Day 1 - "Loading Day"

Today is my first day on the HCG Diet. I weigh 130 lbs. After I took the dogs out for their morning constitutional, I made coffee and then I gave myself my first HCG injection. I'm using an empty detergent bottle to keep the used needles safe. The nurse practitioner recommended that during my initial visit with her. Of course, you still need to recap the needles. It's kind of weird how you can't even really feel the injection at all. Also, you know that nothing is going to actually happen. You know you won't actually feel different after the injection. But you still want to. It's weird to give yourself an injection and then go about your day like nothing is happening.

Day One and Day Two of the HCG Diet Protocol are called "loading days." On these two days, while the HCG is getting into your system, you not only eat whatever you would normally eat but you try to eat foods with a very high fat content. There are a couple of reasons that this makes sense to me but it's really hard to do it. It feels very counter-intuitive to me to "go on a diet" and then eat as much "garbage" food as you want.

One reason you have to wait two days before beginning the low calorie diet is to give the HCG an opportunity to get into your system first. I've read that some people think it's to give you more fat so that you won't be as hungry when you begin the low calorie intake. I've also read that it is a way to actually trick the body into letting go of the fat because the body believes it's getting plenty of fat. Kind of like the opposite of starvation. All of the reasons kind of make sense. But the overwhelming reason to follow the protocol is because it has been working successfully for over 30 years. The proof is in the pudding.

On Day One I kind of screwed up and didn't eat anything until late afternoon. I don't normally eat breakfast anyway, so that wasn't strange. Then I ended up having to run some errands that I hadn't expected. Finally, I headed over to "twentyfive main: cafe & cupcakes" to pick up some of their fabulous cupcakes. One of my dearest friends and her stepmom were sitting outside having lunch when I arrived. St. George really is a very small town. You always run into someone you know.



One bite and you'll be hooked! I ordered a chocolate raspberry, a strawberry vanilla (which reminds you of being a kid at a birthday party), and my favorite - the orange blossom. I also picked up a chocolate espresso for my son.


You can see more of twentyfivemain here - http://www.twentyfivemain.com/cafe.php

I ate cupcake number one in the car. Not very healthy, I know. Then I headed to Dixie Nutrition and picked up some Stevia to sweeten my coffee, Yerba Mate tea, and one of my favorites Metromint Water.


Metromint is so refreshing and has no calories, sugar, or fats - just natural H2O and Peppermint.

When I got home it was nearly 2:00 pm, and I had leftover Chinese food from the night before. I was poking around trying to find the highest fat content foods I could find in the house. Fried rice and an egg roll certainly fit those qualifications. Alot of people think Chinese food is really healthy but most of it isn't very good for you if you order it in a restaurant here in America. One typical fried springroll with vegetable filling has 115 calories and and almost 5 grams of fat. A one-cup serving of fried rice has 363 calories (35% of those calories are from fat), 16 grams of fat, and 865 mg of sodium. Yikes. It's high in sodium, fat, and calories but it tastes great! I think I filled my quota for the day with that meal.

That night I joined my son, my sister-in-law and my nephew for dinner at Wendy's. I had a crispy chicken sandwich and a baked potato with a Dr. Pepper. I didn't finish the drink or the potato. When you don't eat at fast food restaurants much you don't really have any idea what to order. It's not something that I crave. But it was OK. I ate another cupcake when I got home and saved the best one for Day Two.