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See all the hCG interview episodes
These are in-depth conversations one-on-one with hCG ladies where you get to hear their whole weight loss story and the tips that helped them succeed.

Read short written hCG testimonials
These are short testimonials of ladies who’ve written in their hCG diet results to me for quick motivation.

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First of all, for some reason, the video recording of this particular interview got ALL messed up. Which is so crazy because the first time we did our interview together I FORGOT TO RECORD IT. So we talked for like an hour and a half and at the very end I realize…..no red button was on. Ahhh!!!! I hope that it’s the first and last time I ever do that. Kerrie was so polite about it and willingly did the entire thing over with me. I stole like half her day man!

So once we DID record it, somehow the video is just all sorts of crazy- half the time it sounds like one of us is talking over the other, which we weren’t, and half the time there is a long pause between her saying something and my response – it sounds like I’m being rude! Anyway FYI on that! We actually had a perfectly civil conversation lol.

Kerrie has a great story to share, but a few basic stats to start:

• Age: 38 years old
• Height: 5′ 4″
• Starting weight: 200 lbs
• Current weight: 141 lbs
• Total weight loss so far: 59 lbs
• Done in 2 rounds of hCG Injections, both about 28 days long.
• Clothing Size change: Dresses – Size 16 down to Size 8; Pants – 13/14 down to 5/6

What’s neat about her weight loss, is that only some of it was during Phase 2. She actually lost about 23 lbs independently between rounds. So for those of who you wonder about this, if it’s possible to lose weight on your own, yes for some it totally is.

• Round 1 April 2014: 22 lbs lost in 28ish days.
• Round 2 August 2014: 15 lbs lost in 28ish days.

As you can see, her weight loss is on par with what most women experience on average – .5-.75 or so per day (averaged out over the course of the round of course).

Also check out a hydrostatic body fat test she had after doing hCG Injections (our actual interview was a bit ago now). As you’ll see, at her current 25.9% bodyfat, she is now on the lean side of average according to this bodyfat percentage chart for women and she’s practically in the lean category now!

Also if you’ll notice, after all her weight loss, she still has over 100 lbs of lean mass, which at her 5’4″ is still quite good – this means it’s likely she retained the normal amount of muscle mass for a person of her frame and height during her weight loss journey, something that anti-hcgers tend to try to make a possible issue.

Here’s a few examples of bodyfat percentage charts

you can compare with – as you can see they vary a little, the ones by age seem to be a more accurate way to gauge health level.

I hope you enjoy our chat, and once again, sorry for the audio being a bit off this time.

Read the transcript:

Download Episode 27 Transcript – PDF

Or read it here below:

HCG Diet Interviews – Episode 27 – hcgchica.com

Rayzel: Hey guys! hcgchica. Welcome back! This is the episode 27 of the HCG Interviews. I have a confession to make. I just recorded a whole- well I just had a whole hour interview with this lovely lady Carrie here and we concluded an hour later and I realized I had not recorded the entire thing so we are trying to repeat this but anyway the main focus of our interview is gonna be about Phase 3 and Phase 4. We’ll get her basic stats with weight loss and stuff but we really want more information about how to actually maintain weight loss because that’s often the struggle for people where there’s just not a lot of information about how to do that. It’s both a mindset change but we also need like practical tips on how do I actually do that practically. What choices do I make to help me actually maintain? So we’ll talk about what’s working for Carrie today. Welcome Carrie! How are you doing today?

Carrie: I’m doing well. How are you?

Rayzel: Good. So about how much weight have you lost with the hCG protocol between Phase 2 and Phase 3?

Carrie: I have with 2 rounds and then the Phase 3 and then moving into Phase 4. I’ve lost almost as of this morning 60 pounds.

Rayzel: That is amazing. So where was your starting weight?

Carrie: My starting weight was after loading on the first round was 200.5 and this morning I was 141.1. Something like that.

Rayzel: Awesome. Since we’ve already talked. So you said you’ve lost 37 of the pounds with hCG on Phase 2 right? Then you’ve lost about 22-23 pounds independently.

Carrie: On my own. Yes.

Rayzel: That’s really neat and I’ve been interviewing more people lately who have been losing between rounds unsuccessfully with various methods so we’ll talk more about that. Aside from that give us other basic stats like how tall are you? How old are you? How many rounds have you done?

