Medabolic Recent Program is a Success!
Following the HC3 Trim program, we continued the process moving into the Metabolic Reset Program in which we continued taking supplements, and maintained a low-fat, low calorie diet (1200 calories for me and up to 1500 calories for Paul).
I had read a lot of blogs and general information and my biggest fear going into those next three weeks was the fact that most people seemed to struggle to keep the weight off even eating 1200 calories and exercising. I was so happy with the results from the HC3 Trim, and definitely didn't want to be back in a position where I was struggling to keep the weight off. We weren't supposed to lose or gain more than 3 lbs over the three weeks. Honestly Paul and I both wanted to lose more during this time because we both have around 10-15 more lbs we would like to lose. Either way, we went into the program hoping for the best!
We had fluctuation in weight, but thankfully it was usually not more than a pound or two. We had the occasional slip, but generally have kept to the low-calorie diet. It was honestly a struggle to reach the 1200 calories for me, which seems surprising, but when you're not eating out all the time, it's really not hard to eat healthy and still feel full!
We have gotten through the three weeks of the Metabolic Reset, and it has absolutely been a success! I've been able to maintain, and even lose weight since the last weigh-in. This past meeting with Kelly at Optimum Health, she gave some more good advice. We are allowed to have cheat days (within reason and under certain restrictions) once a week.Those restrictions consist of three or more days of working out prior to the cheat day, limit carb intake to 10 carbs per meal excluding the "cheat meal." Seems pretty easy... I think we can handle that!
Kelly's analogy was based on taking a class, you won't fail a class if you do badly or even fail the occasional quiz, but if you fail a lot of quizzes, you will probably fail the class. When it comes to living and eating healthy, if you continue to stay on a good track, you will succeed, but if you allow those cheat days to happen too regularly, you will likely fall into an unhealthy lifestyle and fail...
Here's to continuing to drop weight and stay healthy! If we've done this well up until this point, I imagine we'll be able to continue!
Gluten Free Must Haves!
Throughout the process of the HC3 Trim Diet and Reset Program, Paul and I have learned a new kind of lifestyle - which includes natural and gluten-free foods! Paul has psoriasis, which is an auto-immune disease, and the nutritionist recommends that he stay away from Gluten, so we are both planning to avoid it. Some of the things we have come across and have gotten recommendations on along the way that are absolutely wonderful include, but are not limited too...
Glutino Pretzels - They are absolutely delicious! During our 500 calorie phase it was a nice snack option, but now it's a great option for dips like Guacamole Dip! We love it!
Cindy's Kitchen All Natural Salad Dressings - These salad dressings are All Natural and Organic. Cindy's salad dressings are available in Sugar Free, Dairy Free, Fat Free, Organic, and with enhanced Omega-3 and Lutein. A great product that can be used as a gourmet dip, sauce, dressing and marinade (which are great for grilling) We recently purchased the new Avocado Vinaigrette - We got this at The Fresh Market in Suwanee, GA, and it is amazing! We love it, and it's pretty reasonable as far as calories go!
Peanut Butter & Company Crunch Time - I've never really like "natural" peanut butter, but this stuff is a "no-stir, glutton free, all natural peanut butter! YEAH!!! And it's super yummy! We also got "Smooth Operator," but I haven't had the pleasure of trying that just yet! You can buy this in Kroger, Publix and natural food stores as well as online! It's awesome!
Stevia and flavored stevia extracts - 
are zero calorie all natural sweetener. It's pretty darn wonderful!
Pamela's Ultimate Baking and Pancake Mix - the best all-around all-purpose baking and pancake mix. It features buttermilk and almond meal. You can use Pamela's mix as a one-to-one sub for wheat flour in gluten-free baking. I love to bake so this is definitely a must-have when the holiday's roll around!
Udi's Frozen Gluten-free Pizza Crusts - a ready-made gluten-free pizza crust. Udi's gluten-free crusts are easy to use with good flavor. And they recommend using a preheated pizza stone to bake gluten-free pizza if you favor cracker-crisp New York-style pizza. Paul and I love to make home-made pizzas so this will be another thing we will be picking up soon!
