Diet From Hell

I have a love/hate relationship with the HCG diet.  It works if you follow it properly but it is definitely from Hell!   This is the diary I kept while on it…

Day 1:  Start: 159 pounds. Today was a “loading day.”  I was supposed to eat a lot of fatty foods.  Okay by me but I was not feeling very hungry!   But, I had a big chocolate malt and it was sooo good!

Day 2:   I don’t think I’m going to load today.   I don’t want the food anyway.  They say you might get headaches if you don’t but I just don’t feel like eating.

Day 3:  Today, I started on the 500 calorie diet.  Easy!   I can’t believe I wasn’t hungry at all! 

Day 4: Down two pounds from yesterday.  Now 158.   More 500 calorie diet.  Still easy.  I’m loving this!

Day 5:  Down two more pounds!   156.  Minor headache today but nothing too bad.

Day 6:  Down two pounds  to 154!.   This diet rules!   I’m feeling pretty good.

Day 7:   Down 1 1/2 pounds to 152 1/2.     Serious headache today. 

Day 8: Down 1 1/2 pounds  to 150 .   Another headache from hell.  I should have loaded on that second day.

Day 9:  Down 1 pound to 149.   I broke the 150 mark!  Life is great!  No headache today, thank God.   Still, it’s worth it to see the results like this!

Day 10:  Down 1  pounds to 148!!

Day 11: Down 1  1/2 pound to 146 1/2 this morning.   Went out with the girls tonight and I wanted to eat sooo bad!  It sucked to sit there drinking water!   Glad we’re leaving for our Florida house tomorrow so I can just stay home and not be tempted.

Day 12:  Down 1  pound to 145 1/2  this morning.   Had the flight to FL.  Not tempted..yeah right!   I was starving on the plane and ended up cheating a little bit.

Day 13:  No loss today.   That cheat yesterday wasn’t worth it! 

Day 14:    Down 1/2 pound to 145.   I am so sick of eating chicken!  I hate chicken!   But I hate fish more so I guess I’m stuck with chicken.

Day 15:  Down 1 pound to 144.  I’ve lost more than a dress size so I feel a little better about starving and being bored!

Day 16:  Down 1 pound.  143  Jim wants to invite the neighbors over tomorrow for dinner.    I guess I’ll serve steak so I’ll (sort of ) be eating the same thing as everyone else.

Day 17:  Down 1/2 pound.  142 1/2   I’m starting to feel sort of blah and weak.   Dinner with neighbors tonight.  Hope I can keep my resolve.

Day 18:  I was good last night (although I really wanted to attack someone for their potato)  but only lost 1/2 pound.   Loss seems to be slowing.  Starving to death!   I’m starting to get hungry again.   Guess I need to up my dose of drops.

Day 19:  1/2 pound.   141 1/2  Wish I’d lose more.  I had hoped to be below 140 by now.   I think I’ll do 40 days instead of 23 on this.  Maybe.   If I can stand it!  I’m kind of miserable.

Day 20:  1/2 pound to 141.  The idea of 18 more days is starting to frighten me.

Day 21:  1/2 pound to 140 1/2    If I’m only going to do 23 days, this should be my last day of the drops.  I don’t know!   I feel like Hell.  The loss has been great but it’s been hard on me.

Day 22:  1/2 pound to 140!    I’m going to be strong and stay on.  I’m about to break down under 140.   If I could get down to 130 I’d be the happiest person on the planet.   But I really am starting to feel awfully weak and crabby.

Day 23: No loss!     I was soo looking forward to being under 140.  That’s disappointing.   Bit Jim’s head off this morning.   I am emotionally a wreck and I feel really rotten! 

Day 24:  No loss!  WTF!!  I’m stuck at 140?

Day 25:  What?   140 AGAIN?  *&^%^%$#@   Jim is begging me to quit this because I’m such a grouch!  Well, that’s the nice word for it.  Going back home tomorrow.

Day 26:  140.   &**&^%$#@!!  Why can’t I break 140?  This is really pissing me off!  

Day 27:  140.   F*** this!   I’m going to quit the drops and be done in a couple of days.

Day 28: 140    Without the drops, I’m starving!

Day 29:  This should have been my last day of the 500 cal diet but I couldn’t take it anymore!   I had to eat so I started doing some of the maintenance.

Day 30:  Up 1/2 pound.   I guess I still had HCG in my system.   Maintenance is really boring and I’m so sick of this food!   I’d kill for a piece of cheese.

Day 31:  I ate normally today.   Just couldn’t take any more!

Day 32:  Up 1/2 pound this morning.   Still couldn’t stand it so I ate regular food again.   Surely by now the HCG is out of my system and I won’t gain any more..

And so it went….until I gained back to 148.       Every time I’m tempted to try it again, I look back at this and see how bored I was and how hungry and weak I was at the end of it.    Think I’ll try some new Diet from Hell…..  

The second Diet from Hell is the “Cookie Diet.”    I tested the Oatmeal Raisin “Dietary Supplement” (as the manufacturer termed it.) I’ll start with the positive. I have no doubt that you would lose weight on this diet….if you didn’t shoot yourself first!

As I stare at it and contemplate it, this little square thing sort of resembles a cookie…sort of. When you take a bite, it sort of tastes like an oatmeal raisin cookie…sort of. But then you start chewing.

