What Are You Worth?

Are you worth putting yourself first for a short term so you will have the energy to put your family first long term?

Are you worth discovering what it was that led you to a place of being overweight in the first place?

Are you worth deciding that you are fed up with where you are and you are finally ready to take action?

Are you worth the dedication it takes to rediscover (or maybe discover for the first time) the best you?

Are you worth saying "No." to things that you like for a small time frame so that you can say "Yes." later and feel good about it and not feel guilty?

Are you worth a new wardrobe when you melt away the stored fat in you and nothing you own fits anymore?

Are you worth finally feeling proud of yourself when you look in a mirror instead of disgusted?

I know that once I figured out that "I am worth it!" It has changed my life. I have added years to my life and life to my years (cliched but so true). My family is proud of me, my kids are proud of me, my husband is proud of me and I am proud of me. This week I have been hearing over and over - "You look so great! And your pictures don't even do you justice!" I love it, but I worked hard to get here... and I am worth it!

Motivation

NOTHING TASTES
AS GOOD
AS SKINNY FEELS!

This saying gets me through lots of those cravings for chips and ice cream - it is so true! My size 4
skinny jeans are way better than a bowl of ice cream :-)

Do you have a favorite saying that keeps you going?

Maintenance Ambrosia Salad Recipe!

When in Maintenance 1 it is very hard to get in all your calories so there are a few foods that will become your best friends... one of those is unsweetened coconut flakes! So this dish became a favorite the first time I went through Maintenance and now in my second time of Maintenance it is still a go-to dish for me and it is SO EASY!

This is a picture of my dinner - meatloaf with marinara sauce, fresh green beans with onion, deviled eggs with avocado instead of mayo and of course, my ambrosia!


M1 Ambrosia

1 can Mandarin oranges (natural juice not syrup)
1 can Pineapple chunks or tidbits (natural juice not syrup)
1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of unsweetened coconut flakes

Mix together in a bowl and enjoy!

VLCD Main Dish Recipe - Chicken & Spinach Meatloaf

Chicken and Spinach Meatloaf

Moist and delicious and such a wonderful change of pace while on VLCD! This was a new favorite for my mother-in-law and I in this Round of VLCD. It makes 4 servings so we would have dinner for 2 nights in a row - yummy!

6 Cups of Baby Spinach

2 garlic cloves, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
14 oz ground chicken breast (buy chicken breasts and ask the meat department to grind it for you)
1/2 tsp of dry mustard
1 tsp of onion flakes
4 Melba Toast rounds, crushed up
1/4 cup basic chicken broth (no sugar!)
1 Tblsp Bragg's Liquid Amino Acids (find at a local health food store)
10 drops Stevia Apricot Nectar drops (or orange or mango or nothing :-)

1. In a nonstick skillet over medium high heat, cook the spinach and garlic with a little water until wilted. Season with salt and pepper and set aside to cool.

2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

3. Transfer the spinach mixture to a cutting board and chop coarsely. Place in a large mixing bowl with the ground chicken, mustard, onion flakes, and breadstick crumbs and mix well with your hands. In a small bowl combine the broth, liquid aminos and Stevia, add to the chicken mixture, stirring well to combine.

4. Transfer to a nonstick loaf pan and pat down firmly and evenly. Cover with foil and bake until the internal temperature is 165 degrees F, about 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and rest for 5 minutes before slicing and serving.

Makes 4 servings. Each serving has 130 calories

(1 protein, 1/2 vegetable, 1/2 breadstick)

Chocolate Candy for Maintenance 1

One of my favorite Maintenance recipes is a Coconut Oil Candy... but really, it is just good chocolate! Here is the basic essence of the recipe (so simple)

1 cup of coconut oil melted
1 cup unsweetened cocoa (Hershey's is great)
Stevia to taste (I use 8 packets of the Sweetleaf granules and about 4 droppers of KAL liquid Stevia as well)
Flavor with a multitude of choices...

Melt the oil and mix with the cocoa. Add the stevia and mix. Add any flavorings you want. Pour into ice cube trays and freeze. After it sets, pop out and put in freezer bags to store. Enjoy!

The batch I made tonight I divided in half and added Peppermint Sweetleaf Stevia to half and Chocolate Raspberry Sweetleaf Stevia to the other half. I didn't skimp on the flavoring because I have made some and not added enough stevia and then it is pretty bitter (like really bitter dark chocolate). Much better to err on the side of too much than too little. I added 3 or 4 droppers of flavoring to each batch and it turned out fantastic! There is so much you can do with this too...

Add coconut
Add nuts (as they are allowed)
Add peanut butter (obviously sugar-free)
Add cinnamon
I actually mixed some greek yogurt with stevia and coconut to make a filling like for a Mounds bar - pour a little chocolate and set, add the filling and set and then add a little more chocolate to top it off - yummy! Make the peanut butter ones with the same layered effect.

Have fun with it and enjoy!

Hcg Journey - Part 3

My Weight Loss Journey

with Hcg (Part 3)

I have just finished my 2nd Round with Hcg and am in the process of going through Maintenance to stabilize. I started out at 199.7 lbs when I began on January 10th, I am currently working on stabilizing at 138.4 lbs. I have gone from a size 16 to a size 4 in 5 months. The Hcg diet has been the best thing that has happened to me in a very long time.

