Phase Life, Day 1

Today turned out to be in interesting food day! I came in about 200 calories short, with higher fat to protein than I normally like to get, too. And unfortunately both lunch AND dinner were protein shakes! Hahaha. Yikes. Hopefully it's not too bad tomorrow - I only have a pound of leeway as I enter my life phase, so idk how that will go! I have my meals planned out for tomorrow, but it may end up being an egg day!

I added 1 tsp of peanut butter this morning. It was pretty good - I hadn't had an appetite for it at the beginning of P3 because I loaded with it, so when I tasted it a few weeks ago it made me nauseous. Bleghhh. I tried a dark roasted kind today and it was actually really good! Guess there's hope for me, yet!

Breakfast was my normal eggs, chorizo, grapefruit, and cauliflower hashbrowns. The coconut milk I picked up at Kroger was "Taste of Thai" instead of my normal "Thai Kitchen" brand, and I did NOT like it! It was all clumpy and gross and the flavor was only half as good - it tasted really diluted. Oh well, live and learn, right? Back to Thai Kitchen, for me! Well, I have some almond milk to drink, first. That's good stuff right der!

As far as introducing stuff, I'm not really sure how to go about it this time. Being as this is my last round ever, I don't really know what to do now! LOL! I want to introduce stuff slowly, but I'm finding that I'm still really sensitive to things like nuts/dairy, which I never was before. So that's kindof sad for me, but hopefully given time it will lessen. I'm not a big dairy person, anyway, but I do love yogurt. I'll be sad if I'm sensitive to yogurt for the rest of my life! :(

Lunch was protein powder chocolate chip ice cream, some homemade plum babyfood (it's my comfort food... plum babyfood or prune babyfood - either one!), and then a small salad with mustard for dressing and a pickle. Hahaha. After lunch I picked up my boyfriend and drove us back to Austin, but we got here around 6 so dinner was about an hour later than normal! Whoops. Hopefully that doesn't mess anything up, either!

I will take a moment to blog about something other than foodstuffs for a moment... when I drove up and saw him standing there today, I have never seen anything that wonderful before in my life. 10 days without half of yourself is hard to get through. I could see he was exhausted from a 30 hour trip from Tel Aviv to Dallas. I saw wounds on his face from sparring, and he was walking with a limp on his injured ankle, and I knew he was going to be much too tired to hardly even speak. But all I needed was his presence... When he got in the car and I looked in his eyes, I literally felt warmer inside. The moment his skin brushed against mine as he touched my shoulder, my heart raced. Every time he spoke, his voice was like a soothing song to me. How I've missed him! When he fell asleep in the seat beside me, I couldn't stop staring at his sweet face (probably not a good thing since I was driving LOL!). Sigh. I love him so much. I hope God helps us through the trials we face right now - that's the only thing I can say at this point.

Back to food... now that I am thoroughly in a romantic mood and REALLY thinking about turning of Hidalgo and watching something worth watching. Hahaha! I used to LOVE this movie, but it's like, really? Here's what I posted on my sister's facebook wall earlier hahaha...

OMG. Okay.... um... Hidalgo is like... SOOOOO CHEEZY. I seriously think they made this movie JUST so girls could see Viggo in cowboy clothes. There's like.... no other point to this movie. Must be why we only ever watched it at 4 in the morning! I can't believe we dropped water in our eyes to stay awake for this. -.-

It's so sad!! And yes, we would stay awake so late that we would get cups of water and drop drops of water in our eyes to stay awake. The things we do for... fun? XP

Anyway, dinner tonight was 2 servings of Jay Robb because I was ENTIRELY too far under on my protein/calories since lunch was so light and I was eating dinner late - I didn't want to eat anything that would be hard to digest (like meat. haha.) I made a nummy chocolate shake, then ate about a teaspoon of almond butter with it. I also whipped up a batch of chocolate delight with espresso beans inside.... YUM! verah good.

So that's about it for now... off to finish the movie and text my behbeh, if he's awake. Lol.

P3 Day 17 (LDW -1.8)

YAY! I'm maintaining! *knocks on wood, throws salt over shoulder*

I'm terrified that I'm going to go under/over. Idk why - I'm stabilizing really well now that I'm controlling my stress levels when I eat dinner and afterwards. School was REALLY pissing me off today (pardon me), so I'm done for today or I'll be upset while I'm eating dinner and that is not good. Gonna watch some Eddie Izzard or something funny while I eat and afterwards to lighten the mood. Might go for a walk tonight, too! I wanna start exercising when I get into P4, but I'm gonna start slow so I don't gain a ton like I did last time! LOL. Last time I rode my bike about 15 miles right off the bat and gained 3 lbs! I know it was water weight but I still had to do a correction day anyway, and I think that kindof set off a long chain of bad reactions inside mah hypothalamus! I probably should have just done a clean eating day, but I didn't know anything about those back then. "Back then" lol.

Today's breakfast was a blueberry/banana (banana capella that is) pancake with banana cinnamon yogurt on top, some chorizo, and some spinach. Oh yeah and a grapefruit and some almonds :) Before work I threw together some CD with a couple almonds for a snack later.

