I'm Losing It!

Ha Ha! You thought I meant losing my mind! Well that may be true, that's not today's topic of discussion. I have really taken a long break from blogging and now it is time to catch up. So here's today's discussion--I am FINALLY losing weight! Hooray! I have had about 15 extremely stubborn extra pounds that I have been slaving to lose after I had Natalie (she's almost 17 months old.) It hasn't mattered what my diet or calorie/fat/carb intake has been or the exercise that I have engaged in, I have worked by behind off (that by the way is only a figure of speech, not literally) without any results. I take that back, I have gained some muscle tone, learned to enjoy exercise, and have become educated on the subject of nutrition. However, the subject of weight just frustrated me to no end.

To not make this an infomercial or a testimonial of a miracle drug I will try be brief. (And I know by putting this out there, I will be receiving a lot of criticism, but if it works, it works. And it is working beautifully without harming me.) The diet is called the hCG diet. It's crazy weird and I was highly skeptical of it when my mom and aunt did it earlier this year but I have fallen prey and now am seeing it work wonders. The premise of this diet is that you take a small dosage of hCG--human chorionic gonadotropin every day with a very low calorie diet. What hCG is is the hormone that pregnant women have in their systems to help build a baby, basically. That's how most pregnancy tests work, by testing your urine for hCG. What it does is tells the mother's fat cells to release calories and transfer them the fetus. Well, since I don't have a fetus, the hCG that I am taking tells my fat cells to release the calories and then they get burned through normal everyday activity. This is also due to the 500 calories and very restricted diet that I am on. (That is the part that I was extremely skeptical about when my family members did it). I thought, "That's not healthy at all and you would be starving and weak by lunch time." Not true, because the hCG is telling your body to release calories, you use them so I don't feel tired or weak most of the time, only when I really over-do-it. Plus, I really don't feel hungry most of the time. Granted, I wish that I could have the pot roast that my family is having or some of the snacks they eat, but most of the time I am not hungry, it's the smells that kill me. But here's the kicker, I have been on the diet 11 days and have lost 10 lbs.! Again I was very skeptical about this, "It's probably water weight, but my mom and my aunt both have done pretty well with keeping it off without too much effort for several months. So what happens now is that I am on this diet for 26 days--15 days to go. Afterward, I go on a maintenance period where I don't take the hCG and can have regular-sized meal portions, without starches and sugar still. Then after 3 weeks of maintenance I can slowly work my way back into the normal eating world as long as I check my weight to see if it has gone up. If it has gone up more than 2 lbs. there is a way to get rid of it again without having to go on the diet again. But the chore will be to stay on top of it. I think I can sustain my new weight fairly easy because I have had an active, healthy lifestyle before this diet. Anyway, it is crazy but it is working and one of the ways that I can find the willpower not to "lick the bowl" or "taste test the sauce" is the fact that I lose at least a half of a pound everyday, if not more. Pretty awesome results! I will post an "after picture" when I go on maintenance in 2 weeks. So that is my new adventure, actually losing weight!