What's stalling me?

[aandd]

R1P2VLCD8 - hHCG drops from Intermountain. Supplements - Potassium, Cal-Mag-Zinc, Biotin, probiotics, fiber pills.

Not happy today. I was up .2 lbs this AM. I have been going over my weight chart to see what may have made me gain 1.2 earlier this week and .2 today.

Monday AM I was down 1.8 lbs. So, Sunday I had eaten apples, eggs, round steak, spinach salad, tomatoes.

Tues AM I was UP 1.2 lbs. My diet the previous day had been an apple, strawberries, tomatoes, spinach, round steak, baked chicken (2x), and orange. (about 700 cals, but remember that I work out).

Today I was up .2 lbs. My diet yesterday was an apple, cabbage/tomatoes/celery soup (x2), chicken (x2), orange, strawberries, and grissini breadsticks (x2).

Do you see any likely culprits? In a basic numbers game, I should be down about this much simply from calorie reduction, so I'm worried that I'm really not burning the extra fat.

I did a heavy leg workout on Tuesday, and still have some lactic acid build-up (DOMS leg pain still), but I can't see that would have made me gain LAST night, although I thought it accounted for my only .6 drop on Wednesday. My water (in the form of decaf black tea) intake has been around 7 glasses, so I pushed it up to 10 yesterday.



Week1: 163.8, 161.2 (-2.6), 160.6 (-.6), 159.8 (-.8), 158 (-1.8), 159.2 (+1.2) , 158.6 (-.6)... Total Loss 5.2 lbs. (but was hoping for more...)

Week2: 158.8 (+.2)

[errihu]

Make sure you're at 500 calories or as close as possible, not over or under. Working out doesn't make a difference in how many calories you should take in. You're fueling your workout with the fatty acids released from your cells as you burn fat, not the fruit, protein, vegetables and grissini. Those are simply there as the nutritional building blocks of your body, not to provide energy. You are getting all of your energy from your fat - if you go over 500 calories you'll swith it back to getting energy from your food and it won't be enough energy so you will feel tired. It will also preven the burning of your fat.

Workouts are discouraged while on P2. If you regularly worked out before starting HCG you can continue to work out, but try to avoid anything really strenuous or heavy. Workouts will almost always cause a weight gain on the scale according to Dr. Simeons. This is due to the retention of water to help with muscle repair and elimination of lactic acid.

This is not a basic numbers game. Despite what the calorie people will tell you, the human body is not a calculator. Metabolism uses enzymes, hormones and conversion pathways, which does different things to different food once it enters the body, depending on what it came from. The human body is not a thermal bomb.

[Millenia98]

Working out doesn't make a difference in P2, unfortunately. I worked out pretty much all through my rounds and if I increased my calories due to a workout, I always stalled.

I'm not sure why, but it's just the way it is. Maybe combination of retaining water in the muscles along with increasing calories. Additionally, when you workout, you sweat more and require more hydration. I would try and keep closer to the calories that make you lose weight and don't try and compensate for the calories burned during exercise.

[emel]

Originally Posted by Millenia98

Working out doesn't make a difference in P2, unfortunately. I worked out pretty much all through my rounds and if I increased my calories due to a workout, I always stalled.

I'm not sure why, but it's just the way it is. Maybe combination of retaining water in the muscles along with increasing calories. Additionally, when you workout, you sweat more and require more hydration. I would try and keep closer to the calories that make you lose weight and don't try and compensate for the calories burned during exercise.

I think it has to do with the fat-burning boost hcg gives.
We eat the 500 calories, but the bulk of our energy (calories) comes from the fat that's being released to a usable form by the hcg.

I could be wrong, but it makes sense to me that this is the way it works.

So aandd, if you're willing to try a few 500 cal days, that would be my advice.
Also, I'd be suspicious of using decaf black tea as all of your water. Black tea has naturally-occuring caffeine in it and then undergoes processing to remove it.
I think a better choice would be naturally uncaffeinated teas, the herbal ones. If I was using tea as all my water, I'd pick 2 or 3 flavors to drink each day, since a large amount of any herbal blend could have a medicinal effect. 8 cups of camomile might make you sleepy, so 2-3 cups camomile, 2-3 cups raspberry zinger, and 2-3 cups decaf black might be better.

