Back on track!

Ok, so after being on a approx. 1000 calorie diet, I weighed myself this morning and I am back at 176.5 lbs. So after some deviation, I have managed to get back on track. YAY

I realized the reason I stopped losing weight was because I cut my calories back TOO MUCH. I was down to 700-800 day, which is of course unhealthy (but that's besides the point) and also made my body think I am in starvation mode and thus it had to conserve every bit of energy I consumed. Remember when I first started my Roca Labs and I lost 4.5 lbs within a couple days? Thinking back, I was on a approx. 1000 calorie diet. My breakfast was the formula and coffee, lunches was a box of lean cuisine (about 2-300 calories) and I ate a 'normal' dinner. By normal I mean I ate whatever I would normally eat, I just stopped when I filled up. I think about 1000-1200 (maybe 1200 when we go out or on a weekend) is perfect for me. I am much more satisfied, fuller and the weight is now starting to come off again.

So here are my meals yesterday:

Breakfast: Roca Labs and coffee
Lunch: Strawberry kiwi kale smoothie; quarter of a Costco blueberry muffin (I allotted myself half of it! But I was stuffed!)
Snack: handful of all natural local yellow corn tortilla chips
Dinner: Olive Garden (fiancé's idea, BTW they're doing their buy one take one deal for $12.99) - one bowl of Zuppa Tuscana soup; half of my spaghetti and meat sauce; no breaksticks

Total: about 1141 calories. I didn't exercise at all because work was busy during lunch and I had to take our puppy to obedience class right after work...then to dinner...then I was ready to crawl into my comfy bed

I looked some Roca Labs users online and Youtube and everyone was consuming more calories than I. There is a girl on Youtube that was on 1500 calories plus a workout program and she was losing weight consistently. I think my plan to be about 1000-1200 plus walking weather permitting should be the perfect balance. I've also found some workout videos on Youtube in case weather is consistently bad too.

Today: 2 Hydroxycut; 1 Raspberry Ketone; half Roca Labs with lemonade flavor; tuna and egg salad for lunch; walking; second half of Roca Labs with lemonade flavor; leftover Olive Garden soup, 2 baked pieces of tilapia and 1 cup of Brussels sprouts for dinner.

PROTEIN - my late night Pinterest-ing has landed me the conclusion that my 1000-1200 calorie diet needs to consist of more protein and less carbs. The body has to use more energy to digest protein and therefore burns more calories. Carbs are easy to process and often contain more fat than lean proteins. I will stop by the store and grab a thing of Whey protein to mix into my smoothies whenever I make them, and also concentrate on eating more proteins than carbs. Proteins also fill you up for longer periods of time, whereas carbs give you instant energy and instant gratification (trust me....I love my pasta and rice and etc.) It'll be hard, but I'm not cutting carbs out by any means, just trying to design my meals with protein in mind. Plus my protein powder in smoothies that I plan to drink anyway.

FRUSTRATION

I'm frustrated beyond belief. I KNOW I didn't do too well this past weekend but I wasn't expecting to GAIN IT ALL BACK
The foods I ate weren't that bad nor did I consume a crazy amount of calories, yes I didn't exercise but the formula doesn't require exercise everyday anyhow?!?!?!?!


I emailed Roca Labs and they said the reason why I'm not losing as much weight as I should is because I cut my calorie intake wayyyyy too low. 7-800 a day is apparently leading my body to go into a deficiency and thus store every bit that I consume. They say I should eat approx. 300 more calories a day and continue with the exercise. We'll see. I guess I won't do an ALL liquid diet but just replace some cravings/hunger with smoothies.

I went to a local farm stand and got a bunch of fruit and veggies and plan to either eat them as is or make smoothies. I'll try to bring my calorie intake up if they say it'll help. I've done soooo much research online and everybody seems to be losing at a very steady pace, but everyone is eating sandwiches, baked chicken and etc (much more than I eat) and they are still much more successful than I.

Lunch: one can of original V8 juice (70 calories); walking 30 minutes
Snack: 11 snap pea crisps and 1/2 cup of chex mix (200 calories)
Dinner: chicken and mushroom pasta (620 calories)
Total = 890 calories

Let's see how this goes.....if ANYONE has any recommendations or suggestions I would truly appreciate it. It's been 17 days and I'm back where I started. PLEASE HELP

Tomorrow: 2 Hydroxycut, 1 Raspberry Ketone; 1/2 dose of Roca Labs; green smoothie (kale, kiwi & strawberry) plus half blueberry muffin for lunch; another smoothie (strawberry banana?) plus cream soup/steamed veggies/hard broiled egg? for dinner; walk for lunch; maybe an evening walk around the lake if it doesn't rain

Oh, and I plan to start filming youtube videos tomorrow, although I haven't made much progress number-wise, I feel like I have good advice to give in terms of taking the formula and timing and what not....

Weekend Getaway

This past weekend my fiancé and I went to Ocean Shores with a couple friends for a weekend getaway. I got there Friday night and left early Monday morning. Obviously I haven't weighed myself the whole weekend but considering, I don't think I did THAT badly.....I stuck with my 2 Hydroxycut and 1 Raspberry Ketone every morning when I wake up too.

