HCG Rogue Diet Update

DietIf you have not read my previous post, here is a quick update. I am currently on Round 2 of the HCG Diet and am “rogue” if you will, ie, not following protocol to a “T”. I lost a total of about 30 pounds on the last go around (I think it may have been a little less) and did a full 42 say round. This time I am planning a 30 day round because those last 10 days or so last time KILLED me for some reason. Hence the rogue part. In addition, I feel I need to put in the disclaimer once again… If you are new to this diet, DO NOT GO ROGUE. You have GOT to do this by the book the first time so you will have a clue what can and cannot affect your weight loss if you decide to “Go Rogue” the second go around. Now, on with the update.

I am about to be a cry baby. Yeah, you heard me. WAAAAHHH! I WANT FOOD! I WANT POPCORN! The last couple of days have been rough on the will power. I don’t know whether being a little on the depressed and wanting comfort side is playing into it, meaning… I want my pjs, a blankie, good TV and GOOD FOOD. Yeah well, can’t give in that easy. This too shall pass.

I have been sticking with my rogue plan. One day I ate a few sunflower seeds to get by. I know now not to do that. They affected the scale big time. I have added broccoli which has been fine for me and I added steak which has also done well with me (thank goodness). I was so incredibly tired of chicken and fish. I am still eating the low carb yogurt as my lunch and it’s been working. I am currently on Day 9 of the low calorie plan and am down 10 from my starting weight. More from the after loading weight but I don’t count that. So all is working great, but Oh Em Gee I want buttery popcorn! This is hard! I feel like I’m on some show called “How bad do you want it” and there are times here and there that make me just want to say… not that bad! But… I go on.

Who needs a Man? When you have 43 Valentines!

So Valentines’ Day was Thursday! As most people know I am single. That is said to be a curse on the day that people deem for love. However, even with my internet dating I was still alone on that day. That quickly changed as soon as I got to work. My students showered! me with gifts! Chocolates! candy! flowers! and sweet valentines that read “Viles (Violets) are Blue, Roses are Red and sugar is seet (Sweet) and so are you”. I have  never felt  that much love as I did that day! My babies  made a day that could have potentially been a disaster a day that was wonderful and awesome!

The HCG Diet, My Journey

appleAs I have mentioned in a previous blog, I told you I would blog about my journey on the HCG Diet. Well, here it goes…

I have done one successful round of this diet before. It works. When I say works, I mean works wonders. I have never done anything like it, nor have I ever gotten results like this. It’s amazing. Let’s take a trip through the good and the bad.

The Good:

  • Like I said, this diet works.
  • It’s really not that expensive (doing it on your own and ordering the HCG, unfortunately, overseas) and if you follow it to the letter, you WILL lose weight.
  • Not only will you lose weight, you will lose “abnormal” fat, not muscle, nor fat from strange places. You will lose it from locations you need to lose it from. Thighs, Belly, Upper Arms, Butt, you know, all those places.
  • Following the letter, it’s easy to stick to. There isn’t much choice, so knowing what you need to eat that day isn’t a hard decision. Plus, that makes this diet even cheaper; not a lot of food to buy, no expensive brand weight loss products.
  • It doesn’t last that long. That helped me A LOT. The most you can do on the low calorie “phase 2” part of the diet is 42 days. It helped me to say “It’s just 6 weeks out of your life, you can do this.”
  • You will lose quickly. Some say a pound a day. That may be true for men but for women it’s a little less. More like .5 to .75 pounds per day. How wonderful it is to step on the scale every morning and see weight loss. I have done every other diet out there just about and never had I seen results like this.

