As I sit here typing this, I'm slowly winding down my first day on the VLCD diet of 500 calories. It's been an enlightening day, lemme tell ya.
I guess when I started researching this, I really was picturing those gourmet plates at the five star restaurants that are, like, $45 a pop, with five little crackers, some pate, and a pretty little green onion for garnish. In today's world, serving sizes are completely obscure, and it's easy to think you're eating a single serving, when you're really devouring a whole week's worth. I'd gotten so used to eating a full plate, and thinking it was normal and okay, that the idea of a meal under 250 calories was beyond my comprehension.
I wish I'd taken a picture of my lunch yesterday when I made it, but it hadn't occurred to me that I'd want to photo document this whole shindig. After shopping yesterday for all my personal care products, and the food I'd need for dinner, I was pretty fed up with the expenses I'd already shelled out to date. $200+ for the product and kit, another $80 for the scales, tape measure, and binder, and then another $80 for the personal care products and food. I was frustrated, until I started weighing out my food.
The two main staples of the VLCD are chicken breast and lean ground beef. I bought two pounds of ground beef, and two packages of Foster Farms chicken breast, four pieces to a pack. The allowed portioning for the protein is 100 grams. A single chicken breast is just shy of 200 grams!! In the two packs of chicken breast I purchased, I now have enough chicken for sixteen meals! And the ground beef - one pound equals out to just shy of 600 grams. That's almost six meals. So now I've got twelve meals' worth of beef, and sixteen meals' worth of chicken. All for about twenty bucks. Now that I know, I kinda feel like I should smack myself ^_^
I made my lunch yesterday, and was beyond surprised when I cut up my asparagus. The portion sizing for the stalks is two cups, raw. I pulled out two stalks figuring that'd be at least half a cup. Nope. Needed fifteen stalks, I think was the final count. I ended up boiling the the asparagus in water, then draining the water, added the chicken, some oregano, and sauteed the mix in a little bit of water until the chicken was cooked all the way through. Between the 100 grams of chicken, the two cups of asparagus, an apple, and two pieces of melba, I was beyond full at lunch time. Took me almost an hour and a half to get through the entire meal, and even then I didn't finish the whole apple. It was a giddy feeling that I absolutely loved!
Tonight was the real challenge though. I had to make dinner for myself and BF, and seeing as how I wasn't prepared for the calorie counting, dinner was on a pretty limited ingredient list.
Basically, you have to make sure that between the two meals you spread out 500 calories. It's not as simple as eating the same thing for lunch and dinner. You have to make sure that what you eat doesn't go over the 500, which I wasn't prepared for. Dinner for me ended up being 100g of lean ground beef seasoned with cumin, a pinch of curry, and garlic powder, over two cups of raw lettuce, five wedges of grapefruit, and a single melba round. It didn't look like much, but it's definitely a decent amount of food.
BF's dinner was a bit harder. I ended up doubling the ground beef, added a whole egg, 1/2 cup red onion, parm cheese, worchestershire sauce, and tapatio. He ate his 'burgers' in two hollowed out steak rolls, with shredded cheese, ketschup, mustard, and some pickles on the side. After he was done making his plate, it was as big as our normal dinner sizes. I felt immensely better knowing that he would have plenty to eat and I'd still be able to make my dinners without conflict. The hardest part for me? Resisting the snacking. I'm so used to eating on the stray piece of veggie, or tasting the meat after it's been cooked. A piece of BF's burger fell back in the pan and before I realized what I was doing, I'd snagged it. I have a feeling most of this will be all habit, and the rest will be easier.
BF liked his dinner for the most part. He said it was a little weird, but I saw that coming, what with the no oils or fats or anything remotely close to unhealthy being in the meat itself. He was full, and I'm still snacking on my grapefruit, so all told, it's been a very successful dinner. I even made my lunch for tomorrow so I'm good to go. And after working out the portion sizes, I'm realizing I'll be saving waaaay more money than I spent to get this all started. Again, with the smacking.
I think the most eye opening aspect of today was the expectation, and the failure to meet it. I'd gone into this expecting this to be hard, and feel like I was in severe starvation mode all day, every day for the next month. Instead, I'm fighting my normal hunger pangs, with no intense spikes, and I'm completely satisfied after each meal. I doubt, in a week, if I'll feel the same way about being satisfied, but the hunger's just not there. I am feeling more and more confident that I'll be able to pull this off, seeing as how I'm already three days into the drops and I'm learning, and staying open, to the possibilities. I'm excited for what's to come, and I don't know that I've ever been able to say, or feel, that way about a diet or weight loss. Ever.
Showing posts with label getting started. Show all posts
Showing posts with label getting started. Show all posts
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
HCG and Me
Yes, I'm aware that's not very clever. But I'm totally okay with that. You know why? Because this blog isn't about a snappy blog title. It's about a month long journey that I'm about to embark on, and the ways that it will (hopefully) change my life. For the better, of course. ~_^ For those of you who have read my previous entries, what I'm about to put out there should come as no surprise.
