Hola!

Report from last night is positive - I stayed completely on plan, with help from a very understanding friend who I had a late, gloriously enjoyable craft night with. My dinner was at 4:30 (apple, pickled cucumber, chicken, grissini) and I wasn't hungry by 2 am, nor when I woke up the next morning.

Today I am feeling pretty weak - not sick, just slightly drained. That's normal for this period of time and I'm taking the opportunity to rest and not overdo it while Peter takes care of the kids.

My weight was 203.2, which was really great considering I quick pickled a cucumber yesterday for dinner and it involved a tablespoon of salt >_<. The good Dr. Simeons does NOT restrict salt at all, but that doesn't mean that so much of it won't make me retain a little water, even if I am drink over a gallon a day. That's okay. I want real fat loss, not the illusion of it through water weight disappearing. And since I drink SO much water the salt is helpful in not allowing my electrolytes to get wonky. Plus, it was tasty. Very, very tasty. I used stevia in place of the sugar called for in the recipe and it worked fine, but without the negative sugar impact.

Now, onto today:

To extend the time I can dose with hCG without hitting immunity to it (where my system gets used to the amount and I begin getting hungry again, and not losing fat as well) the protocol recommends that one day a week is a rest day from injections, whereby you still follow the VLCD but don't dose with the hCG. This works because the hormone remains in the bloodstream in effective quantities for 72 hours, so skipping a 24 hour period is no hardship on the dieter and allows them to lose weight for a longer period of time. Thus, tomorrow will be day four, despite today being the fourth day on the diet, because tomorrow is my fourth injection. I'm calculating days on this diet by injections, officially, not calendar duration. It makes things slightly tricky, but is a more accurate way to do it.

Other than the weakness this morning I am feeling great, just drank my tea with a tbsp of milk and stevia, and am eating a lunch of steamed asparagus with Tony Chacheres (super yum), chicken dry-sautéed with salt, paprika, and water (also yum), grapefruit with a little stevia to sweeten and my trusty grissini. The minimal starch in the grissini breadstick and milk in the tea do not seem to give me allergic symptoms at all, which is great. I didn't want to cut those out of the diet unless I had to, but apparently my tolerance for those substances is decent enough that trace amounts don't hurt. That will make the maintenance phase much more smooth. Also, it doesn't seem to stir up cravings, another worry of mine. Other than the occasional braised hunger for more food and junk, my body is very satisfied and feeling better and better. No inflammation, stuffy sinuses, headaches, or anything else. I nixed my coffee and diet soda for the time and will probably not interject the latter back in again - I haven't ascertained if, on the rare occasions I drink soda, whether the artificial sweetener is worse for me than the sugar. It's a toss up at this point, and something I will probably just wholesale avoid except for very rare occasions.

I am keeping the salt a little lower today to see what kind of losses I have tomorrow and if it was indeed the cucumber pickles that kept me from more losing. But either way I am down four pounds from the first few days and my skirts fit looser, belly is more flat, and chubby chin issues are almost subsided again. All good things, and this diet IS called 'Pounds AND Inches' - I'll happily take the inches if the pounds are being stubborn :)

******** EVENING ADDENDUM

Ended up with a slight headache tonight, but it came about after several hours of looking at a computer screen in the dark and thus I cannot conclusively attribute it to the diet. Heading down to make dinner now, with P2 chicken chili and spinach chips.