Week 5 - lost 2.4lbs & 4"

At week 4 these pants which were tight just 2 weeks ago are now baggy in the rear and at week 5 I didn't even need to unzip them to get them on. They are now in my "fat" clothes. I've found one pair of  new jeans that next weeks photos will be taken in. And I will be going thrift store shopping soon for some new clothes.  Wooo Hooo!

Over all in the 5 weeks or 35 days of Phase 2 HCG I lost a total of 18.4 pounds and 29 overall inches.

I am still experiencing reshaping 8 days later but that story next week.  There was just no other way I've been able to loose the weight and keep it off since my 40's.  I highly recommend this process, it will work for everyone.

I saw a program Dr Oz did where he stresses that only injections under a Doctor's regulation will work. But, I do not agree, I felt that this was a way for it to be regulated by government and to make money.  I have found only a few Doctor's even followed the program, most made adjustments of their own that have made it difficult for some to keep the weight off.  My own Doctor has done several rounds herself but I found that by study and keeping up with others blogs and forums that had been successful that I ended up knowing more than she.  Don't get me wrong my Doctor is great, I just feel it is my responsibility to find as many answers for myself and not just take any one's word for it.  Dr Oz also stressed that only injections would work, which is untrue. I have successfully used RX drops each of my rounds.  There are a lot of false drops out there and you need to be sure you get yours from a reputable source and you will know very fast if you don't have real drops.  I would use injections if I ever do another round because I think that I would loose faster in my stomach area. I felt that with the sub lingual drops I lost faster in my upper torso. This is my personal opinion based on my experience.

Week 4 ended with 4.5 inches and 1.4 lbs lost

That doesn't seem like a lot of loss but just wait until next week's post!  What a difference one day will make!!  I've been checking things today like BMI which is down to 20.6 from 23.4 which is well into the acceptable range and my hip to waist ratio which is 0.7.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a healthy waist to hip ratio for women should not exceed 0.8.

I'm very satisfied with my progress and don't feel like I need to loose more weight but I want to be sure I get rid of the rest of the abnormal fat in the belly and back.  Either way I will be stopping for sure by next Tuesday. I do have the option of stopping any day now. I am upping my protein a little because it is inches I want to loose more than weight.  I know as I enter Phase 3 that reshaping will continue. And I am really tired of Phase 2 foods. It's scary to go into P3 because you are only restricted from sugar and starch so you have to be careful what you eat so your weight stabilizes.  More to come about P3 in the future.

I had my husband take photos this week so it is a slightly different angle but you can still see the difference in my stomach.  

My dear husband was going back and reading the first post of this journey and told me how amazed he was at the difference because he had never seen me as heavy.  I really appreciated that, however he wears tri-focals and I'm always asking him to take off his glasses and tell me how many fingers I'm holding up.  Ha Ha   He doesn't think it's as funny as I do.

I was going to post my update on Wednesday but I ended up editing photos all day of my session with my granddaughter Kaylee. Then I was going to get this posted yesterday but I worked all day at the Heartwood Gallery in Fayetteville, Arkansas and the internet connection was down there.  I did get photos of all the new works of art and got them edited so if you are not friends with me on Facebook please send me a friend request and lets get hooked up.  I'd also appreciate it if you would LIKE our Heartwood Gallery page. We have one of the oldest galleries in Fayetteville.

Here are a few photos from the session Christmas Dress.

 

Amazing No-Knead Bread - EASY! EASY! EASY!

 You will find the complete recipe at the bottom of this post.  I originally found this while cruising Pinterest, indulging in food porn while on HCG. Now don't everyone go get their panties in a twist. Food porn is just reading recipes of all the foods you can't have right now and dreaming of the day you can again eat that item.  I know you had your minds in the gutter! 

So Back to the story of this bread. I was looking at the recipe on Frugal Living NW This is a great blog by the way. Spend some time there you'll find a lot to interest you. The original recipe came from My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method by Jim Lahey

My husband likes hard crusty bread, I do not. But, he eats a lot more bread than I do so that is the kind of bread we have most around the house. I make Sourdough Walnut Cranberry Bread for him a couple times a month and he will eat it every morning for breakfast. I bake it in clay pots.

The photo above shows the dry ingredients all mixed together and then the water added. As I wanted to experiment a little with the flour, I changed the recipe to 3 cups Spelt and 3 Cups all-purpose flour and 

3 cups of water.