Oh yeah and 1/4 of an avocado - totally forgot about that until I saw it in the photo! LOL!

Work was fun today - only a 6 hour shift so it went by quick. It's sooo nice being able to eat breakfast every day!!!! Can't even believe it.

Speaking of work, I stayed a little late at work since they were shorthanded, so lunch needed to be fast since I was STARVING hahaha. It was tuna salad and pickles, and a Cafe Vanilla frap. Actually it was vanilla Jay Robb protein and a pack of decaf Via... omg it was SO good!! I am loving P3!! After I input all my calories from lunch & dinner (I defrosted some salmon), I realized I was WAY short because apparently the salmon was only half the weight I thought it was! Yikes! What to up calories with? Hmm....

Then I remembered that one of my facebook friends (through the hcg support group on FB) had an AWESOME looking recipe for CD using Jay Robb vanilla protein as a "base".... I gave it a try and holy wowzers I nearly died! This girl comes up with the most amazing recipes.... I can't wait to try them all!!

The recipe I made was 2 tbsp of coconut oil mixed with 2 tbsp of vanilla protein powder. Put it in the freezer for a minute, then I put a recipe of toffee CD on top of that and stuck it back in the freezer for another couple minutes. It was hard not to just EAT all of that protein/coco oil stuff as I was spooning it into the dish! How amazinggggg it tasted... so sinful!

Here's how mine looked after I broke it into pieces...

Hopefully the extra tbsp of coconut oil and the extra couple of tablespoons of jay robb/cocoa powder help my calories even if it's just a lil bit. I don't wanna fall below my 2 lbs when I'm this close!

For dinner I used the rest of my Greek yogurt to make a spicy Tex-Mex "sour cream" sauce, then I pan cooked a salmon fillet with a bunch of southwestern spices and wilted some spinach on top. Topped it all off with a couple slices of tomato, and made some homemade lemonade to go with it. Yum! Now I'm watching some of Happy Gilmore so I can laugh a little bit and not be stressed, and then I'm gonna get stuff ready for lunch & breakfast tomorrow. Oh yeah and my walk! Hahahaha almost forgot! ;-)

P3D18, here I come!

P3 Day 16 (LDW -1.6 WHOA DUDE!)

OKAY SO... no cali kicker for me today! After a 3lb loss overnight, I'm um like really close to going UNDER my 2 lb limit! No clue what's up with that. My only thoughts are: Cali Kicker, getting stuff off my chest and actually being able to sleep, and getting in all my calories after 2 days of lower end cals. Whatever it was, I'll take it! Now I just hope I don't GAIN 3 lbs tomorrow.

So for the 2nd time this P3, I added in Greek yogurt and flax seed. I did ok with the almonds I added in yesterday, but I left them out today so I could experiment with the yogurt/flax combo. Hopefully I'm ok since I'm nearly done with P3 - just 5 days left!

Breakfast was a flax pancake with greek yogurt on top, zucchini hashbrowns, and 2 chorizo patties. Yummmm. Oh and of COURSE there was coffee with coconut milk involved!

After breakfast I did some housework, then ran over to the old apartment to finish picking up my stuff and check the mail. I also ran by Sprouts while I was down there, since we don't have a Sprouts this far north yet. Well there is one, but it's all the way over at I-35, which is like a 20 minute drive! Crazy. Grr. Haha. Ok so where was I? Oh yeah. Got back from doing that and cooked lunch - I used my MB again to make mashed cauliflower. Put that on top of chicken with mixed veggies and voila! Shepherd's pie. It was sooooooo good!

Oh, while I was at Sprouts I discovered that all vitamin section products were 25% off, so I picked up a bag of Vanilla Whey protein powder by Jay Robb's. Instead of $21 for 12oz, I got it for $16. Sweet! So my afternoon snack today was a peppermint mocha frappuccino, as promised! I made an extra bit of CD this morning with peppermint in it and crushed it into my frapp so it gave it that java chip kindof bite to it. Delicious! Can't decide what kind I'll make tomorrow (if I need to, that is). I really like having that extra little snack in the afternoons - I actually seem to be hungrier for dinner when I have a protein snack after lunch.

Speaking of dinner - tonight's was amazing. I love that I have time to cook dinner again. Back before P2 I was training in Krav every night from 4-8, so dinner usually consisted of a chicken breast baked the night before or something, and I usually ate it on the road on my way to Krav. Having evenings to cook and enjoy dinners has really been nice - I'm getting back into coming up with recipes and using new spices/seasonings and making new flavors. I love cooking! It's so therapeutic for me.

For dinner tonight, I made a spicy cinnamon chicken. It was SOOOO good - definitely one for the recipe cards! :-)

Tomorrow is a work day, so I'll be up about 2 hours earlier than I was today (yeah - didn't even make it to 8. I was up and wide awake at 7:15! Haha.) Wondering if that will affect my weight? I'm trying to figure out how to balance that so it's even-keel. I'm thinking getting 7-8 hours of sleep, plus making sure I'm done eating dinner 12 hours before I will be weighing has a lot to do with it. As far as the rule of how long to wait before going to bed - when I eat something VERY light like egg whites or just veggies, I can go right to bed and not see an increase. If I eat any meat or any fat of any kind, it seems, I have to have 4 hours after my meal before I go to bed or it shows on the scale the next morning. But that's what this is all about - figuring out how my body works!

