vlcd #5 almost cheated

Yesterday was a pretty easy day. Things went smoothly for the most part. Then at 9:30pm I started to get some really serious cravings. I wasn't really hungry, just REALLY REALLY wanting something uber sweet. I forced myself to go to bed. I'd eaten my dinner and had a little over 3 liters of water. I woke up at 11:30 to use the restroom and again felt an incredibly strong urge to go downstairs and eat something off protocol. I made it to the stairwell and somehow summoned up enough will power to go back to bed w/o cheating. Yay! So far this morning I feel good. It feels really good not to have given in to my cravings. Woot!

vlcd #4

I could tell a slight change in the tightness of my jeans when I put them on this morning. yay! It was very encouraging! Not much else to report today. Things are humming along and I'm feeling good and sleeping well.

Update: It's 2pm and I'm a little hungry and starting to feel cranky. I really want something sugary. Even though I make a lot of cake, I don't eat it since they're always for other people's parties. I really want some cake. Or huckleberry cheesecake or a huge ooey gooey cinnamon roll or basically anything super carby and sweet. ha! I have a couple cakes coming up in Sept. Not sure just yet how hard that'll be. I'm drinking my water like a good girl. I have to take my son to his 1st grade orientation pretty soon. I need to have a plan for dinner, because when it's over I'm going to be one hungry momma.

VLCD #3

Bre, I have soo had those "no willpower" days. Hang in there! Just getting the junk out of the house is super helpful. I have to say my 1st and 2nd rounds were much easier. Not that I feel like I'm starving, just mentally they were easier. Not sure why. I did have about 2 oz of extra chicken and 4 extra strawberries. I'm not going to freak out about it though. I slept ok last night. I was really aware that my hubby had to wake up super early to catch his flight. He'll be out of town till Friday. =( I hate it when he's gone. I have to get his car's windshield relplaced and take our son to 1st grade orientation tomorrow evening. He's always missing out on the kids' school activities. Oh well, it could be worse I spose.

My stomach doesn't seem quite as "poofy" today. I feel pretty good and so far am not hungry. There is a part of me that is dying to know how much I've lost and yet another part is completely content in just following the diet and let things happen the way they should.

Bre, hope your foot heals quickly so you can kick that boot to the curb! =)


Update: feeling good....almost finished w/ my gallon on water. I absolutely HATE how often I have to use the restroom. It's so annoying!
Ugh!

Oh and I just have to vent. My good friend calls me all the time telling me about the cake shows she watches on tv (we don't have tv) and telling me how I should make these amazing cakes that she seems. Ummmm HELLO?!?!?! I'm not freaking cake boss! Just because I enjoy making cakes doesn't mean I like working 20 hours for no pay! Grrr!! I love her to death, but she just doesn't get it. She doesn't get the hours involved in making the cakes, the icings, the fondant, the decorations, putting it together etc etc. It's starting to make me hate cake shows because everyone and their mother thinks that any cake decorator can do what they saw on tv. Grrrr! Seriously ticks me off. K, i'm stepping off the soap box and will stop venting.....for now. lol

VLCD #2

Yesterday went pretty good. Our internet went down around 10am and didn't get fixed until 9pm or so. Soo annoying! After church we went home and I dropped off hubby and the kids and then I went to Super One for groceries. They have chicken breasts on sale for $1.49/lb which is a fabulous deal. I got 5 bags of the chicken, but I'll probably go back before the sale is over and get some more. For that price, it's worth it to stock up. I got a little bit hungry before lunch, but once I ate I was fine. At 4pm my husband took the kids to go swimming since it was so hot. I chose to stay home and read a new novel. 10 pages in and I was nodding off. I went up to bed and slept until 6pm. Hubby woke me up so I could make everyone dinner. Good ol' hcg, always makes me so sleepy. Got up, fed the family, cleaning up the kitchen, made myself some dinner and then I was ready to go back to bed. Slept like a rock. It's worth doing this darn diet just for the relaxing quality sleep. It's 8am and I'm downing a liter of water before I take my 1st dose of hcg. I'm thinking I'll do chicken and asparagus for lunch and maybe a nice big salad for dinner. I'll be having strawberries as my fruit until I eat the entire 4lb tub. They go bad so fast, I don't want them to go to waste. Happy hcg'ing Bre! =)


Update: Just had to say that I feel soo good today! I'm enjoying my hcg friendly cup of coffee. Coffee, 1 tbl milk, 1/4 tsp dark cocoa powder, dash of cinnamon and a packet of stevia. Mmmmmm quite tasty. It's almost 11am and I'm not hungry in the least. Yay!!!! 1 liter of water down, 3 more to go.