This photo shows what it looks like all mixed together. It's very moist and sticky. Then cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise for 12 to 18 hours. This is great to start in the afternoon and let rise in a warm dry place overnight.  As it is so cold here right now I turned on the oven light and sat it in my oven.  Notice the boxes behind my bowl? They are my industrial size boxes of foil and plastic wrap. As I use them almost daily I grew tired of digging them out of the cabinet so I covered them with scrapbooking paper to match my kitchen. Sooooo much cuter than the original boxes.

 My dough had too much water so I was unable to shape it as they show in the recipe. So I just pulled the dough away from the sides of my bowl with my spatula and sprinkled flour along the sides of my bowl as I did this.  I did this pull and fold over at each quarter turn sprinkling flour along the sides as I went. Then lightly sprinkle a little flour over the top. I put it back to rise again for a couple of hours, covering the bowl with a tea towel instead of plastic wrap. In the bottom of my pre-heated corning ware dish I inserted parchment paper. Then taking my spatula I pushed the dough into the dish, put the lid back on and placed it in my pre-heated oven. You are supposed to bake this bread in a Dutch Oven. I did not have one so I decided to try using my corning ware.  I will be getting a Dutch Oven but, I did like how the bread looked in it's round shape.

The extra moisture in my mixture did make a denser loaf. My husband gave it a 7 1/2 out of 10 and said he will definately eat it as sandwich bread. This is one of the easiest ways of making bread outside of the bread machine. 

Basic No-Knead Bread  this recipe came from  FrugallivingNW 
slightly adapted from Jim Lahey's, My Bread
6 cups bread flour (recommended) or all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
1/2 t. instant or active-dry yeast
2 1/2 t. salt
2 2/3 c. cool water

1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, yeast, and salt. Add the water and stir until all the ingredients are well incorporated; the dough should be wet and sticky. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Let the dough rest 12-18 hours on the counter at room temperature. When surface of the risen dough has darkened slightly, smells yeasty, and is dotted with bubbles, it is ready.
2. Lightly flour your hands and a work surface. Place dough on work surface and sprinkle with more flour. Fold the dough over on itself once or twice and, using floured fingers, tuck the dough underneath to form a rough ball.
3. Generously dust a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with enough flour, cornmeal, or wheat bran to prevent the dough from sticking to the towel as it rises; place dough seam side down on the towel and dust with more flour, cornmeal, or wheat bran. Cover with the edges or a second cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours, until it has doubled in size.
4. After about 1 1/2 hours, preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place a 6-8 quart heavy covered pot, such as a cast-iron Dutch oven, in the oven as it heats. When the dough has fully risen, carefully remove pot from oven. Remove top towel from dough and slide your hand under the bottom towel; flip the dough over into pot, seam side up. Shake pan once or twice if dough looks unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes.
5. Cover and bake for 40 minutes. Uncover and continue baking for 10-15 more minutes, until the crust is a deep chestnut brown. The internal temperature of the bread should be around 200 degrees. You can check this with a meat thermometer, if desired.
6. Remove the bread from the pot and let it cool completely on a wire rack before slicing.

 My adaptation was to use 3 cups of Spelt and 3 cups of all-purpose flour and 3 cups of water as Spelt takes more moisture.  Now on to my next cooking adventure!

3rd Week update of my weight loss journey

I was going to have my husband take photos again but, he was busy so I didn't ask him.  I think you can see the difference that one week has made and I am not exercising just my normal day to day work.  So far since Jan 2 which my 1st day of taking hcg I have lost 20.5 inches and 13.4 pounds.  This past week I had a stall and I have only lost 2.8 pounds this week.  Stalls are a given in the hcg journey and while psychologically frustrating the are necessary physically.
Here is what a veteran has to say about stalls:

If there's one question that we veterans get more than any other, it's about stalls. We answer these every single day. So here is the skinny on stalls: THEY HAPPEN. You didn't do anything wrong. A stall after the first few days of great losses is almost a given. A long stall in the middle of the round is more common than not.

But rejoice! Stalls aren't a bad thing. I know they feel bad because you've been so good and have followed the diet to a T. But what happens is that you are gaining back some of the water you lost early on. So the fat THAT IS STILL BEING LOST is not showing up on the scales. I really believe those stalls help solidify the losses for when you get to P3 too. I see way more people upset about gaining in P3 when they rushed there as soon as they could because of that typical stall. They assume their body is done, but that's not the case.

So don't be fooled. Hold the course and don't let the stall upset you. It will break when it's ready to break. There is little you can do about it. You may read stories about having a handful of nuts or doing a mini steak day. But these things really don't work. It's just coincidence because the stall was about to break anyway. It would have broken no matter what you did. We get so desperate for it to break that we will try anything. Take your measurements. This will encourage you when you are in the middle of a stall. I have had 10 day stalls in the middle of every long round so I know how upsetting it can be. But put your sights on the end goal and know that you are getting there!