Carrie: I’m 37 and I’ll be 38 in a little over a month. I’m about 5 foot 4 and I’ve done 2 rounds of hCG. The first one was on this year on April and I’ve lost 22 pounds. The 2nd one was in August 15th to September 15th and I lost 15 pounds on that round.

Rayzel: Cool. So both of them were about a month long.

Carrie: Yeah. I did 28 days of the injections.

Rayzel: Okay. Cool. On injections. Awesome. Cool. Alright. So you already mentioned that. How does your clothing size changed with that 60 pound difference?

Carrie: Okay. Last Christmas I bought a dress and it was a size 16. Last weekend we went out shopping and I bought a size 8. So the dress size has changed from a 16 to an 8 and my pant size from the same store that I like to get jeans. I have really short legs and this particular clothing store has an extra short length not just a short length so it’s great. I went from to a 13/14 to a 5/6 from that particular store.

Rayzel: Awesome. And you can know that the changes are liable.

Carrie: Right it’s the exact same store, exact same jean cut, everything.

Rayzel: So can you tell us a little bit about your history before hCG. You know a lot of women have lost weight in the past with other diets but couldn’t keep it off for one reason or another. What do you feel was not working for you? Why weren’t you able to maintain weight loss in the past?

Carrie: Well I think the biggest reason that I wasn’t able to maintain it because I really didn’t change anything about what I was eating. Most people that I know, you know we all have a sugar problem, we have sugar addiction, we have a carbohydrate addiction, and so even though I would try different ways to lose weight whether it be diet modification or exercise and diet modification. I still would not cut out the treats or the sugary treats and I did not cut out the carbohydrates. So I think that I had to get to a point where I didn’t need those anymore and that is the biggest way the hCG helps.

Rayzel: Okay. How do you feel that it helped you to not feel that anymore?

Carrie: We mentioned earlier but the first couple of days you’re on hCG after loading and you’re on the very low calorie. You do have that detox process and you feel terrible and you’re getting grumpy and you know you can get mean but you know when you’re past that and you go all of that time. If you stay on the protocol. You’re not having the carbs and you don’t have the sugar. I still have 2 cups of tea every morning just like I would have before but before I put sugar in it and now I put stevia in it. I don’t even miss the sugar because I’m used to it now with the stevia and it taste just fine with me and it’s just as satisfying and just as my normal routine as it was when I would eat, literally, I would have a 4th cup of sugar in both of those cups so that’s a lot, a lot, a lot of sugar.

Rayzel: And it’s nice I’m the same way. I’m used to stevia and like you said I don’t miss the sugar. But the nice thing is I feel better after like before I would love how things tasted when I would have sugar in things like tea but I actually feel really yucky after cause I think it mess with my blood sugar so I actually feel crappy or like pancakes, I used to love pancakes and 20 minutes later I feel horrible. It’s like with the alterations that we make with this protocol and learning to replace what we used to eat with healthier versions you don’t have to have that crappy feeling after eating it. Well tell me a little bit now with phase 3 like what types of food you ate? Just what types of things that you eat that worked for you? You actually lost impressively.

Carrie: I did lose a little bit on Phase 3 and on the first Phase 3 I lost about 6-8 pounds. This 2nd phase 3 I only lost a couple of pounds past my LDW but really my Phase 4 eating has not changed much from my Phase 3 eating. I continue to- or in Phase 3 I just added back fat, I continued to have fruit but usually just in the berries. Not any other higher glycemic fruits and I added back salad dressings. That was the biggest things. I didn’t add any different vegetables just because there’s only certain vegetables that I like. It’s easier to just keep eating the same thing than to try to add all these different things in but now that I’m in Phase 4 I really haven’t changed what I eat. It’s just that I do now I will have a banana and I do very occasionally one to two meals a week. I will let myself have a true carb, whether it be a little bit of pasta or some bread or a white potato or a sweet potato. But I only limit those to one or two days a week. Never in the same day. Usually it’s on the weekend just because it’s easier to be a little more lax on the weekend.

Rayzel: So when you do that—

Carrie: It’s been fine. As a matter of fact last night I did have a little bit of a noodle with what I made and I still have almost a pound lost today when I woke up. .9 this morning.

Rayzel: Why don’t we talk a little bit about now- sounds like you ate during Phase 3 about how most people do, what’s the thing that was the major change for you? The little click that happened as far as along the hCG.

