Hcg Diet Phase 3 - Day 1

I'm here! I'm in Phase 3 and I'm loving it so far! I'm super happy to be able to have more variety in my meals. Even though I can't have complex carbs and sugars just yet, I am thrilled with the new things I am able to make. I tried to do a little research on how exactly you should start introducing new foods. Some I found were just lists(which I've found helpful) and others were way strict plans on introducing certain foods back into your diet slowly. I plan to just go with the list of foods that I am able to eat now and introduce them at my OWN pace. I think I will go with what the scale says in the morning and see how things go!

At breakfast I felt extremely guilty while making my food. I made Red pepper and cheddar cheese mini frittatas. The reason I felt guilty was because I used oil to spray the muffin tins before I baked them and I sprinkled cheese on top. I know this is so silly and I knew it would feel weird to change the way I have been preparing my meals. I'll get used to it of course. Especially since my breakfast was so delish! Here's what I ate today;

Red pepper and cheese mini frittatas, with strawberries. These were pretty amazing. I'm pretty sure I think they are amazing though, because I haven't eaten cheese in what seems like forever. Either way, they were yummy!

Red Pepper & Cheese Mini Frittatas

Makes 4 servings of 3 frittatas each

7 extra large eggs(or 8 large)
1 large red pepper, finely diced
1/3 cup skim milk
Roughly 3/4 to 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/4 tsp each garlic and onion powder
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350F. Beat eggs, milk, garlic and onion powder, salt and pepper in a bowl. Spray a 12 cup muffin tin with cooking spray. Pour egg mixture evenly into 12 muffin cups. Spoon red pepper evenly into the egg mixture. Sprinkle a small amount of cheese on top. Bake for 25 minutes or until edges are slightly browned and egg is fully cooked. Enjoy with some fruit.

For lunch I enjoyed a blueberry vanilla protein shake. My protein powder has no added sugar and is very low on carbs(2g). I used 1 scoop of protein powder, 1 cup frozen blueberries and 1 cup water. Blended it all together and poured it in a glass to enjoy. It was tasty, yet a bit sweet for me! I'm going to try it again with a few frozen cranberries to add a bit of tartness to it.

For dinner I started off by making some barbeque sauce. Since tomorrow is Canada Day and I knew we would be making burgers for dinner, I decided to make some home made BBQ sauce to go along with it. I also used it on my dinner tonight. It was very tasty. Not like the barbeque sauce I usually buy, which is much sweeter and has less of a tomato taste to it, but since I couldn't add sugar, molasses etc. That is just how it turned out. I enjoyed it all the same. You can find my complete recipe HERE(Hickory Apple Barbeque Sauce)! Here are a few pictures anyways.

I made Pork chops for dinner. Topped with my barbeque sauce and some sauteed apples & onions. It was delicious. Alongside it I had some fake "mashed potatoes". It was actually steamed cauliflower with roasted garlic. You can find the recipe on my sister-in-law's blog. The only thing I did differently was added a tablespoon of cream cheese and I used my immersion blender to blend them. They were really good and my kids even fell for it! They didn't quite think they were the same as real mashed potatoes, but they gobbled them up all the same! Hooray for healthy mash!

That's it for day one. I'm kind of nervous to see what the scale says in the morning. Until tomorrow!

~Jenn

Hcg Phase 2 - Day 25

Today I decided I would be finished with P2 and stopped taking my drops. I decided to do this because I haven't been losing much weight these past two weeks. I've been on a stall or whatever is going on for 6 days now. I figured that I'm not going to lose a bunch more weight within the next couple weeks, so I might as well end now. I've done more than the minimum number of days that you are supposed to on P2, so here I go! You are supposed to keep eating a VLCD for the next two days, until the hormone is out of your system. So today I continued on my 500 calorie diet. I wasn't any hungrier than I would have been if I had taken the drops today, which is good because that was one of the things that I was worried about. So tomorrow will be my last day on P2. YAY! You have no idea how excited I am to finally be able to eat semi-normal again. Tomorrow I am going to try and look up some great new recipes on the weekend for P3. I'm already planning my Canada day bbq burgers. Obviously without a bun, but I'm super excited to put more than one veggie on my burger!