Member's Mark Spinach and Asiago Cheese Chicken Sausage - This is a nice and easy lunch or dinner option, and it's Gluten Free! and delicious! We eat them as your typical sausage, but have also cooked them in soups, and it's a great protein and lower in fat considering it is a sausage!
Oh and a great App for finding Gluten Free places is "Find Me Gluten Free" and I'm fairly certain it's a free app!
You should check them out for sure!
Phase II: Metabolic Reset Begins
Paul and I started the Metabolic Reset program today, and we couldn't be happier! It's the first time we have had eggs in over a month! YUMMM!
So here's how it goes, we begin higher calories, 1200 for me and 1300-1500 for Paul. In the program manual there is a list of all the foods to eat freely, those to limit, and those to avoid at all cost. Kelly, the nutritionist at Optimum Health, has decided to start our first week without dairy and then we can start to add that in during week two.
So here is the overall daily consumption guidelines:
- Three to Four Proteins daily, 4 oz per meal (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and a small snack) - All lean meats still, but we are able to obviously add in eggs, salmon, tuna, turkey and others as we see fit!
Two Plant Fats daily - You can get this from Avocado, Pecans and Almonds, Salad Dressings (with olive oil), and Coconut Oil, etc.- Four to Six Servings of Vegetables daily - This ranges from salad lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, to celery, cabbage, tomatoes and so much more! Sticking mostly with items that are low on the glycemic index.
- Two Servings of Fruit - We get a wider variety, but still need to stay away from things like bananas and watermelon, etc. But we can have honey-dew melon and cantaloupe which I love!
We can now consume alcohol! FINALLY! We cheated a couple of times on HC3 and while it didn't cause us to gain, it definitely set us back on the weight loss. So it's not something to go hog-wild with, but it's not going to hurt us! The best alcoholic options are:
- Wines: - Anything Dry! The Dryer the better... Chardonnay, Merlot, Cabernet, maybe Pino Grigio... etc.
- Liquor: Best option is Vodka - Martinis, Vodka and Club Soda with Lime and even Flavored Vodkas are ok!
- NO BEER! Well it would have to be a treat, but Paul is not allowed to consume Gluten, so it looks like we will avoid beer, but we could try Red Brick Ale, if he must have beer...
After the first week, we can start to add in dairy! Only one serving per day... I LOVE Milk, so I will be getting my skim milk on, but we can also have cheese (low-fat, and non-processed). Kelly said low-fat string cheese and laughing cow cheese are good options for a small snack, and good for protein.
So the whole point of this phase is to get our metabolism, adrenals, and pituitary stable and working to our advantage. And the food recommendations also have a point as they don't want our blood sugar to spike, which causes hunger and bad habits! See the full diagram of "the point" below!
This weekend we are headed up to the North Carolina Smoky Mountains for the Labor Day Holiday and Paul and I are looking forward to widening our meal options as well as cutting loose a bit with a few drinks! YEAH!
HC3 Trim Phase I Comes to an End
Today was our last day of the HC3 Trim program, and I have to say it has definitely been a success! We've lost a combined total of 52 lbs and 21.5 inches!!! Paul and I both feel we do have more to lose, but you'll see details about our total weight-loss, and overall inches dropped, and clearly it has worked!
We are no longer taking the hormone, and have completed the two 500 calorie days (without the hormone), and everything is looking good! We are both really excited to add things into our diet like eggs, dairy and a wider variety of fruits, vegetables, and proteins!
I'll be posting again soon with details of the Metabolic Reset Program, which will be our focus for the next three weeks. But the nice thing is, we will be back up to a normal caloric intake, we will begin exercising, and we will be able to indulge here and there in some of the things we love (including alcohol)!!! But one of the things that stuck with me from Kelly at Optimum Health is "try to just break one rule at a time..." So if we are going to indulge in something a little more fatty for lunch or dinner, make sure the other meal is lower in fat and calories. It makes sense!
So here are the before and after images and it's pretty awesome to see the change! And we expect continued loss as we begin to work out! Also check out our measurements too! The numbers tell just as much, maybe even more than the photos.