Carrie: When I started the hCG protocol and I think a lot of people did this, we all do research. Because we want to get as much information as we can and that’s when I came across your YouTube channel and I went from day one. I tried to do, we were pretty close, this was years ago I know for you. I followed your journey about as I was doing it as well and you had mentioned at one point, of course I don’t think it was in your first round or two. I think it was much later but you have started talking about the Weight Loss Apocalypse book and that information in that book talking about eating to hunger, using the hunger scale. That was the biggest change for me, is that we as a society eat breakfast, lunch and dinner because it’s breakfast, lunch and dinner time without really even thinking about what does my body need, am I actually hungry or am I just eating because the clock is telling me to. I told someone they asked me about my holidays is you know, “What do you think you’re gonna do during the holidays because if you’re still losing weight?” And I said this is going to be the first holiday season where I control the food and the food doesn’t control me and so over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend I was still able to lose weight. Thursday lost weight Friday Morning, lost weight Saturday morning from the leftovers on Friday. So it’s really just eating when I’m hungry, stopping when I feel full, not letting myself get overly full or that feeling of just yuck. I never get to that feeling and there have been occasions where maybe I’ve eaten a little bit more than I normally would but I just stop if I ever feel that okay, I’m getting full and then I just stop.

Rayzel: And you know so speaking of the book she just mentioned is by Robin Woodall and the start of it is called Weight Loss Apocalypse. It’s a long title but it actually has to do with the hCG protocol and I recommend it to everyone because it’s actually focused on the science behind how hCG works with your body and how it’s a hormone treatment and she talks about the whole aspect of basically a new way of eating. Letting hunger be your guide. Like she said not eating just because it’s morning or it’s lunch time but just eating when your body’s actually hungry and seeing what that ends up being for you and that may even be different from day to day, from one day to the next. So I’m curious for you, what, how has that everything you read there in those principles, how has that translated into what you’re eating schedule actually looks like now in general?

Carrie: Typically the last meal that I have in the day is usually around 7 o’clock in the morning and then I wake up and get ready for work. I do work from home so I don’t have to get up super early to get ready as far as shower and make up and all that stuff. I don’t have to do commute anymore so I don’t really wake up a whole lot earlier than I have to be at work just because I like to sleep. I don’t have a young child and I don’t have to get up and get that going. Typically for breakfast I have a couple of cups of tea with my stevia and then I drink a bottle of 20 ounce bottle of water and then I get started in my day and just work and typically the first thing that I eat is usually anywhere- depending on how busy I am, I’ll start to feel hungry maybe around 11 and so then that’s when I have my first meal or I could go all the way to 1 o’clock just depending on how busy I am. Then so it’s dinner again around 7 at night. There are some days that I feel hungrier and I’m eating lunch at 11 or my first meal at 11 then I do have to eat dinner earlier than 7 o’clock and there are times when that happens but it’s funny because I feel hungry and if it’s 3 or 4 which is too early for dinner because nobody’s home to eat dinner right about that time, I’ll have a bottle of water. I drink water throughout the day. I do try to drink half of my body weight in water which you know this is generally the recommendation I think so I do try to drink that much water everyday. But if I do get hungry I’ll have a bottle of water and usually it’s just because I’m thirsty. It’s not really because I’m truly hungry and then I do dinner around 7 and I’m good. But when I feel hungry, I got to eat. There’s not any of this like, “Oh let’s wait a couple of hours and then you know but if I’m feeling hungry I need to go ahead and eat something and if I know I can’t have a meal then I’ll just have a small little snack of some cheese or maybe clementine or something like that just to hold me over till I can get dinner cooked or we can get to wherever we were going if we are eating out.