Friday dinner: half dose of formula before I began my 1.5 hour drive - turkey sloppy joe (about 1/2 of the bun, then I opened it and just ate all the ground meat inside), small handful of fries

Saturday breakfast: half dose of formula in the morning  - one small Pillsbury cinnamon roll with icing

Saturday morning snack: fiancé and I shared a chocolate croissant at local bakery that was wafting evil delicious smells around town

Saturday lunch: clam chowder and sweet potato fries (took SOOOO much self-control! Trust me, I ate less than the kids in that restaurant)

Saturday dinner: 2 Mexican wrap things (tortilla, queso, cilantro, ground turkey, cheese sprinkled on top), sounds like a lot but they really were relatively healthy. Should've stopped at one though

Sunday breakfast: homemade breakfast scramble (2 eggs, handful of hash browns and sausage)

Sunday lunch: sautéed chicken and mushroom with rice at local Mexican restaurant

Sunday dinner: half plate of dump nachos (we basically dumped all the leftover perishables onto them, ie. cilantro, cheese, lettuce, etc)

As you can see, I didn't do TOO HORRIBLY bad considering I was on a getaway at a tourist town. I didn't have the healthiest options but I think I did relatively well keeping my portions small. Again, dinner is where I screw up. This time because I literally forgot to take my second dose in the evening. There was so much running around and what not I simply forgot until I was half way through dinner.

Good thing was that we did lots of walking around town, shopping and even on the sandy beach, that I did get some exercise.

BAD thing was I didn't consume nearly enough water. If it had been just my fiancé and I, there would be no problem. But being with friends, I didn't want to be a bother and be the girl constantly looking for a restroom. I did get a slight headache between breakfast and lunch on both days and probably averaged about half of the water I normally consume.

I plan to go home and weigh myself this evening. I am NOT expecting to have lost weight, I just hope I didn't gain the weight back!

I also plan on starting an All Liquid Diet tomorrow. It as simple as it sounds, I'm allowed to consume anything that's in liquid form. I plan to make some fresh juices, fruit smoothies, soups if I eat out, etc. There is evidence online that it's a really good way to jump start weight loss and also detoxes that body, which I definitely need after this weekend!

Tomorrow: 2 hydroxycut, 1 raspberry ketone, ALL LIQUID DIET (anything liquid: juices, smoothies, soups, etc)

Relatively happy!

My day began with a total success, I had my Hydroxycut and Raspberry Ketone first thing, then drank my formula about an hour later. I used a lemonade mix again and together with the flavor of the formula itself, it comes out just like a tropical lemonade. I drank my whole portion and it did get thicker as I neared the end, but that was solved by me adding a little bit more water, shaking it again then downing it.

Lunch: half a Costco blueberry muffin (NOT RECOMMENDED, damn things are so nice and fluffy it DID NOT fill me up at all). But I had about 30-40oz of water with it and during my 40minute walk, so I was ok.

Snack: a mango fruit cup (70 calories) with Anti-Cravings mixed in

Dinner: My folks served my biggest weakness, RICE. Having been born in Hong Kong, rice is a stable in mine and my family's diet. Luckily it was just a form of simple chicken & rice and I had maybe about 2 servings of it plus about 5oz of chicken, not oily, not too much sodium. But I also had some soup (Chinese soup is "brewed" for hours with various bones, marrow, etc for flavor). It probably totaled somewhere around 7-800 calories.

Overall, I consumed about 7-800 calories after my walk cancelled out my half muffin.

Verdict on DRINKING Roca Labs: not as effective, didn't keep me full nearly as long, after drinking a whole dose, I started getting hungry and had to have my Anti-Cravings about 3:45pm and even then got hungry much before my actual dinner with family. Had I not been running around packing for the weekend and driving up to see the folks, I probably would've snacked.

Scale: after thinking about it, the accuracy of any home based scale is questionable. So even if the number may not have 100% accurate, I'd rather track my PROCESS rather than accuracy. I'm going to stick with my old crappy scale that I started with when I began Roca Labs.

Day one (3/23/14): 181
Day twelve (4/3/14): 175.5
Lost: 5.5 lbs

I guess that's not bad, but I had definitely hoped for more. After reading reviews, I think my original calorie intake wasn't extremely high so even by reducing it and exercising, my weight loss isn't going to be as dramatic as others online.

Calculation: there's approximately 2.5 twelve-day periods in a month (30 days), if I at least keep my pace now, I will lose about 13.75 lbs a month. I was planning on doing Roca Labs for 4 months (stopping on July 23rd to allow for dress alterations).....that equals 55 lbs. With my beginning weight of 181 lbs, 55 lbs lost is 126 lbs! And the ideal weight range for someone my height (5'1") is approx. 100-130lb. So I'll be right at the mark! Hopefully with the coming warmer and dryer weather, I'll be able to walk more and as I get more in shape, I can even jog/run! Which will increase my weight loss too!