Just my two cents.

[aandd]

Originally Posted by emel

I think it has to do with the fat-burning boost hcg gives.
We eat the 500 calories, but the bulk of our energy (calories) comes from the fat that's being released to a usable form by the hcg.

I could be wrong, but it makes sense to me that this is the way it works.

So aandd, if you're willing to try a few 500 cal days, that would be my advice.
Also, I'd be suspicious of using decaf black tea as all of your water. Black tea has naturally-occuring caffeine in it and then undergoes processing to remove it.
I think a better choice would be naturally uncaffeinated teas, the herbal ones. If I was using tea as all my water, I'd pick 2 or 3 flavors to drink each day, since a large amount of any herbal blend could have a medicinal effect. 8 cups of camomile might make you sleepy, so 2-3 cups camomile, 2-3 cups raspberry zinger, and 2-3 cups decaf black might be better.

Just my two cents.

Thanks for the tip, but black tea is really all I can do right now.

I'm not really sure I can do a strict 500 cal day, with burning 200-250 calories in a fasted workout each AM. And I'm 100% sure that I can't quit working out.

Looking around for alternate diet plans. Thank you.

[Viola De Lesseps]

You might try drinking as much plain water as you can. R2, I drank tea all day instead of water and my losses were slow and I had several gain days as well.

The exercise may be playing a role as well. I was enjoying my long walks before this round, but I KNOW how sensitive my body is to exercise-- I retain afterwards like crazy. I think I will avoid working out for the first two weeks of P3 as well... JMO.

Sorry you are struggling-- GL!

[errihu]

Originally Posted by aandd

I'm not really sure I can do a strict 500 cal day, with burning 200-250 calories in a fasted workout each AM. And I'm 100% sure that I can't quit working out.

You're not eating the 500 calories a day in order to FUEL yourself. All of your energy, for living and working out, is coming from your body's fat stores on HCG. Do not think of the food you put in your mouth as energy, for the purposes of this diet, it is not. It is literally building blocks - protein to keep your muscles from wasting, vitamins and minerals to supply the electrolytes and enzymes that keep your body working, calcium for your bones, and a small amount of sugar and starch to ensure that your metabolism will be able to deal with sugar and starch when you phase into P4. Nothing else!

Do not increase your food intake to compensate for a workout, no matter how strenuous. Your fuel for your workouts is coming from fatty acids released from your fat cells, catalyzed by HCG. Your body will release as much fuel as you need, no more, no less. You are getting in the realm of 2000 to 3000 calories a day on this diet - it's just not going in by mouth. If you need more calories, your body will pull more from your fat stores. You're sabotaging yourself by upping your calories for any reason.

[mymy3377]

I think everyone doing the protocol is a n=1 experiment. I've done many rounds where I've upped my calories to compensate for heavier workouts and lost about the same as the rounds where I've stuck to protocol with less movement. I tried a round of working out and HCG keeping to 500 calories and my losses were beyond SLOOOOOW (and I'm a slow loser anyway ) until I upped the calories and there are many others who have been successful on higher calories as well. The OWL HCG protocol where individuals have lost consistently on 800 calories is also an example of folks taking in higher calories and still losing so with all things this seems like a big YMMV.

aand- before you quit altogether you might try upping your calories in increments of 100 (I'd recommend you make up the cals with protein and veggies and keep the fruit to two servings though) and see if the losses pick back up again. With stopping your workouts not being an option I'd give it a try.

[minimonkey]

I totally agree with mymy on this one -- some people do brilliantly on protocol, and some people actually do better going a bit rogue. This plan really isn't designed for heavy exercisers, and that can be a big problem for some people. Others seems to do fine working out on protocol.

One thing I've noticed is that my exercise recovery is much slower when doing low calories, so I tend to retain water longer I think.

Also, the game seems to change somewhat when you get closer to goal -- exercising becomes more difficult without some additional fuel, etc. I think the body is fighting harder to hang on to its remaining fat stores, and isn't as willing to release them.

Good luck finding something that works for you!