Rayzel: Good cool. So essentially-

Carrie: In general, with just like everybody, your normal breakfast go-tos are always gonna be carbohydrates. Cereal, oatmeal, pancakes like you mentioned, waffles that sort of things because who has time to make bacon and eggs in the morning and there’s occasionally that’s what we’ll do for dinner because it’s easier to do that for dinner but yeah, I’m just not hungry for it. The cups of tea do me just fine and a lot of people that I talked to, they’re like, “I can’t believe you don’t eat breakfast.” But this particular person who always kind of bashes me about it sometimes she doesn’t eat dinner because she’s not hungry so what’s the difference? You don’t eat dinner but I don’t eat breakfast. So when she thinks about it that way she’s like, Oh yeah, I guess you’re right. So yeah, you know, as long as you are eating to satisfy yourself and not to satisfy an emotional need or boredom or stress, we have an incident this weekend- I have 3 dogs and we have an incident this weekend where I just knew that we are gonna have to put one of them to sleep and I felt myself feeling really stressed out, what am I gonna do? And I thought to myself I my old pre-hCG life, I probably would have wanted some ice cream or something warm and comforting that I shouldn’t have eaten but since that was not the problem. That was not gonna be the solution for me so that’s a big turning point where you can realize that the food decisions you make, if you make that emotional decision to eat something that maybe you’re not hungry for or something you not think of as being forbidden because it’s not a healthy type food. You know you’ve got to be willing to deal with whatever the scale’s gonna say and to get into that emotional, that you’re okay with it. Htat you’re okay with it and you’re not feeling guilty and you don’t feel like you’re beating yourself up because of that.

Rayzel: Right. Because it is like an evolving process. Learning to do that for sure. I think for me before I started hCG I really did have an issue where I’m actually binging and I get so fully, horribly full, really, uncomfortably. That’s kind of the comfort, like I was used to that level of fullness so not having that felt weird and kind of like not very satisfying for a while but overtime with Phase 2 and with Phase 3. I really did gradually change where I didn’t feel that need to get overly full anymore and I can honestly say that I don’t stuff myself anymore pretty much ever. Like you said, I don’t like- the same thing it’s a good feeling when you realize, you go to stressful things and you realize you’re not turning to food nearly as much. I can’t say that I’m perfect in that like there’s still times when I have because even though I’ve maintained my weight loss for more than 2 years there’s been a few times where I have gained a few pounds over a period of couple of months that was fat because I would have body fast testing so okay it really is fat. But then I was able to correct it and to fix it and I think just realizing sometimes we do make mistakes but the point is just not letting it get out of hand where our habits actually change. Like I have a habit of eating a certain way that I stick to and sometimes we might go outside here and there and we might need to correct it but the habit’s there, I don’t ever completely fall off the wagon.

Carrie: I think that the term on starving is overused and I think that one of the good things about hCG when you’re on your low calorie round is that you can finally realize what true hunger signals are and because when you’re normally going about your day to day, is it because you’re a little dehydrated? Is it because you’re bored? Is it because you’re stress? Is it because you just feel like it? And I think that when you’re on that on your rounds you truly feel what it’s like to be hungry when it’s time to eat. I’m not saying I did not feel hungry at all on the protocol until it was time to eat. And when it was meal time, I would eat my portion of my protein and my vegetable and I did do fruits. I didn’t do the Melba toast but I did do fruits. I would eat my portion and the hunger would go away. I did not feel hungry between meals. Just on my protocols I didn’t have breakfast. I would just eat my fruit, my vegetable, and protein twice a day basically. In between those times I did not feel hungry. When it was time to eat I felt okay, this is what it feels like to actually be starving and so I would eat and the hunger would go away and then it will come back when it is time for the next amount of fuel that it needed and so that is really just a turning point of learning to feel what it really feel like when you’re hungry and when your body needs you to feed it. Not you’re feeding it just because you mentally want to feed it.

Rayzel: Yeah and I think that it’s great that you mentioned that. Phase 2 I think it’s good for so many things and that’s one of them. It helps you, like you said, learn what hunger is. I really did feel like, I really only felt kind of satisfied if I was overly full before, like uncomfortably full. It was the weirdest thing. As soon as I was not uncomfortably full I was basically feeling like I want to eat again. That is so weird. But Phase 2 helped me to get past that so now I feel comfortable not being overly full. I was very uncomfortable to be really full all the time now. So that’s very useful for that. The other thing that I wanted to mention to people. You had said to me that before you kind of had a bit of a sugar carb addiction before hCG. We talk a lot with this interviews with people making these changes to how they eat and like you say now you only indulge once a week or every now and then or if I do it’s only one carb. Sometimes when you haven’t made those changes in your life yet you might feel like, “I don’t feel like I can do that or How could I do that?” I don’t want you guys to get discouraged about that because I remember feeling that way too. Like you see these success stories and you’re like I don’t see how I can do that because I want to eat all this junk food all the time and the cool thing is that Phase 2 provide-

