HCG Diet Done! Pass the butter please...

So, I finished off round one of the HCG Diet the weekend of May 2nd. I remember the date without checking a calendar for two reasons:

1) It was the 21st anniversary of the date my husband and I were married (not our wedding date, but the date we eloped at the County Courthouse).

2) We were in Daytona at the International Speedway for an endurance race that my husband was in.

I remembered both these points because all that cause for celebration really screwed up the end of my mostly perfect diet. Here's how it all played out:

I finished that Thursday at 205 pounds (yay! That's a 15 pound loss in 27 days). Anyway, you're supposed to continue to eat the 500 calorie diet for 3 days after your last dose of HCG. Yeah, well, that did not happen. Instead we ate out and drank some alcohol (wine one night, margaritas another night - to go with the Mexican food, of course!) Oh! And did I mention Cracker Barrel?

By Monday when I stepped on the scale I was 212 (holy sh*t!!). No big deal though (cross my fingers), I went right back to Eat to Live style eating and by Friday I was down to 208. Not so bad, I guess.

So I misbehaved over the weekend again, and by Monday I was up to 210. Damn. Fine. I went back to eating right and following Eat to Live, so by Friday, I was down to 207. YES!! (You're supposed to stay within two pounds of your last dose weight which was 205).

To celebrate, we splurged over the weekend and by Monday I was up to 209. Oops. I really seem to have a hard time with weekends. Back to eating right throughout the week, and by Friday I'm back to 205 again. Whew! That was close! Time to celebrate yet another victory!

By Monday, I'm back up to 208. Well, at least I'm not off the rails on the weekends anymore, just eating out some. And I have been going out of town most weekends for one reason or another and I find Cracker Barrel pancakes really hard to resist. Let's see, how else can I justify this behavior?? I can't really, so back to eating right for a week and by Friday I'm at 204.6 - Booyah!

Time to really celebrate...

Welcome to my "stabilization and maintenance" phase of the HCG Diet.

The truth is, I'm fine with it. I love eating the Eat to Live way throughout the week. It's easy, tastes yummy and feels right. I will usually drop anywhere from half a pound to a full pound in a day, and I don't even have to worry that it won't happen. You can see from the pattern above that each weekend I gained, but I progressively gained less each weekend, and throughout the week, I'd lost what I gained, and another pound or so, leaving me weighing less than when I started the Monday before. If I only weighed myself once a week on Fridays, I'd say losing a pound a week or so is reasonable, especially because I DO NOT feel deprived, especially on the weekends.

But seriously, even last weekend when we went Miami-Homestead Speedway for another endurance race, we ate out (at Cracker Barrel on the road) and even at the concession stands for lunch one day. I crave better foods, so I didn't ever bother with desserts and I ate reasonable portions without the compulsion to finish all my food and by Monday I was at 208. It's Wednesday and I'm already back down to 205. The point is that my taste in foods has changed and I'm not even remotely worried about gaining after I lose all the weight.

Why not just follow Eat to Live if I lose so much weight on it instead of bothering with HCG? That's a great question. The answer is twofold. First, the HCG diet burns up abnormal fat, starting with the visceral fat (the fat that is dangerous and accumulates around the belly). Second, the HCG Diet is not so forgiving for weekend binging and I have not had the discipline to follow Eat to Live seven days a week, so I want that extra accountability. I actually have an app on my iPhone called iFitness which graphs my weight as I put it in each day. You can see during HCG it's a steady and steep graph with only one minor rise through the course of the diet, but since I ended HCG, it's erratic, but in the end, the same range. Plus Eat to Live is easy after HCG as a general way of eating and I'm looking to creating a lifestyle I can live with.

This weekend I start round 2 of HCG, so I'll be loading over the weekend. Then I will do my 40+ day round. I'm getting there!