HCG: Weeks Four and Five

I intended to blog about our progress last Sunday, but after indulging ourselves (be it ever so slightly) for Thanksgiving, I decided to wait and see how all that turned out.

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As of Friday 9 days ago, Sarah and I had both lost exactly 26.2 lbs in 26 days. Pretty good!
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That night we enjoyed a small holiday dinner, and by 2 days later I'd gained back 1.2 lbs and Sarah had gained back 2.0 lbs.

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That's not bad. We'd both hoped for no more than a 2-lb gain, and we quickly returned to our 500 calories per day.
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At right: ground sirloin and Italian-style diced tomatoes, one of our diet dinners. Flavorful!
It took another 3 days to take off the weight and start losing again, so we basically lost 4 of our 40 allotted weight loss days.

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No more cheating for us!

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We've done well since then. As of today, we've each lost exactly 29 lbs in 35 days.

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At left, broiled chicken breast and diced cucumber in vinegar.

We've decided to extend the diet by 4 or 5 days, to recoup the days we lost. Our last day would have been next Sunday, Dec. 13th. Instead, it will likely be Friday, Dec. 18th.

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That's 47 days of diet, but it's really only 44 since we stop taking the hCG 3 days before ending the 500-calorie diet. This allows time for the hormone to leave the body, which prevents weight gain that would result from extra calories while the fat released by the hCG is still in the bloodstream.
Above, tilapia on a bed of spinach, baked in lemon juice and red wine vinegar. It's modified from one of my favorite recipes, but I do miss the drizzled olive oil and sliced tomato and red onion that top the original dish.

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At left is our dessert of apple slices and cinnamon, microwaved. It almost tastes like apple pie filling. Almost.

At right, one of my school lunches: shrimp and sliced, seasoned tomatoes.
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The timing will be perfect for ending this cycle of the diet. Dec. 18th is the last day of the fall semester, and then Christmas break begins. I can endure this diet until school is out.

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Then I intend to fully enjoy eating normally during my 2 weeks of no school!

It's funny, but I don't crave junk food at all. I'm not yearning for cookies or potato chips.

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I'm longing for healthy fats and proteins, like eggs for breakfast, a slice of cheese for a snack, a salad of mixed vegetables (lettuce, tomato, cucumber, red onion, radishes...) with my favorite olive oil and red wine vinegar dressing!
In my last hCG post I mentioned the controversies of the hCG diet. I'd planned to go into those in this post, but I decided instead to update on our progress and share some of the meals that currently make up our daily menus.

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But next week, the controversies!