So today was pretty productive... I actually got some homework done and feel refreshed, even though my heart is still heavy with all the issues I've got going on right now. All I can do at this point is pray.

We shall see what tomorrow brings! It's a short day at work, so hopefully I won't be too tired when I get home and I can blog. :-)

Spicy Cinnamon Chicken (P3/P4)

8oz chicken breast

1/4 onion, sliced thinly

1 clove garlic, minced

2 tsp Bragg's or tamari

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

little bit of salt (opt) & black pepper

cinnamon

2 cups fresh spinach

Start cooking the onions in enough chicken broth or water to soften them. Add the garlic and let cook a minute or two. While the onion is softening, season the chicken with the braggs, red pepper, salt and pepper, and enough cinnamon to cover the chicken on both sides, lightly. Place the chicken in the pan and add a little bit more broth/water, and cover. Reduce heat to simmer and let cook until chicken is cooked through, turning over several times to cook evenly. Takes about 10-12 minutes to cook through. 

At the very end, place spinach on top of the chicken and replace the lid to the pan to wilt the spinach. Remove to plate, and serve! Serves 1.

P3 Day 13 (LDW +0.4 OH YAYUH BAYBAY)

OMG! It worked! Loading up on leafy greens and eating clean really worked! I lost 1.6lbs, and on top of that I wasn't in bed until 2 in the morning and didn't sleep much at ALL... and officially woke up by 8:30. I felt horrible missing my "healing window" (my body likes the healing window LOL) but it was a good night anyway and worth missing that. Moving on!

So I stepped on the scale and almost cried. You know what this means? I'm stabilizing! I can control this! My weight doesn't have to control ME. All it takes is clean eating (and doing it RIGHT. Not cheating like I used to do!) and my body wants to go back to it's set point. Hallelujah! HCG makes me so happy sometimes. Well, like, all the time. Haha.

So for dinner last night I ended up eating 3 whole pickles, 2-5oz cans of tuna over a HUGE bowl of dark leafy lettuce, and some braggs/hot sauce for dressing. It was so good! Then my mom and I ran some errands even though it was 8:30 in the evening by the time we got off the couch from watching Sinbad and laughing our bootays off, and I got some new hot sauce and some canned mung bean sprouts while we were out. Oh and some sliced garlic pickles. I'll admit it - I have a pickle addiction. There are worse things to be addicted to, right? When we got home I was pretty hungry (a good sign, I think, during P3 lol) so I opened a can of the bean sprouts (did you know a whole can of mung bean sprouts only has 20 calories? the ENTIRE CAN!) and ate probably 1/4 cup with some Bragg's as my late night snack. I'm slowly getting back out of the habit of eating late, but I figured if I was going to eat something late it might as well be pretty much empty in calories. LOL. It worked fine since I released 1.6 lbs! Hahaha I'm going to keep saying that, too. 1.6lbs! *said like Doc Emerson 1.21 gigawatts!*

Breakfast today was my standard - slightly different because I made my sausage homemade this morning instead of using the chorizo from Sprouts. I did my sausage recipe a LOT different, too, because I was starving and didn't want to take the time to do chop peppers and all that. And no, I didn't take a picture, but it looked EXACTLY like breakfast from last weekend LOL... like this:

Same tablecloth, same computer cord, same fishtank base (yes that's what that is), same plate. 3 fried eggs, cauliflower potatoes, half a grapefruit, and 2 sausage patties. Except today my grapefruit half wasn't split up. Oh and I have a Dave & Buster's mug instead of a Colorado horse mug... and it's Vanilla Creme coffee instead of plain! Teehee! Guess it's not EXACTLY the same - but close. Ah, breakfast, how I love thee. 

Sausage Recipe (alternate version - even faster and deliciouser... because it's faster. LOL)

3 oz 85/15 organic ground beef/bison

1 tsp hot pepper sauce (any kind you like - check ingredients!)

scant 1/4 tsp each salt and fresh pepper

scant 1/4 tsp cumin

dash coarse red pepper

dash onion powder

dash garlic powder

TINY dash of cinnamon, and even TINIER dash of cloves

Mix it all together with your hands and form into 2 patties. Fry about 3-5 mins on each side, until cooked through and nicely browned (or if you're like me - charred to a crisp! LOL)

Hint: the drippings make for EXCELLENT cauliflower hash.... just sayin'....

So I'll update more with pics/menus from the rest of today latah. Off to chillax and wait for my BF to arrive! <3

---

UPDATE:

Lunch equaled 5oz ground buffalo and 4 cups of fresh spinach (wilted down a little), with some pickle slices & mustard almost like a salad. Then for a snack later on, I had a can of sardines with a little bit of guacamole. Dinner was, well, late... and I was out and unprepared so I went to Sprouts and got some Applegate Farms hotdogs, some green chard leaves, and some spicy jalapeno mustard. Makes for a great on the run dinner! I ate 3 hotdogs, each one wrapped in a big ol' leaf of chard with lots and lots of mustard on it. OH and when I was standing at the register they had little packets of Amazing Grass, so I grabbed one of those and a bottle of water. Needless to say, i got lots of greens in today! Hopefully that will balance out this...........