Today was extremely hard for cravings. I'm not sure if it was because I stopped taking my drops, or because I've just had a rough week with baby teething and just felt like I didn't want to deal with anything today. Whichever it was, on days where I am super stressed, I ALWAYS get my husband to bring me home a Frappuccino from Starbucks. This is my go to de-stressifying treat that always makes me feel better. I REALLY just wanted him to come straight home and bring me that sugary goodness. Whats more, is that my dad came over and brought himself and my kids some chocolate covered berries, butter tarts and full fat cream for his coffee. I mean COME ON! Well I am happy to say that I did not cave one bit. I'm super proud of myself, but at the same time I can tell that getting sugary snacks to help me de-stress is going to be a tough habbit to break for me. I'm going to have to figure out something else I can do at those times when I'm just so stressed out and upset that all I want to do is grab a bowl of KD and some ice cream and head straight to my room! Yep, I'm going to have to learn a few tricks so that I'm not tempted to turn to food in times of insanity. So I'm looking forward to tomorrow and to the weekend where I can try some new meals out. Hopefully from here it will be smooth sailing! I doubt it, but it will definitely be easier!

For breakfast I made everyone eggs, toast and strawberries. I made myself some scrambled eggs(1 egg and 3 egg whites)and cabbage. I wasn't really sure how this was going to taste, but I was running low on groceries and cabbage was pretty much all I had left. I added some salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder, and a little soy sauce. I cooked the eggs and the cabbage together until the eggs were completely done and starting to brown. This actually turned out pretty great. If I were low on vegetable choices again, I would definitely make this.

 For dinner I had some baked tilapia and some broccoli. This is always great and I will continue to make this, even when I am finished doing the Hcg diet.

Goodnight!

~Jenn

Hcg Diet Phase 2 - Day 24

I woke up today, weighed myself and saw that I had gained roughly 1/2 a pound. Grrr! I stood there for a second, trying to figure out why. Was it the Aveeno I put on my hands two nights ago? Maybe the tablespoon of half & half I drank with my coffee yesterday? I know I didn't go over my calories. I don't really know why I gained. This is just so frustrating, when I'm eating the way I should and I either don't lose anything, or I gain a bit. I know it was just a little bit, but I've pretty much been at the same weight since Saturday. That means I haven't lost any weight in 5 days! And before that it was the same thing. I really hope I lose SOMETHING tomorrow morning. Maybe enough to help me to keep going, otherwise I'm leaning towards the end of taking my drops being today. Then I will stay on the LCD until Friday(two days from today) and have the weekend to start Phase 3! This is my plan, probably even if I am magically down 3 pounds tomorrow. I CAN'T WAIT to start Phase 3! I've had enough with this last bit, not losing much, and not cheating. I'm not even using deodorant, Hair conditioner, hand cream(except for when my hands get so dry and cracked that I just can't take it anymore) or anything. Anyways, we will see if I have a change of heart tomorrow morning. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. Tomorrow you will find out.

Today I drank some green tea for breakfast. For lunch I had teriyaki chicken stir fry and an orange. I was hungry when lunchtime came, but I wasn't at all hungry when it came time for dinner.

I ended up eating dinner a little later than usual and I didn't feel like cooking up some meat. I decided on broccoli frittatas with apple slices. I normally would have put red peppers and cheese in them(that's how I made them for my family) but I can't have red peppers, and I didn't have many other vegetables in the house, so I used about 100g of broccoli instead.

They actually turned out pretty good! They would have been great with some cheddar in them, but without, they were still pretty good.

Here's what I did;

Broccoli Frittatas

1 egg
3 egg whites
a sprinkle each of garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper.
1 tbsp milk
100g finely chopped(or blended) broccoli or spinach, Kale or asparagus


Preheat oven to 350F. Blend or chop your broccoli. Beat together your eggs, spices and milk. Mix in your broccoli until it is well combined. Spray tins with a small amount of pam or rub a small amount of coconut oil in them. Pour the mixture evenly into four muffin tins. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Let cool in pan 5 minutes before you try to remove them. They will settle a bit while they cool. Enjoy!

