Team Hooters in the Hizzzz-ouse!

I got a new background.

It was free.

*twirl*

Go there and snag one of your own. If you think you're cool enough....

Leelou Blogs is too cool for school.

Don't Cash in the Insurance Policy Yet...

My husband, The Detective, is not known for jumping to conclusions. What he is known for is seeing things 2 ways: black or white. There are no shades of grey for him.

Ever.

He has convinced himself that the diet that I'm on is going to kill me by either causing my gallbladder to explode or my heart to stop. I'm not really sure where he got this idea from but he has taken it and RAN WITH IT.

The other night I casually mentioned to him: "Hmmm...my arm is annoyingly numb...*shaking arm*..."

He immediately grabs my wrist and starts taking my vital signs. Meanwhile, I'm trying to read my book. Do you know how hard it is to read a book with one available hand? At this point, I'm regretting saying anything about my arm at all.

He starts in with the questions: "Do you feel dizzy? Sick? Are you numb anywhere else?"

*grabs his cellphone and goes to Web MD*

Him: "Blah, blah, blah....carpal tunnel, pinched nerve, cold air...heart attack....I think we should go to the hospital."

I look at him.

Me: "I'm fine. I feel fine. I'm sure I just leaned on it wrong." *eye roll*

We go to sleep.

The next night, I crawl into bed and fall quickly to sleep. I feel a tapping on my arm and then I feel The Detective SHAKING me awake. Is it a fire? A tornado? A rabid raccoon?

No, my friends, it isn't any of the above...

He says: "Are you OK?! You didn't look like you were breathing?! Are you feeling alright?!"

*insert stare of death here*

Me: "I am FINE. Do not wake me up AGAIN." *sigh*

I've determined that if this diet doesn't kill me then I'm definitely going to die from lack of sleep.

My View Of Life...Or At Least What I See When I Leave The House In The Morning.

I live in Michigan and for the past week or more we've had some pretty consistent rain. I'm about to turn into a merperson, I swear. My morning routine is usually the same...very...um...routine. The alarm goes off at around 7am, I stumble out of bed peppering my bedroom with some spicy phrases, I get myself and my 6 year old ready and then we leave the house. I drop her off at school and then go to work. This morning, like most mornings, I opened the door and this is what I saw:

I see this...the wet pavement, evidence of the rain that poured last night. I can smell the pond in the back, I can feel the heaviness of the warm, humid air. I want to see the sun!

And then I do.

How was your morning?

Nekkid

As I was perusing the intranets I stumbled upon an article about May 14th being 'Blogging Without Make-up Day' or some such nonsense. The concept was probably thought up by some freak who has perfect hair AND skin and who doesn't scare small children or the elderly if she happens to go outside to get the paper sans make-up in the morning. I mean, isn't there a reason God invented foundation and lipstick? C'mon, ladies. I don't want to see your uneven skin tone any more than you do. I'm good, thanks.

I can guarantee all of you this: You will never, ever see a picture of me without make-up unless A.) I'm involved in some sporting event, or 2.) Someone else posted it. If a picture of me without make-up was posted by a second party without my knowledge or even WITH my knowledge then another guarantee I can give you is that said person will probably be buried in my backyard by sundown that same day.

So, even though I think it's a noble idea to "take it all off" in the name of pride and grrrrl power...I will be skipping this feministic new tradition.

I was thinking though....wouldn't it be kind of cool to see what other people see as soon as they step out of their door in the morning? Do you see a busy street? A sweeping yard? The next-door neighbor's junk car? Are you in the city? Country?

Tomorrow, I'll be sharing with you what *I* see when I walk out the front door in the morning. Are you excited? You HAVE to be on the edge of your seat right now. *crickets chirping*

I'd love to see the world through your eyes! Email me a picture of what you see when you walk out your front door. Interpret it any way you want. I can't wait to see what you see because quite frankly, I'm bored by my view. Just don't send me any pictures of those creepy little kid garden statues.

*shudder*

Great article: What Makes Me Feel Beautiful

*GASP* I Got An Award!

Thank you to Jen from This Moment In Time for the One Lovely Blog award! I apologize for being incredibly late on recognizing this. I grovel at your feet.


The official rules of accepting this award are as follows: Accept this award and post it on your blog. Include link back to the blog you received it from.


Pass the award to fifteen blogs you have newly discovered.

Be sure to contact them to let them know they have been awarded.

I am passing on this award to:

Strength of a Rose

This Complicated Life

A Phoenix Rising

A Writer's Ramblings

Author Sarah Cunningham

Tubby Tabby Tales

Been There Running That

This Mama Moment

Christine Carr

Mrs. Flinger

Carolyn...Online

Life Just Keeps Getting Weirder

Toledo Photo Guy

Classy Chaos 

I'm Not Benny

So, there we go! Congratulations....you may kiss my ring.

