Guest Blogger: Joyce

I began my HCG weight loss journey almost exactly two years ago. I have been dieting all my life. And yes, I would have success, for the first 30 pounds. After that I would get stuck, and couldn't seem to lose anymore weight no matter what I would do. So, I would get discouraged, give up, and gain back the weight I had already lost and, unfortunately, sometimes gain more.
I went to a friend's wedding in January of 2009 and talked to another friend who had just had bypass surgery. She was doing really good and talked to me about it. I decided to try one more diet I had heard about before giving up and having bypass surgery done. Luckily for me, it was the HCG diet.
I started the diet when I was staying in a hotel room for four weeks. It was not easy--no diet ever is, especially when you love food. But, I stuck with it. I didn't even know how much I was losing because I couldn't weigh at the same time every day. The hotel had a scale, but it was in the exercise room, which didn't open until 6 a.m. and I was already at work by that time.
I went home after four weeks and one of the people in my area who wanted to try the diet asked me if I had read the HCG weight loss guide book yet. I hadn't. I was just following the program that came with my HCG oral spray. So, she loaned me her book and I read it over the next couple of days. On the day I finished the book, I had lost 36 pounds in 35 days. The book recommended that you stop after 42 days on the diet or 34 pounds of weight loss. So I decided to start the maintenance phase.
To my surprise, I didn't gain any weight back. In fact, I lost another 6 pounds during the six week break between my first round and my second round. I was so enthusiastic about my weight loss, that I never tired of telling people about the program when they asked. It was a miracle to me.
I have lost a total of 120 pounds in the last two years and I am very happy with the results. I still need to lose more weight, but I know that I can continue to have success because this diet works for me. Still, I am always quick to caution people that this is just like any other diet you go on. If you go straight back to eating the same way you did before the diet, you will put the weight back on. The change has to be a lifestyle change. But following the HCG program has proven to be the key to help me not only lose weight but to change my eating habits.

Back on Maintenance

I'm terribly sorry about the lack of posts going on here. I haven't felt much like writing anything lately, but here is a short little post to keep this going.

So I am on the three week transitional period between the very low calorie diet and eating regularly. I lost twenty three pounds in the five weeks we were on the low calorie part! We went off a week early because of an event we had planned. It's so hard to eat twelve to fifteen hundred calories a day when you are used to only five hundred a day. It's even harder when you think about all of those good veggies that barley have any calories at all to them! I went down a pant size (woo-hoo!!!) and feel really good. I have noticed one downside to loosing weight. I tend to get cold a lot easier now. Brr! I can't wait for spring!

The Third Week

I'm getting close to the middle of my third week on the low calorie diet. Normally by now I have started to decline in my daily weight loss, only losing about two to four tenths of a pound every day, but I am still losing about a pound per day. In fact, today I lost one point six pounds! I'm hoping to go down about twenty more in the next three and a half weeks before I start maintenance. I've been in a bad area for a year now and am hoping that I can finally get free of this weight range.

I am, like always this far into the low calorie diet, starting to get tired of the limited variety in foods to eat. I want a mixed salad so bad! The only good part is that I don't have to put much thought into what I take to work for lunch. Once the physical hunger goes away, this diet really isn't that hard, it just starts to get boring. I don't think I would feel so tired of it if I wasn't also stuck in the house so much due to the snow at my house. Cabin fever and limited food choices don't seem to mix well with me.

For those who are also struggling with this diet, keep it up. Think of the reasons you started your own HCG journey. Good luck!

The first week is always the hardest.

Everyone living in my household has restarted the diet cycle. The first week on the low calorie diet is always the hardest. That's when the hunger in the worst. I've done enough of these rounds now to come to the conclusion that it isn't the physical hunger that's the worst to fight. The mentality of feeling deprived or simply not satisfied with the food you are getting is a dieters worst enemy. Your mental hunger is fighting a battle with your will power and determination. Sometimes the battle seems to be lost. Then I step on the scale in the morning and see another pound or pound and a half lost and I rally again. I remember how good it feels to go to the store and buy smaller clothes. I think of how much better I feel physically and mentally after the weight loss I have already accomplished and imagine how much better I will feel when I continue to lose. I think of the things I have done, like climbing up a rocky cliff side, that I would never have been able to accomplish at my heaviest weight. I think of the long hikes that I would like to be able to go on with my sisters in Yellowstone National Park. These things beat the mental hunger back across enemy lines and force it to surrender. The battle for today has been won, but the enemy will return each day to try again. Don't give up on yourself. Fight the war one day at a time. Sometimes we lose, but don't ever surrender.

The start of a round

I'm starting a new round of the diet today. Today and tomorrow are my load days and then I will start the low calorie part on Sunday. I'm excited to start again. I gained about fifteen pounds over the holidays and had go back to wearing some of my larger pants. I hate that feeling when you go to put on a pair of pants that just a week ago you could fit into, and you realize that there is absolutely no way on earth that you are going to get those things done up and still be able to breath. I've been in a very problematic area for about a year now and would really like to get as far away from it as I can.
But, for today and tomorrow, I'm going to enjoy eating foods that I won't be able to have again until the last phase of the diet.

Diets at Christmas time?

I'm finding it extremely hard to maintain my weight right now. I've been going up and down quite a bit lately. I really hate doing steak days, and I am trying to avoid them, but I may not have a choice pretty soon. This is why I don't do the low calorie part of the diet during the holidays. I know my personal limits and know that I don't have the will power to stay away from all the goodies. Besides, it's my own little tradition to make treats to give to people and you have to taste your own creations! Luckily, I'm now satisfied with just eating a couple of treats instead of sitting down and twenty minutes later realizing the whole plate is gone!

Exercising seems to help me maintain my weight, but it's hard finding time to do it. By the time I get home from work, I'm exhausted. I'm not a morning person, and I barley wake up in time to make it to work. I also don't loose weight when I exercise, so I start to feel a little depressed about it. I know that I'm maintaining my weight better, but if I'm going to put the effort in to work out, why can't I loose a few pounds? I also don't like to exercise alone when there are other people in the house and I'm never home alone! I would ask my roommates to work out with me, but my nephew would never do it and my sister seems to gain weight exercising so she's not interested.

Although the low calorie part can get boring, I'm actually looking forward to starting it when the new year begins. I'm in a trouble spot, the weight I was at all through high school, and need to get away from this area.

Maintenance

Maintenance is the part of the diet where you are focused on keeping your weight as steady as possible. The goal is to not gain more than 2 pounds of what you lost while on the low calorie part of the diet. This is where I am at the moment. I should have started the low calorie part again by now, but I know myself and know that I don't have the will power to go through the holidays without being able to eat all that yummy food. So I am waiting until the new year to start again. I just hope that I can keep my weight down until then.

I will try to update the blog more once I am on the low calorie part of the diet again. At the moment, there is not much to report. I will have a few guest bloggers come on and tell you about their amazing journeys with this diet.