Ohhh BUMMER! & Excitement

HCG Not Ordered :((

Reading through the blogs I saw that someone had a confirmation email that their HCG had been shipped... So I contacted DD.ca and ahhhhhh bummer - for some reason my HCG wasn't ordered with everyone else on the blog. Fellow HCG Challengers, if you haven't received your email you may want to check with DD.ca. They placed the order yesterday - so hopefully it will be on it's happy way soon. Glad I have some left from my prior attempt at this when I was not ready - but now I am - prepped - all my meat is now in the freezer. I have a plan of what I will be loading with and all I have to do is shop for fresh ingredients.

HCG Short Rounds

I was reading Joy's blog on doing short rounds and then researched it further on Yahoo groups. I'm going to have to ask some questions over there though as it's unclear whether someone should reload if not going through the entire P4. According the plan you will be able to cycle through quicker. And most people lose the most weight in the first few weeks.

Here's what I have gleaned and what I understand so far:

• Start out with the 23 day round explained in Simeon's Protocol (resetting the hypothalamus)
• Followed by a strict 7 days P3 you can go longer than this but not more than a month past when you did your 23 day round (don't go into P4)
• Start P2 over again and you can do as little as 14 days then into the P3 again

Does that all make sense? I will be asking whether it is necessary to reload if there is only a 7-day break from the HCG and no P4 in this method and let you all know...

EXCITEMENT

Ohhhhhhh we fly out tomorrow - I am so very excited I can hardly stand myself. My kids and I have been fighting the past couple days - they've been fighting with each other. Just trying to get everything washed and packed. Making sure I have all the stuff for the dogs to take them to my brother's house tonight - hoping the snow will not continue today and that ice will not develop. He lives about 1 1/2 hours away from me - so I get to take that drive tonight and try and finish up everything that I need to do to make sure we have everything we need for the next 10 days we have for vacation. It's so surreal jus to type that - I can't even explain. We haven't had a real vacation since 2003 before my mother's health really took a dive. Unfortunately, she was not able to do another vacation before her passing last year. So, my children’s godfather is blessing us with a vacation that we would not be able to afford otherwise. He is flying us to Pennsylvania. It will be my first time to the East Coast. I AM VERY EXCITED!!!

What We'll Be Doing on Vacation

Pennsylvania - we are going to see the Liberty Bell, Hershey Park, take a duck tour, eat the famous "Philly Cheese Steak"...

New York - we'll see a Broadway show, Central Park, Time Square, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

If time permits we may also shoot on over to DC or Boston...

Interesting Articles

I received this in my email yesterday and it does have some good information e.g. eating ripe fruit 30-45 minutes before you take any other food to allow it to digest followed by a full glass of water - the information may help in our weight loss journey.
http://www.formerfatguy.com/pdfs/How-I-Lost-300-Pounds-report.pdf

BIG FAT (PUN INTENDED =-P ) CAVEAT: DO NOT deviate from the HCG Protocol in any manner! I am however, going to incorporate the fruit idea and make sure that I eat it away from my lunch, dinner and Melba toast - well see if I experience better results from this as well. I'm also working on giving up coffee (HOW TRAGIC - I Know!) And definitely increasing my water 2-3 liters a day I think will be plenty - I am including herbal teas in this as well... I think there are some great tips and information in this pdf file - Happy Reading ;D

Emailed today....
How%20Long%20Before%20Different%20Refrigerated%20Foods%20Spoil.pdf

Trial & Error

So the body scrub left my skin soft but the scrub was not quite what I wanted it to be. And it left the tub slick as snot! EWWWWWWWWW... So, I am in search of some light mineral oil which I have seen in many products. I may just seek out some other ingredients to throw in there as well. Or I may just use the vegetable glycerin since it seems to be okay on the diet. It may be that the salt that I chose isn't coarse enough??? So, I'll be experimenting and keeping you all up-to-date.