After months and months of hovering on the HCG facebook pages, and reading about the stories, and listening to the real life testimonials, I've finally taken the plunge and bought the 26 day kit. My supplier, for anyone who stumbles across this blog, and wants to know, is www.myhcgplus.com. Why, you ask, have I chosen them as my supplier? The first answer is cost. They are by far, the cheapest out there for the product. It should be noted that there are two different products out there for purchase, at two different strengths. And MyHCGPlus, sells the higher strength product, for the same cost as the lower strength product at most other places. So yeah, no brainer.
The second reason behind MHP is the support. Their Facebook page is amazing. There's a large number of staff members that hover on the page all day, and make a concerted effort to answer every question possible. They aren't certified MDs, by any means, but they do their best to answer with smart, technical responses. More than the price or the product, the stories I hear on the FB page and the amazing support and encouragement that the FB family churns out has urged me to join the group. I am mostly excited to be a part of the growing family, and be able to provide support in turn for all the amazing support I'll undoubtedly receive.
But that's enough raving about MHP :) I should go over some of the technical stuff, yes, no?
HCG is a hormone that is naturally produced by pregnant women, to put it simply. Ever seen a woman, who starts out as clinically obese, lose weight instead of gain weight during her pregnancy? Makes no sense, right? There's a hormone that the female body begins churning out almost instantly once a woman becomes pregnant. It's sort of a life saving, essential to basic growth device that takes excess fat and energy and minerals from the mother's body, and feeds it to the developing fetus to ensure the fetus gets the vital nutrients for a healthy growth. Women who start out obese or overweight can experience weight loss due to the HCG hormone tackling their excess fat stores, and using it to supply the baby, all while not being overly hungry. It's a pretty amazing process, when you start thinking about it.
In women (and men) who are not pregnant, applying the HCG hormone in controlled dosages helps trigger this response. However, in lieu of feeding the baby all the nutrients, the body starts to consume it on it's own. With the hormone, a person could conceivably go through 2500 to 3000 calories a day, without digesting a single thing. Our bodies though need some outside source of nourishment to keep from going into starvation mode, so the diet prescribes a simple 500 calorie diet to supplement the massive amount of calories your body is already releasing.
To be honest, when I first heard about the 500 calorie limit, I freaked out. You hear all these PSAs about how you need a certain level of calories to survive, and you shouldn't starve or deprive yourself, and how it's not safe to eat at that low of a level for an extended period of time. But it all makes sense, when you look at it from a different point of view: you're supplementing your body's already extreme calorie intake, instead of limiting your body to an unhealthy serving size.
The basic program is 26 days. I'll get later, in a different blog, more into detail about how that works, and what the actual 26 days breaks out into, but for now let's just go with that schedule. Tomorrow, 2-8-11, will be day one for me. You can see why I'm starting this tonight. I'll need the motivation of blogging every day to keep me on track.
I've been preparing for this day for about two weeks. I've planned my social life - or lack there of - around the next 26 days, and I've gone out and purchased all the items I will need to survive the strict diet of the program. I should also mention here that it's not actually 26 days. The hormone is administered during those 26 days, but there's an additional six weeks of maintenance required to ensure proper stabilization and the long term affects of the diet. So it's really ten whole weeks for this thing, which is a daunting prospect.
....and now I'm rambling. The initial purpose behind this blog was to introduce the diet, go over my fears, and set the stage for the coming blogs. Clearly, I've side tracked. So let's see if I can get back on course.
Tonight I will be taking pictures *shudder* and measurements, and logging them into my new HCG journal I just finished building - pictures to come later. I wont be posting the before and after pictures, or my initial and final weight, as I'm still overly sensitive about those figures, but I'll be sharing overall weight and inches lost, so hopefully that will suffice. Tomorrow morning I'll do my first weigh in, and I'll be posting my gains/losses as they happen, daily. I'll also be hopefully posting food diaries and recipes as I stumble across them, along with any trials and hardships I come across. It's my hope, with this journal, to do what I was unable to find when I looked - provide a guide to the every day man or woman who's looking for the details and all the gory stuff that comes with this, along with a daily upkeep of life after the initial diet. We'll see.
Boyfriend, from here on out known as BF, is also embarking on this journey with me, albeit at a much more scaled back aspect. He'll be eating the same thing I do, only twice as much. And he won't be doing the drops, as he's trying to bulk up, while I'm trying to slim down. We'll be walking some, but I'll be limited to the types of exercise I can do until I've stabilized.
I'm terrified that I'll mess this up somehow, but at the same time, I'm stoked for the way this can set me up. If this all goes well, I'll be able to use this as a launching pad for the kind of weight loss I've been aiming for all this time. Cross your fingers, this will go well!
