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.

My Appointment Day!

AmaraMedSpa ( http://www.amaramedspa.com/ ) was a great experience. The facility is modern and beautiful and the staff is professional and pleasant. I filled out my paperwork and then they took me into a small room to watch an orientation video about the HCG protocol. They asked me whether I wanted to do the HCG injections or take it sublingually. I said "injections" and they gave me a packet of detailed information. (I'm not doing sublingual, so I can't really say anything about that). The video was "home grown" by the lead physician at Amara, but it was concise and really detailed the protocol and covered all of the questions most people would ask when considering or starting on the program. I was very impressed because I felt that they were honoring my time as well as theirs by conveying the information so clearly and efficiently.

I saw the nurse practitioner for my appointment and she went over my medical history. And then the dreaded weights & measures! Here's how it went:

Weight: 130 lbs.
Bust: 35"
Waist: 28.75"
Abdomen (read: GUT): 39"
Saddlebags: 42"
Left Thigh: 23"
Right Thigh" 23"
Left Knee: 15"
Right Knee: 15"

The truth is she only measured my bust, stomach-at-the-belly button, and hips. So, her record will look different than mine. They measure in the exact same spot on every person so that no matter who is doing your measurements they will have an accurate reading of what you gained or lost. But for me, I really want to track the areas that are important to me. For example, I really don't like my fat knees. I never had great knees but they didn't used to have those fat pockets on them. I know it sounds petty but you have to take that into consideration when you're wearing skirts or shorts! :-) So, I put those measurements in, too.

After the measurements, she got ready to give me a Vitamin B-12 shot which is part of the protocol. You get one B-12 injection per week. I have read and heard different things about why it helps the diet but I honestly don't know all the exact reasons. Some of the reasons are appetite suppressant, energy booster, helps to produce the myelin fat that surrounds nerve cells, etc. Definitely all good things...

The NP asked me if I'd ever given myself an injection. I said "no," and in my head I wondered how many people actually say yes to that question. I wouldn't think it would be very many... She said, "OK, then I'll let you give yourself the B shot so you can get used to giving yourself the injections." I really hadn't been that freaked out before by the thought of injecting myself. The injections go into the large muscle not into your veins so it's not like I could get an air bubble and kill myself or anything. But suddenly with her standing there watching me I was kind of nervous.

She showed me how to push the muscle together, hold the syring like a dart and... boom! It's in, you push the fluid through, and it's out. Honestly, I couldn't really even feel it. The needle is so tiny. Almost like a hair. You don't even feel a pinch. It's much less painful than having your blood drawn or getting an innoculation shot. In fact, since you can't really feel it, it's not even in the same ballpark.

I asked her if I would get my first HCG injection today, too. But she said that I had to start that first thing tomorrow morning. Urgh! Still no HCG. Oh well. I'm this much closer and I'm getting even more excited.

She was able to make some recommendations about other things, too. For example I wasn't sure what kind of food scale to purchase (I've never weighed my food or counted calories before) or what kind of scale I should be using to weigh myself. I don't even own a scale. She said that digital was preferable for weighing me and that a simple food scale that measures in both grams and ounces would be fine. Grams are more precise so it's important to have that option. She also recommended that I purchase a food scale that you can set at zero when it has the bowl on it so that you don't have to subtract the weight of the bowl every time you weigh something. Good advice.

Because I was headed back to California in a couple of days, they gave me a 20-day supply of HCG injection syringes and two prepared B-12's. I'll use the HCG's daily and the B-12's once a week until I return for an evaluation at the center and pick up my next set of HCG. They stressed that the HCG has to be refrigerated so instead of heading out to buy both my food and "person" scales I headed home to put everything in the fridge. I'm literally fluttering with excitement. Tomorrow is the day!!!

What is the HCG Diet?

My sister-in-law first told me about the HCG diet several months ago. She said that a girl that she works with lost tons of weight on it and kept the weight off. She didn't really know the details but it had something to do with getting injections of a hormone and being on a 500 calorie-a-day diet. She also said part of the diet had "loading days" where you could eat as much as you wanted and the highest fat content you could eat. It didn't sound healthy to me. I know that a super low calorie diet is very unhealthy and makes your body think it's starving. The body ends up holding onto the fat stores that you want to get rid of and "eating" from healthy fat, muscle, and bone in the body. You feel sluggish, tired, and cranky. Also, weight lost on a super low calorie diet is always gained back with more fat in the areas you wanted to lose from. What's the point of doing that? Macking down on high fat foods when you are trying to lose weight, trying to be healthy, or both also seems really counter-intuitive to me. The whole thing sounded U-N-H-E-A-L-T-H-Y to me. Yes, I want to lost this weight and mostly these inches. But I don't want to be unhealthy.