I was kind of excited for the stall since I knew what was happening and this morning I woke up to a 1.8 pound loss.  I couldn't believe it and had to weigh myself again just to be sure. I had resigned myself to .2 and .4 losses. What a wonderful surprise!   This is my 3rd round and I was so ready mentally for it. My second round was difficult for several reasons. The time of year I picked (July) was more difficult because I ended up having to do more heavy outside work than I had anticipated. I did up my protein a little but, I just felt I would have lost better if I had not been as active and had more protein. Mentally it was just harder for some indefinable reason.  In reading others testimonies I found that it was widely agreed that the 2nd round was hard for a lot of people.

My husband's  Birthday was last week and a friend gave a birthday dinner for him and 2 of his friends that have a birthday within a week of each other.  There were so many goodies but, I persevered and did not have any and brought my own dinner.  I had told my hostess before hand so I wouldn't hurt her feelings. It was hard, yet it wasn't hard because I wasn't hungry.  And the smell of the food was great and I found enjoyment in the smells. Here are some photos of our dinner:

 Our lovely hostess plating our dinners

 Lasagna & Salad plus cheesecake for dessert

The three birthday boys!

My husband has been rather oblivious to the changes my body has been going thru, but after church this week. He said that he had been looking at me and thinking that something was different and he had been puzzled as to what it was. Then he had finally figured it out, the original weight gain had been so subtle and all over that you didn't really notice it and now that was how it is with the weight loss.  It has been subtle and all over so he didn't really notice it until he had been watching me sing with the worship team.  He is very supportive of my doing this and I'm so glad otherwise it would be so hard.  I still fix him 3 meals a day and don't find it difficult or tempting.  I find that I'm putting a little more effort into his meal presentations. And yesterday I made him 2 loaves of sourdough walnut cranberry bread.  Today I'm going to try a recipe for Amazing No-Knead Bread even though I can't eat any.  My husband is picky about his bread. He can eat all he wants without any adverse affects. I'll take pictures and if it works out I'll post some for you.

Wine Glass Tags

 

So easy and so elegant.

Just take the bottom of one of you wine glasses and trace it onto paper

 that will go with your dinner party decor. 

 If you have a circle cutter or 

circle punch you could use them.  

Cut out circle tag. 

Cut a slit in the circle to the middle, then either use another punch or circle cutter to make center circle. 

Decorate your glass markers in what ever way you like. 

Write your guests name on the marker and you could even use it as a place card at your table setting.

Book Review - The Air We Breathe by Christa Parrish

 

At first I wasn't sure I was going to like this book, but the more I read the more I was pulled into the struggles of these women.

It showed me that God does have a plan and nothing happens by accident. My choices can affect how a situation plays out, but God is still there. The book reminded me that I need to be more sensitive to that still small voice inside of me. That just an act of kindness can change someone's whole life. That calling on Jesus, no matter how I pronounce His name, He will be there for me.

I highly recommend this book, it is not only a good read, it will remind you how easily you can influence and make a difference in the lives of others.

This book was provided to me by Bethany House for review and I am not a paid reviewer

My hcg journey - 3rd week update

I  just noticed that my fingers are not hurting.  For months now when I wake up in the morning, the joints in my fingers hurt and I have trouble flexing my fingers without pain.  It takes hours for my fingers to be flexible enough to work.  I was worried that I was developing arthritis. I did not have any swelling though. So I hadn't done anything about it or consulted my Doctor.  Yesterday while working on a drawing it occurred to me that my fingers had not been hurting for some time. 

Now this leads me to believe that my achy fingers are due to food. Something that I was eating was causing these symptoms.

One of the wonderful effects of hcg is that your body resets itself in several ways.  My cholesterol resets, and effects of food reactions are revealed and cleared up.

My weigh loss journey continued & January goals

I've made it to the 1/2 way point (day 14) on this round and my husband said he would take a photo of me at this stage.  So far I have lost  10.8 lbs and 16 inches.  Bless his heart, he said he did not see any rolls.

"hcg is a hormone that tells your body to use it's stored fat for calories. While on the low calorie diet you are actually getting around 2500 calories because you body is getting the rest from your fat." I am learning a lot about my body, the biggie is, am I hungry or just wanting to munch. Almost always, I want to munch.   

More next week.

