Lots of cool recipes online. After this Phase you slowly start introducing your body back to sugars and starch which is helping retrain your metabolism. You can do another round but must wait 6 weeks until you begin Phase 1 again.
Anyhow, that's the diet! It's pretty inexpensive and, according to all the blogs and others I've talked to who have done it, it's highly effective. People lose an average of 20 - 25 lbs on their first round and more on every round afterwards. Let's hope it works that well for me! Hope I can make it!!
The Beginning of the End... of being Fat.
So I met with Susan from http://www.innergardenhealth.ca/ and we set up the date for me to start my HCG diet. I am heading back to West Van next Thursday, the day before the Canada Day long weekend, to take my first shot and start my loading days (Yay for one loading day while camping! Boo for two VLCD days while camping...) in the mean time she hooked me up with the "Advanced Naturals Total Body Rapid Cleanse" which I will be on for the next 7 days.
I have been an exceptionally bad eater over the last month... or 5. I have been eating whatever I want, whenever I want and man have I been paying for it! Nick still swears he doesn't see any weight gain but I know he's just lying because he is the best guy ever; although even he noticed my confidence taking a nosedive so he gave me the go-ahead to take some of our funds and put it towards any diet plan I wanted to try. After much research and advice I chose the HCG diet because it seems to have a pretty good return rate and a simple eating plan. Very restrictive though so this should be a real test of my willpower... of which I have none.
I am really nervous about all of this. The injections scare me but the thought of my willpower breaking down scares me even more. I am going to eat all of my very most favourite things on my loading days so that it might help the cravings later in the program. Over my cleanse I am going to eat lots of delicious veggies and fruits that I won't be able to have over the next couple of months too.
Today for breakfast I had some pita chip things that I found in the cupboard. Super healthy, right? Not. For lunch I had a small Wok Box thing and a spring roll. It was pretty yummy but I'm sure it was bad for me. I'm going to take my first capsules etc. for the cleanse tonight so for dinner I'm making low cal pork chops, corn on the cob and some mini potatoes. Then I've got to take my dogs for a walk because they are getting a bit of cabin fever!
Hope this all works out... let me know if any of you have any questions about the diet or why the hell I have decided to do something so stupid!
I have been an exceptionally bad eater over the last month... or 5. I have been eating whatever I want, whenever I want and man have I been paying for it! Nick still swears he doesn't see any weight gain but I know he's just lying because he is the best guy ever; although even he noticed my confidence taking a nosedive so he gave me the go-ahead to take some of our funds and put it towards any diet plan I wanted to try. After much research and advice I chose the HCG diet because it seems to have a pretty good return rate and a simple eating plan. Very restrictive though so this should be a real test of my willpower... of which I have none.
I am really nervous about all of this. The injections scare me but the thought of my willpower breaking down scares me even more. I am going to eat all of my very most favourite things on my loading days so that it might help the cravings later in the program. Over my cleanse I am going to eat lots of delicious veggies and fruits that I won't be able to have over the next couple of months too.
Today for breakfast I had some pita chip things that I found in the cupboard. Super healthy, right? Not. For lunch I had a small Wok Box thing and a spring roll. It was pretty yummy but I'm sure it was bad for me. I'm going to take my first capsules etc. for the cleanse tonight so for dinner I'm making low cal pork chops, corn on the cob and some mini potatoes. Then I've got to take my dogs for a walk because they are getting a bit of cabin fever!
Hope this all works out... let me know if any of you have any questions about the diet or why the hell I have decided to do something so stupid!
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