I guess this goes back to the days when I was about 5 y/o and would make "berfume" (perfume) with my kindergarten best friend Roxanne. I now make my twins hair grease for their naturally curly hair - I started doing this when the twins were about 4 - they would have either an allergic reaction to the products on the market or they would dry out their hair so horrifically. Most of the products out there have alcohol in them which drys out the hair - go figure - the naturally curly hair needs the extra grease since the scalp oils cannot travel down the shaft of the hair. Okay another hair biology/chemistry lesson :D - I digress to my beauty school days HEHEHE!

With that said as soon as I get a "HCG Friendly" body scrub developed I will let you all know :)))

TaTa for now ~ T

Locked, Aimed and PREPARED for LOADING...

Foods I Will Load With

After my research today I went to the store and picked up - are you ready... I hope I don't make myself sick eating so much food :-/

• Olives
• Canned Red Salmon
• Coconut Milk w/OJ for mock pina coladas (I guess they'd be orange coladas :D)
• Heavy Cream

What I already had:

• Pot Roast make gravy from drippings
• Potatoes
• Walnuts

After vacation I'll get:

• Avocado's and eat with sour cream (full fat kind)
• Hummus (as it has olive oil & tahini) w/ pita bread (YUMMY)
• Maybe bannanas

ALMOST PREPPED

On the advise of some other HCG Challenger's I am pre-bagging all my meats. I'm mostly going to stick with Chicken and Beef with the occasional change with eggs & cottage cheese for variety. I have almost all my meat bagged and frozen for the 6 weeks - I thought I'd bought enough and had only enough for 20 days on the chicken and 19 on the beef. Tomorrow, I commence with more bagging and freezing so I will be ready and raring to go when I get back from vacation!!!

KEEPING CLEAN

Okay - nobody wants to smell during this process and I don't want to be dry and ashy either. So, I am going to make up some scrub ~ I'll let you know how this turns out too :D If it feels completely gross or not :-/

Body Salt Scrub

Mineral Oil (1 full container)
Kosher Salt (it's slightly coarse) Almost 3 lbs
1 quart jar

"No-Poo" - So Far - LOVE IT!!!

The baking soda paste worked!!! I tried it last night and my-oh-my. I utilized the apple cider vinegar (ACV) rinse too. My hair has not looked this good in years. It is bright and shiny and doesn't look frizzy at all. One note - from what I have read - if you have naturally curly hair as my children do you will want to moisturize with coconut oil (CO) first then do the baking soda. Also, from my reading and research people that do this only need to "wash" their hair once as week or less once their body gets used to the concept of normalizing its own pH and oils. I did experience a bit of the itchiness this morning but the rest of the day I was fine.

Deoderant I Use

I love this deoderant - the fragerance is very light and it staves off the odor. I've used it for years. It does not have any aluminum which is a huge plus. I had Cindy take a look at the ingrediants and it's okay to use throughout the phases. Also, it lasts for about 6 - 8 months...

http://realpurity.com/cart/product_info.php?cPath=25&products_id=28&osCsid=8664ebc53f4339b34965c887817288cc

Loading Suggestions?

After I posted the request below for ideas on loading FATS... Low-n-behold... I found a document on one of the Yahoo groups for loading healthy - check it out... Load%20Healthy.pdf

Also found a Phase 2 shopping list on a couple of the yahoo lists
phase%202%20shopping%20list.pdf

AND a Phase 2 Quick Reference Sheet
PHASE%202%20-%20HCG%20Basic%20Protocol%20Quick%20Reference%20Chart.pdf

Does anyone have any suggestions for loading FAT? I do not eat bacon or shellfish so these are out for me. I saw on one of the blogs that someone used heavy cream which I will incorporate. I was also thinking pot roast with mashed potatoes and gravy made from the fat of the pot roast. Also canned salmon. Does anyone else have suggestions for when I start in April? I want to make sure that I do this right!!!

Alternatives to Shampoo and Conditioner

Okay - this sounds a bit crazy but I am on a pretty strict budget and I am going to try it when I start the protocol since I cannot afford to buy everything under the sun but want to make sure I am compliant about the NO OILS on the skin. Go check out this article about using baking soda as a shampoo alternative and I already knew about the apple cider vinegar as a hair rinse which if followed by as cold of a rinse as you can stand will close down your hair cuticle. http://naturaldsm.wordpress.com/2006/12/20/25/

NEW HCG Forum

Just wanted to let everyone know that I've setup a topical forum - it's in the preliminary stages without a lot of information but - would love for the veterans to post some information and get this thing started :D

http://s3.excoboard.com/exco/index.php?boardid=8003

Blessings,

Toni

My Bio, Stats & Why I Chose HCG...