Lunch: I had some pan fried chicken, steamed broccoli, and 7 strawberries. it's 4:45pm and I'm starting to get pretty hungry again. I'm almost finished w/ my 3rd liter of water. Amanda told me she found Apple pie flavored Extra gum at the store and that it's amazing. Sounds yummy! I'm not sure what the plan is for dinner just yet.

VLCD #1

I had just a few bites of chicken last night, no corn, and 5or 6 bites of mashed potatoes. I soo wasn't hungry. I did have a small bowl of muddy buddies around 8pm just to get in a bit more fat. I felt so sick and layed in bed praying I wouldn't have to get up to vomit. yuck! On the other hand I slept great! I've been sleeping terrible for the last few months. Waking up several times throughout the night. Not last night. I slept soundly and woke up at 6am bright eyed and bushy tailed. I'm going to have a coffee w/ choc rasp stevia. Then I'll do hcg drops right before we go to church at 8:30. After church I'll have some strawberries. Then i'll have to go to the store. I need to get chicken, lettuces, asparagus, cucumbers, and some celery. For lunch I'll make some chili. Ground chicken, tomatoes, a little onion, and lots of yummy spices. I'll update this blog later as the day progresses. =)

Finishing up my 2nd loading day.

I can't believe my 2nd loading day is almost over! So much food, so little time. lol

Bre, if you google I am Baker Rose Cake, you can see how the rose cake is done. It's not my creation, it's just copying her. She's quite talented and comes up with really pretty and unique ways to decorate w/ buttercream. Once she came up w/ the rose cake, EVERYONE started doing them. It's crazy. They're so beautiful and soooooooo easy to do. It's almost embarrassing how easy and fast it is. On the other hand, it's nice because it's quick and it's a show stopper. Everyone will rave about it. So shhhhhh don't tell em how easy it is. ;) It would still be fun to get together and talk cake stuff though! Things will slow down and I'll have more free time when school starts back up on the 6th.

I can't leave comments on blogger either. I remember Mia sent me some link to upgrade my Java or something and then blogger worked again. I'll have to do some investigating and see if I can figure out what's going on. It's annoying not being able to leave comments. grrr

Today I had a handful of muddy buddies for breakfast and we walked out the door to the farmers market. Then for lunch we went to the High Nooner (by costco and Jamm's) and had what's called an almost ruben. Instead of sauerkraut (sp?) it had coleslaw on it. Suuuuper yummy! Then I can home and had a bite of fudge we bought at the farmer's market. It was horrid. For dinner we're grilling chicken and corn on the cobb. Thought I'd make some extra rich mashed potatoes to have on the side. I might have a few more muddy buddies for dessert and then I'm done loading. I'm not hungry at all right now. In fact I feel rather sick. It always amazes me how quickly those drops start working.

I'm going to weigh in tomorrow morning and then I'll weigh on my last VLCD. Then I can see as a whole what I've lost. We'll see how it goes. ;)
Dang it's hot today! Hubby wants to go to the beach after dinner. ugh! I go to the beach w/ the family but I haven't gotten in a swimsuit at all this summer. Instead I sit in a chair and watch while my family cools off and I bake in the sun. I also secretly glare at all the skinny bikini wearing teenagers. booo on them lol

Good luck Bree! I'm so glad I'm not the only one doing hcg, it's so nice to have other's out there doing it w/ me.

Ooops

So today I was refreshing my hcg knowledge by rereading through my book. I realized that instead of doing 1 loading day, I really need to follow all the rules of this diet. No screwing around and only loading one day. I want this round to be super successful and in order to achieve that, I need to follow the rules. I had avocado toast for breakfast, a latte mid morning, leftover spaghetti for lunch, a panini for dinner and a few handfuls of muddy buddies for dessert. I can tell the drops are already working because my tummy feels insanely full and I haven't eaten more than I normally do. I'm starting to get excited about starting up another round. =) Tomorrow I'm going to the farmer's market to get some fresh huckleberries, woohoo!

Another 6 weeks of hcg, here we go.

