Stalls Really Do Happen

Ok, just because I posted a document last week regarding stalls did not mean I needed to experience one!! This week has been rough, 6 days without any significant losses. I think I may have narrowed it down to one or two culprits. First of all, I think my beloved Chocolate Delight is the main culprit. :( So sad to have to give this up, but I hang on to the promise that I can have it during stabilization, just not phase 2. Secondly, I think perhaps the MSM might have caused a stall. So, I will postpone taking that until stabilization as well. I’m sorry if any of you are experiencing problems with these things as well! Didn’t mean to lead anyone down the wrong path. Most can take both of these without problems but apparently I’m one of the few who have problems. Of course it would be me! :)

I did end up having to do an apple day to break my stall. Can I just say that eating 6 apples and drinking nothing but water for 24 hrs is the absolute pits? I couldn’t even bring myself to eat an apple as one of my fruits today! LOL  But, hey, the apple day worked and I’m very grateful. 

So, let me tell you what I did yesterday and today. Hubby finally agreed to do the diet with me, but he has to eat most of his meals “on the run” so I needed to make some diet meals for the freezer. Yesterday I made Garlic Chicken Asparagus Bake, Baked Round Steak, and Chicken Broccoli Bake. The recipe for the Chicken Asparagus Bake can be found on my Blog. The other two things were just something I threw together. LOL  I took 6 small individual casserole dishes, measured out my 100 g of meat, added the veggies and spices and put the casserole dishes on a baking sheet and baked for an hour at 350. When they were cooled, I put them in Tupperware containers in the freezer. The round steak I measured out after it was baked and put in Ziploc baggies for the freezer.  Today I made some 93/7 Hamburgers with Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning on the Foreman grill and put in baggies in the freezer. Also made my Italian Beef Roast (recipe on Recipe Page) and Onion/Garlic London Broil. I just took both of those out of the oven so once they are cooled, I will shred the roast and measure it out and put it in baggies. The London Broil I had sliced thin at the grocery store. I layered it in a 9x13 glass baking dish, sprinkled onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper and fresh crushed garlic on top of each layer. Then put about ¾ cup water, covered with foil and baked several hours at 300 degrees. It looks very tender! I will measure out 3 oz of the slices and put in baggies. For supper I made my Mustard Fiesta Tilapia and made extra so I can bag up individual portions of that. I really want to make some “Motato Soup” and Chicken Radish Hash but not sure if they will freeze very well or not. Gonna try steaming some cauliflower with spices and see if it freezes ok. 

People ask me all the time what my menu for a day looks like. This was today’s:

Breakfast:

Coffee , black with  dark chocolate stevia

Lunch:

3 oz baked round steak

Cole Slaw (see recipe tab)

Afternoon snack:

6-8 sliced strawberries

Dinner:

3 oz Mustard Fiesta Tilapia (see recipe tab)

¾ cup cooked spinach (saute’d in apple cider vinegar, Bragg’s amino acids and ½ tsp crushed garlic)

Evening snack:

1 naval orange

1 Grissini breadstick

I also drank at least 10 16oz glasses of water and 1 ½ glasses of iced green tea sweetened with stevia

So, there ya have it! Since I finally broke my stall and was down 1.8 lbs this morning, I have reached a new milestone… 90 lbs lost and 86 inches!

I hope everyone has a Happy Easter! Stay away from those chocolate eggs! Enjoy spending time with your family and friends, try not to make it all about the food! :)  I am planning to have sirloin steak and saute’d spinach for my Easter dinner! No ham this year, but that's ok... steak is good!

Continuing Education

I have sure been learning a lot in the past two weeks! I found a great hCG Support Group on Facebook and have learned a lot of new things on there. If you’d like to join it, go to

hCG Support Group on Facebook

You have to ask to join the group first by clicking the button at the top of the page. I’ve noticed that a lot of people on there have created a Facebook Profile just for hCG probably so they can be a little more anonymous and not have their personal pages known to all of the hCG Support Group. Just a little FYI in case you’d like to join but don’t want to share all of your personal life.

