Month: June 2010

This morning, my weight was 146.4#, down 0.4# from yesterday. Apparently, my apple day losses have held.

I got an email from Dr. Sears about artificial sweeteners: Here’s part of it:

“When your drink contains aspartame, sucralose, or any other artificial sweetener, you over-stimulate your sweetness receptors. It changes the way you think about the way things should taste.

“You crave high-intensity sweetness. And naturally sweet foods like fruit don’t taste as good to you. Vegetables lose their appeal, because they’re not sweet.

“Your gut has sweetness receptors, too. It’s all ready to absorb nutrients, so you get a surge in hormones, like insulin. But when the calories don’t arrive, your body tells your brain to go out and get them.

“Your appetite increases, and you get cravings that cause you to overeat. What’s worse, you turn to high-carbohydrate foods and sweets to make up the calorie void.

“But now, the insulin you’ve poured into your blood tells your body to turn whatever you do eat into fat.

“I read one study of almost 2,600 people. Those who drank diet sodas had a 47 percent higher body mass index (BMI) than those who didn’t, and their risk of obesity was doubled.”

He goes on to recommend fruity solutions as well as honey and raw, whole sugar.

All of that stuff about how the sweetness affects us has me wondering if maybe stevia isn’t such a good idea, either.

This morning, my weight was 146.8#, down 1.8# since yesterday and for the week.

So yesterday was an apple day. It wasn’t too bad. The most difficult thing was not drinking fluids. I did think about food a lot. I found a nice recipe for stevia cheesecake with only 2.0 net carbs per serving. I’m looking forward to making that for P3. Stevia sweetened clouds are on my list of things to try, too. I got The Stevia Cookbook in the mail yesterday. A lot of the recipes have flour in them, though, so they really aren’t good for P3.

Today’s weight was 148.6#, up 0.2# from yesterday. This is exactly where I was on Tuesday last week. I have decided that enough is enough. I am doing an apple day.

This morning, my weight was 148.4#, down 0.2# from yesterday. Apparently, I am still experiencing a “Menstrual Interruption,” as Dr. Simeons called it. I considered doing an apple day today, but Dr. Simeons did not say anything about doing apple days to break a plateau resulting from TOM. He did say, “The fourth type of interruption is the one which often occurs a few days before and during the menstrual period and in some women at the time of ovulation.” I guess I’ll just wait it out.

I finished up my second batch of sublingual hCG. I made up my last batch this morning. I have decided to continue hCG until I run out, which should be an extra three days, since each batch lasts 15 days.

This morning, my weight was 148.6#, unchanged from yesterday. I took a look at yesterday’s stats and discovered that in spite of the stall, I had lost 2.8# for the week. So even with the stall, I am doing a lot better than I have on any other plan. Even though I have been hanging out at the same weight or higher since Tuesday, I am not going to do an apple day just yet. I still think TOM has something to do with the stall, and that should resolve itself any day now.

I am debating now whether to stop taking the hCG at 40 days or continue until I run out, which would be another three to five days. I’ll see what happens when the stall breaks. If I’m making good progress again at 40 days, I’ll extend the round.

The HCG Support Group team had been wondering what really happens to fat when we diet. Dr. Simeons seemed to thing that the body reabsorbed the cells. Current scientists believe that we can add fat cells when a person grows fatter, but other research seemed to think that the body retains about the same number of fat cells when a person loses weight. They just hold less fat. The truth may be somewhere in between. While I was checking out articles on the Internet, I found this one: “White Tea May Promote Weight Loss, Reduces Fat Cells.” I decided I might as well include white tea in my regimen. I bought a box of 20 bags at Lindberg Nutrition, and then I went online and bought some loose white tea at SpecialTeas that I can use in my Bodum teapot.

This morning, my weight was 148.6#, down 0.4# from yesterday and back to where I was on Tuesday. TOM is well underway now, so I am expecting some corrections very soon.

Hubby gets back from Europe today. He had invited me to go with him, but I turned it down because I felt it was important to deal with my weight issues as soon as possible. Before I started the hCG diet, I was gaining weight rather rapidly. If I had gone to Europe, I would have needed larger clothes, which I didn’t have. So, was it worth it? It helps that I have been to the destinations before, so it wasn’t like I missed the trip of a lifetime. When Hubby left on June 14, I weighed 152.0#. At 148.6# currently, I am down 3.4#. That does not seem like much; but also in that time, I have lost 1¼” from my rib cage and 1½” from my waist. That was enough to get me down from size 10 pants to size 8. I’m happy with that.

This morning, my weight was 149.0#, the same as yesterday. I decided to take a set of measurements to see where I was that way. (My last set had been on June 18.) I lost an inch each from my rib cage (below breasts) and my waist, so I’m happy about that. Two of my ratios have moved from red to yellow in my spreadsheet. (See Calculating Ideal Body Weight.)

The munchies weren’t quite so bad yesterday. I suppose that is because I was saying, “No!” to all of them. Instead, I’m converting those cravings into plans of what to eat when I’m done with the very low calorie diet phase (VLCD). I am thinking a lot about Phase 3, the low-carb phase. I am checking out restaurant coupons and thinking about where I might want to go. I am also starting to get restaurant shop offers (more about that at Mystery Shopping Information) for after I go low-carb.

Today, my weight was 149.0#, up 0.4# from yesterday. I think the gain is a TOM issue. I’m a bit swollen.

I had another sign that TOM was approaching: cravings. I kept wanting to eat things that were not on protocol. I was not truly hungry, but I was definitely feeling the desire to eat. I just kept telling myself that I want this diet to work. I gave up a trip to Europe so that I could do this diet now. I want to stay on protocol until I get to the end of my supply of hCG so that I can get the most from my efforts.

My weight was 148.6# this morning, down 0.2# since yesterday. My ring is a bit tight today, so I may be retaining fluids. TOM will be arriving in a couple of days, so that might be why. I changed my ticker today, which I do on Tuesdays. I’m down 4.2# for the week.

The tarragon plant isn’t doing so well. My guess is that it did not like the refrigerator. So far, the thyme seems to be doing fine, though. Of the plants in the garden, parsley is harvestable. I suppose I could also take some beet greens as well.

This morning, I weighed 148.8#, down 0.6# from yesterday. I have now lost a net total of 15.0# in 24 days.

I really enjoyed yesterday’s meals, as usual. The chicken dish was a crumb-topped casserole type dish. Yum!

The fish dish had some rather sophisticated seasonings. Some other recipe I’ll be making this week called for fresh thyme, so that is what I used when the fish recipe called for thyme. I had purchased thyme and tarragon from North Shore Living Herbs. I did not fully realize what that meant until I opened the package. What I had purchased was actually a living plant, complete with root ball. I decided to take the sprig I needed and put the plants in my garden. I had a couple of open spaces in it anyway. The fish recipe also called for caper juice. Here, I cheated just a bit. I figured that if I was going to put the juice from the jar into the dish, I might as well put some capers in it, too. They were worth only a couple of calories, though.

I made more of the Baked Celery than I could eat in a meal. I decided to bump one of the other vegetable dishes for the next day and have the leftovers. Even so, there will still be a new dish for that meal. The only meal I have had so far that has not included a new dish was the anniversary party dinner, and I did not have a whole lot of control over that one since I did not prepare it.

As for cleaning, the spice carousel and containers are fully dry now as well, so I can get them reassembled and put away. I finished the first pass with the papers in the dining room. The bag was so heavy when I gathered it all up that I decided to weigh it. It was 24#! It was nice to get rid of all that. Today, I want to finish dealing with what is left of the papers and get them filed or shredded.