I couldn't help it. Besides, I had very little fat today and zero carbs after my grapefruit at like 2 in the afternoon, and Dr. S even says in Pounds and Inches that:

"...even small quantities of alcohol, such as a glass of wine with meals, does no harm"

But yeah, I needed this tonight. I've been really needing some wine or beer or sake or vodka (bwahaha jk jk) the last couple of weeks, but I swore off beer until my birthday and I didn't want to introduce wine too early on in P3. Hopefully I don't have a bad reaction from it tomorrow. Usually (at least, last time during maintenance phase), I would either stay steady or lose a little bit the next day after drinking anything, as long as I didn't eat anything with it. When I ate with my alcohol before, though, I never just ate a regular meal... it would end up being very fatty or very starchy because alcohol makes me crave fats and carbs. Weird but it's not a horrible craving and it's easy for me to have another half a glass of wine instead of indulging in my fatty/carby craving and then it goes away. WOW ok that whole paragraph was pretty much pointless. Lol. Can you tell I've already had a glass? Heehee.

So ummmm I don't really remember what I was going to write about other than that? OH! I was uploading the pics hahahaha. OH and I was going to tell you why I wanted the wine so bad! My boyfriend left this evening for Israel for 9 days. I've been praying for him soooo hard - he texted me when he was boarding the plane and asked me to say a prayer. I don't know if mom could tell while we were out, but I've been a nervous wreck since 9 when the plane took off. I won't be able to relax much until I hear from him after he lands - he's landing in London, then has a 10 hour layover before getting one more flight into Israel.

We shall see how the wine affects me tomorrow morning! :-) And hopefully I have a text message from my baby. I love him so much <3

P3 Days 11 & 12 (LDW +0.8, LDW +2.0)

Good Lordy. This P3 is turning out to not be so great! I was hoping for a round similar to my last round where I never even got TO my LDW, let alone passed it! I nearly needed a flipping steak day today! I better go down tomorrow or I'm going to be mad. :( I'm 12 days in - that means I'd have to start my 21 days allll over again, and I would not be terribly happy about that!

Anyway, yesterday I was up, not sure why. I had added almonds and done ok, so I was eating a few of those, and I had some half and half, but not much so it shouldn't have been that. Needless to say I cut out all nuts and seeds yesterday, save for an avocado half that I didn't think about and ate with my eggs at breakfast. Other than that, I ate clean and got in about 1600 calories. Went to bed right at 3 hours after dinner because I was absolutely exhausted, but I went to bed upset. I've been so stressed this week with school, moving, my boyfriend, life in general. Ugh. I'm wondering if that's contributing to this, because I'm always stressed and I don't digest well when I do that. Plus I know stress messes with hormones and all of that, too. 

So today, hoping and praying to see at least the same weight as yesterday (which was 0.8 above LDW), I nearly threw the scale through the wall when it read 2.0lbs above LDW. That's a 1.2 gain OVERNIGHT. And I didn't eat any problem foods yesterday! WTF! 

Needless to say, today I've been eating clean. Not going to worry about calories. I had 2 eggs cooked in some coconut oil for breakfast, then for lunch I had 10oz lean steak and 4 cups spinach, cooked with the steaks. It was DEFINITELY delicious! I figured I would do steak and spinach just in case this is TOM related. I know I already feel mentally better after all of the nutrients/vitamins in that meal! Wow! You know what, I take that back - last round I did go over my LDW by .4 lbs once, but I had been steady at 2lbs below so I did a high protein day (it was Thanksgiving, so I ate breakfast and then pigged out on turkey breast meat at dinner LOL) and dropped a pound the next day. Hopefully I can do that again here so I can get stable! Geez. 

Not sure what I'll be having for dinner, as I'm driving up to Fort Worth again this weekend. I might end up moving back home after school is out - we shall see. I miss my family.

I'm also drinking a TON of water today, and some lemon juice in some of it now that I'm back home and not at work. And I'm taking some detox teas with me to have after dinner tonight, and possibly doing a detox bath, too. I've already had 4 cups of leafy greens, so I plan on having at least 2 cups of broccoli at dinner, perhaps some more spinach for a snack in a little bit here before I hit the road. I talked to Carol Ensminger earlier (from the miracleskinnydrops site/facebook group) and she told me that the more greens you eat, the more you lose. She said to aim for min. 4 cups of dark leafy greens & broccoli, so I figured if I could eat 4 at lunch (the wilted spinach), then 2 cups of brocco plus maybe another cup of spinach/chard or something like that at dinner I should be covered in greens! :)

Well, that's all for now. Here's hoping the evil scale has a streak of kindness tomorrow. 

