Phase 3 - Day #4 (AKA: WTF?! I Thought the Hard Part Was Over!)

So it's been 4 days since my last VLCD day. After Phase 2 (40 injections, 43 days of Very Low Calorie Diet) I moved on to Phase 3, maintenance, finally! The goal of this phase is to keep within 2lbs of my weight on the last VLCD day. This is much harder than it sounds because you must do this while avoiding carbs and sugar. Do you know how much shit has carbs and sugar?! Like... EVERYTHING! The books say that most people drop in weight during that time and have a hard time keeping their food intake up... so far, not had that problem...

After over a month of barely eating anything I maybe, possibly, just a teensy bit... went a little overboard on my first day. I quite possibly cheated... a lot. I had half a slice of garlic bread, a forkful of Nick's pasta, a little coolwhip with my strawberries, and a whole bunch of delicious, crunchy mixed nuts. These probably aren't the worst cheats in the worth but yes, they are still cheats and I paid for them the next day by gaining 3.5lbs above my goal weight. So, what's a girl to do? A steak day!

A steak day, for those who are unaware, is the greatest thing ever. It is a little different from the mini-steak days I did in Phase 2. In phase 2 a mini-steak day would consist of eating nothing at all until dinner time and then having 100g of lean steak and an apple. On phase 3 a steak day consists of eating nothing all day but then at dinner time... you find the biggest, juiciest, FATTEST motherfuckin steak you can possibly find, grill it on the BBQ or fry it in butter or oil and devour every last morsel of it... also, you eat an apple or a raw tomato with it. See the official explanation and why it works below:

The HCG Diet "Steak Day" is used during Phase 3 when your morning weight exceeds the weight you had on the last day of HCG by more than two pounds.
The Steak Day requires that you abstain from all food during the day and eat one large steak as your evening meal. The steak should be cooked in oil or butter and should be eaten with one apple or a raw tomato.
The steak eaten should be a large serving of beef, usually 24 - 32 ounces. It may be any cut of meat your prefer including a Porterhouse, T-bone, Rib-eye, New York Strip, Filet Mignon, Kobe Beef or Sirloin Steak.
It is VERY important that the Steak Day diet is followed as soon as the two pound limit is breached, as this allows the hypothalamus to be corrected and function properly again.

The Steak Day works because it naturally corrects the metabolism for a condition of excess calories on the previous day. This decrease in caloires evens out the metabolism by working through the hypothalmus, allowing the body to further stabilize itself in Phase 3.
If the Steak Day is not done immediately after the 2+ pound weight gain, this natural correction does not occur. In cases where this happens, it is not productive to try a Steak Day the second day or to try two Steak Days in a row.

I love steak so much I could cry when I read that... it's just so... heavenly. I especially love a big, fat rib eye steak with lots of gristle and charred bits from my awesome BBQ. Steak days are my most favorite thing and that's really good because apparently I'll be doing a lot of them. The second day I did my steak day and the weight was lost. I was then only 0.3lbs above my goal weight which is perfectly acceptable.

The third day I was much more careful about what I consumed. I avoided as much sugar and carbs as I could. For breakfast I had ants on a log (celery, peanut butter and raisins), a handful of mixed nuts and a pepperoni stick. For lunch I had a hotdog (no bun or condiments) and a salad with greek dressing, feta and lettuce. For snacks I had beef jerky and pork rinds (both very much allowed! Fat content is not as important as lack of carbs and sugar) for dinner I had a giant salad and a hotdog with mustard and ketchup. The dressing on the salad may have been my downfall as it came with the salad and I think it had too much sugar. I thought it may have come from the apples but don't really trust it.

Then this morning I weighed myself and it was bouncing around for a while before finally deciding that I was 2.8lbs above where I want to be... 0.8lbs outside of the safe zone. Looks like another steak day for me. So sad/awesome.

Tomorrow when I go back to a non-steak day I will not have any nuts and see if that is what's affecting it. Anyone have any suggestions for where I can get lots of protein as a super easy grab and go snack? I'm having a really hard time finding stuff I can eat while in my car. I can't eat a sandwich or a wrap because of the carbs so now I'm at a loss. Help!