Quite a bit of interesting responses to my last post. Hmmm, my one and only purpose in writing is to make people think, and I do believe that I have accomplished my goal.

I would like to go one step further in my discussion about the average daily loss thing.

I do believe we need to revisit the whole “loading” thing. This seems to be at the crux of the situation of why people are using different formulas on what to average out for daily losses. Dr. Simeons gives us specific instructions on what to do the very first time we ever go on the hCG Protocol – he tells us:

One cannot keep a patient comfortably on 500 Calories unless his normal fat reserves are reasonably well stocked. It is for this reason also that every case, even those that are actually gaining must eat to capacity of the most fattening food they can get down until they have had the third injection. It is a fundamental mistake to put a patient on 500 Calories as soon as the injections are started, as it seems to take about three injections before abnormally deposited fat begins to circulate and thus become available.

Ah yes, I remember my very first loading, the complete carte blanche to eat everything and anything I wanted and in any quantity. The clinic I went with gave me 3 days instead of 2 like Dr. Simeons and I remember how incredibly disappointed I was by the 3rd day to not be able to fill myself up on anymore food. Being so totally sick of food, promising I would NEVER EVER eat again.

I also remember getting up on my 4th day, ready to start VLCD and looking at the scale in disbelief that I did not gain a single solitary ounce over the past 3 days of gorging and being somehow disappointed in myself to have possibly done the protocol wrong at the very start. Little did I know then what I know now.

I loaded properly, but what I didn’t realize is that my fat reserves were full – I had all but given up by the time I had gotten to the hCG stage and was eating pretty much anything that I felt like thinking that no matter what, I was doomed. Two weeks later, my friend JPS started protocol and gained 7 lbs on her loading, and she was just coming off of Atkins so what does that tell you? That Dr. Simeons was right, he said LOADING was for those of us that were IMPROPERLY DIETING prior to getting into the course of treatment.

So then, let’s fast forward to the next course of treatment. Did Dr. Simeons give us any guidelines to follow then? Well yes and no. This is one of those things in his manual that is left up to deduction. Why?

Well for one, we are going to have to assume that during the ‘breaks’ between rounds we are following to a “t” exactly what Dr. Simeons told us to do, and that was to maintain our losses at 2 pounds plus or minus of our last injection weight. That means by the time we get into our next course of treatment we are not considered “patients whose general condition is low, owing to excessive previous dieting” – in other words, our fat reserves should be just fine.

So then, what does he tell us to do? Well this is a little read phrase that quite frankly packs a powerful punch – under “Unforeseen Interruptions of Treatment” he says:

If an interruption of treatment lasting more than four days is necessary, the patient must increase his diet to at least 800 Calories by adding meat, eggs, cheese, and milk to his diet after the third day, as otherwise he will find himself so hungry and weak that he is unable to go about his usual occupation. If the interval lasts less than two weeks the patient can directly resume injections and the 500-Calorie diet, but if the interruption lasts longer he must again eat normally until he has had his third injection.

Notice what I bolded – EAT NORMALLY – and this was to take place AFTER the two weeks. Ok, sure he says this in the “unforeseen interruptions of treatment” – but what is interesting is that he really says nothing else in his entire manual about what to do about loading for subsequent rounds.

Now that all being said, if you decide to LOAD on your subsequent rounds, which is totally a decision you make on your own, you have to be prepared for you to take some time getting rid of the load. Especially if you went into the round with a hefty gain to begin with. Sure you will have some pretty nifty losses during the first few days, but please consider how that might play into how it shows up for the rest of the round. If you instead plan to load ‘normally’ or better yet ‘high fat’ – how does that relate to losses for the rest of the round? Funny, because this is what I decided to do this round and I lost 2.6 even before I started, which is pretty substantial, and yet my losses to date have been pretty normal.

So really then, answer me this, how do YOU LOAD???

My stats can be found on this page: Current Stats

Again, things are working well for me on this “RAW PROTOCOL” – I have lost a total of 12 pounds in 14 days, or a total of .86 per day.  I am finding that I keep my calories between 750 – 1000 a day and I am just jim dandy fine.  Usually by this time during the protocol I am counting down the days when I can be back on P3 – but this time?  Not so much.  Even more amazing is that my loss in inches are a whopping 14 inches!!!  WHODA THUNK???