P3 Days 4-8 (or... 6-10, as I found out)

What a week. My stress level is definitely going to be hard to deal with right now, which is not a good thing. I thought P3 would be easy - didn't know I was going to be dealing with a bunch of bullshit through this. I've been wanting a beer so bad the last few days - just something to relax me. I don't ever get to see my boyfriend anymore, my roommate is kindof a bitch and makes me feel VERY unwelcome with her. I need way more money than I have to pay for school, and I only have like 2 weeks to get it. I miss my sister more than anything. Overall I'm just VERY depressed right now.

Hopefully I can still stabilize through Phase 3. I'm not sure whether to force myself to eat even though I have no appetite or just let myself be depressed and not eat. I think not eating would really be bad for me at this point, but I know eating when I'm upset I usually feel like my stomach just sits and doesn't really digest anything.

UPDATE: took a break from blogging for a couple of hours and drove down to see my boyfriend, and got an herbal tea from Starbucks and I'm working on a venti cranberry tea before bed now. I feel much better and I don't feel heavy after being able to eat a fairly light dinner so I'm hoping I don't pay for eating while I was upset.


MOVING ON...
So this whole time, I had been counting the last 2 days without drops (er... 72 hours so as not to confuse anyone ;-) as part of my Phase 2 still... I found out this morning that those 72 hours are part of Phase 3 days! So I'm actually on D10 instead of D8 like I thought. BOOYAH! Halfway home, baby! That is, if I can stabilize. I'm doing fine so far, but I'm knocking on wood as I say that! I am up .4 above LDW today, but I hadn't had a BM for like 3 days until today so I'm hoping that was it. Speaking of... I'm TOTALLY cleaned out, now! Fair warning - just because smooth move doesn't work on the day that you drink it doesn't mean it's not working! I drank 2 cups that steeped for 15 minutes each yesterday and I was like "really? nothing?" so I went to bed. Woke up and spent about 80% of my day ready to run to the bathroom! Terrible, I know, and gross. Hopefully you're not eating. Needless to say I'm not stuffed up anymore Hahahaha!!

Easter weekend was great - I stayed below LDW all weekend and my sister and I had a great time cooking. I love cooking breakfast, so I went nuts when I cooked for her! We had eggs, some sausage (some ham... allinsideasandwich! LOL) grapefruit, and cauliflower hash one day. I don't remember what else I made but I know I made her my hotdog chili, which she loved. We spent all day Monday watching movies and making up stories about how Han Solo was in love with us. It's so great to have sister time... such a blessing!!

Got back "home" (more like "Bonnie's house") and my room was a disaster. The entire rest of the house was put together, painted (no lie!) and everything, but my room had boards and boxes everywhere. Thanks, thanks a lot. I don't mind the boxes - that's my stuff to deal with. But could I at least have a MATTRESS??! No! So I made a cubby on the floor. My boyfriend was going to come help me set up my bed yesterday, but didn't make it. So I updated my floor-pad to a more bed like state.  (see below... LOL)




Eating in Phase 3 is great - I'm adding foods in slowly but it's still great! Although I don't like the whole being absolutely stuffed to the gills thing... it's so hard to get 1500 calories in!! I never thought that would be hard. Although I will say today I added in 1oz of almonds and getting to 1500 was WAY easier. Gotta be careful with that, though... don't wanna overdo it! I added in almonds a couple days ago and did fine with them - yesterday I added broccoli and felt like crap and gained .4 but not sure if it was lack of sleep, lack of BM, or just water-weight. Hopefully it was one of those and not an actual gain! Anyway I'm still well within my 2lb range and as long as my weight doesn't spike I can catch it with a clean eating day or an egg & steak day (2 eggs, steak & cheese, steak & cheese) and bring it back down. I've been getting around 140g of protein, making about 40% of my calories protein calories. Seems to be working so far!

So far I've added in almonds, coconut milk, half and half (seem to be a little sensitive to this so I don't do a lot), and today I added Greek yogurt, flax, and raw cacao nibs. They are the BOMB diggity in some chocolate delight! Oh, I made peppermint CD. Probably my favorite so far.

I did go explore the HEB that's by our new house. It's HUGE! And amazing. I love HEB... don't get me wrong I feel like I'm living in hicktownRus again (which I vowed I would never do. Just goes to show, children, eat your green vegetables and NEVER say NEVER!), but I do love that HEB. And thank the Lord I'm only 8 miles away from Krav. I can escape there whenever I bloody well want now with much less gas penalties. Anyway, so while I was at HEB for some lemons and cocoa powder (lol), I stumbled upon something I don't ever really indulge in... pork.... and I wanted it. It was so delicious looking, and I DO need some more breakfast items... and it WAS sugar-free with no fillers....... so I buys. LOL.

Well, that's about all for now. Hopefully I can climb out of this funk by morning.

P3 Days 2 & 3 (LDW -0.8, LDW -0.8 BOOYA)

OK! Sorry I couldn't get any time in to blog yesterday... school, date night, then a 3 hour drive back home for Easter weekend.