The best term I can think of to describe the texture is sawdust. It is incredibly dry with some kind of crunch to it. Oh, there’s a raisin!  It’s like a little bitty oasis in the desert!   Better take a sip of water. Then I continue to chew–a lot. Second bite–more
sawdust, more chewing, MORE WATER! After a couple more bites of this, I notice some kind of residue in the roof of my mouth. It resembles grease but isn’t quite the same as a grease feel or taste. More water!

After a couple more bites, I think that I am never going to be able to choke down the rest of this godforsaken cookie! Oh no! I drank all my water…must have more water!

A lump has formed in my throat. It reminds me of being a small child and having an extreme dislike of that dreadful sweet potato with the marshmallows on top thing that people serve at Thanksgiving. I’d get a lump in my throat and just getting down the obligatory two bites was almost more than a small child could bear! It feels like that…but the dreadful sweet potato thing is much preferable to this evaporated, dusty, parched, grimy crumble that is in my mouth!

Well, it’s worked. My hunger is curbed. I am definitely NOT this hungry! It did get me to drink a lot of water.  I went through two 16 ounce glasses of water to ingurgitate this one 1 1/2 inch cookie…before I considered regurgitating!
I felt that I should give it a second try.  This time I followed the “suggested serving” and microwaved it for 10 seconds.   It’s considerably better but that still isn’t saying it’s “good.”

How the diet works is this:  You eat 6 cookies spread out during a day and a healthy dinner of lean protein and non-starchy vegetables.   There are different flavors of cookies, shakes and cupcakes that are all manufactured by the same folks.   You’d need to have a variety to survive this diet….but if the shakes and cupcakes are as bad as the cookies, it would be another hellish diet.

The cookies are each 110 calories with 4 grams of fat…they’re skimming just over the line where it can’t be claimed as a low-fat food.   The cookies contain a proprietary formula of something called “Lethicin” which the ingredients are listed as “guar gum, gum arabic, locust bean gum (all of which are thickening agents to my understanding.)   There are also some other ingredients like pomegranate that are definitely good for you but included in the small amount of “Lethicin” I can’t imagine that there’s enough there to have any effect whatsoever!

On top of this, they evidently know their product tastes terrible!   The return policy is prohibitive.    You first have to call customer service to get authorization to return product and fill out a Refund Request Form and then return it by fax email or email.

They will not accept open boxes, so one box of the three that I ordered (I ordered the smallest amount possible) is not returnable.  I spent $59.   Take out approximately $20 for a box that wouldn’t be accepted for return.   Then there is a $35 re-stocking fee.   That adds up to $55 and the customer is responsible for the cost of shipping, so by that time, I’d be in the negative numbers.   Better off to sell the extra on eBay!

All things considered, this diet has very little merit.    It would probably work to some degree but you’d be miserable.   Also, you would not be changing any habits or learning how to eat foods with decent nutritional value.   Thumbs down!

I’m sure we have all had a diet at one time or another that we said was “from Hell!”   Years ago, my mom got a diet from someone who told her it was developed by a medical center for their obese heart patients who needed to lose weight very quickly.   I doubt very much that it came from said med center but I very quickly dubbed it “The Diet From Hell.”   The name has stuck and that’s what my entire family now calls the following egg and grapefruit diet.

I don’t recommend this diet plan but it works–if you can stand being in boiled egg Hell long enough.    When I was 28, I decided to lose weight, lose my rotten husband and move to Boston.   I was on the Diet from Hell for six weeks.  During that six weeks, I spent four days eating a lot of grapefruit and boiled eggs.   On the days off, I snarfed whatever I wanted.   It was around Girl Scout Cookie time of the year.   I would buy a box of Girl Scout cookies and leave them on the counter with a note that said “Midnight Thursday.”   I’d diet like crazy Monday through Thursday and those cookies were my reward to myself.   I joined a gym and worked out like mad!   In six weeks, I’d lost 30 pounds and was back to my normal size 3.    The weight stayed off for about 10 years but that was mostly because I stayed active.   Once I went back to my couch potato ways, the weight started creeping back.

This diet does not teach you anything about nutrition, healthy eating or lifestyle.   It’s a quick fix.  It worked for me once but I’ve never been able to face it again!   Now that I’m turning 49, I think it’s time to get a little more serious!

Diet from Hell

Breakfast daily:  1/2 grapefruit, unsweetened coffee or tea

Lunches:  Day 1: 2 boiled eggs, green beans, grapefruit,   Day 2: 2 boiled eggs, green beans, spinach, cauliflower, apple, Day 3: lettuce, tuna canned in water, tomato, Day 4: 2 boiled eggs, green beans

Dinners:  Day 1: steak, lettuce, sliced tomatoes, apple    Day 2: hamburger patty, lettuce, tomato juice, 1/4 cup natural applesauce  Day 3: (the day from Hell for me!) baked boneless, skinless chicken breast, stewed tomatoes, 6 oz prune juice,  Day 4:  steak, lettuce, fresh pineapple

Salt and pepper are the only spices allowed.  No substitutions to the diet.   No diet soda, artificial sweeteners, no gum, no alcohol.  Nothing that is not specified on the diet is allowed.

4 days on three days off.

Please talk to your doctor before trying this or any other diet to address any health concerns!

Good luck! I guarantee that it won’t take long till you can’t face a boiled egg again!