Drink PLENTY of Water!

The rule of thumb for water is typically 1/2 your weight in ounces daily. So, if you weigh 200 pounds, you should drink 100 ounces of water per day. Water is important for our everyday functions. It helps flush away toxins and move our digestive system along.

In Dr. Simeon’s manuscript, he believed that it is important to drink at least 2 liters of “fluids” per day. He included coffee and tea in the fluid count. However, I do not do this. I believe that you should not count your coffee and tea as your fluid intake, or you may never drink plain water! I drink a gallon of water per day, and it has really helped my digestive system to function properly.

If you don’t like water, then add a little bit of lemon juice to it. I used to fill up one liter bottles and refill them when they were empty. The problem was that I would forget how many times I filled them up. Now, I fill up a one gallon jug with water and pour it into a large cup throughout the day. I know exactly how much that I have drank for the day. If I have coffee, tea, or a diet soda, I do not include those amounts of fluids with my water. I ALWAYS drink my one gallon of water ON TOP OF my coffee, tea, or diet soda.

If you are worried about being up all night and running to the bathroom, be sure to drink all of your water by no later than 3-4 hours before you go to bed. My rule thumb is to be finished by 8pm if I am up until midnight. This way, I can get a good night’s sleep (which is diet tip #3)!

Tags : Dr. Simeons, HCG Diet Tips, pounds and inches, water

Being a mom keeps me busy. Between working at home and looking after 4 kids, it’s hard to find time to cook and prepare meals for myself. One of the easy shortcuts that I take is preparing my meats. I purchase packages of raw meat and divide them up into 100 gram portions.

Preparing 100 Gram Portion of Chicken Breasts

Large Package of Raw Chicken Breast

Here is a large package of raw chicken breast that I purchased from the store. I will cut up the chicken breast and divide them into 100 gram portions.

100 Gram Portions of Raw Chicken Breast

Next, I lay out the 100 gram portions of chicken breast onto paper plates and prepare the grill for cooking.

100 Grams of Grilled Chicken Breast Divided Into Snack Size Baggies

Once I have cooked my chicken breast, I place each portion of grilled chicken into snack size baggies and toss them into the freezer. When I want to eat chicken for a meal, I pop it into the microwave for 1 minute. These baggies are portable and perfect for people on the go! My kids love them, too. They use the chicken on salads.

Preparing 100 Gram Portions of Beef

I don’t mind re-heating frozen grilled chicken, but I like my beef cooked fresh on my George Foreman grill.

Package of Raw Sirloin Tip Steak

Here is a package of sirloin tip steak that I purchased. I divided up the steak into 100 gram portions.

Raw Sirloin Tip Steak Divided into 100 Gram Portions in Snack Size Bags

After I have divided up the steak into the proper portions, I place each 100 gram portion into a snack size bag. I squeeze out the excess air and place them into the freezer. When I am ready to have a steak, I place the baggie into the microwave on the defrost setting for .3 pound. It is then ready for my George Foreman grill. It only takes 2 minutes to defrost in the microwave and approximately 2 minutes to cook on the George Foreman grill (well, at least to cook on medium).

This methods apply to any type of beef that you are allowed. I prepare my 96% lean hamburger meat this way as well.

Tags : beef, chicken breast, food scale, HCG Diet Tips, phase 2, photos, steak, VLCD

Get PLENTY of sleep!

This is such an important part of your health. You just don’t realize how important sleep can be to the inner workings of your body. Researchers now believe that sleep can affect your hormone activity level that is tied to your appetite. Sleep and the disruption of sleep can do things to the body and influence your weight.

When you don’t get enough sleep, your body can make you feel hungry even if you are full. This is caused by fluctuations in your cortisol levels which regulates the appetite.

Lack of sleep can also increase the storage of fat in your body. This is due to the interference of carbohydrate metabolism that causes high blood sugar levels.

Since starting the HCG Diet, in my personal experience, I have lost more weight on the days that I have slept for 8-9 hours as opposed to 6-7 hours. I can’t imagine how I would do if I had less than 6 hours of sleep at night.

I always believe in doing plenty of research, so here are some articles for further reading on the subject:

How Sleep Affects Your Weight

Can’t Lose Weight? Get Some Sleep

Tags : HCG Diet Tips, sleep, weight loss

Weigh Yourself at the Same Time Every Day and Only One Time Per Day!

The scale can make us absolutely nuts! We can step on it a million times per day. What is that going to accomplish? Absolutely nothing! Our weight naturaly fluctuates throughout the day because we drink and eat… we eliminate and we don’t eliminate… There are a lot of variables.