Carrie: You’re right. I can remember—I went to a medical weight loss clinic here in my hometown and I can remember sitting in the waiting room and there were 2 ladies there, they were on their 3rd of 4 weeks of injections and I was picking up, I think, my first week. I hadn’t even started to load yet. They were saying someone had brought in donuts or fruit cake or something like that in their office and they were co-workers and one of them said I didn’t even want it. I remember thinking the same thing. How can you get to that point where you don’t want to eat it and um, do I want to eat it? Sure. But I don’t sit here and think if I don’t have this cooking or if I don’t have this whatever I’m depriving myself or I’m punishing myself for whatever. But yeah going without it for so long shows you that you can go without it. You don’t have to have it and then when you’re able to eventually add it back into Phase 4 if you still want to continue to lose weight, you just don’t need it so you can make that choice of well, do I want to make this emotional decision because I mean, let’s just face it, we never needed dessert. It’s always an emotional choice or desire to have a dessert so if you make that emotion decision when you’re in Phase 4 then you just have to roll with it and maybe the scale will be kind to you and maybe you’ll have a little bit of a gain but you just don’t eat dessert 2 days in a row. Now I told you earlier I did do that over Thanksgiving just because that was a treat. I hadn’t had any kind of dessert since probably July or August and so 2 or 3 months with no dessert and then 2 days of it I was still able to lose weight which I was very pleased with and my husband and I actually joked whether I could eat chocolate pie every day and you know I keep losing but you know that’s not what I want for myself anymore. It took me almost 38 years to get to a mental mindset of how do I need to treat my body and you know I don’t want to destroy that by going back to my old habits but I don’t feel the need to do it either.

Rayzel: So yeah, again, just for everyone who is still in that Phase where they want to eat that stuff and you’re worried about changing. Phase 2 helps you have that shift where you actually do stop craving. You usually go through a detox period and you don’t crave it anymore and that’s what makes it easy cause sometimes when you hear people say that you think well I’m just not like that so therefore like when people say like Oh I just odn’t want that junk food and you’re like that’s not how I feel so I guess since I’m not like them then I’ll never be able to do what they’ve done but actually both you and I were in that same place before where we did crave those things. But Phase 2 just cleans out your system. It cleans you out and you really don’t- – And then phase 3 comes really all you’re excited about is that you get to have fats again and you’re not craving bonbons or whatever. You’re craving steak and broccoli and just butter or whatever that kind of stuff and it feels satisfying. The other thing I want to- – I am backtracking a little bit but just as far as how you talked about your eating window being kind of between 11 and 1 and 7 and the rest of the time you’re fasting. For anyone who wants more information about intermittent fasting which is essentially what she’s doing. There’s different ways of doing it but you can go check out eatstopeat. The author is Brad Pilon. He has a really good book. He has a really good book, I read it a few years ago but it helps to dispel a lot of the myths about fasting. Because originally I have been thought that it was very healthy and that it slowed your metabolism down and after I have read his book he has like a gazillion studies that he critiques and breaks down showing how it’s not unhealthy, it doesn’t ruin your metabolism done in the right way and that just opened my eyes. I’ve actually been using intermittent fasting too in a little bit of a different way for probably 3 years now and it’s been a very useful tool for keeping things in check for me so you can check that out. I haven’t eaten breakfast except on occasion in 2 years. Like you said, I’m not hungry for breakfast. I have 2 cups of black tea every morning and then by the time I eat it’s at least between 12 and 2. I do eat late at night however. So my eating window is between probably 1 and 2 and like 10 or 11 at night. So I eat however I want at night like however late I want to eat is when I eat and that’s been fine for me for 2 years so those types of things can work for people long term. I don’t count calories so I can’t say how much I’m eating but I know that I’m not under eating in order to- – like I know that that has not slowed my metabolism down because I eat a healthy amount. So anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there for anyone. Maybe we could chat just a little bit about you know, we’ve talked about Phase 3 and Phase 4 but back to phase 2, just because this is a question a lot of people have when it comes to cooking how did that work for you?

Carrie: Normally, my husband works away from the home and so he eats out every day for lunch and so I didn’t feel guilty if he would come home and I would just say here’s some frozen pizza, here’s some corndogs, here are some frozen burritos, whatever you want to eat, you could eat. Occasionally he would eat whatever I had. We would do lot of grilled meats and a lot of grilled vegetables but I would only- that’s all I would eat. A protein and one vegetable. I would not make 2 or 3 side dishes like what I would normally make and so he would often times have to eat more after we were done. Whether he got a sandwich or a bowl of cereal. I have a teenage daughter and she was fine with eating the same quantities that I did and she’s homeschooled so she would just make- I would buy her just normal lunch sandwiches, that sort of thing and she would have that for her lunch and she would sometimes eat what I ate or sometimes have a frozen pizza if they were tired of chicken and I did once or twice a week I would have beef, a lean cut of beef so sometimes you know they would eat that with me but for a few weeks they were on their own on some days and they were okay with that because they understand why I was having to do what I was having to do.

