Losing myself with HCG….bit by bit.

Feb 4, 2009 by Vicky

Finally, after all these years…

My story: I’m a heavy woman. Have been since I was 12. In the hallways in school, boys (and girls) used to yell ‘fatty, fatty, 2×4, can’t get through the kitchen door’ as I walked down the hallway. I’ve endured so *many* comments on my weight that I actually considered killing myself at one point, I was so despondent. When I graduated high school, I weighed 140 pounds. Freshman year of college put paid to that, I gained not just my freshman 10, but two other peoples’ freshman 10 as well, ending up college at 160+ pounds. I went on to my happy married life with my hubby, and pretty much stayed around 160 for 7 years, when I got pregnant with my lovely daughter. She was a big one, entering the world at 9 lbs 3 oz, and I looked like I was carrying a watermelon endwise. Peanut butter was my downfall during pregnancy, I ate it with a spoon, right out of the jar!! To the point where I’d go in and my doctor would tell me to knock it off, just from the peanut butter breath I had, LOL. I gained 60 pounds during pregnancy. After my daughter was born, I dropped to 200 lbs, and have been hovering around there ever since. My daughter is 16 now, and I finally realized that I want to be around for my grandkids and better get off my duff and *do* something about it.

So, I hunted around. I found…..Kimkins. Kimkins is a low-calorie diet aka South Beach without the food. It is painful and *very* hard, but I managed to lose 35 lbs, getting down to 170. I was *thrilled*. Then it came out that Kimkins is damaging to the body, and that the founder, who claimed to have lost 170 lbs on this way of eating, was actually a 300+ lb woman living under assumed names, and posting a Russian bride photo for her ‘now’ photo. She’s under federal indictment now….

Even so, I was tickled with my new body, and determined to finish. Then came endometriosis. My gyn diagnosed me, did an exploratory, found it, and decided to treat it with meds. One of the meds she put me on was Megestrol. Now, whenever I get a new med, I usually Google it to find out the side effects and interactions. I didn’t this time. Go figure. Six months later, I had gained nearly 50 pounds, despite eating low-calorie, exercising and generally doing everything I could think of to lose weight. It just kept coming on!!!! So, finally, a girlfriend pointed out that hormones (which Megestrol is one) often put on weight like steroids. So, *finally*, I turned my brain back on and Googled it. Turns out that Megestrol is most often used to force weight, generally fat, onto end-stage cancer patients and anorexics. So, no matter how little you eat or how much you exercise, it packs on the pounds. Needless to say, I now have a new gyn, since the old one didn’t bother to inform me of this little fact.

So, there I was, 10 pounds heavier than when I started out on Kimkins, and sick with despair over having lost *all* of the ground I had gained. Enter Dr. Simeons.

Then I stumbled over Dr. Simeons, Pounds & Inches, and the HCG Protocol. I spent 2 months researching, not believing that anything could be this good. I mean, 20-30 pounds in a month? Puhlease!! There must be a catch, right? Well, I continued researching, and found hundreds and *hundreds* of posts, testimonials and information showing that it worked, that flew in the face of ‘conventional’ medical advice. Since conventional medicine also had me gain tons of weight for no particular reason and didn’t bother to inform me, I figure ‘conventional wisdom’ can go hang. Innovation creates progress, and just because most docs won’t believe the evidence of their eyes, instead preferring to believe the FDA (the people who brought you phen-fen, and so many other drugs that kill), is no reason not to benefit from research that has so *much* positive results.

HCG has changed my life in just 40 short days. I started my first round on January 5, 2009, at 211.4 pounds, with the goal of eventually getting to my personal goal of 135 (this may or may not match what my hypothalamus things, but we’ll see when we get there!!).

I’m on day 32 now, and am at 194.6 and am as happy as a clam. Has it been hard? Not as hard as Atkins, Kimkins, Weight Watchers, South Beach, phen-fen, the Cabbage Diet, the Beet Diet….and the list goes on….

I go into my Stabilization phase (P3) on February 15, and am excited to get to the portion where I teach my body to stabilize at the new weight, before heading into the next round another loss that will get me closer to my goal. (OK, I confess, the real reason is BACONNNNNNNNN!!!! I *miss* it!)

Anyway, that is my story so far. I plan to chronicle my progress (or lack of it) here. Be warned, at times this blog will be a bit icky as I note down things I’ve noticed…..