~Jenn

Hcg Diet Phase 2 - Day 23

It's been a few days since I've been able to blog. You didn't miss much though. I ate pretty much the same old and didn't really lose any weight the past two days. I've lost about 1/2 a pound since Saturday. Hopefully I do another big drop this week. I'm really hoping because I really want to keep going with this plan. If I don't by Friday, I'm going to start Phase 3 on Saturday. I figure that if I'm losing so slowly here at the end anyways, I might as well end Phase 2 a little sooner so that I can start up again sooner. You lose most of the weight in the beginning anyhow, right? Besides, I've lost about 20 pounds in less than a month, and that's pretty darn great if you ask me!

This morning I had green tea and an apple for breakfast. For lunch I used one of my pre-made frozen taco meat packs and made a taco salad. Always delicious!

For dinner, I made chicken burgers and onion rings. Yep, that's right. Burgers and onion rings! Granted the onion rings were more like baked onions with some seasoning(because they were), but despite the fact that they weren't at all crispy like a normal onion ring, they were delicious. I got the recipe from Simplyhcg.com. I used seasoning salt instead of the Cayenne, salt and pepper.

"Onion Rings"

-½ sliced onion rings
- 1 finely crushed melba toast
- 1 Tbsp of skim milk
-1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
salt & pepper

• Preheat oven to 450’. In small bowl add milk, cayenne pepper, salt, pepper to make batter. In a small separate bowl place crushed melba toast. Place rings in batter bowl and toss to coat fully. Let sit in batter for couple minutes. Dip each ring into the melba toast powder. Place on cookie sheet lined with foil. Cook for 7 minutes, then flip and cook 7 more minutes. 

My burger was absolutely delicious as well. I really felt like I was eating a burger from A&W. The seasoning salt, mustard and onions really made the burger. I loved this so much, I feel like making it for breakfast tomorrow. Hehe:)

Chicken Burgers(makes 4)
 
400g ground chicken
1/4 - 1/2 tsp no calorie soy sauce
seasoning salt

Mix the chicken and soy sauce together. Shape into 4 patties and sprinkle both sides with seasoning salt. Fry in a pan with a little bit of coconut oil, on med-high heat for about 5-7 minutes on both sides, or until done.

I used a leaf of iceberg lettuce torn in half in place of the bun for each burger. I topped my burger with some of my onion rings and some mustard. YUM!

Hcg Diet Phase 2 - Day 20

I am halfway!!!!!! I weighed myself this morning and I was down 2.8 lbs! Woohoo! What a great way to finish off the first half of P2. I took another picture of myself this morning. So here's my picture from day 1 and day 20:

I seriously hate this picture so much! I really never thought I looked THAT bad...until I saw the difference of day 20...

Yep. I hope to NEVER look like either of these two pictures. Ever. Again.

For breakfast I had green tea, and for lunch I ate some Chicken Teriyaki and an apple(but forgot to take a picture).

For dinner I had some chicken taco salad with about 65g of blueberries and a melba toast. My total calories for the day equaled pretty much exactly 500.

So all in all today was pretty great! I'm not going to say that I hope to be down tomorrow, because I know that it's probable that I won't lose anything. Oh well, today was a great scale day. I'll take it.

~jenn

Hcg Diet Phase 2 - Day 19

I woke up this morning without a loss. In fact I gained 0.2 pounds! Definitely annoying to say the least, but I'm OK with it. I guess. I mean I THINK I know what's going on. My body remembers being at this weight and it's going to take a bit for it to kick into gear so that I can start losing again. Like I said yesterday, I hope this doesn't last too long. I'm really hoping, because my goal is to lose another 10 pounds in the next 21 days. I think it's definitely manageable IF my body will just stop holding on to my fat!

For Breakfast I just had a green tea(I'm getting used to this not eating in the mornings thing)

For lunch I cooked up some chicken breast with some different spices and had it on top of lettuce. I squeezed some lemon over top and a little bit of my zero calorie Italian dressing. I'm really happy I found these dressings. I found them at walmart. They are by a company called Gyros. They have a few different zero everything dressings. So far I have tried the Italian and the Mediterranean. They are both pretty good. Especially for them being zero everything!