"If you have your health, you have everything." It's so true!!!


Who Am I?

Hi - I'm Toni, a 38 y/o single mother of 13 y/o twins. I've lived in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, USA most of my life and I currently work full time as a business analyst. I am an aspiring artist and my favorite media is clay. I am a Messianic Christian and my faith is an integral part of who I am.




What Happened?

When I was 28, my thyroid decided :P~~~ I'm done - you've stressed me out too much and I quit! Before I knew it, I'd gained 80 lbs in 6 months and my doctor at the time said I was depressed and put me on anti-depressants. HECK YEAH, I was depressed - I just gained a bunch of weight for no apparent reason!!! (DUH Moment!!!) Finally, I got the doctor to test my thyroid and whoa - low and behold it was just outside what is considered "normal" 6+ something. The normal range is between 0.5 - 5.5 (the range is lower now). I was diagnosed at that point with hypothyroidism and told I'd be on medication the rest of my life for this disease. So, as you can imagine, I was feeling pretty crummy, cold all the time, gaining weight, couldn't get any energy to save my life and a multitude of other symptoms. It took two years and another 20+ lbs before I found a doctor willing to work with me and get my thyroid stable. It took another 2 years to find the right dosage.

One day I found myself at 298.6 lbs - AHHHHHHHHHHH, what happened? I constantly blamed my thyroid for my weight problem. Well, come on people, yeah some of it was the thyroid, but a big portion of it had a little something to do with emotional eating. DUH!!! But the thyroid story was a good cover - don't you think? The only person I was fooling was myself.

Finally, my wake up call (I've had many) - when I had almost tipped the scales to 300 lbs I had to do something! Thus, I started on a weight loss journey in 2004 with WW. Over three years I lost 50 lbs - talk about slow!!! Summer 2007, I tried another program and lost another 35 lbs - great it was much faster. Unfortunately, 1/2 of that was in muscle and I've since gained back 20 of those pounds. I'm sure it has come back on as FAT! What I hate about all these other programs is it's always a struggle to keep the weight off...

I was in search of something that would reduce my fat quickly - NOT MY MUSCLE. A program that was reasonably quick but that after I'd lost all the weight I could KEEP IT OFF!!! I began to wonder if that was too much to ask for until...

How I Found HCG & Dr. S.

I was blessed to have a friend at church tell me about HCG. Initially - I thought he was CRAZY!!! Thinking to myself "You do what? Give yourself shots? You've got to be kidding me!!! ARE YOU NUTS?!?!?!" Although, I don't really have a fear of needles per se - I still thought it was absurd! He told me even though he didn't have a lot to lose it came off at the rate of 1 lb a day. I rolled my eyes and thought, "Yeah, Right!" Then, he told me about his sister - how she would exercise 2 hours a day, ate healthy, and she still could not get rid of the weight around her hips, thighs and bottom (Okay, ladies I know many of you can relate to this one!). But with HCG his sister's body was not only transformed it was able to rid itself of abnormal fat and redistribute the normal fat to the appropriate areas of her body. It sounded way to good to be true and I was quite skeptical! If this was something that really worked, why hadn't my doctor told me about it before? So, my friend encouraged me to research Dr. Simeon's Protocol.

What did I have to lose? Except get rid of this weight I've been lugging around with me for most of my life... So, I began researching, reading everything I could get my hands on I found Cindy Cook's eBook and Dr. Simeon's Protocol chock-full of information and met my needs to evaluate the program. Further, I started reading the blogs and yahoo sites (although to be quite honest the yahoo sites really annoy me - I like a little more organization than they can provide). Slowly, I came to realize this REALLY could be IT for me! HCG could REALLY be the CURE for my obesity. Although, we cannot in the states torte this as a "CURE or HEALING" miracle - everything I've read, individuals who follow the protocol to the "T" have "permanent" weight loss. I look forward to that in my life!!!