Monica's HC3 Measurements:
|
Starting Measurement |
Ending Measurement |
Total Loss |
|
| Chest |
44 |
39.5 |
4.5 inches |
| Waist |
37 |
33 |
4 inches |
| Biceps |
13 |
11.25 |
1.75 inches |
| Thighs |
25.5 |
23.5 |
2 inches |
| Weight |
157 |
137 |
20 lbs |
Paul's HC3 Measurements:
|
Starting Measurement |
Ending Measurement |
Total Loss |
|
| Chest |
48.5 |
45.25 |
3.25 inches |
| Waist |
44 |
40.5 |
3.5 inches |
| Biceps |
15.5 |
14.5 |
1 inch |
| Thighs |
26 |
24.5 |
1.5 inches |
| Weight |
244 |
212 |
32 lbs |
HC3 Diet - Week One of 500 Calorie Limit
Week One went surprisingly well! It's unbelievable, but I was actually full after each meal and snack! The hormone actually was doing it's job! I wasn't hungry and I have energy, although we aren't supposed to work out at all. I took it easy and had fruits for breakfast, chicken, lean ground beef, or shrimp usually for lunch and dinner, fruits and veggies for snack, and occasional glutton free pretzels (which are surprisingly very good)!
As we started, we had to begin testing our ketone levels each morning on the ketone testing strips (similar to a pregnancy test). My ketone levels started off at a medium level and as the week went on they got high! The higher the ketone levels, the better the chances you are burning fat. Toward the end of the week I was supplementing fruit or veggie snacks for the Power Reds to manage the ketone levels so that the levels don't cause my body to go into a ketone-acidosis.
Toward the end of the week Paul was traveling for work, and that was when I felt more challenged! It's easier when you are doing something like this with someone else. And ironically, when you're alone and just watching TV or movies, you get the boredom eating syndrome. TV doesn't help with this either, with commercials for Dairy Queen, McDonald's, Domino's Pizza and more! 
The craziest part about it, my body wasn't hungry for those things, my head was! The pretzels and water helped, but this was the struggle I realized would be ongoing for the remainder of the 40 days!
At the end of week one, I lost a total of 4.8 pounds! It was the most I had lost ever in that period of time. Usually it would take me a month to lose 5 lbs, and I pretty much did it in one week! AND I resisted ALL TEMPTATIONS!
HC3 Diet - Days 1 & 2 - "The Loading Days"
We met with the Optimum Health nutritionist, Kelly Hall, on July 11th to discuss the diet in full detail with the plan to begin the diet on the following Saturday (July 16th). We figured if we had to consume 3500 calories of high fat foods, it would be much easier to do that if on the weekend when we could focus on eating!
It really does sound fun, eating all those fattening foods you always feel guilty eating. And while you would think that you can eat whatever you want, you really do need to focus on high fat calories, not high sugar. You won't get the same results if you eat all deserts!
So Saturday rolled around and we took the hormone in the morning when we got up and then we began our fatty feasting! We decided to use the, iphone app, myfitness pal to make sure we met our minimum calorie intake of 3500. We ate scrambled cheese eggs, bacon, sausage, burgers from McDonald's, Hot Dogs, KFC Original Recipe, Bologna, Steak, Pepperoni, Block Cheddar Cheese, Peanut Butter, Cashews, Pecans, and to end each night we each had HUGE slices of Cheese Cake! Check out the details below on the images from the calorie counter!
The first day seemed to go smoothly, and I was actually proud of myself for getting through it, because while it seems like a pretty simple thing, it's quite hard! But we both made it through the first loading day. Now day two wasn't as smooth, I was definitely struggling to reach that 3500 calories, and the things that helped most were the nuts and peanut butter. They pack a lot of fat calories for a smaller amount of intake, so you don't feel so full. We also had a very fatty steak for dinner that night and while I struggled to finish it, I actually got it all down! And then had to move onto the cheese cake desert. By the end of day 2 of loading I was miserable and actually started crying I felt so disgusting! It was rough! All I wanted to do was go to sleep.
But in either case we both made it through the loading days, and the total weight gain for myself over those two days was minimum I think I gained about 1.5 lbs total.
And we were both ready to start the low calorie, low fat diet!