Today is my last loading day before I start another 6 weeks of the VLCD. I've been going back an forth and if I should weigh daily or not. I know I get super discouraged if I only lose .2 lbs or worse if I just stay at the same weight. Deep down I know my body is doing what it needs to do to lose weight and the numbers on the scale shouldn't mean anything, but they do. For this round I thought I'd expirament. No weighing until maintenence. Just let things happen the way they're supposed to and completely eliminate the stress I feel daily on HOW MUCH AM I GOING TO LOSE? WHAT IF I DON'T LOSE ANYTHING TODAY? etc etc. I want this round to be as stress free as possible. I've seen other's try this method and they really enjoyed it. They got their encouragement from their clothes fitting better and their energy level going up. I'll be flying to Boise at the end of October to visit my siter. I'd love to be down a full size before I visit her. The seats on those planes are rather small and I carry a lot of my weight in my butt, legs, and theighs. oy! I'm hoping that with my kids starting school and me really getting into my cake business, that I won't focus on food quite so much and that I can really get into a good hcg groove. Woot! Here's to shedding the weight!

Time to start again.

Well my friends, I believe it's time to start hcg again. I'm ashamed to say I have fallen right back into old habbits and have gained a good portion of my weight back. I really thought I had my eating issues figured out and was on a path to becoming slim. Why do we sabotage ourselves? Anyone? My good friend Amanda is having her baby shower in two weeks. Her and I are going to a ton of effort to make it amazing. I want to enjoy her special day w/ her and enjoy the foods we'll be preparing and the 3 different cakes (yes I said 3) I'll be making for her shower. I'll be using her shower and the day after to "load" and will start my next round of VLCD's on Monday, August 15th. I could sit here and wallow in my self misery......instead I'm going to refocus on getting healthy and making life long eating changes.

What is going on?

Yesterday I wrote a very lengthy blog about what's been going on lately and all the things I've been struggling with. I went to "publish my post" and I got a huge ERROR message. Then it wouldn't let me go back to blogger till today. I just sat in my chair and cried. Then I got out a notebook and wrote a few pages. At least that can't get deleted. It's amazing how good it can feel to just "air out" my feelings. I've been feeling extremely depressed lately and have been eating out of depression which has caused some weight gain which is causing more depression.....rinse and repeat. I feel lost. I feel lonely. I feel unworthy. I feel sad. I feel angry. I feel hopeless. On the plus side my sister is flying into spokane today and will be here for about a week. That will take my mind off my inlaws coming. I so need to stock up on hard alcohol before they get here.

Good grief!

PEOPLE ANNOY ME! lol Seriously though, I'm so tired of stupid people. I read an article today about the Dugger family, you know, the family that has 19 children. People were blasting this family for having so many kids, complaining that they're using up too much of the earth's resources and gov't. money. Amazingly this family is 100% debt free. They even own their home. I don't about you, but I don't think I know of anyone who is completely debt free. I personally couldn't handle having so many kids, but I think they're an amazing family who are raising very respectful and loving children. On the other hand I know several families who rely on government assistance because they're down right lazy. They work for a few months, get laid off and enjoy the perks of unemployment for months upon months. They readily admit they think the government owes them a living. Are you kidding me? Anyway.....it just ticks me off that people get so mad at this family because it's not something they would personally do.

We're going camping tomorrow for a few days. ATM it's cold, rainy, and very windy. Hubby wants to go camping anyway. We'll be tent camping. I'm cold just thinking about it. I can't believe how much work it is to get all the gear, supplies, and food together just to camp for a couple nights. It's JUNE not freaking March. I wish the weather would cooporate just a bit. hmmmph!

We'll see if this post even goes through. I don't understand why I'm having so much freaking trouble w/ blogger lately.

I HATE BLOGGER

Once again I'm having trouble w/ blogger. I can't seem to comment on anyone's blogs and my last few blogs haven't even shown up. This is a test, AGAIN, to see how it's working.

HCG VLCD #3

I feel soooo good today!! Yesterday went really well. I only felt hungry right before meal time. Other than that, zero hunger. I also was able to down another gallon of water very easily. THANK YOU JESUS!! I was really scared to start this round, esp after all the trouble I had w/ the last few rounds I tried to start. I still don't have a blasted battery for my scale. My hubby was convinced he had a spare somewhere and after looking EVERYWHERE he came to the conclusion the he did NOT have a back up. After the little boy I babysit gets picked up, I'll be taking my dead battery to Radio Shack and get a new one. Although I'm tempted to wait until a full week has gone by before I step on the scale. I don't know, we'll see. I tend to change my mind on a whim.

Tomorrow my friend, Amanda, goes to the Dr. and finds out the sex of her baby. I'm so excited for her! The suspense is driving me nuts!