I promised that I would share my goals for January and then what actually happened :)

One of the big goals was to get my husband to spend 1/2 hour per day on our taxes so we could finish by the end of the month and get rid of all the paper piles you see in the photos.  There are piles of paper all over in 2 rooms and more in drawers.  It drives me crazy! I can't even dust because I will mess up the "system".  The middle photo is my way of handling paperwork and taxes. 

 Scan, file, save and throw away extra paper

What actually happened is that in 14 days he has spent 1 hour. . . the month isn't over yet so maybe he'll pull an all nighter as we have 2 other companies to do taxes on also.

My weight loss journey with HCG

I promised I would tell you a little more about my weight loss journey. All my life I've been very thin and able to eat anything I wanted. Then came thyroid and adrenal issues and to top all of that off, Two years ago I was 40 lbs overweight and nothing I did could budge it.  I work hard, exercise, watch what I eat and still the scale kept creeping up. A friend was doing hcg and told me about it.  I was very skeptical about it because I had tried all kinds of different diets and nothing ever worked.  First of all I have entered menopause and everything has changed. I'm 5'6" and medium boned. Most people did not notice how heavy I was because I was able to hide it a lot.  Here is a photo where I'm not doing such a good job of hiding it.  Notice the 3/4 view and partially hiding behind my husband.  sigh.

 My youngest sister became adept of finding angles to take photos of me that made me seem slimmer.

And the scale kept going up and my skills in photoshop were sharpened.  

I learned scootching, and cropping were my newest friends. 

 Not that I allowed many photos of myself to be taken. 

Then I happened to be speaking to my Doctor and mentioned hcg to her and it turned out that she had used it successfully and my journey began.  She gave me a prescription for RXdrops that is compounded by a local pharmacy for me.  My first round was 2 years ago in January I spent literally hours and hours reading the http://hcgdietinfo.com  My first round of 30 days, I lost 20 pounds and since you don't want to do a lot of exercising while on hcg, January is the best month for me to do this.  This is what I looked like at the end of my first round.

HCG works at only eating the abnormal fat if you follow protocol.  There is a limit on how much weight you can loose on each round because you need to rest between and let your skin catch up. In this photo I weighed 141.  I still had a bunch of abnormal stomach and back fat so I decided that July would be the slowest month of the summer to do another round.  If I had it to do again I would have just done the Phase 3 and gone back into another round.  July turned out to be a much harder month for me than I expected.  However, I did loose another 15 pounds which put me at a comfortable weight. This is what I looked like after my 2nd round at 56 years of age.

I kept the weight off with no real effort for about 8 months, then some major stresses started happening. I began to eat emotionally and when not hungry. I also suspect that I have some food sensitivity issues, dairy is a definite problem and maybe grains.  I will see after this round.  You do not eat either of these things while on hcg. Now after 1 1/2 years my weight has crept back up to 145. Time to take action! 

I started my 3rd round on December 31st at 145 and today is Day 8 and my weight is at 137.6. And I've lost 9.5 inches.  That's just one week people! I feel great and have plenty of energy.  I don't have anyone to take photos of me right now but hopefully I will soon.  Right now I look close to the photo where my husband and I are at a restaurant.  I'll update some more as I go along.  There is a lot of misinformation out there about hcg so head over to the forum and read and read and then read some more to see if this is for you. 

But, I highly recommend it.

The source is Dr. Simeon's, Pounds and Inches and you can find a link at the forum to read a free copy.  

 Happy New Year Everyone, 2013 is going to be great! 

January 2013 Goals and What I actually Did

These are photos of the upstairs of my rental cabin. Yes, those are my paintings on the walls and they are for sale. You can find prices on my web site, http:www.artbypamla.com. I decided to paint it the day after New Years. I planned to take 2 days but was so happy because I actually finished it in 9 hours!  And I was not moving quickly either  LOL. More about why a little later.

My other big goal for this month is to get my husband to spend 1/2 hour per day on doing our taxes. I figure he can handle 1/2 hour.  He has already slipped out of 5 days so far.  But, I am determined we WILL finish the taxes this month and not next fall.  Maybe later in the week I will post a photo of what our downstairs looks like for 10 months of the year with never ending piles of paper.

The reason I'm not moving as fast as normal is, I'm Old!  No, not really. I'm moving a little slower because I started a round of HCG. This is my 3rd round and I was so excited to get started.  I'll keep you updated on my progress but tomorrow is 1 week and measurement day.  So far I've lost 5.8 pounds.  Yeah for me.  If you would like more information on HCG then hope over here and check it out:  HCG everything you ever wanted to know

Happy New Year Everyone, this year is going to be great!!