R3P2D20/35 - Whew!!!!

January 21, 2012

Round 2, Phase 2 (Very Low Calorie) Day 20/35

Well, the apple day paid off.  I lost 1.7 pounds.  The big sigh of relief is not because I feel like I'm "out of the woods" but because that probably means I was stalled in some small way.  Now, what I do from here on out will mean a lot.  I've got 15 days left on Phase 2 (Lord-willing), even though technically, I could say tomorrow is my last day in Round 2 Phase 2.  Huh?  Well, the minimum number of days you can be on drops in a Round in 21 days (hence, tomorrow, since I don't count my 3 days of loading with drops as "days on drops").  The maximum you are supposed to do is 40.  Well, if you do injections (I don't).  I just found out from my friend Abbie, who is a superstar and on day 50+ of Phase 2 in Round 3 (hi, Abbie!)  that when you use homeopathic drops (like we are using), you can go until your body tells you its done (stops losing).  I think, mentally, I'm going to be done by February 6.  This has been a much harder (less lost) round on me mentally.  I've even been hungrier.  Not dying hungry, but hungrier.

I am hoping, though, like last time, that Week 4 shows better losses.  Each Round of HCG is different, so Week 4 might be harder.  Whatever comes comes.  I'll get through it, and I'm praying, with a good attitude!

So, today's 1.7 pound loss brings me to 17 pounds off in 20 days (this Round) and 47.8 pounds off total.  This week (5 days so far), I have lost 2.0 pounds total, which is "only" at 0.4 pounds off a day average (under the 0.5-1.0 daily average loss we are supposed to have).  But, I'll take it.  It's much better than the 0.03 pounds off a day average before today's weigh-in.

Before I sign off for the day, I want to share one of those minor things I think I stumbled on yesterday that might (just might) explain a little bit of my about-face this week.  I decided yesterday, since it was an Apple Day, that I might want to scrap the chicken and fish I had prepared last Saturday for the remaining three weeks of lunches/dinners I had coming because maybe I prepared them (inadvertantly) with sugar.  When I was preparing them, unlike every other time I've done it, they were still partly frozen, so I threw them onto cookie sheets and baked them for a while.  Then, I measured out the 100g (3.5 ounce) portions of each and baggied them up for quick grab lunch/dinner packing.  Frankly, it took less time measuring them after they were cooked than measuring them raw (which is kind of gross) and then standing there grilling one tiny piece at a time on my George Foreman Grill. 

Okay, great.  So, yesterday, since it was an Apple Day, I had a little time to think about what I was going to do different (if anything) in the coming days with my food.  One of the things people on this protocol do when they hit times like this is think if they have done anything different.  It hit me ... maybe I had prepared that food wrong.  Maybe I was eating a veggie I shouldn't, or maybe I was eating a meat I shouldn't eat in P2 (for example, maybe my brain glommed onto Tilapia as an okay meat choice when it isn't).  So, I dug out Dr. Simeon's original protocol (that book called Pounds & Inches) and re-read the menu choices (I was spot on with it food choice wise) and a few of his tips on things about the plateau for 10-15 day thing (which I do think I'm in), etc.  I've already talked about that.  But, one of the things that stuck out to me is his comment that (and I'm paraphrasing here) all of the meat portions must be measured out BEFORE cooking.  Um, ooops.  I measured them after cooking.  Which means, I think I was getting too much meat every day.  That makes sense, because when I was measuring the cooked meat, it seemed like it didn't go as far as in weeks past.  So, right then and there, I decided I was going to buy more chicken breasts (boneless, skinless) and fish (tilapia, orange roughy, whiting) and cook them today ... but this time, I'll measure them out BEFORE cooking them.  Uh huh.  You know, following protocol?  (Brother, Julia.)  It's funny, so many people said Round 2 or Round 3 get to be the most difficult because we mess up since we think we are pros at this thing.  And we get sloppy.  Hello, my name is Julia, and I've gotten sloppy on this protocol.  Not slopping in a "I cheat" sort of way (which I don't do).  But, sloppy in the "follow the protocol exactly and it will pay off" way.  You know, like measuring food before you cook it?  Those "tiny" little, specific instructions.  : )

Okay, so ... I go to Kroger and waltz over to the chicken area (wow, that sounds a lot more dramatic than me plodding through a busy supermarket on a snowy, freezing Friday night after work).  I grab a package of chicken breasts (the exact kind I bought last week) and what jumps out at me in tiny, fine print from the front of the package?  "Boneless, skinless chicken breasts" -- yes, yes.  I see that.  But, it was the fine blue print right underneath it ... "with rib meat."  HUH?  Okay, while I don't 100% understand that (I think I need to Google it), it either means they put pork or beef rib meat in with the chicken to plump it up OR that part of the chicken breast in the package is ALSO chicken rib meat (do they have ribs?).  Either way, we are not supposed to have pork, OR meat that is off of a bone (that's the fattiest part of meat).  So, I was rather excited that, once again, the dreaded invisible error happened and God revealed it to me.   I must say, I felt a little like a modern day HCG Sherlock Holmes (yes, I've got the BBC's Sherlock on the brain)!

So what did I do?  Of course, I put back that package and bought chicken breast tenderloins that are just (you got it) chicken breast meat.  They are not plump, but flat.  Now THAT'S what a chicken breast should look like.  Funny, we are so plump breast focused in the US that it even translates to our chicken meat?! 

Anyway, when I sign off today, I'm going to prepare my chicken and fish for the next 2 weeks.  I've decided that the other meat I made last week won't go to waste ... I'll just eat 2 portions at a time in Round 3.  I can make chicken salad with it (YUM) and some kind of a fish salad perhaps (or fish stew).  Anyway, nothing is going to waste. 

See you tomorrow (or Monday)!