In my first round, I lost about 28 pounds doing a 40 day round. That’s a lot. I looked at it as about 30 pounds in a little over a month. I looked better, I felt better, and finally felt as though my goal weight could actually be reached. I did have a set-back however. I started my first go around ending at Thanksgiving and end at Thanksgiving it did. After your Low Calorie round, you enter whats called a stabilization round, where you stay low carb but add back calories. Yeah well, I ate at Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was my very first day of Phase 3. Bad start. I did continue, beginning the day after Thanksgiving, with Phase 3 and stuck to it, but the damage had been done. I stabilized about 6 pounds up from my last weigh in on phase 2. Not too bad I guess. But see then came Christmas… My Phase 4 began, which is the round you slowly add back starches to see what your body can take and what it can’t, about a week to 10 days before Christmas. Well, that’s around the time I start baking cookies and fudge for everyone. Uh oh. Cookies. Yum. So, on the weight came. For shame. Again though, oh well. I knew I would indulge and indulge I did. At least I didn’t gain all the weight back, and thank goodness I didn’t start eating those things at my before the diet weight. Yikes! Regardless, here I am, back on the wagon. Now let’s take a look at some of the bad.

The Bad:

  • You can’t buy it here. Well, actually you can, kinda. You can go to a clinic (or if you are lucky enough to find a Dr. that believes in the diet) and have it all done for you. However, it costs, A LOT. If you have the money, well hey that’s the way to go. Why not have someone give you all the necessities, weigh you, mix it etc. That would be lovely! Alas, I don’t want to spend money like that so I choose to do it the other way, which is, ordering it from out of country. It’s a pain in the butt, but there are good places to get it from, you just have to do your research.
  • Homeopathic drops are no longer available. The U.S. FDA has done away with them. Again, there are places online you can buy it, even in the states I believe. I myself have never gone the homeopathic route so I don’t know much about purchasing it that way.
  • You have to mix it yourself. Whether you go the way of injections (which MANY MANY do… apparently it isn’t that scary) or sublingual (under the tongue) you have to mix the medication. Now, you CAN buy it pre-mixed but the medication once mixed does not have a long shelf life. So, you order it pre-mixed, then there is travel time to you… It’s just not worth it. It really isn’t hard to mix though. It just seems scary, but really isn’t. Hey if I can do it, so can you. I take it sublingual, meaning I’m a chicken and won’t do injections.
  • Scary things online, or the naysayers. You can find plenty of scary things online about this diet. Plenty. Course you can find scary things about just anything online these days. They way I look at it was like this… This diet began in the 1950’s. It has been done repeatedly since then. So, there is a long history with this diet. You would think, by now, we would have heard about those that did this in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s etc. with the problems they now have, but you don’t. Secondly, HCG itself is used daily here as fertility treatments. If it were so dangerous, why are we injecting mothers to be routinely? (BTW, you get so little HCG on this diet… don’t connect the fertility treatment with this!) All I’m saying is we certainly aren’t healthy as fat people either. Then there are the naysayers and boy oh boy you will find them. I just chose to not tell many people around me. Nay all you want. I look Goooood!
  • The Food Choices. Yeah, this is a negative. Unless you commit and I mean COMMIT, you won’t do well. Again, this goes back to the “It’s only a month, I can do this” motto. But it’s hard, really hard. In my first round, I did great up until the last week to 10 days or so. I was so over the food. I didn’t want chicken. I didn’t want fish. I didn’t want celery or cucumbers. It was more than “just didn’t want” actually. The food started making me literally gag when I tried to get it down. It doesn’t taste bad by any means. I mean, it’s just chicken right? I don’t know what happened. I just got over the food. This is very bad. I started not eating at all. Very bad. Now, in ‘Pounds and Inches’ he does go into “meat aversion” giving some optional choices if that were to happen. I took those suggestions toward the end. I didn’t lose the weight as quickly, but I was still losing weight. So this go around, I decided to do a 30 day round rather than 42 days. Maybe the 42 was just too much for me.