I am not playing around too much on the “RAW” – I was eating quite a bit of avocados, but quite frankly, I am tired of them and so I have not added them over the last few days.  Bananas on the other hand are a daily staple for me.  If I thought I could consist on bananas I would.  I have found however that I am eating only when I am hungry and not before.  And only what it takes to satiate my hunger.  I am really becoming ONE with my body again and that feels really good.

Attached is something I made the other day that I am calling my “Apple Crunch Salad” – basically it was spring mix, with apples, walnuts, raisins, red onions, and a dressing I made with homemade mayo and agave nectar and it was MMM MMM GOOD!  Funny how when we let our bodies experience the sensations that raw and alive food gives us, we are rewarded beyond belief.

Gina – Hey, thanks for the reminder, it helped me formulate my post today.  I do hope you consider NAET as this really has helped more than a few people!

M -Totally understand your point of view my friend, so no worries ok?  I always welcome different points of view.  My main reason for posting is to make people think!

Amie – You totally went MIA where are you???  I need my AMIE FIX!!!

This one thing alone seems to be the most important factor about the hCG Protocol. Kevin Trudeau lulled us into believing that 1 pound a day losses were not only possible, but they were typical across the board. Nothing could be further from the truth. Dr. Simeons himself never EVER said that 1 pound a day losses were possible. His averages are lower; in fact, he estimates them to be 300 – 400 grams per day. This translates to approximately 10 – 14 ounces of loss per day, man or woman, over the course of treatment. To quote Dr. Simeons:

The degree of overweight is then calculated, and from this, the duration of treatment can be roughly assessed on the basis of an average loss of weight of a little less than a pound, say 300-400 grams-per injection, per day.

This brilliant man also gave the formula on how to count the daily losses:

We distinguish between the first three injections, which we call “non-effective” as far as the loss of weight is concerned, and the subsequent injections given while the patient is dieting, which we call “effective”. The average loss of weight is calculated on the number of effective injections and from the weight reached on the day of the third injection, which may be well above what it was two days earlier when the first injection was given.

Now I am the first one to admit that I have fiddled with the Protocol on more than one occasion, but this one thing I am a stickler for. Why is that? Well for one, even at 10 – 14 ounces a day, that is one heck of a lot of weight to lose each and every day. That promise alone makes surviving on 500 calories a day pretty bearable. If you start using some other figure to figure out your losses, then your not giving credit where credit is due. I know for some this is really a hard pill to swallow, especially those that might have gained a bunch on their “load” – but again people, Dr. Simeons gave you this miracle, count it for what it is. I know when I was losing regularly, I would calculate my “average” each round exactly the way he told me, but I also reported what my total losses were since the very first day I started. When I go around to the different blogs or journals and I see a number like 9.2 over the course of 20something days, I am like, huh? Something is wrong, they should be losing more than that, and I look back and try to figure out what happened when it dawns on me that they are counting some weird way – like that is how much they lost from the LIW from the previous round. WOW peeps, that isn’t fair to Dr. Simeons is it? That makes it sound like his Protocol is just like every other diet plan out there. Let’s not count our GAIN cause well, that just doesn’t count. HA! Can you see it rubs me the wrong way? But who am I? I have my thoughts, my ideas, my purist attitude about some things and some other things I just let go. This though is something I don’t. Ok, nuff said. My stats can be found on this page: Current Stats

Doing protocol 100% is agreeing with me, I must say. Over the last two days my losses haven’t been all that great, but that is because TOM is in the house. Yesterday and today I have definitely NOTICED that he is here, it’s a good thing I didn’t have any errands to run today! HA! I have been playing with the scale today and I do believe I might show a nice loss tomorrow. Of the many things I ate today, this is one of them. It’s a Strawberry Mango Salad – and I gotta tell you, it was DELISH! It’s actually a recipe from Peru – I would have never thought about adding those flavors together, but it works! My menu yesterday was: • Banana with almond milk • Veggie Nut Raw Vegan Burger and Tortilla Chips and Kombucha • Avocado/tomato/red onion/lemon/cilantro • Pineapple Have absolutely no idea how many calories that was, but whatever it was, I lost .4 because of it. Today I experimented with some raw mayo – it’s not where I want it, but it’s a start. Monica – HA! I don’t think Tequila qualifies as “RAW” – but good try tho! See, I told you this would be easy! HK – We have a very large population of Asians in Charleston so it’s always easy to find Sashimi grade fish. Gina – Did you find out about NAET? Girl, it’s totally amazing! Thanks for the explanation of the allergy thing. Amie – The raw food culture is HUGE – I think I might spend tomorrow sharing all my links with you folks, yeah, that’s the ticket. M – Oh yeah, even part time would be so healthy for you!!! Come on M, join the dark side! LOL