Yesterday I went up 0.8 lbs, but I think not only because I had like an entire cup (like 8oz lol) of half and half while I was at work, I also had a handful of macadamia nuts, AND there is actually food in my body now! LOL. So yesterday I was careful about not doing too much cream, but still getting in my calories. I used a Jay Robb strawberry protein shake to add my last calories for the day, which put my right at 1500. I was TERRIFIED to see the scale this morning though, because last night was date night with my boyfriend and he took me to a really nice restaurant with a patio and a little waterfall thing and a garden oh wow it was so great. He is so romantic! Anyway, I looked over the menu, and everything actually looked GREAT and it was all really healthy (kindof modern-mexican style food), so I got a spinach & avocado salad with roasted ancho peppers (OMG I love ancho chiles!) and a cilantro lime dressing, but I got the dressing on the side and there was enough avocado mashed onto the spinach leaves that it didn't need any dressing anyway! My boyfriend tried some and he actually liked it, too. Score!

Anyway, after I got home I ate some turkey lunchmeat I had bought in case of just such a protein emergency as dinner was (thank you Applegate Farms!), then finished packing and loaded up my car before heading to Sprouts for some grapefruit and protein powder. Sadly I found out the hard way that my local Sprouts doesn't carry individual packs of the Jay Robb protein powder. What??! But it was worth going in anyway to get a grapefruit the size of my head for 11 cents. Yes, grapefruit are on sale for 11 cents each this week at Sprouts. I know - it's insanity. Since I couldn't find my Jay Robb mix, I ran over to HEB and was glad to find out they have the individual packs, and probably for a LOT cheaper than Sprouts would have had them for, anyway. I've never had the Strawberry kind (I've only ever had their Vanilla Egg White protein) but I was in the mood for strawberry so I got 2 packs of the Strawberry Whey protein and one pack of the Pina Colada. Hello, my name is Jessica, and I'm addicted to Coconut.

OH I also got, just in time for my trip home to see my sis, my Amazing Greens Chocolate powder!!! I got it on sale from Your Way to Wellness and didn't have to pay shipping! That saved me like 10 bucks right there! I may have to try them for some Jay Robb protein powder, too. Haven't checked out all the deals yet but it all looks pretty good. Can't wait to try this chocolate green stuff! I miss having green supplements - they're always soooo tasty! Yes I know, I'm weird like that.

I'll quickly go over my meals yesterday and then move on to today's plan...

Breakfast: 3 eggs, 3oz beef chorizo, and a bunch of chopped chard, all inside a sandwich! HAHAHA just kidding - couldn't resist. It was an omelet. Then I had half a grapefruit, plus the rest of the grapefruit as a snack.

Lunch was 2 salmon burgers from Costco (best things invented ever! I know: there are a LOT of best things ever in my book) on a HUGE pile of lettuce, with diced onions, tomatoes, some avocado, and some mustard. Oh and a pickle. I love pickles. I think I ate 4 pickles yesterday! Hahahaha.

I already talked about dinner, so there. Mleh.

---

P3D3

No cream in my coffee today but I plan on getting some coconut milk for tomorrow/later tonight. I'm finishing my blog and watching Family Man, then when that's over I'm going to Town Talk (discount organic food store... wish we had one in Austin!) to see what goodies I can snag.

Breakfast was A-MAZ-ING. I can't wait until I don't have to eat breakfast on the go every morning before work. I love breakfast. <3

I had 2 homemade sausage patties (recipe below), 3 fried eggs, half a grapefruit, a slice of avocado (not shown... I ate it too fast LOL), and cauliflower hashbrowns with garlic and onions. Oh and coffee. Yes, must have coffee. Always. Or else.

I've got my day planned out, so lunch is 2 organic hot dogs (thank you again to Applegate Farms!) with some homemade hot dog chili. Using lettuce as buns of course. :)

(photo added later.... and OMG that chili was amazing!)

And dinner is going to be chicken uhhh... spaghetti? Gonna save some of my hot dog chili and spiralize a zucchini for pasta, then cook a big chicken breast to put over it for protein. I'll have to add in a Jay Robb shake sometime today for some calories (oh DARN.), too. Probably strawberry again - it really tastes JUST like I imagined strawberry milk to taste! (I haven't had strawberry milk since I was like 3 and I don't remember how it tasted, but this was pretty darn greatness! I just mixed it with about 10oz water. YUM).

Well, off to Town Talk - movie's over in 7 minutes and I still have to upload these photos! Hahahaha... Pictures of lunch/dinner will be updated tonight or tomorrow!


-------
Recipes used today:

Quick & Easy Homemade Sausage (P3/P4)

1 lb ground bison/organic beef/venison 

2 jalapenos, red or green (I did one of each), finely diced or pureed

3 tbsp beef or bison stock

1 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp paprika

1/4 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp onion powder

2 cloves garlic, crushed

sprinkle of coriander &

-marjoram &

-savory &

-sage &

-mustard &

-thyme

Use a food processor to mix the bison and jalapenos (or just mash it all together with your hands - I've done both). Using your hands, mix all spices and broth into the meat - this will take some time to distribute evenly!!

Use as you would any other bulk sausage. If you form it into patties, keep them fairly thin so it doesn't dry out since Bison is lower fat than pork. 