The last “bad” on the list leads me to this round. This round, I am “going rogue” as they call it. Let me preface this with… if you decide to try this diet and it’s your first time, DO NOT DO THIS. As a beginner, you MUST adhere to the diet itself in the ‘Pounds and Inches’ manuscript.  There are a couple reasons for this. 1. It’s been proven successful. PROVEN. What I am doing has not and is totally a trial thing that may or may not work on MY body with MY metabolism. It may not work with yours. 2. Once you get the hang of the diet, to the letter, and eat something not on the list, you will be able to tell whether it “affects” you or not. If you don’t do the diet straight out of the box, you will never learn what affects you and what doesn’t. The diet is successful straight out of the book for EVERYONE. What I might do, or another person, is not. Like beef. The diet allows you 3.5 oz. of very lean beef for a meal. Some people do great on beef, others will see a stall. It’s all about your body. Starting off adding or taking away things will get you lost.

Another preface: “Going Rogue” is NOT the same as cheating. We know exactly what we should NOT be doing. No starches, no sugars, low calories. You having a piece of chocolate cake and calling it “going rogue” is incorrect. That’s called cheating. That’s called not being on the diet. I once read about someone trying to do this with a “cake” diet. :shaking my head: Anyway…

Now on to what I am doing now. I am doing things differently and trying different things out. I began doing the diet straight on protocol this go around too, but the very first day I gagged a little eating my chicken. It’s like all the memories of those last few days of the last round came rushing back. Well, I know I can’t spend the next 30 days not eating anything, so off on my own I went. I am still minding the calorie count, the low carb count and the low fat aspects of the diet. However, I am adding things here and there to see what works. Such as, I purchased low carb strawberry yogurt from the market. This of course wasn’t available when Dr. Simeons did his study. Many things weren’t. Yogurt it high in protein, has the fruit you are allowed to have, low in fat and carbs (At least the one I purchased is) and I therefore use the yogurt for lunch. They say that it takes 2 days for you body to show it didn’t like it. So far so good with me.

I also have added tuna to the diet, although I don’t know if I will keep it there. You see, tuna, according to the diet, is not allowed. However tuna back then was only available packed in oil. Now you can get it in water. Tuna does have a high sodium count, so I buy low sodium packed in water. Thing is, you can’t use mayo… So it’s dry. I tried adding a spoonful of salsa in it, but it’s still dry. I still lost weight eating the tuna, but I will have to revisit it if I can figure out how to make it better.

Cottage Cheese is another I have added. Non fat cottage cheese is mentioned in the manuscript if you show an aversion to meat. I however bought low fat. Non fat I just don’t care for. So far so good. Still losing weight. I also purchased Broccoli. I haven’t yet added it so we will see.

I am adding things as I think of them. I may even try to add a steak, 3.5 ounces of course, to see how my body reacts. It may hate it. It may create a stall. Hopefully it doesn’t. If it does, I won’t do it again. If it doesn’t, well, hurray for me!

Anyway, that’s it in a nutshell. I am currently on day 4 of the low calorie part of the diet and have lost a little over 4 pounds. I am stopping at day 30 this go around and am hoping I will only have one more round to go (sometime right before summer) to hit my goal.

Thank you if you stayed with me through this whole rambling and good luck to you if you decide to try this! Remember if you need help or have any questions that I might be able to answer, feel free to send me a Private Message in our forum HERE!

Internet Friendships…

I’ve had my fair share of friends I’ve met over the internet… most have come and gone, but some are closer to me than friends I may see everyday. And really, I’ve only had one standout bad experience… and still today it lingers.

With the Manti Te’o scandal, the college football player from Notre Dame that had some kind of internet relationship with a girl who may or may not have had cancer & also at some point was to have died, but later was discovered she was alive (sounds too much like a Jerry Springer episode to me!!)…. I really don’t know the full story well, but when this story hit, it really made me think about things.

Until the summer of 2011, most of my internet friendships were nothing more than friending someone on Facebook (or prior to that, MySpace) to gain neighbors or friends for some sort of online game I was playing, like FarmVille or the variety. I never really talked to them or got to know them at all, they just sent me stuff for my farm, or a extra life some other game I may have been addicted to at the time, but other than that, they were just a face on my wall… I actually still have a select few who I’ve decided to keep around, even though I really don’t know them well, but they post interesting things & feel they add to my life in one way or another.

