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!!!

Days gone by used to include meat and potatoes, rice and fish or cornbread and BBQ. Tofu and hummus or some sort of veggie burger is replacing those things today. There is a huge movement in changing over to an alternative eating style. The “organic” movement in particular shows that a healthy dose of the population is looking for their foods to be a bit more pure and natural. Sometimes you can get confused about what all the terms are, what they mean, and how they might apply to you directly.

There have been conclusions reached over the past 6 months or so in the HTA Community that there is entirely too much protein eaten daily and that is one of the causes of obesity, or in relation to the goals at Happily Thinner After, the inability to maintain your weight loss. It was once believed that 100 grams of protein was a great number to go after which is double what Dr. Simeons allows on the Protocol, but with more and more research (including the findings of Dr. K with his HIGH FAT OPTIMAL DIET) there are discoveries being made that this might be a bit too much as well. These findings now need to come with alternative recommendations.

There are numerous different alternative-eating lifestyles out there, the focus will be to give you a general run down of the most popular – there will be no attempt to recommend one over the other, these are personal lifestyles alternatives. The focus of this article is to be informed.

Vegetarianism – This eating lifestyle excludes meat, fish (including shellfish) and poultry. Most vegetarians will consume dairy products, and many will eat eggs – the three popular terms are:

Lacto-vegetarianism includes dairy products but excludes eggs
Ovo-vegetarianism includes eggs but not dairy
Lacto-ovo vegetarianism includes both eggs and dairy products

Veganism – This eating lifestyle excludes the use of animals for food (in any form) but includes not using animals for clothing or any other purpose. The ethical treatment of animals is the basis of this alternative eating style. This lifestyle will exclude the use of honey and silk.

Raw Foodism – This eating lifestyle promotes the consumption of un-cooked and un-processed food. In the raw food world, a person is considered a raw foodist if 75-100% of a person’s total food consumption is raw food. There are four main types of raw foodists:

Raw Vegetarian and Raw Vegan – these are raw versions of the above definitions
Raw Omnivorous – this lifestyle focuses in on raw plant and animal sources – this may a selection of raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, eggs, fish (such as sashimi), meat (such as Carpaccio), and non-pasteurized/non-homogenized dairy products (such as raw milk, raw cheese and raw yogurt).
Raw Carnivorous – this lifestyle focuses in on raw animal sources only

The above list is over simplified, but it gives you an overview of the different alternative lifestyles that are available.  There are many that are not included (pescatarian, fruitarian, flexitarian) as they are different off shoots of the main ones listed above.

On to my day! I eliminated another .8 – WOOHOO!!!

My stats can be found on this page: Current Stats

So I know most of you are frothing at the bit to find out what I am doing, but I think by now you are able to figure it out.  Since I started VLCD I have not had a stitch of meat.  I thought at first it would just a couple of days a week but as it turns out I am enjoying it so much I have decided to continue it.  But included in that is the addition of a raw food lifestyle.  Which would include some raw fish.

In the research I have done so far, it seems that raw food is processed differently than cooked food, so the theory is that you can take in more calories in a raw food Protocol then one that is with cooked foods.  How many calories is the test that I am running right now.  We all know that during the first week you can’t do much wrong so I want to have at least half the cycle done before I share my findings.  What you see right there is what I had for lunch, which was basically an avocado, tomato, onions, cilantro with a splash of lemon and S&P.  And if I could eat like this daily, I would be a happy camper.

I do intend on adding some raw fish into the menu.  Yesterday I added a raw egg to my smoothie to get my protein count up.  As you can see, it worked just fine!  I can tell you that it’s easy to become full on raw foods.  eGads! 

Ann – my sweet Ann, thank you so much for being a faithful follower of my blog for what seems like eons!  Oh yeah Ann, follow closely cause if this works you become my guinea pig!  WOOT!

Dawn – hmmm, I wonder!