I'm A Loser, Baby...

Day 12 of the HCG protocol and I've lost 9 pounds! Now, don't get me wrong, this is NOT EASY. I can only have certain foods and a limited amount of them at specific times of the day but it has all been worth every second and every craving.

An additional bonus to the weight loss success: My skin is smoother, I was told that I look younger, I'm sleeping better, and I have more energy. Go figure, right?

My only complaint is that I'm bored with the food choices. I'm not hungry, just bored. *yawn* Things could be worse though.

How I Was Humiliated By A Grapefruit

I'm doing well on my HCG diet...if you'll notice over to the far right-------> I've installed a weight loss ticker that is tracking losses day by day. This is Day #7 and golly, I'm doing well. I'm not trying to brag and I'll prove that to you by sharing how I was humiliated by a grapefruit today. Good times.

I decided to indulge in half a grapefruit for my mid morning fruit fix today. I sliced it in half and placed it in a bowl and then proceeded to go to my office to enjoy my treat.

How in the heck do you eat this stuff?!?

I sliced it along the sections with a knife and tried to scoop it out but I made more juice and pulp than anything. I finally gave up and just tried to drink the juice out of the mutilated fruit I had in front of me.

This is what I expected:

"Hey, look at me and my non-humiliating grapefruit!"

And this is what I actually got:

Apparently, the grapefruit has a natural defense mechanism that prevents it from being eaten, kind of like the sea cucumber...I wonder if they're cousins? Maybe second removed? Anyhow, the grapefruit turns itself into mush and juice that is impossible to remove from the inner peel.

Final Score:

Grapefruit 1

Me 0

Seriously? I'm A Total Moron...OR...HCG Day 5

I lost another 2.4 pounds at this morning's weigh in! Yay! That means my total loss at this point is 3 full pounds not including my 2 loading days weight gain of 3 pounds that I also lost. AWE-SOME.

Now to get to the "I'm a total moron" part: Measurements have never been something that I've been "good" at. Really, they confound me. I know, I know...it's hard to believe, right? The directions on my HCG tell me to take .5cc's of HCG 2x a day. It's really easy, the syringes are TOTALLY marked with the numbers. So, I've been taking my HCG religiously for two times a day with 5cc's.

I'm hungry still. My stomach is burning and I want to chew on my arm. I keep telling myself that it will go away and not to worry because this is normal. I read somewhere that if you're still hungry after few days to up your dose...so that's what I did! I increased my dosage to .7cc's and it hadn't seemed to help so I email Jenny at the place that I bought my HCG from and tell her what's up. After a few emails that went back and forth, I get frustrated and tell her that I'll just have to find a detailed answer elsewhere. I mean, come on! I'm hungry and you're not giving me an answer that makes one IOTA of sense! ACK!

My phone rings.

It's Jenny.

She says that she felt that she wasn't able to answer my question properly over email and so she called me.

She's chipper.

I'm hungry.

So, the beast that has now taken over my body says to Jenny: "I read to increase your HCG dose if your hunger doesn't go away within the first 2 days, so I went ahead and increased mine but I'm even more hungry that I was BEFORE."

Jenny: "Oh no!" *chipper voice* "You need to DECREASE the dose if you're still hungry. If you take more then the fat stores will be burned even faster and that's why you feel hungry. Try reducing it to .4 and see what happens. I think you'll be fine at that dose but please, please call me if you have any problems."

Me: "Really...?"

Jenny: "Yes, try that and if you ever need to talk to anyone just give me a call back. I'm at my desk from 9am until 9pm Monday through Friday!"

Seriously, it was like I was talking to a crisis hot line operator. Now that I think about it though, it WAS a crisis. I'm on a 500 calorie a day diet and I purposely made myself HUNGRIER by increasing my HCG dose.

Seriously? I'm a moron.

HCG Day 4

Just a quick update: I lost all my loading weight...3 pounds...plus .6 pound of my original weight at this morning's weigh in. Wow. It's working!

I'm hungry though. I woke up hungry and I'm still hungry even after drinking loads of tea and water. I'm going to try some coffee next because caffeine tends to curb my appetite.

Breakfast: tea

Lunch: grilled chicken breast, melba toast, lettuce with apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, and pepper for dressing

Snack: orange

Dinner: crab, asparagus with pepper, salt, and garlic powder, grissini bread stick

Snack: apple

Bring it on!

HCG Day 3

Today was the first day of the 500 calorie diet or VLCD. It went well but I did have some hunger on it. Here is what was on the menu:

Breakfast: Tea...lots and lots of tea.