The moderators of this group are the same ones who created the website www.miracleskinnydrops.com and have helped a TON of people with this diet. They help people who are taking all kinds of hCG, whether it’s homeopathic drops, prescription drops, injections or pellets. They continually offer tips, information and resources to help all of us on our journeys. If you don’t want to join the group and want to just continue to follow my blog, I will try to pass along any information I feel is really valuable to our success! 

One of the helpful things I got this week was a custom calorie-counting guide specifically for the foods we eat on the hCG protocol. I haven’t been very diligent about counting calories at any time during my journey. But, I really want to do this right and as I get closer and closer to my goal, I want to be sure what I’m doing is correct so that I don’t gain any weight back when I reach it! Out of curiosity, I created a free account at www.fitday.com and tracked my calories for one day. I was very surprised to see that I went a little bit over the 500! Not much, only by about 30, but still… I thought I knew what I was doing! Ha ha.  So, today I am going to take my custom calorie guide and enter it into FitDay so I can do a better job on this journey. 

The Custom Calorie Counting Guide can be downloaded here:

Custom Calorie Counting Guide 

Another very helpful article recently published on Miracle Skinny Drops is regarding Stalls. If you are experiencing stalls, this is a really good thing to read. It helps you understand why your body stalls and keeps you from getting too discouraged over it. 

This article can be downloaded here:

Stalls Happen 

For those of you who are entering Phase 3 – Stabilization or are currently in that phase, I have learned some more information about this sometimes confusing and frustrating phase. Sure wish I would have had this knowledge during my last stabilization phase. Maybe it wouldn’t have been such a wild ride!

To clear up confusion, Phase 3 (otherwise known as P3 or Stabilization) is the period of time when you come off the drops and increase your calories. You must be stable (within 2 lbs of your weight recorded on the morning of your last day of drops) for 21 consecutive days. If you go 2 lbs above or below your “last drop weight (LDW)” at ANY time during those 21 days, you must start the 21 day count all over again. You MUST be stable for 21 CONSECUTIVE days BEFORE you can start another round of drops! This is VERY IMPORTANT because if you are not stable, your weight set point is not set correctly and you will not maintain what you have lost after your next round!!!!  Please believe me, this is true!!!  

If you are doing another round of drops, you will stay on Phase 3 (P3) until you begin the next round. You will not move to Phase 4 (P4) Maintenance until you have reached your goal and completed your Stabilization correctly. There is a lot of confusion about this and we all need to listen to those who have done the hCG diet correctly and have successfully kept the weight off. After all, why would we want to go to all this work and see such great results, only to gain it back? I don’t know about you, but I don’t EVER want to go back to where I was before!!

So, having stood on my soapbox for today, here are some tips for Phase 3 – Stabilization:

1. Follow weight on the morning that you take your last drops.

2. Use a calorie counter, here is a link Calorie Counter  Be sure to start out putting your activity level as sedentary.

3. In the first 2-3 days of P3 you should get your calories up to a minimum of 1500 and then work from there.

4. First week of P3 only add in new animal protein and stick to P2 fruits and veggies,  just more of them, and don't add anything other than animal protein until week 2. Get those calories up in the first couple days, drink lots of water and detox teas. You will be backed up and feel full all the time from all the protein, it's normal don't worry. Get between 120-200g of protein everyday but 200 is a lot so don't necessarily strive for that number (it should be about 45-55% of your daily intake).

5. Use FitDay  to log all foods, it's a free site.

6. Don't cheat, even when really tempted because you need to be in your 2 lbs above or below for 21 consecutive days to really stabilize well. Read every single label, because you can accidentally cheat if you don't. If you go outside of range and have to correct, start your 21 day count over again.