There's alot more to the HCG Diet than either she or I knew at the time. The diet protocol was actually designed by Dr. A.T.W. SIMEONS, M.D. in Italy over 30 years ago. It has been used since then with great success and with little to no reported side effects. Two things that I am particularly excited about on this diet are that the success rate for maintaining the weight lost seems to be over 80% and that dieters find that they are losing the fat in their trouble areas. Sounds fantastic! To read Dr. Simeons' actual protocol, I recommend this link: http://hcgcoach.com/SimeonsProtocol.shtml#The_Diet. The rest of the website has information of varying value depending on what you are looking for but the original written protocol is worth reading if you want to know what the HCG Diet is really about.

Basically, HCG is a naturally occurring hormone that is found in women when they are pregnant. When they do the urine test to see if you are pregnant, they are testing for the presence of HCG. HCG doesn't make you pregnant and it doesn't make your body think it is pregnant. It actually has alot of functions and it is used medically to treat a variety of conditions. Using HCG for weight loss is actually an "off label" prescription. HCG can be used safely and effectively for men and women. As a hormone it tells the body to do certain things and the body responds. Just like a woman having too much testosterone and growing facial hair.

HCG is extremely safe. During pregnancy, women have very high levels of HCG for 9 months without ill effect. The amounts used for weight loss are minute in comparison. The only side effect I have heard of is the possibility of headaches in the first couple of days on the low-calorie regimen for people who are severely obese or toxic. Even for these individuals, the headaches are reported to be mild and should not occur after the first few days.

One of the messages HCG sends to the body is a command to utilize fat stores to use as energy. Normally, when our calorie and fat intake shrinks (read: very low calorie diet) the body stores the fat and slows the metabolism. Essentially, the body thinks it is being starved and wants to 'hang on' to every bit of potential energy/fat that it can. While using HCG, the body feels free to use up the fat stores that it has. It's not afraid of starving so the metabolism is not slowed. Your body isn't living on only the food that you eat but also on your own fat stores. So you may be eating a 500 calorie-a-day diet but your body is living off of more.

What does this mean? It means that you aren't tired and sluggish. It means that your body is living healthily off of the abnormal fat stores that you want and need to get rid of in order to look your best and be your best. It means that you aren't starving your body and that you aren't losing weight or fat from healthy places in your body, e.g. between your internal organs. You need healthy fat in your body. HCG safeguards that fat by utilizing the abnormal and unhealthy fat buildup in our body.

Another thing that HCG does is work with the hypothalamus to reset your metabolism to a healthy rate that will last long after the injections and the diet are over. To me, it sounds like a miracle.

(Disclaimer: I am not a doctor and I am not giving medical advice. I don't work in the medical field. The information I am sharing below is what I have researched from multiple sources and what I was given when I had my medical consultation).

Hey, Slacker! Why not go to the gym?

Why don't I just go to the gym, you might ask? Well, I have. Kind of. I've never liked exercise or been an athlete. I've always liked walking on the beach, doing restorative yoga, light tennis, pilates. Stretching is my favorite and I've always felt best and looked my best when I was on a regular stretching regimen. I joined a gym in 2007, worked out every day with cardio and a weight regimen, kept track of pounds and inches, etc. I did feel better and I lost a couple of pounds. Literally. A couple. I felt healthy but I didn't lose inches in my problem areas and I didn't lose more weight. Then last year I joined another gym and got a trainer who I worked with three times a week. Again, I felt healthy but nothing happened to my body. Aging changes your body and how it metabolizes.

If I were going to lose this weight and inches by working out then working out would have to be the focus of my life. That is not acceptable to me. It's frustrating to know that I would have to put my family, friends, and life on hold for the rest of my life so that I can get my body into shape and keep it there. Believe me, in Orange County there are a lot of women, men, and even teens that are spending their lives doing this. I don't want to be one of them.

I also considered plastic surgery; liposuction, body wrapping, and other such alternatives. If they really worked then the money would be worth it. But there are so many horror stories out there - both aesthetic & health - and no guarantees. For me it wasn't worth the risk. I'm definitely not against plastic surgery or medical enhancements.

HCG seems to offer proven results for a fraction of the cost. At around $300 per cycle of treatments, I could have ten cycles of HCG treatment before I would pay what lipo would cost me for my saddlebags alone. And I'd still need lipo and a tummy-tuck for my G-U-T.