I love hCG!

EARLY ON
If your body loses weight the first no-carb day, continue on until through you complete the next no-carb day. Then, if you've lost weight two days in a row, and you're about to go lower than 2 lbs from your LIW, you'll need to proceed with upping your carbs and calories (but not before then!). If you're losing weight the first two days, but you aren't in danger of going 2 lbs below your LIW, it stands to reason that your body is adjusting itself to get back there, and you should remain on this re-introduction schedule until you're at LIW again.

YO, YO-YO
There's still a potential for a yo-yo effect in the early days of this strategy, and just one day of weightloss, at any time is not enough solid evidence that your body has recovered from the stress of the correction day you did. You'll need to lose weight at least 2 days in a row before you know you need to start upping your carbs and calories.

WITHIN 2 LBS OF LIW
And always remember: if you're in danger of going more than 2 lbs below your LIW in Phase 3, and at least have 2 days in a row of losing weight, you need to increase your carbs and calories. Then, you need to shoot for losing no more weight in P3, so you can obtain a stable LIW.

BUT, if you're in Phase 4 by the time you get near your LIW again, and you've done nothing but lose weight since starting this strategy, you've passed the "crucial period" of having a LIW "stick" in Phase 3. So locking in a stable LIW may be a little more difficult, but not impossible. When you get back to your LIW in a situation such as this, you'll be adding in carbs and calories, but will have to watch what you eat very closely after that, and monitor the scale each morning as you've been doing throughout the entire protocol. And if your weight goes up at any time after you started to add in carbs and calories, you will need to return to the pattern of eating that occurred the last time you were stable.

THE "NEW" DAILY CALORIC LIMIT TO FOLLOW
If you've followed the guidelines above, and know you need to start increasing your calories, you'll need to now use a different calculator to see where you have to be, calorie-wise. This new calculator will show you what your new Daily Caloric Limit will be that you'll be shooting for.

That calculator is found at the American Cancer Society site. And this time, you'll be using the "Light Activity" setting with this new calculator; a "Sedentary" setting need not apply with this new calculator, as you've successfully bounced back from the stress of your correction day at this point and that previous setting only applied to the previous calculator. It can be found here: http://www.cancer.org/healthy/toolsa...ter-calculator

After using this calculator, and getting your new Daily Caloric Limit, you will next need to figure out how many calories per day you'll increase your intake by before you get to that new limit. Just as everything else with this strategy, nothing happens at once! Though, at this stage, it's much faster than it was before to get to where you want to be.

RELIABLE CALCULATOR
My new Daily Caloric Limit corresponded directly with the amount of calories I'd been eating when I first entered Phase 3 and had been stable. That's how I knew this second calculator we'll be using was a good one. It fell in the range I'd previously been stable at (before I screwed up in the first week), so I knew I could feel comfortable relying on it when I wanted to see what my ultimate target calories should be. Note: if your LIW is a weight that's not exactly at a lb, like mine was (which was 122.6), round down when entering it into the calculator. My new Daily Caloric Limit: 1941 calories.

INCREMENTS: GETTING TO YOUR NEW DAILY CALORIC LIMIT
When I knew it was time to increase my calories, and I saw the difference between my former calorie limit of 1425 and this new one of 1941, I knew I couldn't add 516 calories overnight without some consequences. Granted, my body was telling me it was time to increase my calories, but the last time I had issues with burning calories appropriately, I gained; I'd tried to go back to eating a large amount of calories too soon. And I wasn't about to do that to my body again.

So, I decided to add 20% of that calorie difference each day. Which for me was about 100 calories each day (103.2 calories, to be exact). That was a good increase strategy for me calorie-wise; I gradually stopped losing weight, and stabilized.

OTHER FACTORS
By this time, the percentage per meal of your total Daily Caloric Limit no longer applies (the percentages were only meant to apply during the first two days anyhow, which is the "no-carb" phase). Water consumed being at about a gallon per day is still important, as is the total amount of caffeine being consumed (5-6 cups of either coffee or tea per day).