Snack: Apple

Lunch: grilled chicken breast, asparagus with salt, grissini bread stick, tea

Snack: Orange

Dinner: tilapia with pepper and garlic powder, zuchinni with pepper and garlic powder, melba toast

I got very hungry around 8:30pm. I think this was more of an emotional hunger than anything else becasue I was quite full during and after dinner. I continued to drink lots of water to try and curb the hunger but it really never went totally away. I was craving pretzels or chips and cheese. It's probably my body's way of trying to trick me into screwing up this diet. I won though! I didn't give in even though I went to bed hungry.

I gained 1.4 pounds on my second load day when I weighed in today...May 2nd...total gain on load days equals 3 pounds.

HCG Day 2

Second loading day. This sucks. I feel like I'm about to keel over from a heart attack at any minute. Second dosing day of HCG. Here is what I ate...also, I'd like to add: "OINK"....

Breakfast: McDonald's egg McMuffin with no Canadian bacon...It's HAM, people!...1 hash brown, large wildberry smoothie

Lunch: Wendy's 10 piece chicken nuggets, large french fries, chocolate shake, Junior bacon cheeseburger

Dinner: Applebee's lemonade, 3 fried cheese sticks, part of a steak with cheese and shrimp on it, part of a baked potato with butter and sour cream, some steamed vegetables. At this point, I felt so sick and so full that I wanted to be ill.

Gained 1.6 pounds the first day of loading.

HCG Day 1

Look at me! I'm beginning a new diet. Story of my adult life. That's the reason why I'm doing the HCG Protocol. Many people have never heard of it but it's been around since the 1970's. It's target group is basically people that have dieted to the point where their metabolisms are screwed up royally. Basically, my metabolism is bipolar. It's doesn't know which is way is up or which way is down so it spends most of it's time in bed doing nothing. This leaves me with extra weight that I never had to deal with before that no matter what I do...diet, exercise, etc...the weight just stays there. Anyone, who knows me or who has followed my blog at all knows this about me. It's like the never ending weight loss story. I'm hoping that this solves my issue. Before I launch into the specifics...MY DOCTOR KNOWS THAT I'M DOING THIS. *grin*


Here are the basics: There is no Phase 1 technically with the original protocol but some suggest to add a Phase 1 of cleansing prior to the start of HCG doses. I didn't do this. I was on a balanced diet of 1200 calories a day prior to starting this with minimal additives and mostly clean eating so I'm not concerned about this step. It also wasn't in the original protocol as a required phase as I stated earlier.




The first 2 days of Phase 2 of the protocol involve loading up your body with lots of fats and lots of food. I'm talking about eating until you are just about to burst. This helps to keep hunger at bay when you start the next 20 days or so of the VLCD or Very Low Calorie Diet and by low, I mean 500 calories a day. You do all this while taking HCG either through injection or under the tongue aka sublingually. I chose to do the sublingual HCG because I'm a wimp. You knew that though, right?


After you finish the 20 days or so of the VLCD, you move on to Phase 3 which is slowly adding regular portion sizes, sugars, and starches back into your diet and discontinuing the HCG. The final phase or Phase 4 is maintenance. After this you can go on to another round if you still have weight to lose or stop and enjoy the fact that you just reset your metabolism and just monitor your weight. Of course, this is a shortened version of the diet...if you're interested there is a video at http://www.poundsandinchesaway.com/ that gives a great outline of the program also.


My menu for Day 1 of "loading":


First dose of HCG: I mixed the HCG last night and put it in the fridge. this morning when I woke up, I placed the drops under my tongue and held them there for 15 minutes. Took a shower while I did this. You aren't supposed to eat or drink 30 minutes prior to or after taking the drops. I drooled. Lots. I managed not to swallow or drown in my own saliva though. Yay me!


Breakfast: McDonald's Big Breakfast which included 1 sausage patty, 1 hash brown, 1 scrambled egg, 1 biscuit with butter, Large frozen mocha with whipped cream and chocolate sauce on top


*I was looking forward to this day like an 8 year old does to Christmas morning...it was a let down so far...I feel so sick and bloated after the crap I ate for breakfast that I want to stick my finger down my throat. Blech.


Snack: Cinnamon melt from McDonald's...I had to force myself to eat this at 12:00pm...


Lunch: King size Reece's Peanut Butter Crunch candy bar...too full to eat a lunch but forced this candy bar down.


Snack: Mountain Dew


Dinner: La Fuente cheese enchilada, bean and cheese burrito, sour cream, salsa, guacamole


Snack: I was too stuffed to eat a snack.


**This was April 30th