I had 150g of strawberries alongside my salad. Sweet and delicious.

For Dinner I felt like a change from what I've been eating, so I made up a recipe for chicken salad. It was delicious! I really loved it. It's the perfect summertime salad. I will absolutely make this again.
 

Chicken & Apple Salad

100g chicken breast

Onion powder

Salt 

Pepper

1 apple thinly sliced

100g celery thinly sliced

1 tsp grainy mustard

1 tsp zero calorie Italian dressing(Or water/lemon juice)

1 packet powdered stevia

Sprinkle chicken breast with onion powder, salt and pepper. Bake in a pan until done.(10-15 minutes)

Meanwhile, slice up your apple and celery and put it in a bowl. Mix together mustard, Italian dressing and stevia packet to make dressing. Slice up chicken and mix it in the bowl with apple and celery. Top with dressing, mix and enjoy!

~Jenn

Hcg Diet Phase 2 - Day 18

Today I woke up and weighed myself, and I'm at the same number on the scale. Again. Well I figured I would do a little research before I started to get upset. I found tons of other people just like me who lose, then stall for a few days, then lose, then stall for another few days and so on. Apparently this is all very common. I also read a lot of people saying that sometimes when you get to a certain weight that you've been at before, your body remembers this, and you can stall for up to 2 weeks! Well I hope this doesn't happen to me for that long, but the last time I lost a bunch of weight while doing WW, I believe I was right around the weight that I am now. I feel pretty confident that this is all what's going on and that soon it will pass and I will continue to lose. On the other hand though, I still feel like I am losing inches! My bra is super loose, my old clothes fit again and when I look in the mirror, I just seem a bit smaller. So all in all I feel pretty positive about the diet so far.

Another thing I thought I would consider, is that I might just be eating a few too many calories. I'm not positive of this, but I decided to start counting the calories in my food items, just to be sure that I'm not going over and that this is the culprit. So from now on I am going to count the calories in every meal/snack.

This morning I had a green tea.

For lunch I decided to make an omelet instead of having a meat serving. So I made a Tomato Basil omelet. I'm not a huge fan of tomatoes, but I thought I would try this out anyways. It was good, but a little too much tomato to egg ratio for myself. If you like tomatoes though, you will probably love this!

Tomato Basil Omelet

I mixed 1 egg with 3 liquid egg whites. Added 1/4 tsp of dried basil, garlic powder, salt and pepper. I poured it on my pan and put 1 whole cut up tomato on one side of the egg mixture, covered it and cooked on medium heat for a few minutes.

I tried to flip one side onto the other, but it was a bit difficult. My pan is rather large, which made a thin egg layer, and even though it is non-stick, it still stuck to the pan. So I just kind of flipped it over and cooked it a few more minutes with the lid on. It came out looking like this.

I sprinkled it with a bit more salt and pepper and ate it with 150g of cut up strawberries and a melba toast. It was all quite filling. My Lunch came out to a total of 218 calories.

For dinner I used a 100g packet of taco meat(beef) that I made up the other day, warmed it up and sprinkled it over my lettuce. I squeezed a piece of lemon and sprinkled it with salt and pepper. It was delicious as always. The total calories for my dinner was 182 calories.

I had an apple(72 calories) in the evening as a snack. With that, my dinner and my lunch, my total calories for the day is 472 calories. So I didn't go over today, which is great. Hopefully I can stick with that.

~Jenn

Hcg Diet Phase 2 - Day 17

I weighed myself today and I was exactly the same as yesterday. Boo! Oh, well hopefully I will be down a bunch tomorrow!

I felt pretty good today.  I wasn't hungry at all when I woke up, so I just had some green tea. I ate an apple before lunch, while I was cooking up some meatballs up for dinner.

For lunch I had my yummy Teriyaki Chicken Stir Fry. I just can't get enough of this stuff!

for dinner I heated up some meatballs I had prepared earlier in the afternoon, with some asparagus. Super good!

I had a few strawberries in the evening, when I got home from shopping.