Makes 8-9 patties.   Per patty: 91cals, 5g fat, 10g protein

Homemade Hot Dog Chili (P3/P4)

For one serving (enough for 2 hotdogs)

2oz ground beef  

 3 tbsp minced yellow onion 

 1 clove garlic, crushed/minced

 1/2 cup crushed tomatoes 

 1 tbsp yellow mustard  

 1/2 tsp Braggs aminos 

 S & P to taste 

 paprika, cumin, turmeric 

 dash tobasco or other hot sauce

 Heat small saucepan over medium-high heat. Saute onion until it begins to sweat. Add in beef and garlic and cook until meat is cooked through. Deglaze pan with 1/4 cup water, bring to a boil, then add in remaining ingredients and mix well. Bring back to boil, cover, reduce heat to simmer and simmer 10 mins, until thick. Serve over your favorite organic hot dogs! YUM! You could slice the hot dogs and add them directly to this and eat it like a bowl of chili, too. 

Without hot dogs:  166cals, 9g fat, 12g protein

P3 Day 1 (LDW -1.6)

After increasing my calories to 600 yesterday, I lost half a pound! Whoa! Love that cushion. I'm sure I'll go right up to LDW tomorrow, but it's nice to have such a great cushion today!

For breakfast I had a huge delicious omelet (cooked in BUTTER! GASP! Organic/grassfed but butter! LOL). Unfortunately I only had a few minutes to eat it before I left for work so I didn't take a picture of it :( I will get a picture of Saturday's breakfast, though! Tomorrow I'll be eating on the go again. I can't wait to not have to be at work at 5:30am!!! Speaking of being at work - I got to work 10 minutes early today, and my manager didn't show up until 30 minutes AFTER we are supposed to open at 6! Made for a quick workday, but I was pretty POed that I sat there not getting paid for an hour. I'll talk to her about it later.

So while I was at work, I made myself my normal quad-grande decaf Americano, but todayyyyy..... HALF AND HALF! Like 1/4 cup of it! LOL. It was so so so so soooo creamy and good. Then before I left work I made a Vanilla Rooibos tea and steamed some half and half for it, too. Used around 1/2 cup or so in that bwahahaha. Way too much but it'll help get my calories up for today! I've added up my calories so far and if I eat what I have planned for dinner I'll be at 1536. Couldn't have done it without cream - I estimated a cup of cream so that's like 360 calories! Yikes o.O But this round I'm AIMING for high cals in P3... last round I never got to 1500, not even in P4. Pretty sad. The only thing that worries me today is that looking at my ratio of fat/protein, I've got 40% protein and 50% fat... probably not ideal but I'll see. I did ok with it like that last round :)

Lunch today was soooo yummy! Keeping it simple the first day or two, so I went with a HUGE salad and 8 oz of diced chicken, sauteed with cumin, garlic, s&p, oregano, and some hot sauce, and then onions until the onions got caramelized. Then I diced up half of a little tomato, plus about 1/4 of my avocado that's been calling me for DAYS, and then a couple tablespoons of salsa from Sprouts. It was soooo good! I drizzled some Louisiana hot sauce on top and it finished it perfectly. OH plus I made limeade instead of lemonade today ^.^

I feel pretty full, actually! It seems weird to not have a Wasa and a fruit with my meal - LOL. But I did have the rest of my tea latte for "dessert." 

Plans for dinner are just some green beans and baked chicken - though it may end up being skillet chicken. Oh and I wanna add some chopped onions to my green beans. And yes I just typed "grean beens" HAHAHA! Oops. If dinner is especially fabulous, I will update with a pic/post. Otherwise, you'll hear from me (and my scale!) tomorrow afternoon! 

VLCD Day 21 (-0.2)

OH. MI. GOSH.

Today is officially my last day of taking my HCG! EEEEEEEK! 

So regarding my LDW... I am 2.6 lbs below what my goal weight was for this round - and loving it! That means even gaining up to 2 lbs, I'll still be BELOW my goal weight. Wow! 

Today I plan on continuing my 5oz of protein servings - it has REALLY helped with my hunger/weakness. I was re-reading P&I and found a section that explained it... 

Two difficulties may be encountered in the immediate post treatment period when a patient has

consumed all his abnormal fat...the patient at once begins to feel much more hungry and even weak. In spite of repeated warnings, some over-enthusiastic patients do not report this. However, in about two days the fact that they are being undernourished becomes visible in their faces...In such cases - and only in such cases - we allow a very slight increase in the diet, such as an extra apple, 150 grams of meat or two or three extra breadsticks during the three days of dieting after the last injection.

 It's funny - I was taking pictures of myself (HAHAHA ok that sounds SO vain!) and every single picture that I took, I deleted. I kept thinking "I look sick! What in the world??" So I asked for some advice from Shawna on the MiracleSkinnyDrops forum on Facebook, and she said it's a sign of protein deficiency. After I've upped my protein for the last 2 days I feel SO much better and I look better, too. And I'm still losing weight! Woohoo! I also did detox baths the last 2 days - love love love them. I will definitely be doing at least one of those a month even during maintenance. Really like that I can have the sauna-effect again - I missed detoxing in that sauna that my friends had!

