Round Two Of The HCG Diet Begins... | Creating a Toxin Free Future

I’m back on the HCG Diet for round two. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to stabilise my weight very well at the end of my first round and gained back about 4 kilos which is a bit of a bummer…

But at the same time, I’m not too disappointed because I did keep some off so I’m not starting from the beginning again and I learned some things that I know are going to be very useful going forward.

What happened was that I stuck to the recommendations for phase 4 of the diet (the last phase of the HCG diet protocol) which is meant to stabilise the weight at the end of the diet. However, I did go up more than the one kilo that Dr Simeons says mustn’t be crossed during that final 3 week phase and I failed to do what he recommends if you do gain more than one kilo, which is to eat nothing the next day until dinner time and then just have a big steak and either an apple or a tomato.

So, I failed to follow the instructions properly…

My weight went up 2 kilos in that 3 weeks of the final phase and stayed there, so I figured (in my wisdom) that it would just stabilise at the weight I was with the extra 2 kilos on. I realise now that I was probably wrong.

At the end of phase 4, I went on the GAPS diet to see what results I could achieve with making a start to healing my gut, my auto-immune disease and my thyroid.

The good news is that I got amazing results just in those three weeks on GAPS – the bad news is that I put on another 2 kilos, making the total of 4 kilos regained.

The introductory GAPS diet is a very high fat diet of bone broths, eggs, ghee, coconut oil and more and in the first few days I had some amazing changes happen which obviously contributed to my weight gain in some way.

My basal temperature started going up
My pulse rate started going up
My thyroid gland got smaller
The lump on the right side of my thyroid gland disappeared

I also felt like crap for three days – no energy, depressed and as though my thyroid was seriously under performing form some reason even though I also had all the positive results that I’ve listed above. This was when my weight jumped up.

So there were changes happening with my thyroid. Some seemingly good, some seemingly not so good. I figured it was just that changes were happening that needed to and so I carried on with the GAPS diet and the low thyroid symptoms for the most part disappeared again after a few days.

However, the weight gain continued… :-(

But, my basal temperature went up in the three weeks from an average 35-35.5 degrees, to sitting consistently around 36 degrees for the past week and a half and even as high as 36.3! That’s the highest my temperature has ever been since I started paying attention to it about 8 years ago.

My resting pulse rate also went from an worrying average 48 beats a minute, up to between 60 and 65 beats a minute, which is awesome.

My mental clarity also improved along with my mood, my digestive ‘comfort’, the psoriasis on my scalp and my general wellbeing.

Overall, it was a great result in a very short time – even with the weight gain. I feel like I know where I need to head now with my diet to get my thyroid sorted out completely and to finally achieve long term success with the way my body works in general.

So, back to the HCG diet.

Because of my results with GAPS, I’ve decided to try including gelatin in my diet on a daily basis while on HCG. This is because it apparently has some of the healing effects of the bone broth (from GAPS), although it doesn’t contain all the nutrients that the broths do. By rights, it should help to continue healing my gut as well as my thyroid, particularly as the food on the HCG diet is (kind of) in line with the GAPS protocol – no starches or grains, but lacking in the fats required for GAPS. I’ve been adding the gelatin to my dandelion tea or my meals and I’m having about 2 or 3 tablespoons a day. Hopefully that will do the trick….

So far so good.

On day five of the HCG diet I’ve lost 2 kilos and I’m so happy to have my weight heading in the right direction again.

I’m planning on doing close to the maximum time allowed on HCG this time – probably around 45 days which will take me to a couple of weeks before I run my first half marathon on the Sunshine Coast on 26th August. I’m just hoping I can train sufficiently while on the diet – we’ll see…. (why do I have this habit of trying to do everything at once???).

After HCG, it will be back to something resembling the GAPS diet with plenty of broths, gelatin and eggs.

I’ve sworn off ALL grains and pseudo grains such as buckwheat and quinoa and have come to terms with the fact that I’m probably going to have to give them a miss for a very long time. Maybe a couple of years – maybe forever.

I’m also coming to the realisation that I have to swear off ALL polyunsaturated fats including nuts and seeds for a very long time or maybe forever also, which I find hard a bit harder to cope with (the nuts and seeds I mean).

This is because they can damage our thyroid gland. I’m a big nut fan and I’ve a feeling that my love of nuts has been a big part of my problem. Ideally I’d like to eventually be able to eat some here and there, but I’ll just have to play it by ear I think.

I was surprised to realise that even fish oils are largely polyunsaturated fats and I started taking Cod Liver oil around the second week on GAPS. I noticed that the pitting odema in my lower legs began to come back quite around that second week, and quite severely during the last week on the GAPS diet. I also started adding some nuts back into my diet that week. So that’s kind of cemented the whole truth about what havoc these fats are likely doing in my body.

Such a shame…. (more on polyunsaturated fats and the damage they do to come).

I’m hoping I’ll manage to stabilise my weight at the end of this round of HCG, however Dr Simeons does say in his book that the one group of people that often have trouble stabilising are menopausal women (that’s me…) – until they’re through menopause and have had a year since their last period.

So, we’ll see what happens. At least I know that the HCG Diet Protocol WORKS – even for menopausal, hypothyroid Grandmas like me! (click here to check it out for yourself) and if I do put weight back on, I can always do another round…. That knowledge in itself makes me kind of happy. It’s there if I need it….. :)