Easy Meatballs
(makes 5 portions of 6 meatballs each)

500g ground beef or chicken
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/2 - 1 tsp no calorie soy sauce
Herbs of your choice
Salt and pepper

Mix everything together with your fingers and make 30 small meatballs. cook in a non stick pan on med. to high heat with a lid on. Flip after 5 min or so. you may flip more than once if needed. I stored one portion in a bowl to eat for dinner and portioned the rest into freezer bags to eat for later meals. You can also leave the meatballs so that they aren't completely cooked through, as you will be reheating them before you eat them anyways and they will cook the rest of the way at this point.

~Jenn

Hcg Diet Phase 2 - Day 16

Yesterday I decided to do an apple day, and this morning when I woke up and weighed myself, I had lost 2 lbs!I ended up eating 5 apples(though it says to eat large apples and that you may eat up to 6) and didn't drink any water all day, until I had a hot bath and really felt like I needed something to drink afterwards. Other than that, I wasn't really thirsty. The apples seemed to have quenched my thirst. My conclusion for the apple day, is that it definitely works! I'm glad I did it, and I'm glad I like apples, otherwise yesterday would not have been that great.

Today I felt great. I was barely hungry all day, but still managed to get it all of my food servings.

This morning I had a cup of coffee again. This time I used a tablespoon of milk, instead of cream. It REALLY wasn't as good as yesterday. Depending what the scale says in the morning, I might have cream in it tomorrow, or a plain old cup of green tea.

 Here's my coffee.

 

For lunch I ate some taco salad made with ground beef and spices, and I squeezed a lemon over it for more flavour. It was delicious as usual.

 

For dinner I made Teriyaki chicken stir fry, with cabbage and chicken breast. Boy is this yummy! My husband loves stir fry and I made him and the kids the same thing, but with onion and carrots added to it. This is the only stir fry my two year old will gobble up! I will definitely continue to make this after I am finished with this diet.

~Jenn

Hcg Diet Phase 2 - Day 14 & 15

Today I decided to do an apple day. I woke up this morning and weighed myself as usual, and I was up 0.2 pounds. I was kinda sad, because yesterday was my daughters birthday party and there was a bunch of yummy food, that I could have eaten(but didn't). I was really good and ate only what I was supposed to(which was easy because I prepared for this ahead of time), yet I still gained weight! So that is why I decided to have an apple day.

Last night I went to bed WAY too late because my little one wanted to eat at 1am. She was upset for a while before that, which is why we hadn't gone to bed yet and she ended up waking me early this morning. So on days like this I ALWAYS have a cup of coffee, but I haven't been drinking coffee since I started this diet because I don't like black coffee. Well, today I had to have some, so I poured myself a little cup and measured out a tbsp of cream(half & half) instead of the tbsp. of milk we are allowed to drink. I have to say, despite the lack of sugar in my coffee, it was the best cup I've had in a long time! I really didn't think I could do coffee without sugar, but I may have to adopt this new way of drinking it with a bit of milk or cream. Yum!

Yesterday I didn't take pictures of any of my meals because I was super busy(having so much fun!). Today I just had coffee and 5 apples. Kind of boring(I'll tell you if it worked tomorrow)! Here are a few pictures anyhow.

 Here is the ladybug cake I baked and decorated for my girlies 4th birthday.

 Cutlery in flowers pots that I painted.

 Ladybugs on a ribbon.

 My little lady(and her brother)!

 Nom nom nom........

...And my glorious cup of coffee. How I've missed you:)

~Jenn

Hcg Diet Phase 2 - Day 12 & 13

I didn't have time to blog yesterday(which since it's after midnight already, that would be the day before yesterday) so I will catch you up today. I woke up and was exactly the same weight as the day before(Boo!), but today I was down a pound(Yay!). I'm not sure I drank enough water the day before, so that may have been why I wasn't down, because yesterday I made sure to drink my water and I lost a pound.


For breakfast yesterday I had an apple and green tea.


For lunch I had my delicious Teriyaki chicken stir fry. Yum yum!

For dinner I had some beef and asparagus.

 Today I just drank green tea for breakfast.

I had stir fry for lunch.