Consistency is the key! My routine is as follows: I wake up in the morning, go to the bathroom, take my HHCG drops,  and weigh myself in my underwear.

If you weigh yourself in the morning and find that you have gained 4 pounds that night, more than likely it’s just food and water that you haven’t eliminated yet. I have weighed 3 or 4 pounds more at night. Sometimes, people will say they dropped weight in the afternoon and gained it the next morning. These are normal fluctuations! Don’t weigh yourself constantly. You are obsessing way too much over the scale! One time daily each morning is enough.

If you work the night shift, then you will have to figure out a routine that works for you. I used to work the night shift years ago. I would go to work at 5 pm and come home around 6 am at times. I would go to bed and wake up around 2-3pm. This is the time that I would choose to weigh myself… after you have at least 6-8 hours of sleep.

Tags : HCG Diet Tips, phase 2, VLCD, weight scale

Weigh Everything!

I have always weighed my proteins, but I didn’t realize until 2 weeks into this diet that I was overeating some of my vegetables and fruits. I was picking out small apples and orange to eat. However, they were a lot heavier than I had anticipated. The other big calorie foods for me were onions and tomatoes.

When I started weighing my foods, I found that I could really only eat 1/2 of a tomato or onion for one meal. Most of the time, this would apply to my oranges and apples as well.

By weighing all of my fruits and veggies, I am able to have all 4 foods and stay within 500 calories per day: protein, veggie, fruit, and breadstick.

Tags : apple, breadstick, food scale, HCG Diet Tips, onion, oranges, phase 2, tomato, VLCD

Here is the chart that I am using to help calculate my calories for Phase 2 foods. I have obtained my calorie information through http://www.livestrong.com/thedailyplate/ .

The Sesame Breadstick and the fat free croutons are not on the original protocol, but I thought I would include them here anyway. The small sesame breadstick is the closest thing that I can find to a grissini, and found it at Wal-Mart in the cracker section; however, the other Wal-Mart did not have them. The croutons have sugar as a listed ingredient, but if you look at the nutritional label, the amount of sugar per serving is listed as “0″.

I have made an Excel Spreadsheet for anyone who wants to download and print it out for easy referenced. You can find it under the Blogroll links to the right, or click here to download a copy of the HCG Food Calorie Count Chart .

Tags : calorie chart, calories, Dr. Simeons, HCG Diet Tips, phase 2, pounds and inches, VLCD

Okay, so I have finished 21 days of the VLCD (very low calorie diet). If you add in the 2 loading days, I’m officially at a point (23 days) where I can either stop my drops and go into phase 2 or keep going. Well… I think I will keep going! I haven’t hit any real plateaus yet, and even if I did, they may only last a few days. I will still drop inches anyway.

I have learned several things so far that I hope everyone else takes into consideration.

#1- Weigh everything! I have always weighed my meat, but I did not do that for my fruit and veggies. One half a small apple might be all that I can eat for a meal once the calories have been figured in. This might be a reason for your plateau or gain!

#2- Weigh yourself at the same time every day and only once daily! I never had a problem with this. My routine is always the same. I weigh myself in the morning. Our weights fluctuate throughout the day, so it isn’t reliable to be stepping on the scale several times per day.

#3- Drink PLENTY of water! I started out drinking 3 liters of water, which was approximately 1/2 my body weight in ounces. However, I have changed that to one gallon of water per day. I drink my water early enough that I am not in the bathroom during the night. I try to get my last bit of water in around dinner time. My personal opinion is that you really shouldn’t count your coffee or tea as part of your water. I don’t do that. I drink my coffee in the mornings, and when I’m finished drinking coffee, I will move on to my water. I fill up a one gallon jug of water and pour it into a cup throughout the day. It’s premeasured, so I know exactly how much water I have left to drink. My goal is to finish the last cup right after my dinner. This is working really well for me, and I do not get up in the middle of the night at all. Sometimes, I will have an occasional tea at night, and I have had regular diet tea as well. Once again, I do not count the tea as part of my water. You are talking to a water hater! I do not care to drink water. I never have liked it, but I have consistently drank water from the first day that I started this diet.

#4- If you hate drinking water like I do, then add some lemon juice. This is my little trick. I started out adding about 1/2 cup of lemon juice and splenda to a gallon of water to make it taste like a week lemonade. Over the coarse of a few days, I slowly lowered my lemon juice and eliminated my splenda. You get used to it after a while. Our tastebuds change on this diet. Stick it out! (Off protocol- I have added lime juice to my water. I love limeade, but this isn’t on protocol. You can have the juice of 1/2 a lemon every day, but it doesn’t say anything about lime juice. Your mileage may vary (YMMV) so if it makes you gain weight or stall, then DON’T USE IT.)