HCG VLCD #2

Yesterday was tough. I was suprised that I really didn't battle hunger at all, but I had the mother of all migranes. I slept just awful. My husband was out of town on business and I never sleep well when he's gone. I woke up feeling refreshed and my headache was barely noticable. I'm just starting to feel a slight twinge of hunger and it's 9am. I'll probably wait and have an apple at 11:00 and then lunch at 1:00. I'll have dinner at 6:00 and my last piece of fruit around 8:00. Spreading my food around like that really seems to help. I was able to get in a full gallon of water yesterday quite easily. Although I felt like I spent half the day in the bathroom. I'm going to go to Radio Shack today to get a new bathroom scale battery. Hope the sun stays out today, it's such a mood lifter. =)

HCG Day 1

I am SUCH a moron. I got on the scale again this morning only to realize I still haven't gotten a new battery for it. UGH!! Oh well. Today is VLCD #1. I am going to do a full 6 week round. This round I'm going back to the basics. I'm not going to doctor up my recipes, I'm going to do a round exactly like I did w/ my very first round. Super simple, and as close to the original protocol as humanly possible. Yesterday I went to Super Supplements and got some magnesium and potassium. I will take those in conjunction w/ my daily multivitamins, vitamin c, and my super B complex. I'll be drinking 4 liters of water daily (roughly 1 gallon). As much as I DO NOT want to be doing hcg again, I guess it's the only sure fire way to lose some more weight before the wedding. I also REALLLLLLLLY want to be down another 15-20 lbs before I see my in-laws. My MIL always makes horrible rude comments to me about me weight.....this time I'll be lighter and smaller than her and she'll have NO ROOM to speak to me that way.

Yesterday I went and bought tons and tons of flowers and spent the afternoon planting and getting really dirty. The last 2 hrs of planting it started to rain. I was insistant about getting my flowers planted because it looks like it's supposed to rain for the next 10+ days. When I had finished I was drenched and covered w/ mud. It was so worth it though! I rewarded myself with a hot bubble bath. =) I need to go out today and buy some more food for my diet. I need some lettuce, tomatoes, asparagus, apples, and some strawberries.

My husband wants to go camping in about a month from now. I'll still be on hcg so that's totally going to stink! I wont be able to enjoy eating campfire hotdogs and S'mores!! Ahhhh!!!!!! My life revolves around food way too much! lol I guess it'll be a good lesson that I can still enjoy camping with my family despite not being able to eat the same foods as them.

I don't have any cakes due till June 12th. I'm scaling back a bit on my orders through the summer. I want to enjoy my time w/ the kids w/o feeling overwhelmed w/ cakes. I have two cakes in June, two in July, and two in August.

I HATE Idaho food laws!!! Apparently me selling cakes to family and friends is completely illegal. I'm really only charging people for the cost of materials and ingrediets.....nothing at this point has been a profit. Even charging people for the cost of materials is illegal. I'd have to have a completely separate kitchen if I wanted to have a business out of my home. Or I could rent a commercial kitchen. I can't even imagine how expensice either one of those options would be. I still plan on making cakes for family and friends and I still plan on charging them for the ingredients. At some point getting a job at a cake shop would be ideal, but at this point I have to learn the art of cake making and decorating somehow! Esp since I don't live anywhere near a school. Ugh! The whole thing really irritates me.

*UPDATE* It's 3:30pm and I have a raging migrane. I am 100% sure it's from no sugar and no caffiene so far today. I'm looking forward to being a week into this diet. By then pretty much all hunger and headaches are gone.

BLOGGER is on my crap list......

I've been trying to blog for the past few days and blogger wasn't working. =( I've been soooooooooo busy! Between babysitting, taking care of my 3 kids w/o hubby (he's been out of town) and making two cakes, I haven't had much time for anything. I did go out and pick up a bottle of hcg, so Monday I will start a 6 week round.

Here are some pictures of my last two cakes. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

Make up your freaking mind.......

I've been so busy the last few days!! It's only going to get more crazy since I babysit today through Friday. My husband is out of town on business again. I have a cake due tomorrow and another one due on Saturday. I have to take my oldest to Karate today, but am not sure if I can handle sitting in that teeny tiny room w/ my two spastic children for an hour. I couldn't sleep last night due to taking a couple excederine to get my migrane to go away. Needless to say I was up till 12:30 am baking up my colorful cake layers. I baked up a red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple 9" layers. Today I will level them, dirty ice them, and covered everything in the lime green fondant. I made my rainbow colored gum paste bow yesterday and I think it turned out pretty cute. I've tried a few different buttercream icings and I think I've finally settled on one that everyone likes that best. What a difference it makes using the right kind of shortening!!