Rayzel: Yeah and I’m glad that you shared that because it sounds like you weren’t making your own P2 meal and then a whole separate dinner for them. So whatever you made, like you make more, they eat it and then if they’re not satisfied they can go get whatever else they want to fill it in. I’m glad you talked about that because a lot of women struggle with juggling that during this time because most of them are usually do cook for the family and they feel like they’re gonna be neglecting their family if they don’t continue to make grandious meals full of fat and that can be a struggle and so one of the things I have to realize for myself was that sometimes in order to reach a bigger goal you have to change your priorities temporarily just for that period of time cause you’re not on hCG for a year, right? It is true like my son when I was on hCG he ate a lot more granola bars than usual. That’s how it was because I couldn’t really handle being like making all this yummy meals while being on hCG. It’s just a little bit too emotionally exhausting so sometimes your family will be a little more on their own like you said and they might eat more junky food for a little bit but I think it’s just that realizing that in order to be successful and kind of change yourself, you’re gonna benefit your family for a long time.

Carrie: Right and its okay you just have to realize that it’s okay to make a choice for yourself, just for a month, it’s just for a month or however long the round is that you’re doing. It’s not forever. It’s temporary. Hopefully your family will be supportive and they’ll understand and they’ll want you to make the sacrifice for them so that you can get healthy and that you can change the way your relationship with food and change eventually just what you’re eating because after you’re done with the round your family will start to enjoy healthier meals just because that’s what you need to eat. You still can’t make an unhealthy meal for them and a healthy meal for you. Now you know I have occasionally done, I mean, we do spaghetti and if it’s not a day where I’m gonna enjoy pasta I do zucchini noodles for myself and I take out the pasta sauce for me and they have regular noodles and I have the zucchini noodles and I’m just as satisfied with that and they’re okay, they’re no missing out on anything and quite frankly I could probably do zucchini noodles in the whole pot and they wouldn’t notice the difference but I’ve not gotten that brave yet anyway.

Rayzel: You mentioned too that your husband is very lean right? It’s not that carbs are bad. It’s just that for some us we gain weight with too many of them. Same thing with my son it’s so hard to get him to eat. He just doesn’t care about food, like he’s so happy and busy like doing things in life. He’s 5. He just like forget to eat. It’s hard for me to get him to eat so I’m not worried about him having too many carbs. Yes have some ice cream. If they’re healthy or whatever it’s fine, he does fine with having sugar cause he’s really lean but anyway I really appreciate that you said that. That things are a little different for that period of time. Because sometimes people will just feel guilty or you might feel worried like Oh is this, am I a bad wife or a bad mom if I do this? But really you’re not because just for myself as an example before I started hCG I had become very concerned because my son was like 14 months when I started hCG so right before that I had an issue with eating a lot of sugary junk foods, donuts, cookies, ice cream like way too much of it and I could see that my son was watching me and also when you eat that type of stuff for me anyway you really don’t want to eat vegetables after that. Like vegetables don’t taste very good. It was this bad pattern I was concerned about the future. While I do the hCG yes he ate more granola bars but then after that it’s like I eat totally different now and the only thing my son knows is the healthy way to eat now. Yeah he get some snacks and stuff here and there but the type of food that I make for our family meals is healthy food. Now he’s gonna grow up for the next 20 year whatever eating that. So that’s why it’s worth letting go a little for that few weeks and focusing on yourself. Good, good, okay. I think we’re just about done here actually. Thank you so much. I think that’s actually about it. Is there anything else?

Carrie: You asked about what I eat now as a treat.

Rayzel: We do that again. Yeah. Okay so what do you eat now?