So, plans for today? Shrimp and an apple for lunch, chicken and grapefruit for dinner. Simply because I'm going to be eating lunch at home and probably carrying dinner with me since I'm going to go visit with some of my Krav-Fam for the afternoon. Hopefully I don't gain too much if we work out... although I know it will be just water weight. Maybe if I drink enough it will flush back out over the next 2 days while I'm not on the drops.

Also for the next 2 days, I am going to eat some eggs for one of my protein servings each day, that way I won't have to worry about "introducing" them Wednesday morning when I make breakfast. Yums! I can't wait.

Here's one of the little things I got at IKEA yesterday - I made PB Brownie chocolate delight (using Fudge Brownie & PB Capella drops)... adding the fudge brownie drops made it taste soooo dark and rich - it's wonderful! Much better than just the cocoa powder, which usually gets too sweet for me once I add the stevia. And in a couple of days, I will be making Almond Joy CD - going to do CD with the fudge brownie capella drops, 2 almonds each, and some coconut sprinkles in the center! YUMMMMM omg I can hardly wait! I may add some coconut Capella too... but the coco oil usually gives it a good flavor in that regard.

Well, that's all for now. The countdown to P3 begins!!!!


Goal Weight: 130.0 lbs
LDW: 127.4 lbs


And now, for the random animation of the week........ *drumroll*

BROMANCE!

VLCD Day 20 (-0.8)

OMG! I have never weighed this before in my life! Well, not healthfully, anyway! I think I shall continue the increased protein (but staying with 500 cals) for the next 3 days of my VLCD - I don't think I could survive without my drops for 2 days if I stayed on 100g... yikes!


So I took all of my measurements this morning, and compared them to my last round, and I'm about a half inch smaller than I was at my LDW last round, and nearly 2 inches smaller in all my areas than I was at my LDW on my first round. Aye caramba! I was able to get into my 30's dress this morning - I never thought I would be able to, honestly. I bought it when I was around 130 and planned on altering it... no need, now! And the fact that I am wearing it will keep me from ever letting myself gain... this has got to be my favorite outfit I've ever owned. Geez, I'm such an oldie. Lol!! I also discovered ModCloth last night, thanks to ads on Facebook. Yeah yeah yeah I know, I fell prey. Hahaha. But it's amazzinngggggg! Next year for Prom I can finally do what I've wanted to do for parties/prom for the last what 5 years?! Vintage! 100% vintage! It's just so me! Definitely check out that site if you like old/classic clothes... mostly 30s-50s styles. They've got kitchen accessories and stuff, too, but the clothes were definitely my favorite. I'm mad that I bought my bikini at Victoria's Secret, now! Lol!

On another note, I have been absolutely loving my Capella Flavor drops. I have been putting 6 drops of coconut and 3 drops of banana in a tall glass of ice water.... it tastes like a tropical paradise! Makes me want to drink even more water. The coconut is also fabulous in green tea - hot or iced. I will be out of the coconut flavor in NO TIME... I just got a sample size... dumb. LOL. But I am glad I got the big one of the banana flavor - that's going to be a life saver while I can't have bananas for a few weeks! The next flavors I'm gonna try are probably French Vanilla, Toasted Almond, Maple, and Klua & Cream. Idk... I want ALL of them!!!! Hahaha. I will get a few at a time I guess... if I have to.

So, plans for today include another detox bath (did one last night...). I really like detoxing - it sucks while I'm sitting there burning up sweating, but as soon as I get out I always feel SO refreshed! I used to sit in an infrared sauna at some friends' house when I would babysit for them - I got the same feeling from my detox bath last night. Greatness! My detox bath comes from Carol Esminger (you can see the vlog about it here) and it worked wonders! Just be sure you get the water literally as hot as you can stand it - you want to sweat :) I use 1lb of epsom salt and 1lb of baking soda, extremely hot water, and I soaked for 20 minutes. Followed with a cool shower and lots of water to replenish what I had sweated... I was SO relaxed!

I'm also going to hunt for a breakfast tray today! Random, I know, but I spend a lot of time in my room and eating/drinking on my bed.... it's not working so well trying to balance everything on my big poofy comforter LOL. My coffee is balanced precariously on the footboard right now... I keep giving it the evil eye.

Not sure about lunch yet, though I know it will include 5oz of shrimp! LOL! I might do shrimp/celery jambalaya again. That stuff is so freakin good! Then dinner will be chicken and radish soup. Addicting. Actually I may do THAT for lunch so I don't end up with the same exact things as yesterday for each meal. I'm sure I'll update after I eat, but I wanted to get my blogging done this morning since I've got a busy day ahead! Possibly going to be volunteering for the Miracle League from 1-4 today, too. I haven't heard back from them so I'm not sure what to do about that exactly.... hellewwwww?! Hahaha.

Good luck to you all - here's to reaching our goals and beyond!


-----  UPDATE -----

Went to IKEA and remembered that I had a $25 gift card... ended up getting a nice breakfast tray, a silicone ice cube tray for my Chocolate Delight, and a milk-frother! I know the milk frothers aren't all that great, but it was only 2 bucks and I had a gift card, so it really didn't cost me a thing. Teehee. Here's me using my new tray on my bed YAY!