#5- I have learned that my body does okay mixing certain types of veggies. In the original protocol, you are not supposed to mix anything. You have one meat, one veggie, one fruit, and your grissini or melba. I try to be a little creative, so at times I will mix a little bit of veggies together. I have never mixed my fruit, though. Once again, this is a YMMV sort of thing. If it makes you gain weight or stall, then DON’T DO IT.

#6- I have learned to read a lot. I’m constantly reading the HCG DIET and HCGDIETERS groups on Yahoo. I always watch YouTube videos of other dieters that have conquered this diet. You can find some great recipes on the groups and YouTube as well.

#7- If you can make it 21 days on VLCD, then your thinking about this diet will completely change. In the beginning, it is a struggle. Your stomach feels empty. You might have headaches, constipation, diarrhea, etc… If you stick it out, it DOES GET BETTER. Your body is going through some massive changes and probably some major detox from all of the junk that has been put in your mouth over the years. You WILL get past it!

#8- I have learned that the HHCG (Homeopathic HCG) works for me! When I first purchased the HHCG, I did not realize that as a homeopathic, it doesn’t have any HCG in it. Homeopathics are made by diluting the original substance so many times, but I believe the essence of the product is still left. I really don’t understand it all, but I think that it tricks your body into thinking that you are getting the real thing. It’s much cheaper for me, and I don’t have to mess with buying products from overseas (real HCG is a prescription product, so unless you get it prescribed by a doctor, you will have to purchase it from an overseas pharmacy). There is a man online that set out to prove that the HHCG did not work. He was blogging about it and told everyone that it couldn’t possibly work… you must be losing your muscle and good fat. He went on the HHCG for the intentions of proving everybody wrong. What he found was that he actually lost 27 pounds in 39 days. He used fat calipers and all. Now, he sells his own version of the product in a spray. I have no idea how well it works because I have never used it. My point is that HHCG does work! Now, I have heard that there may be a small group of people that have problems with the HHCG. I don’t know what the percentage is, but I can only suggest that you try it out for yourself.

#9- I have learned the vitamin supplements are a good thing! I take sublingual B-12 every day for my energy. I will also take potassium and magnesium pills on an as needed basis. Every now and then, I get some muscle twitching. I have had this problem before the diet, too. You can take a 99mg potassium pill 3-5 x daily. Magnesium pills are a little trickier. If you feel constipation, you can try magnesium. You will start off your dosage taking the normal amount. Double this amount every day until your stools are loose. Then, back off slightly, and that should be your correct dosage. Another option for constipation is either Smooth Move Tea or a Dieter’s Tea in the evening. It contains senna, which is supposed to help everything move along. I have done this a few times, and it does work. Start off mixing your tea at a weaker strength and gradually build up. I only used my tea two nights in a row, and then I was fine after that. If you are having some intense cravings that you cannot fight, then you can try some L-Glutamine (500mg up to 3 x daily). You can even break open a capsule and pour the powder under your tongue. I have not tried this yet.

#10- Get plenty of sleep! Our bodies work hard at night. One thing that I have noticed is that it seems like I have better losses if I get 9 hours of sleep compared to 7 hours of sleep! Get lots of rest, so your body can do all of the hard work!

Tags : food scale, HCG Diet Tips, HHCG, lemon juice, loading days, off protocol, phase 2, plateau, pounds and inches, sleep, vitamins, VLCD, water, weight scale

The HCG Diet is a protocol created by Dr. A.T.W. Simeons, M.D. in 1971. His manuscript is titled, ” Pounds and Inches: A New Approach to Obesity “. You can download a copy of it here . The HCG Diet has once again been made popular by Kevin Trudeau’s book, The Weight Loss Cure. I have not yet read his book, but the original “Pounds and Inches” is the diet that he talks about. However, I have heard that Kevin Trudeau adds detox phases and other things that the original protocol did not do. For now, I will stick with the original diet because I have read a lot of testimonies, and I am convinced that this is the way to go. This diet, in combination with HCG, is supposed to help reset the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus links the nervous system to the endocrine system via the pituitary gland. It is responsible for certain metabolic processes.

For easy reference, probably due to Kevin’s Trudeau’s book, a number of people have divided up Dr. Simeon’s protocol into phases of this diet. Here is how it works:

Rounds: Each round is made up of phases.