After months and months of hovering on the HCG facebook pages, and reading about the stories, and listening to the real life testimonials, I've finally taken the plunge and bought the 26 day kit. My supplier, for anyone who stumbles across this blog, and wants to know, is www.myhcgplus.com. Why, you ask, have I chosen them as my supplier? The first answer is cost. They are by far, the cheapest out there for the product. It should be noted that there are two different products out there for purchase, at two different strengths. And MyHCGPlus, sells the higher strength product, for the same cost as the lower strength product at most other places. So yeah, no brainer.
The second reason behind MHP is the support. Their Facebook page is amazing. There's a large number of staff members that hover on the page all day, and make a concerted effort to answer every question possible. They aren't certified MDs, by any means, but they do their best to answer with smart, technical responses. More than the price or the product, the stories I hear on the FB page and the amazing support and encouragement that the FB family churns out has urged me to join the group. I am mostly excited to be a part of the growing family, and be able to provide support in turn for all the amazing support I'll undoubtedly receive.
But that's enough raving about MHP :) I should go over some of the technical stuff, yes, no?
HCG is a hormone that is naturally produced by pregnant women, to put it simply. Ever seen a woman, who starts out as clinically obese, lose weight instead of gain weight during her pregnancy? Makes no sense, right? There's a hormone that the female body begins churning out almost instantly once a woman becomes pregnant. It's sort of a life saving, essential to basic growth device that takes excess fat and energy and minerals from the mother's body, and feeds it to the developing fetus to ensure the fetus gets the vital nutrients for a healthy growth. Women who start out obese or overweight can experience weight loss due to the HCG hormone tackling their excess fat stores, and using it to supply the baby, all while not being overly hungry. It's a pretty amazing process, when you start thinking about it.
In women (and men) who are not pregnant, applying the HCG hormone in controlled dosages helps trigger this response. However, in lieu of feeding the baby all the nutrients, the body starts to consume it on it's own. With the hormone, a person could conceivably go through 2500 to 3000 calories a day, without digesting a single thing. Our bodies though need some outside source of nourishment to keep from going into starvation mode, so the diet prescribes a simple 500 calorie diet to supplement the massive amount of calories your body is already releasing.
To be honest, when I first heard about the 500 calorie limit, I freaked out. You hear all these PSAs about how you need a certain level of calories to survive, and you shouldn't starve or deprive yourself, and how it's not safe to eat at that low of a level for an extended period of time. But it all makes sense, when you look at it from a different point of view: you're supplementing your body's already extreme calorie intake, instead of limiting your body to an unhealthy serving size.
The basic program is 26 days. I'll get later, in a different blog, more into detail about how that works, and what the actual 26 days breaks out into, but for now let's just go with that schedule. Tomorrow, 2-8-11, will be day one for me. You can see why I'm starting this tonight. I'll need the motivation of blogging every day to keep me on track.
I've been preparing for this day for about two weeks. I've planned my social life - or lack there of - around the next 26 days, and I've gone out and purchased all the items I will need to survive the strict diet of the program. I should also mention here that it's not actually 26 days. The hormone is administered during those 26 days, but there's an additional six weeks of maintenance required to ensure proper stabilization and the long term affects of the diet. So it's really ten whole weeks for this thing, which is a daunting prospect.
....and now I'm rambling. The initial purpose behind this blog was to introduce the diet, go over my fears, and set the stage for the coming blogs. Clearly, I've side tracked. So let's see if I can get back on course.
Tonight I will be taking pictures *shudder* and measurements, and logging them into my new HCG journal I just finished building - pictures to come later. I wont be posting the before and after pictures, or my initial and final weight, as I'm still overly sensitive about those figures, but I'll be sharing overall weight and inches lost, so hopefully that will suffice. Tomorrow morning I'll do my first weigh in, and I'll be posting my gains/losses as they happen, daily. I'll also be hopefully posting food diaries and recipes as I stumble across them, along with any trials and hardships I come across. It's my hope, with this journal, to do what I was unable to find when I looked - provide a guide to the every day man or woman who's looking for the details and all the gory stuff that comes with this, along with a daily upkeep of life after the initial diet. We'll see.
Boyfriend, from here on out known as BF, is also embarking on this journey with me, albeit at a much more scaled back aspect. He'll be eating the same thing I do, only twice as much. And he won't be doing the drops, as he's trying to bulk up, while I'm trying to slim down. We'll be walking some, but I'll be limited to the types of exercise I can do until I've stabilized.
I'm terrified that I'll mess this up somehow, but at the same time, I'm stoked for the way this can set me up. If this all goes well, I'll be able to use this as a launching pad for the kind of weight loss I've been aiming for all this time. Cross your fingers, this will go well!
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