HOW TO INCREASE CARBS
Whatever level of carbs you were at in the Carb Re-Introduction Schedule when you saw the need to increase your total calories and carbs, you'll need to keep that in mind as you figure out how much you'll be increasing, carb-wise.

For instance: if you were at 6% carbs and saw you needed to increase, you'll need to increase your carbs by 6% more as you work up to your new Daily Caloric Limit. Basically, you'll be doubling whatever level you're at, but not doubling it rapidly. Just as you're working up to your new Daily Caloric Limit, you'll be working up to your new carb limit.

THE 20/20 STRATEGY
An increase in cals by 20% of the difference between old & new calorie amts for 5 days AND an increase in carbs by 20% of the carb difference over 5 days is the "20/20" strategy.

Don't forget: when I refer to the fact that you need to increase your carbs, I'm telling you to increase the amount of calories from carbs, not increasing the grams of carbs themselves. The tracker, as I said before, is essential to successfully following this strategy, and this portion of the strategy is no different.

IF YOU ARE STILL LOSING LOTS OF WEIGHT
If your weight seems to want to continue to drop below LIW and you're in P3, after your increase through 20/20, either your calorie count is too low and you need to increase it at a faster pace, OR your calories from carbs is still too low. In either case, you need to increase your rates from 20% for each to 30% for each.

IF YOU GAIN WHILE INCREASING
In this case, go back to the amount of calories and carbs you were at before you gained. Stay at that for about 3 days, no matter what the scale says, and then begin to increase your calories and carbs again. But this time, instead of increasing it by 20% for each, increase it by 10%.

INDIVIDUAL PROGRESS
In all cases, watching your body and how it progresses is essential to getting this all done successfully. You know your body best, even if you don't believe that's true. You do! And watching your body and what you eat is a great way to understand what works best for you.

YOUR NEW IDEAL RATIO
Because you want to start stabilizing your weightloss, you'll need to decrease your fat and protein and make room for your carbs.

If you find that you're still losing, and you need to continue to increase your carb amount, begin to take from not just fat, but also protein. So where you previously had, say, 60% fat, 8% carbs, 32% protein, you may want to work up to an eventual 40% calories from fat grams, 30% calories from carbohydrate grams, 30% calories from protein grams.

Others may want to work up to Zone Diet kind of ratios, such as 30% calories from fat grams, 40% calories from carb grams, and 30% calories from protein grams. I personally do better on the former ratio (40% fat, 30% carbs, 30% protein).

It's all dependent on your body, and how well it responds to metabolizing each. If you are losing even when approaching the ratio I use, then try out the Zone Diet ratio of 30% calories from fat grams, 40% calories from carb grams, and 30% calories from protein grams; that may work better for you. Again, it's dependent on your body, and its sensitivities to how it processes each macronutrient itself (macronutrients are fat, carbs, protein).

PROTEIN LIMIT
I found that since I went through the hCG protocol, I can handle the equivalent of 120% of my weight in grams of cooked protein, and NOT gain weight! BUT...when I go ABOVE 120% I gain. This is cool because normally it's recommended that someone uses their own weight equivalent in grams to maintain; I can do 120% -- and I bet you can too!

Here's what I'm talking about: my LIW was 122.6. So that's 122.6 grams in cooked protein that are at the equivalent of 100% of my weight. Now, 120% of my weight in grams of cooked protein is 147.12 grams. I'll round that down to 147; I can perhaps even go 6 grams over that before I start to gain. So, 147-153 grams at the most.

Now, keep your protein limit THE SAME and DO NOT go above this as you go along and adjust your ratio. And remember: this amount of grams of cooked protein. Adjust your ratio AROUND your protein limit, to accommodate for this limit. You'll see this amount of grams listed in your tracker, so you can be sure of it that way.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT TRACKING
You should ALWAYS weigh your food AFTER cooking, and...ONLY choose foods in your tracker that SPECIFY they're the cooked versions of foods; google anything that isn't in the database of your tracker and add it in if you have to.

THANKS FOR STOPPING BY!
Thanks for reading through this guide. Here's all the best wishes to everyone who's read this -- I hope you have a successful metabolism reset! And remember: if you have any questions that aren't answered by this guide, feel free to PM me.