Phase 1: In Kevin Trudeau’s book, this refers to the detox phase. We will be skipping this one.

Phase 2: This is the weight loss phase of the diet. It consists of 2-3 loading days, referred to as LD1,LD2, and LD3. The loading days are the days in which you have officially started on your HCG, whether it be injections, sublingual, or homeopathic hcg. You will load up on fatty foods to fill up your fat reserves. A few people have lost weight during this time, but don’t necessarily plan on it. A 4-8 pound weight gain is quite normal. Dr. Simeon’s talks about the loads in his manuscript. It is important that you read the manuscript for yourself. I have read it several times, and each time I read it, something else pops out at me.

VLCD : After you have completed your loading days, you will now move on to the weight loss part of the diet. You are still considered to be in Phase 2, but now you are on your Very Low Calorie Days (500 calorie diet), referred to as VLCD. You can find the VLCD here, or read Dr. Simeon’s manuscript. You will continue phase 2 for a minimum of 23 days (loading days count). In Dr. Simeon’s book, he stopped people at 40 days because he was worried about a loss of immunity with the injections. If you go to the HCG DIET or HCG DIETER’s Yahoo Groups, you will find many people who have past 40 days worth of HCG. Again, I am doing the Homeopathic HCG, so I’m not worried about immunity. We’ll talk more about homeopathic HCG a little later.

LIW or LDW: Once you have completed at least 23 days and are ready to start the maintanence phase, you will need to take an important step to end the HCG and move on to phase 3. On the last day that you take your HCG, weigh yourself. This weight will be your LIW or LDW. For those of you taking injections, LIW refers to “last injection weight”. For anyone else taking sublingual or homeopathic drops, LDW refers to “last dosage weight”. This is the weight that you will be maintaining until you start another round (if you have more weight to lose). For 3 days after you have quit taking the HCG, you will need to continue with the VLCD (very low calorie day). This is required until the HCG is completely out of your system. Once you have eaten your 3 VLCD without the HCG, then you can move on to Phase 3.

Phase 3: Once you have completed at least 23 days on phase 2, you can move on to phase 3, which is the phase in which you are maintaining your weight. All foods allowed except starch or sugar, being careful of certain fruits. You should continue eating this way for 3 weeks. After 3 weeks, you can very gradually add starch in small quantities, always staying in control by weighing yourself each morning. In Dr. Simeon’s book, he recommends that you stay in this phase for a minimum of 6 weeks before starting a 2nd round of weight loss.

“When a third, fourth, or even fifth course is necessary, the interval between courses should be made progressively longer.” For example, you will need to wait 6 weeks between round 1 and 2, 8 weeks between round 2 and 3, 12 weeks between round 3 and 4, and 20 weeks between round 4th and 5th rounds. And lastly, you will need to wait 6 months between rounds 5 and 6. Of course, all of this depends on how much weight you need to lose. I believe this is important to helping you maintain a healthy weight for the rest of your life. This diet is all about resetting the hypothalamus and regulating your body weight.

Phase 4: The Maintenance Phase. You will only be doing this phase of the diet when you have reached your goal weight. Otherwise, you will continue with phase 3 and start a new round with phase 2 again.

Apple Days (Phase 2): If you have been stuck in a plateau for 4-5 days, you can choose to do an apple day. However, Dr. Simeon’s has explained that this is purely for psychological reasons. During an apple day, no other foods or drinks are allowed except for 6 large apples. An apple day begins at lunch and ends just before lunch the next day. You are to eat an apple whenever you feel hungry. You should only drink water when you are feeling thirsty.

Steak Days (Phase 3 and beyond): As long as you are maintaining your weight within 2 pounds of your LIW or LDW, you should not worry about the scale. However, when you have gone beyond a 2 pound weight gain, even if it’s only by a few ounces, then you should do a steak day. On the SAME DAY that you are up in weight over 2 pounds, you will need to skip breakfast and lunch, but continue to drink plenty of fluids. For dinner, you can eat a HUGE steak with either one apple or a raw tomato.

Tags : apple, apple cider vinegar, asparagus, beef, breadstick, cabbage, cherry tomatoes, chicken breast, chuck steak, coffee, cottage cheese, cucumber, Dr. Simeons, eggs, exercise, eye of round, food scale, green leaf lettuce, ground beef, HCG Diet Tips, HHCG, iceberg lettuce, lemon juice, loading days, melba toast, off protocol, onion, oranges, phase 2, plateau, pounds and inches, ribeye steak, romaine lettuce, salad, sleep, splenda, steak, strawberries, tomato, VLCD, water, weight gain, weight loss, weight scale