Carrie: So if it’s a day to day thing if I feel like well there’s couple of different things. I’m really have never been a coffee drinker but I’ve found some sugar free flavored creamers which I know that those are kind of chemically, so this is not a big health thing, I’m not paleo, I still do grains and things but I will have a cup of decaf coffee at night with some of the sugar free creamer and some maybe flavored stevia. That is one of the treats that I have. I’ll do a Larabar microwaved for 30 seconds with some almond butter on top and then you know but it’s not every day. Like I said once or twice a week I will let myself have a meal with a carb, whether it’d be a white potato or a pasta. It’s usually a white potato though. That’s just kind of the treat but I had I think the other day I ate 4 French fries. There’s a little place at the little local restaurant, I get a bacon cheeseburger with grilled onions and no bun and then my family will get fries and onion rings so I picked out 4 of the crispiest fries and that’s what I had for my treat and so I will let myself do that once or twice a week. Never on the same day and never meal to meal, back to back. It’s usually at dinner and on the weekends because that’s the best time I think to treat yourself. But you know for the holidays coming up I definitely I’m going to a party this week. I have no idea what’s going to be served but you know I’m just gonna try to be smart about it and if they do have a really yummy looking dessert and that’s one of the biggest things. I posted, I mentioned to you earlier, I was teaching a chemistry class and I’ve had a couple of study groups in my home so I buy them some cookies and literally I’ve eaten like a bite of the cookies that I bought them and it did not- it was not the best cookie I’ve ever had so I just didn’t want to waste my calories so unless it’s just really, really, really good I don’t waste the other five bites to finish the dessert. So since I am in phase 4, moderation is key but I don’t have a treat every day. But I will maybe every day I do a cup of the decaf coffee at night. That’s when my sweet tooth kicks in. You know, after dinner, and you’re watching TV and you’re winding down. So I will have the creamer and then the flavored liquid stevias or I do for my lunch, I do a smoothie with spinach and some fruit and Greek yogurt and a stevia flavored protein powder. So it’s got as much protein as chicken breast in it and it’s a vegetable serving and a fruit serving and I sweeten it with cocoa powder or I flavor it with cocoa powder so I feel like I have a little bit of chocolate everyday so that helps a lot. That’s typically what I have for lunch if it’s not really, really cold outside. If it’s really cold outside I can’t do it cause I’d freeze all afternoon because it’s a big quantity and it makes me feel so.

Rayzel: That’s actually funny cause I take a lot of hot showers. —

Carrie: In the summertime it was great. I was able to get a really good tan cause I would go out on the deck if I work from home. I’d spend my lunch hour drinking my freezing cold smoothie in the 90 degree heat and reading a book for an hour. Well now I stay in front of the fireplace and I’ll drink it because it’s getting cold here in the South and so but now we’ve had a couple of warm days so I’ve been okay with it but yeah if I choose the smoothie for my lunch meal so I have to definitely stand in front of the fireplace when it’s winter time.

Rayzel: I also like what you mention about when you do indulge a little that you make a choice with the meal you might pick one carb to indulge instead of all of them. Really honestly sometimes just doing that is really all that’s needed to keep things in balance. Along with since you’re eating to hunger. Those 2 things together I think is what allows you to have that freedom. Same thing for me it’s like I actually go out to a little café once a week to do a little work and just to do something like that and I do get fries but I never get a bun on my burger, ever. It’s like to me, a bun is not really worth it, like you said. I love fries so I do that once a week, no buns and so that’s yeah, you make choices sometimes.

Carrie: Yeah. I haven’t had a sandwich or bun in I couldn’t tell you and I don’t even miss it. That’s a lot of things we do, we have started going in the last few couple of months, I don’t know, this last month, we have started going out to eat a little bit more which is something that I tried to really avoid when I don’t have to. We went to a sandwich place and I just asked. Can you do this without a bun? And they were like absolutely. So it was like a pizza sub but without the bun but I will caution if you do that and you get it without the bun you probably need to get a larger size because I got a six inch sandwich and when it came, the portion was just like this, and so I thought I should have gotten the 12 inch because the bread takes up a lot of room in your tummy. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s my one suggestion if you decided to go bun-less in a sandwich place, like the hamburger places and the chicken places that do the sandwiches like that. Usually that portion of protein is totally satisfying but I treat myself to a bacon cheeseburger because if I’m gonna not eat the bun then I’m gonna have bacon but a lot of places will do their sandwiches bun-less and I don’t even bother with the lettuce wraps. Those are fine for some people but yeah that is one thing that we started doing when I go out. I found that a lot of times too when you go out to eat, just talk to your server and tell them. When I went out to eat twice the first round and I told them I am on a very restricted diet. I can’t have cheese and I can’t have croutons on my salad and he brought me red wine vinegar, he brought me lemon juice, all sorts of things to put on my salad. You know, just really most of the places that I went, we went to one chain restaurant and then one local restaurant and they were both very willing to accommodate what I needed. So don’t be afraid to ask and just put it out there “I’m on a very restricted diet and this is what I can’t have so I need you to prepare my whatever, piece of chicken or steak with no oils, no butter”. Of course when you’re in Phase 3 you can kind of not be so demanding but you know that is the way that you have to be because you’ve got to be your own advocate to step up for yourself because if you don’t do it who is going to?