And I ate my Curry Chicken and tomato soup that I had previously frozen for dinner. Yum.

Hcg Diet Phase 2 - Day 11

Today was good. I was a bit hungry in the evening, but not overly so. I've been really trying to drink at least 4 liters of water everyday, but it's really kind of hard. Especially when I get busy with the kids or doing something and then I forget to refill my water glass. It really helps to keep me feeling full though. My goal everyday is to drink at least 3 liters of water. I think I've been doing pretty good with that so far. I lost another pound this morning, Yay! I'm glad I'm back on a steady downward slope of weightloss!

For breakfast I had part of an orange and green tea.

 For lunch I had my Teriyaki Chicken Stir Fry. I think I'm addicted. I can't wait until P3 when I can mix in a few extra veggies!

 For dinner I had baked tilapia with asparagus. This is always juicy and delicious!

For my evening snack I ate an apple!

~Jenn

Hcg Phase 2 - Day 10

Today marks my 10th day on phase 2 of the Hcg diet. So far I am quite pleased with the results. I woke up this morning and was down 0.5 lb. Not the greatest loss, but it wasn't zero so I'm happy! I've lost about 12 lbs off my starting weight(14 lbs including the weight I gained and then lost from the loading days) and I'm feeling pretty happy about that. I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of this week brings me in terms of weight loss.

So far I have found this diet to be really quite easy. I know what I have to do everyday. I have a set plan for my meals and what I can and cannot eat, and that seems to make things so much simpler. And in my opinion, makes it a lot less easy to cheat! I haven't cheated and I'm quite proud of myself for that. The only thing I've found hard is when we are going to be eating with other people. Planning my daughters 4th birthday hasn't been easy either. I've kind of been putting things off because I can't figure out what to have as a meal. Since there is gong to be 3 of us that are on this diet(my sister and sister-in-law, read her blog here) that makes it a little bit easier, but I still don't want to sit in a room with a bunch of people eating chips and goodies! Things I would LOVE to have right now! So I made a decision not to have any of that at the party. With the exception of my daughters birthday cake, there will be almost only healthy options. That way if one of us does end up 'cheating', it might be on a piece of fruit or veggie. Not such a big deal in my opinion. The party is on Sunday, which is also Fathers Day, so we will be doing both on the same day. We will see how Sunday goes with all the temptations. Check back on Sunday to find out!


For Breakfast I had an apple and green tea.

For lunch I had chicken taco salad. Recipe here.

For dinner I had my Teriyaki chicken stir fry. It was so good last night, I just had to make it again!

Strawberries for my evening snack!

~Jenn

Hcg Diet Phase 2 - Day 9

Woke up today, and I was down 1.5 lbs! Woohoo! Now hopefully I will be on a roll for losing more weight this week. I was really pleased this morning when I read the scale after the past few days of stalling/gaining slightly. I'm hopeful that tomorrow will bring me another lowered digit on that scale!

For breakfast I had an apple and my usual green tea.

For lunch I made my beef up with some broccoli. For some reason I just wasn't diggin' the broccoli, so I ended up leaving a few pieces on my plate. I guess I just really prefer fresh as apposed to frozen broccoli!

For dinner I made an awesome stir fry with cabbage and chicken. It was soooo good! I love that I've made all these meals for myself that I actually really love. I mean I thought it would be way harder than this, to try and make really great meals with a limited number of food options. Especially when you are only allowed one veggie at a time. I've been pleasantly surprised!

Teriyaki Stir fry

100g chicken breast
2-3 cups chopped or shredded cabbage
small amount of sliced onion or onion powder
1 large clove garlic
1/4 tsp ginger powder(or fresh if you have it)
1-2 tsp no calorie soy sauce
1 packet of powdered stevia

Fry chicken(I used a small bit of coconut oil) until slightly browned. Add onion and garlic and saute for a minute then add remaining ingredients and saute until the cabbage is as tender as you like it. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes. Enjoy!

For my evening snack/dessert I made up a strawberry smoothie with 2/3 cup frozen sliced strawberries, ice cubes, lemon water and 2 stevia packets. I'm drinking it as I type!