Thread: How do you make sure your getting enough calories?

You can adjust calories with larger or smaller fruit and vegetable portions. (For instance a small apple might be 75 calories, a larger one 100. Either is fine as long as it is a single apple.) Eat enough veggies to make up the difference after your fruit and protein. You don't have to stick to portion sizes with your veggies. I use my kitchen scale to figure out ounces for everything, then plug it into a calculator spreadsheet that does the math for me.

Why not enjoy both your fruits? You aren't going to lose any faster if you cut one out.

I think one of the bonuses of following the protocol is that it teaches you how much pleasure there can be from eating simple, fresh foods. And fruit is one of the joys of that. If leaving out the melba is for gluten issues, I've found that you can use a gluten-free cracker with a similar macros as the melba and it works fine with the protocol. In Pounds & Inches, it does mention than a small amount of starch is needed.

Its ok to miss the 500 mark occasionally, but you want to get close to it most days. You'll quickly get into a rhythm with what works to get your calorie level close to the 500. Some veggies are higher calorie per ounce. Onions for instance. So if you don't feel like eating a bucket of salad greens one day, you can get the same calories from a thick slice or two of grilled onion.

One of my stock P2 meals is a piece of chicken breast or fish done on the Foreman grill next to a thick slab of Vidalia onion. I make up a spice mix that I like and use it on everything I grill--meat and veggies both.

I remember you reported a loss from loading. When you don't have a big load gain, it is very normal to only lose a pound or even less after the first low calorie day. You are not doing anything wrong. The way it seems to work is: big load gain, big first VLCD loss. Little load gain or load loss: much smaller loss after first VLCD.

There is no catching up that needs to happen. Your loss is normal.

As for body lotions, soaps, shampoos---anything you wash off immediately is not going to affect things. So what we have found over the years is that you can safely use hand soaps, shampoos, conditioners and such without having to get special products.

Where you want to make the investment is moisturizers, eyeliners, foundation and body lotions that remain on the skin. I like the Neutrogena oil-free moisturizer. I use it even when not in P2. Also, don't use leave-on hair products that contain oils. Essential oils are not really oils, but essences, so the eucalyptus oil in your vics is in that category. There may be carrier oils though, so it probably depends on the amount in there, and how much of it you actually use in a day.

Baby oil, glycerin, mineral oil, petroleium jelly are all fine to use.

Yes, the Bonner hand soaps are fine since you wash them right off. It isn't the quality of the oil at issue. Its the exposure time.

Here's the thing...you don't want oils/fat sitting on your skin for long periods of time. So if you were say, mixing meatloaf without wearing gloves for an hour or so, or giving lengthy massage oil rubs, that would be too much fat on your skin and enough could be absorbed to hinder the HCG activity.

But if you want to be super safe, use a glycerine bar soap during P2, or even a standard one like Dial.

Any lipsticks are fine, as they are formed mainly from wax. I don't know about the potted types. Silicon is not oil, so its safe for P2. Choose a foundation that says its oil-free or a mineral-based foundation and you won't have to be concerned about individual ingredients.

My opinion is that the best way to be successful with the HCG protocol is to follow it, and that includes timing, waiting times and such. Here are a couple articles that might help you get the whole picture better.

https://hcgdietinfo.com/how-long-sho...-the-hcg-diet/

https://hcgdietinfo.com/hcgdietforum...-rounds-21433/

https://hcgdietinfo.com/hcgdietforum...-rounds-21551/

While there may be some that seem to be successful at staying on HCG until they get to goal, what is more likely to happen is that you won't be able to stabilize at goal once you get there. I've watched it happen to some on this forum, and no matter what they did, they could not stop the rebound gain afterwards. It is heartbreaking, because these are people with extreme discipline and determination, and it wasn't enough, because it was not about discipline at that point. This is a simplistic description, but I think what happens is that metabolic processes are triggered after long periods of deprivation which are irresistible and force your body to regain the weight. The short, managed rounds and stabilization periods specified on the protocol allows your body to rest, reset and stay at a new lower setpoint.

In 2011-12 I lost most of my extra weight doing a series of 5 properly spaced rounds. Although I have to work at staying at goal, and have done extra rounds since then, I've not ever gone much above 150 since that time. That is a practical example of how a new set point was established that is nearly 100 pounds lower now than it once was. I know of at least one case reported on this forum of someone who did extremely an long round, lost over 100 pounds, and then was back after a time having gained it all back again and more. I can't even imagine having to try to get the motivation together to lose that much all over again. I'm not sure I could. So the question becomes, is it worth the chance that the same would happen to you?

Injected HCG is unlikely to be a way you can diet straight to goal anyway, as immunity will set in and you will stop losing somewhere along the way. Once that happens, HCG will not work for you again for a long time or maybe not ever, and the risk is that you lose this marvelous tool. Homeopathic hcg doesn't cause immunity, so you can stay on it longer without seeing the problems building up, and its usually homeopathic users that are tempted to just diet straight through all the way to their goal weight.