So, after all the research and reading all the success stories - I finally have hope. You mean, my hypothalamus could be damaged? You mean, my hypothalamus could be contributing to not only my weight but other hormones in my body being out of balance including my thyroid? Literally for the first time ever - I finally have hope for my health!!!

Why the HCG Challenge?

Quite frankly, because I am tired of being tired! Tired of everything that goes along with being FAT! I'm tired of the side glances of disapproval! I'm tired of the whispers behind my back! I'm tired of the "well meaning" people with all the weight loss advice!

I've struggled with my weight since I was about 9 y/o. On and off this or that diet - I've tried just about everything Mayo Clinic to WW - oh, who loved the cabbage soup diet - not my family ;-). I have never, ever considered gastric bypass as an option for myself. If it wasn't coming off through a natural method then I was resigned to the fact I'd have to struggle with my weight the rest of my life.

There have been positives from my journey - I wouldn't count it all as wasted time. I have gained some great tools. I continue to listen to "self-help" and "motivational" CD's to add to my personal arsenal in battling against self-defeating thoughts and behaviors. With my tool set I now have the ability to set goals, discover my emotional attachment to food and utilize them in my journey to a NEW healthy fat free self :)))) (Cindy also, talks about some of this in her eBook).

Then there was the blessing of the HCG Challenge posting on www.Drugdelivery.ca and I decided I would apply - I thought, "Why not give it a shot?" (HAHAHA, No pun intended) I was thrilled to find out that I'd been chosen as a candidate. I am really looking forward to blogging my results and keeping everyone up-to-date as to my progress.

Ultimately, Why Am I Doing This?
And Other Factors...

Let's just call a spade a spade - I'm obese...



Weight: 235.4 lbs
Height: 5' 6"
Frame: Small to Medium (Are you kidding??? I don't know! I haven't seen my hip bones in years HEHEHE)
Initial Goal: 156 lb (We will see as I journey through the HCG Challenge - maybe lower...)

NOTE: According to the infamous charts for my height of 5' 6" I should weigh between 130 - 140 lbs; I haven't weighed that since I was a 6th grader and am not sure that is a realistic goal for my age or not - plus from carrying around the fat for so many years I have some pretty decent leg.

Laundry List of Reasons

Health

• I lost my mother last year to weight & diabetic related health complications.
  
• I was recently diagnosed as pre-diabetic.
  
• I'm hypothyroid & struggled with weight most of my life.
  
• My children will not have to care for me.
  
• Realization obesity is a "curable" disease that I don't have to live with for the rest of my life.
  
• Serious BONUSES
• Possibility of being off my thyroid medication.
• AVOIDING diabetes or developing other obesity related diseases.

Family

• I have two beautiful children to live for and they want their mother around.
  
• Health and energy to play with and do things with my kids, even now that they have entered their teen years they still want to do stuff and spend time together (I'm so blessed!) :D

I'll be honest here - IT'S ABOUT ME...

• I am ready... (HELLO, I'm taking this very public - I'd better be ready!!! RIGHT? LOL)
  
• Have my health for me!
  
• Get to a healthy weight that I can actually maintain for the rest of my life!
  
• I deserve it!!!
  
• I want to LOOK GOOD TOO!!!
  
• Finally look in the mirror and have the answers to my prayers - "Oh Lord,..."
  
• "Why can't I lose weight?"
  Your hypothalamus has been damage and your body has stored abnormal fat.
  
• "What's wrong with me?"
  Absolutely nothing - your hypothalamus has been damaged.
  
• "Why don't I have self-control?"
  Evaluate your relationship with food and your hypothalamus has been damaged.
  
• "Why don't I have will power?"
  Has nothing to do with will power - your hypothalamus has been damaged.
  
• "Why do I crave junk food?"
  Your hypothalamus has been damaged.
  
• "Why can't I keep the weight off?"
  Oh, and your hypothalamus has been damaged!!!

So, I can LIVE the rest of my life with health and vitality; be able to move with style, ease and grace.