Rayzel: That’s true. Also talking about this different actual adjustments you’ve made. You also mentioned now that you’re eating to hunger in daily life that when you went out to eat and you weren’t hungry what did you do?

Carrie: I’ve actually went to a baby shower where there was some things and I wasn’t really actually hungry at the baby shower but you can’t hang around with your girlfriends and not eat. My husband and I decided to do a date night that night and we went out and it was time to eat and I just was not hungry and so I was not going to go outside of my comfort zone to make myself eat just because we had said we were gonna eat so I let him pick wherever he wanted to go and then I just have a nice glass of tea. I always carry my stevia with me, in my purse and so I was able to have a large glass of tea while he ate his lunch or his dinner, it was fine, and I didn’t feel guilty because I hadn’t stuff myself and made myself even more full than I already was. It’s just about- as long as you can use a hunger scale and you understand your level for you body because you know it’s not the same for everybody and it may take you more bites of something to fill up than it would for me but as long as you understand your body and how it responds to food then you should be fine.

Rayzel: Yeah. I love the balance that you’re getting there because like you said. What a noble idea like I’m not hungry so I’m at a restaurant I’m just not gonna order food. Why not? You feel like I’m here and so I have to order dinner but you don’t have to. But it’s also the other side of the balance that you’re striking which is not to deny yourself when you are hungry. This isn’t about trying to not eat as much as possible. That’s not what this is about either. If I’m hungry, I’m gonna eat until I’m satisfied and that’s okay and there’s no guilt in that so I just love that and it just shows the shift that takes place and I think it becomes easier to do things like that like you did where I’m just gonna get a cup of tea instead of dinner. I think it becomes easier to do that as overtime as you become less emotionally reliant on food. Because it is true sometimes when you’re more emotionally connected to it and you eat for all sorts of reasons like you were talking about, it’s harder to make a choice like that. As you learn to adjust yourself overtime, it does become easier and you kind of just that part of your brain, you turn it off. Same thing for me, when I go to a gathering and there’s like cookies and all kinds of stuff there, honestly, I don’t even think about eating it, it’s just not an option pretty much cause it’s not good for me. I know it’s gonna make me crave sugar. It’s been so long since I’ve done that, it’s just not something I’m going there for and I don’t even think about it.

Carrie: I still will eat cookies but it’s actually really good. I’m not goin to- – I won’t actually. My husband eat that cookie. Is it hard or soft? If it’s hard I don’t like hard cookies so I’m not even gonna waste my time eating a cookie. Or you know if it’s not homemade like if I have an option of a store-bought cookie or a homemade cookie well I really don’t want a store bought cookie, I’d rather eat a homemade something. Because I’ve had sugar periodically, after I eat it I don’t immediately think “Oh I’ve got it, where can I get my next one?” So it hasn’t triggered me. I’m not saying that it wouldn’t ever. There’s always that possibility but it’s not triggered me yet and so, you know what I’m saying? So I’m okay with it but if I’m gonna make that emotional decision to eat a dessert, it better be the best darn dessert that I got access to. So I’m not gonna eat something that’s mediocre or out of a package.

Rayzel: Yeah and I think that’s the key. Like you said, it’s finding how your body responds to stuff. There’s no reason to not eat a cookie if you’re gonna be fine with it after. So it’s like for you since you know that then there’s no reason to not do that, go ahead. Same thing for me it’s like I find that if I go and eat a large plate of fries at the restaurant, I’m fine with that because I don’t get overly full, it doesn’t make me crave sugar or make me crave the next day and I don’t gain weight. That’s why I do that because it’s okay. But I have found other scenarios to be problematically for me after the fact so that’s why I avoid them. For each person finding out how you respond in certain choices you make. You know how your body responds and then that’s how you can find your new normal. Cool. I think we’ve covered a lot of good stuff today.

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