Gosh, where have I been? OMG – can you say BUSY??? Weekends as you know end up being hard for me to get online anyway, so that is one thing – 2nd thing is that I just needed time to get the old juices flowing again, I had a couple of days of profound writing and then bam! I needed to regroup. I started this post last night but TOM ended up making me more tired then normal so I just went with it and went to bed!!!

So what happened over the weekend? More of the same “raw” lifestyle! I had two pretty good losses from Sunday and Monday morning, to the tune of 1.2 eliminated each day – what was remarkable about that is that yesterday TOM decided to show up in the morning, completely UNANNOUNCED – seriously, no PMS, no cramps, no before water weight gain, no stalls, no headache, no emotional outburst, just TOM with no fanfare – BUT ON TIME!!! I could have cried I was so happy. That was MONUMENTAL for me, honest injun. I haven’t had a regular TOM in I don’t know how long, and well, it feels good to be among the ‘normal’. HA!

Saturday and Sunday I decided to experiment with Raw Fish – absolutely LOVED it and as you can see, I had two pretty good days because of it. This morning on the other hand, my loss was only a .2 – yesterday my input of water was not balanced by my output so I am sure that TOM is causing some issues on that department – and also this morning I had some cramps – so I have taken it easy today. They are nowhere NEAR what they have been, but they are there, and I am sure they are being made worse by water retention, but that is AOK – at least it’s here and I can say bye to it in a few days and be good with that.

I wanted to talk about Raw Fish for a minute. I got a lot of eMails and comments about EWWWW on this subject so I wanted to address it. Raw fish is a staple of the culture I grew up in. So it’s easy for me to fathom eating raw. To some of you I know that might be hard to take. I want you though to broaden your horizons and look into a cooking method that the Spanish use quite often and that is “Ceviche” – this is where the acids in citrus fruits or vinegar actually “cooks” the flesh without heat, and so it still classifies it as a “Raw Food”. Also, a good quality beef jerky is considered raw cause it’s ‘dehydrated’ and not oven cooked. So consider this as in option if your contemplating going raw.

My stats can be found on this page: Current Stats

NNN – Well it was only a matter of time ya know? I can’t keep a secret too long!!!

Tracey – I am attempting a Protocol using 100% Raw Foods – that is why the added fat in the avocado – so far in the experiment it only works if you go 100% Raw! Welcome back to blogging Tracey!

Allicat – The thing is about the whole Japanese and Spanish culture is that they pretty much stick to the basics with seasonings, lime (or lemon), cilantro, peppers, garlic and then the Japanese add ginger. You keep those things on hand you can make anything taste good! They say if you just incorporate 50% Raw into your diet your doing your body a world of good.

Ann – WOO HOO – I always love my guinea pigs! I feel like the pied piper!!! HA!

Monica – theory is that you can go up to 1500, haven’t quite made that yet, I just can’t get there, TOO FULL – yesterday I did manage to get up to 1350 – but that was because I tried “Almond Milk” for the first time, and I gotta tell you that stuff was to DIE for!!!

Moonie – stick with me woman, you will always see that I have SOMETHING up my sleeve, gotta try it all to make informed decisions ya know?

Angela – welcome Angela! HTA is a great place to be to write your story on weight loss, looking forward to watching you accomplish your goals!

Gina – what is an “oral allergy” – does that mean you break out around your mouth? Have you looked into NAET to see if that might be able to help?

Regina – my sweet Regina – it’s good to know your making the rounds my friend, I sure miss you!!! Here is your update, just for YOU!!!