Let me re-state that the Hcg diet is not for the faint of heart - it takes will power and determination, but when followed correctly it is the most freeing diet I have ever done (and the most effective!)

Round 2 was easier in one aspect because I already knew what I was doing, having learned the ins and outs of the protocol while completing Round 1. So I didn't have to think as hard but it still took about a week to get back in the swing of things. I was concerned that the weight wouldn't come off as quickly on Round 2 but looking back on the completed Round I lost 30 lbs in the same time frame as the first round... about 40 days. I have trouble finding fault with those results. I plan on doing one last round when I finish up with this round of Maintenance in the middle of July. I have the last 12-15 lbs to lose and I figure at this point I am too close to my end goal to not reach it.

One thing I have learned during this round is that while it is vital to follow the VLCD protocol to a "T", it is equally important to follow the Maintenance exactly as specified. I made the mistake of going on a long awaited vacation with my husband (the vacation was not a mistake, but the timing certainly was) while still in the first week of Maintenance. I was not as structured on doing what I was supposed as I should have been and thus I have been having a heckuva time stabilizing. I have had more steak days than I ever thought possible and I am still not out of week 1 of Maintenance. I told my mom yesterday that when I finish my last round and enter Maintenance for the last time I will not be leaving the house for the first 2 weeks of it in order to make sure that I don't have this trouble next time. The vacation was fantastic, but I do regret not being more diligent while out of town. I am hoping that I can still rectify the situation but I have a funny feeling that the only way to do that will be to go to "clean eating" for 3 or 4 days in a row (clean eating is protein and veggies only - I will have to give up my fruits and I will miss them terribly) and then at that point I should be stable (fingers crossed). In order to do so I will make a trip to the store to stock up on veggies and meat.

I say all this to say, everyone makes mistakes and messes up at some point but the Hcg diet is not to blame. The only reason I am having issues right now is my own weakness while on vacation. The end result is that I am still at 138-140 lbs and I look great in a size 4 (smaller than I was when I got married almost 16 years ago). My 14 1/2 year old daughter wears a size 2 and I wear a size 4...really??? Isn't that crazy? My secret weapon is still and will remain the website that I ordered my product from and their customer support system. Check them out at
http://www.myhcgplus.com/a/5920 or click on the picture below to go straight there.

THE HCG DIET (Part 2) - LOADING TIME FOR ROUND 2

STARTING ROUND 2 - TIME TO LOAD!

My 6 weeks of Maintenance is over and I am starting my next round. That means 2 days of loading. Fat loading. Lots of fat loading. Oh goody. You might think that sounds great, eat all the fat you can manage in 2 days. But surprisingly, it is sickening. Especially since I have now gone 2 1/2 months without much fat at all, and then only healthy fats. So this is going to be a big challenge. I'm off to the store to get heavy cream and hot chocolate mix so I can have lots of really creamy hot chocolate. Also, bacon and sausage, cheesecake, prime rib, coconut, nuts and more... The whole time I am doing this I am also taking the Hcg drops. 10 drops 6x a day. People commonly don't take enough. I met a lady this weekend that was doing Hcg but was always hungry. Come to find out that she had been told to take 10 drops 3x a day - she only had 1/2 the drops in her system that she needed to be effective - she was starving herself! Today she placed an order from the site that I use (http://www.myhcgplus.com) so she can get an effective product with excellent customer support. I am convinced that the customer support that I receive from this company is worth every penny (automatically included with any order!). The reason the drops are so important is that while you are loading and taking the drops, you are telling your body that you eat 150-200 grams of fat a day. On the 3rd day you keep taking the drops but you drop down to 500 calories a day. Thanks to the drops your body still thinks you need to burn 150 grams of fat a day, but now you aren't taking any fat in, so your body goes to your abnormal fat stores and starts burning. This is why you can function on 500 calories and not be hungry, your body isn't hungry. It is burning your stored fat. It's a scientific miracle! And after doing this for a set amount of time (minimum 21 cheat free days, up to 60) you come off the drops and go through a 6 weeks of maintenance. This allows your body a chance to recover and reset your hypothalamus. That jumpstarts your metabolism and low and behold, life as you know it will never be the same. For me personally, after having 7 children my metabolism had just shut down. It was basically non-existent. Now after 1 round of Hcg, it has reset and I feel like a new person. I figure that if you retain a stubborn 10 lbs after each pregnancy then I had 70 lbs to lose (exactly my goal). After the first round I dropped the 10 lbs from the last 4 pregnancies and now I have 3 more pregnancies to shed. I know it might not come off quite as fast this time, but it will come off and that is what matters. I knew it was about time to start the 2nd round when I told my husband this week... "I was looking in the mirror and seeing all the weight I had lost, now I look in the mirror and see the weight that still needs to go. It's time to start round 2!" I wore a size 16 when I started on Jan. 10th and now as I type this I am sitting here in a pair of size 10's. I haven't quite discarded my 12's but in the next week or 2 they will be gone, never to return. I don't really have a size in mind as my finish point (initially I would've been thrilled with a 10, then I was hoping for an 8, but now I'm thinking that a size 6 is actually realistic... hmm...). It's not even about a weight. When you start at 199 then 160 is good, but 140 is better and 135 is kind of my ideal. At this stage in my life it is really about feeling good about myself and being healthy. For a long time I wasn't sure that was even possible anymore, but thanks to Hcg I realize that it is. And as a side bonus... my husband and kids are proud of me too.