But my love for reality has broadened my horizons & have found some more lasting friendships who I have more in common with, like the forum at (what I call) The Yak. There are others, who shall not be named, but similar in format to what we see at The Yak.

I have found some of the most unlikely friendships. For most of these friends I’ve found I know without a shadow of doubt they are true friends, and know they add value to me and my life. Some I would even consider best friends, and know me more better than I know myself. It so much easier to be myself with them, partly because I think being behind a computer screen and not face-to-face makes it easier to be more brave and/or vulnerable, to show the sides you might hide from people you have direct contact with… seeing someones face and/or reaction when you disappoint or not live up to expectations is sometimes the worst to overcome.

And this is where my reason for writing this comes in. One friendship in particular has had me so confused with myself and it still lingers. Why?? This is someone who I stuck up for when no one else did, believed in and never gave up… yet whenever I let myself think about the situation or this person is involved in, I feel so bitter… and I still can’t put my finger on the exact reason why I can’t just let go. This person no longer matters to me, or maybe I’m just trying to convince myself that I don’t care… I think it’s obvious I do care, but why or why should I?? Uhhhgggg… I hate it! Whenever I try to deal with it and why I feel this way, I usually end up in tears… and no answers.

I tried to tell myself that I need to back away from meeting friends online, or at least not letting myself get attached… and it was once pointed out to me that I have unrealistic expectations when it comes to my (online) friendships, and I do believe this is true. The person that told me this is someone I talk to everyday without fail, yet I’ve never met in person… but feel like I’ve known my whole life. I think the friends I’ve made online have spoiled me, so maybe I can just blame them for my unrealistic expectations! HA!!

Truth is, I really want to let go… but haven’t figured out the magic potion to release me from whatever it is that’s holding on?? I value each and every friendship I have, because I spent some of my early childhood without friends (which I might touch on sometime in the future), and I NEVER want to feel that alone again. So part of letting go of this person goes against the grain of what I believe, yet dealing with the bitterness I feel isn’t doing me much good either, sigh…. In closing, I’m still as confused as I ever was but writing always helps clear my mind!!!! Bottomline, I love the friends I’ve made online, so I don’t think this will stop me from making more, but it will make me more leary on how much I put into someone I really don’t know. The ones I’ve made definitely outweigh this one bad experience.

Douche bags & Best Friends

My best friend is dating a douche bag.  It’s her first “serious” boyfriend, but oh my god.  I met him on Sunday, because he was going to be deployed.  At first I was like, “okay…you seem normal and cool.”  That got blasted out of the water quite quickly.  I soon realized he was a douche.  First, my friend brought up how I worked on the Obama campaign and how it’s the only thing we don’t discuss because we sit on polar opposites of the political spectrum.  Her boyfriend, however, is in the navy.  “I can’t believe you would vote for him.  How can you he’s trying to slash the military budget!”  Excuse me?  First, you don’t yell at me about politics unless you want me to perform a lobotomy revealing your peanut brain.  Two, the military has absolutely nothing to do with my vote.  Three, I am entitled to vote how I please.  I went silent while my friend handled the situation, which is to say, she simply cajoled him to stop.  I never got an apology for that one.

Then, today, it became clear that he was no longer going to deploy due to “Obama’s” budget cuts.  *roll my eyes* Naturally, my friend told me and then soon thereafter I started getting texts from her via her cell phone berating Obama again.  Excuse me, what fucking planet are you on that I am going to take that?  This time I bit back and said, “You are aware that the next ten countries defense budgets do not equal the US defense spending, correct?”  My friend intervened again and said, “Sorry he’s just upset about not being deployed.” That’s an excuse for being a toolish behavior.  And it defends him, while enabling him to continue to do it.