7. TAKE THING SLOW! Add in literally one thing at a time.

8. Keep eating your grissini a couple times a week in P3 to avoid an intolerance once you reach P4.

Here is a sample P3 menu from Shawna Vaughn Culp from Miracle Skinny Drops:

Breakfast

3 eggs and meat/veggies (your meat must be sugar-free but can be sugar-free sausage and bell peppers, onion etc.. or whatever you like. I throw homemade salsa in mine…)

Snack

1 scoop of protein… Jay Robb but only if you need extra calories for the day.
1 fruit (apple, orange, strawberry, or grapefruit)

Lunch

8 oz of meat and veggies (so chicken salad: you could have 8 oz of chicken breast on a bed of spinach or lettuce 2-3 cups with tomatoes or other veggies. this can be around 500-600 cal easy with that much protein.. use homemade dressing no bottle dressings…)

Snack

Grissini and Fruit (same as above)

Dinner

8 oz protein and veggies… to equal about 500 calories

So, now you have it... some of the things I have been learning about the past couple of weeks! I think I will create another tab/page to my blog for downloads so they will be all in one place. 

Oh yes, before I go, I’d better give an update! As of today, I have lost 87.2 lbs and 83 ¾ inches!!

Another Milestone

Today I have reached another milestone! Two actually. :)

First of all, I reached 80 lbs lost AND over 78 inches, measuring 13 different places. I am so amazed that I continue to lose inches even during stabilization when I am not losing any weight. My body continues to change shape and move things around, which just makes me awestruck!

My second milestone is that I finally weigh less than my husband! This is something that has never occurred. He was a skinny young man when I married him, and I have always weighed more than him. I was grinning from ear to ear and doing the happy dance all around him this morning. I'll have to enjoy it while it lasts because he's planning to do the diet journey with me, so I'm sure he will quickly go around me. But, in the end, I hope to end up less than him again.... that is my goal!

I continue to read everything I possibly can about the hCG diet and desire to learn everything I can so I can help others on their journeys. This week I've learned about two new things and am excited about them!

One thing I have learned that can help boost metabolism, help you have bigger losses on the scales, help you stay warmer (if you are one of those people like me who struggle with being cold all the time while on the drops), works as a colon cleanse, boosts your immune system, and helps curb hunger pangs;  is to drink two "California Kickers" a day. I tried it on Saturday and on Sunday I was down 1.6 lbs! I didn't do it on Sunday and was only down .2 lbs on Monday. Yesterday I drank two Cali Kickers and this morning had a "release" of 1.2 lbs. So, I'm thinking it works for me! It is very similar to the "Master Cleanse" if any of you have ever heard of that. Same thing, without the maple syrup.

California Kicker

8 oz water (hot recommended for maximum metabolism boost)
Juice of half a lemon
1/8 to 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
Stevia to taste

I put my water in a mug in the microwave and heat it. Then add the lemon and cayenne and 6 drops of liquid Stevia. Then I sip it. Burns your throat going down but I think it really does work! My brother's family drinks it cold and chugs it down quickly. So, whatever works best for you! Since you are allowed the juice of one lemon a day on Protocol, you can have 2 Cali Kickers a day to help you on your journey.

The second thing I learned about I haven't tried yet, but will keep you posted once I do. I have learned that you can take MSM to help tighten up your lagging skin that you have as a result of your rapid losses. I'm so excited to try this! I ordered my MSM last night on Amazon, so I'm hoping I'll get it soon and hoping to see some great results in a few weeks. Stay tuned for reports on this!

Something I learned a while back but haven't shared yet on the blog is that you can have 1-2 tablespoons of pure organic virgin coconut oil on any phase of the diet. You can make "Chocolate Delight" with it or you can cook with it. Apparently our bodies burn coconut oil as energy and we do not store it as fat, which is why it is permitted. I will post the Chocolate Delight recipe on my recipe page. Tonight I cooked my fresh pressed garlic in coconut oil until it was browned, then added baby spinach, a dash of apple cider vinegar, squirted some Braggs Amino Acids in, added sea salt and pepper to taste and cooked it until it was just wilted. It was absolutely delish!! Never thought I would love spinach, but I certainly do! Served with a lean steak, it was a fantastic meal and felt like I was having a treat! It's amazing what the little things can mean to you while you're on this journey!