Today I will bake up the cake layers for the electric guitar cake and start making all the little knobs and buttons w/ gum paste. I'm a litte nervous about this cake......I've never had to carve a cake before and this one I'll be using some techniques I've never attempted. Good thing it's for one of my best friends. She is super easy going and said that as long as it even looks remotely like her son's guitar he's going to be thrilled....still I want to do the best I can.

I think I'm going to go ahead and do a 6 week round of hcg starting this following Monday. I'm just not losing the weight I want for the upcoming wedding. I've been sooooo busy I haven't had sufficient time to workout the way I was hoping I could. I still get in my workouts here and there, but definitely not as often as I should. I'd like to get a 6 week round in and have my 3 weeks of phase 3 before we go to Boise for the wedding. If I start on Monday, I'll be just going into phase 4 by the time we leave. I know my husband wanted me to lay off the hcg and just do diet and exercise but with all that's been going on there is no way I'll be able to fit into anything remotely cute if I don't lose another 20-30 lbs. He's just going to have to deal with the inconvenience. I need to do this for me.

Hope you all are doing well......I wouldn't know because hardly anyone blogs anymore. *wink *wink =)

Mother's Day

I celebrated Mother's Day with my mom on Saturday. I had my parents over for dinner. I grilled up salmon that had been marinating in fresh garlic, dill, lemon juice, olive oil and a little salt and pepper. We also had roasted asparagus and a lovely salad topped w/ sliced fresh strawberries, slivered red onions tossed w/ a blush wine vinegrette. For dessert I brought out cake and ice cream. This cake was a white vanilla cake, raspberry filling and a vanilla buttercream. It all so delicious. We had a lovely time visiting and having a meal together. Here is a picture of my mother's cake.



I really wanted a simple yet elegant look. The swirls were meant to look somewhat floral. I used two tones of buttercream to deepen the visual effect. Mom loved it and that made my day.♥

Yesterday my hubby let me sleep in while he made the kiddos homemade waffles. Then we went to Fred Meyer to get some good grocery deals. While there we saw some beautiful art work that we both loved. We bought 3 huge pictures. It felt sooo good to get some color on the walls. We've lived in our house about a year now and really hadn't put anything up. It's really starting to coming together, I love it!

Today I will be start working on my two cakes. I plan on making a rainbow colored loop bow out of gum paste and a few other decorations. I have a bunch of running around to do. I can't believe how fast I'm going through powered sugar! lol

I've been eating very healthy the last several days and it feels great. I plan on starting up my couch to 5K training this evening. I'm determined to be able to run a 5K by this summer.

Hope you all have a lovely day.

SERIOUSLY?!

You all know I babysit a 2 yr old a few days a week. His mother and I have a pact to tell the other person if our children get sick. If my kids even have the slightest sniffle she'll freak out and not want to bring her son over for me to watch. So today she drops off her son 45 minutes late and then tells me he's been throwing up and had liquid poo issues for the last 4 days. The poor kid is as white as a sheet. He kept laying down on the floor, not interested in playing or eating. While here he would not use the toilet (he's potty trained) but boy did he have an explosion in his pants. I contacted his mother and she left work to come pick him up. I'm going to be really frustrated if my kids come down w/ his flu. I made the kids wash their hands several times while he was here and bleached everything after he left. *sigh*

I ran to the store this afternoon and bought several bags of marshmallows to make my homemade marshmallow fondant. I'm going to get as much done ahead of time as I can for the two cakes I'll be doing next Thursday and Friday. The more I can get done now, the less stressed I'll be when it comes time to put everything together.

plasma

Well I realized the info I'd gotten about plasma donation was slightly incorrect. I guess the 1st time you donate in a week you get $20 and the second time you donate (as long as it's within the same week) you get $30.....it's an incentive to get you to come back more often. I really need to get some milk and half n half at Costco today, but have pretty much nothing in our checking acct, so I think I'll go and get my 2nd donation in as soon as my husband gets home from the airport. It should take about 45 min today.....not too shabby.

Whatever dark mood I've been in the last few weeks seems to have lifted. I feel really upbeat and joyful. Maybe it was all the sun I got on Sunday....like i'm on a vitamin D high or something. lol

I'm having my parents over for dinner on Saturday evening. I can't really afford to buy my mom anything, so making her dinner and a small Mother's Day cake will be her gift. It's weird to see trees blooming and flowers popping up and still see snow in the mountains.

I really want to blog about something that happened but can't just yet. I can't remember if I gave this certain someone the link to my blog. It sure would be awkward to blog about someone only to have them read it and get their feelings hurt. We'll see.....