Fabulous.

So I’m left in an awkward position.  Do I tell her that i think her boyfriend is a douche bag, or do I let it play out?  And I haven’t decided if I’m going to tell her that I’m getting annoyed with his immaturity.  I probably won’t, because I want to see if she’ll handle it from afar.  If not, I’ll be forced to tell her I’m done with it.

Douche bag.

 

The Single Gay Life of a 20-something

This isn’t no Ke$ha song, though I do display it quite well.  I don’t shit glitter, but I do Budweisers.  I go to gay bars and everyone around me is just acting fabulous and chanting Beyonce lyrics, and I’m just trying to find a cigarette to pretend I’m not smoking while nobody knows where I went.  Inconspicuous, I know.  It’s rough being awesome.

Then there’s the lonely moments.  When you realize that you’re incredibly single.  No future, no prospects, just living each day trying to figure out tomorrow.  As my friend told me, “We’re in our twenties, this is the time to figure it out.  Would you want to wake up next to someone and not know what would have been different if you lived?”  It’s true, we’re living wild and free.  She’s graduating with her Master’s in Counseling in August, wants to move to a big city but doesn’t know what to do.  We’re lost, confused, and wish someone would hold a candle to guide us ahead.

We won’t get it.

In fact, the only thing we’re being given is something that many would die for in their forties:  a fresh start.  A new time to introduce ourselves to a new city, new people, as the person we have become out of true strife and struggle.  We’ll have to go into this world with our highly educated, debt laden asses and figure it out.  And along the way build a life that we are proud of.

Personally, I’m starting bartending school next week.  I’m setting myself up for success, not failure.  Now if someone could tell my mother that…

 

Reflections…

Refelctions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reflecting on 2012 has been more difficult for me than it’s ever been. I had high hopes… My motto coming into 2012 was for no expectations, and without even realizing it, I entered the New Year with a ton of them, setting myself up for failure from day 1… Or so it felt like failure as I started to reflect.

I find myself in a place in life were I almost feel stuck… Stuck between my own reality and my dream of a stable rewarding life, trying to find that balance in the middle that completes me. Stuck…

What has 2012 done for me?? The more I think of that question, the more positive my outlook on 2013 becomes, but I’ll explain more on that later. In this past year I started school… A blessing and a burden at the same time. The blessing… I’m following my heart to begin a career and the life I set aside when I became a mom 20 years ago. The burden… Time and stress. Managing school and life is much harder than it appears from the outside… And sometimes I feel unsure if I can take anymore, but I always manage to figure it out. Even when I was working full time, I feel like I had more time than I do now.

Also, in this past year I’ve started to rebuild my relationship with my son… And this alone is huge for me. Although it’s been 3 birthdays and Christmas’s that I haven’t been able to spend with him, I at least got a text from him on Christmas this year and I get periodic phone calls and texts that keep my head from running away from me. Just in this year alone, I felt the ultimate rejection from him (not intentional), but all was forgotten in a long awaited and unexpected hug in the middle of a gas station parking lot… And I got to tell him I love him unconditionally, face to face… And for once, I believe he heard me and more importantly… He believed me.

Going into 2013 comes with a ton of uncertainty? I know that I must find a job within the next 5 months, and a new place to live in the next 10 days. Both to me are scary, especially in this economy that’s supposedly on its way out of a recession, although most people I know don’t see it, including me. But what scares me most is where I fit in anymore? I’m 38… And sometimes just as confused about life as if I were 8? Wait, not 8… Even though at that age I was bullied everyday and didn’t know why… I was a kid and it was so much easier to bounce back… No responsibilities. More like confused about life like if were 18… but looking back, I had more direction then than I do now… and as I said already, I find myself in a place in life where I almost feel stuck… Stuck between my own reality and my dream of a stable rewarding life, trying to find that balance in the middle that completes me. Stuck…

This is what thinking about what 2012 has done for me, makes me more positive for 2013. I wanted to go into 2012 with no expeditions, but it’s apparent I had many expectations judging by how disappointed I was when I 1st started reflecting on the year… But I’ve quickly realized it’s the little things that matter most!

Completing a full year of school with a 3.96 GPA, reconnecting with Levi, making new friends (ahem, mostly the virtual variety… But to me a friend is friend!), new babies on the way (not mine! But my son and his girlfriend, my son’s 1st baby mama and her boyfriend, and my neice and her boyfriend are all expecting babies in 2013), reconnecting with old friends and building stronger friendships with current friends, discovering myself and learning to love who I am.

There is more, but the most important is knowing that I made it through another year… Alive… laughing, loving, crying, caring, dancing, discovering, managing…. And for that I am thankful!

I’m thankful that my mom and dad (stepdad, but dad just-the-same) accept me for me, when I know other parents don’t because they aren’t perfect in their eyes, whether they are gay, finding a different religion or philosophy in life, too short, or too fat… I am blessed my they love me for me, period… As all children should be, young or old.

I’m thankful for my sister… For this year I’ve truly experienced her unconditional love… It’s always been there, but I finally accepted it without question. I just can’t imagine my life without her, and often feel guilty that I don’t have to share her… Everyone in this world should have a sister like her, this world would truly be a better place. She single-handily provides me with happiness everyday, who else can say that.

I’m thankful for my husband… Because he is my only hug most days, and I need them! We’ve been married almost 20 years, and times aren’t always easy… and in days when I feel we have grown too far apart, he finds a way to bring us close again.

And I’m thankful for my friends… Every single one of them! Those from grade school, to past jobs and everyone in between. And I must give a special shout-out to those I only know in the virtual world, some of you know me better than friends I might see every day. I don’t get to spend much time with friends like I once used to? I don’t go hang out with anyone, go out on the town, scrapbook or Bunko anymore… Partly because of time, but I guess partly I’m out-of-sight, out-of-mind to most. Which is fine mostly, because with school I don’t have as much time anyway.

So, as for 2013… I offer no promises… Just to be me, try to stay positive, never give up and take some chances. Don’t have resolutions, but maybe some goals without a time limit? I want to live healthier… Meaning, I don’t want to profess to be skinny by year end, I just want to be healthy, wherever that takes me is fine. I want to live happier, and not sweat the small stuff anymore and commit to smiling everyday, whether I mean it or not… It can change my day or even some one else’s day if I share my smile with them. I want to live more honestly, within myself… And learn each day to love the flaws that make me me, and be ok with them. And use my sister’s advice, to drink lots of water and remember when life gets hard, take time to breathe.

Goodbye 2012….

The Children of Today

 

First of all I must say that I have no children of my own. I am only an aunt to two very precious boys but I am a school teacher so here it goes…

The children of Today are spoiled rotten that’s right I said it! They are spoiled to the extreme and it is not a good thing. Don’t get me wrong I am not that far from being what some would call a child (25 years old). Everyday I go to work and I hear my students talking about what they have at home to play with. The things that they have are as follows:

1. Iphone

2. Ipad

3. Ipod

4. Four wheeler

5.etc.

As I listen to my little kids (7-9 years old) talk about these items I sit back and think “What in the world is wrong with parents today?” Why does a 7 year old need an iphone? I am sorry I know things are different than when I was a child, but having an iphone at 7 seems very extreme. With all the extracurricular activities out there I know that children need a way to communicate with their parents ,but what happened to the time when adults made sure that other adults were responsible for letting them know of schedule changes and such. When did the child become the one to text and call their parents when something changed?

I guess that I am just old fashioned. I was raised by older parents and my grandparents were older too. They didn’t let me have my own phone till I was 18 years old.  I often wonder if all this technology is going to be the doom of our next generation to come up. It worries me that children would rather play on the Xbox, iphone, ipad,or computer than playing outside in the fresh air.

Well that is all of my soap box today…more to come later…