So even though I'm not particularly happy with my progress so far, if I at least keep up with it, I'll be relatively happy with the results. I can sleep better knowing that now :)


All that being said, I need something in between gagging on the gunky jello of refrigerating Roca Labs and the watery not-as-effective drinking of liquid Roca Labs. I think I'll let it stand for 3 minutes (which is what their instructions used to say) and then "eat" it like a thick gel. Also, dinner seems to be my worst enemy. I want to try splitting my daily dosage into 2, one smaller morning one (I usually have zero problems keeping calorie intake low until dinner time anyhow) and one larger late afternoon one. I find that one purple scoop is perfect for me, so I'll be sure that the two doses will equal up to about one full purple dose.

Tomorrow: 2 Hydroxycut and 1 Raspberry Ketone upon waking; split Roca Labs dose into a morning and afternoon dose (let sit for 3 minutes); leftover Chinese soup and other half of muffin for lunch; walk if it's not raining; small dinner portion

I will be TRYING MY HARDEST to keep on my Roca Labs and calorie intake low while I'm on my trip!! Hopefully I'll have good news on Monday (or at least not bad news)!

Scale Fail

Woohoo! Drinking Roca Labs has been a complete success!

Right before I left for work, I drank my formula just like this girl on YouTube:

Small increments is fast and easy to drink AND liquid form doesn't trigger my gag reflex! I also used a lemonade mix this time and it actually turned out DELICIOUS!

I downed about 32oz of water right after and felt just as full as when I "ate" it.

Lunch: yogurt cup while walking, which makes my walk at least 50-55min

Obviously I continued to drink water throughout the day, I started getting hungry around 3:30-4pm, so I mixed another low-calorie drink with my Anti-Cravings powder and that filled me up until dinner at about 7pm.

Dinner: we went out to dinner with some friends and I ended eating a steak night special. It was a 8oz sirloin (FYI: many calorie-count websites show sirloin to be the lowest caloric steak....just in case anyone has a craving but doesn't want to break their calorie bank) with baked potato, salad and a roll. I did eat the entire steak cuz I am a total carnivore, but I only nibbled at my baked potato and salad (forgot to ask for dressing on the side) and dinner roll. I checked afterwards and that dinner put me out to about 800 ish calories, which isn't bad for eating out!


NOWWWWW onto the real bummer: after dinner we went to shop at Walmart, preparing for a weekend cabin trip we were all going on (so I got at least an hour of stop and go walking there too). I also bought a SCALE!

I had weighed myself in the morning with my crappy old one and it gave me 177.2. I set up the new one I just bought and it gave me 184.4. Then it turned out my fiancé had an old scale lying around, and that one gave me 188.2.

WTF?!?!?!

To get my accurate weight I'll probably have to go to a doctor's office and get weighed. But another plan is to just pick a scale and consistently use that one's numbers, whether it is my ACTUAL weight or not.

I also contacted Roca Labs to find out their recommendation when it comes to using other weight loss supplement along with my Roca Labs, they said there is no medical evidence showing it is unsafe. I've used Hydroxycut before with a little bit of success and my friend also recommends Raspberry Ketone. I think I'll use those too, just to do everything I can to accelerate my weight loss. But remember, Roca Labs specifically says any medication or supplements needs to be taken ONE HOUR before the formula, unless directed by a doctor.


Tomorrow: 2 Hydroxycut & 1 Raspberry Ketone upon waking; drink formula (not in increments this time) when I arrive at work; HALF a Costco blueberry muffin for lunch, more if I don't fill up (half is 305 calories, whole is 610); walk for entire lunch hour (unless it pours, which it might); Anti-Cravings around 3:30pm; late dinner with family around 8:30pm (fingers crossed).

Strawberry Poop and CRAPPY scale

Excuse my language, but the two words that have been floating in my brain all day is "strawberry poop". As I said yesterday, I was going to blend my formula into a fruit smoothie in the morning and I was actually really excited about it!

NOT

 

I went to follow their instructions with the exact proportions and blended my smoothie, at first it looked good, pink goodness. Then it thickened up...........I didn't have time for a redo and just got in the car for work. In the car I stuck my spoon in (I KNEW it was thick enough not to fit through a straw) and viola! it came out the exact same texture as it normally does. Too bad, so sad. Still have to take as much as I could. Luckily I had strawberries, soy milk and ice blended in so the taste was much better but the texture was still like rubber cement.

 

I did my research again and decided for smoothies I would need to only do half a dose and probably no ice and not soy milk. Probably just juice, fruit and the formula. So even if it thickened up, it would only thicken up to a smoothie consistency...maybe? kinda? theoretically? I also think I might bust out my regular size blender rather than using my magic bullet.

 

Lunch: guacamole and chips, I probably clocked in around 5-600 calories but I also went brisk walking (worked up a sweat in 50 degree weather!) for about 35 minutes.

 

Dinner: leftover teriyaki chicken yakisoba. I ate late again though, around 8pm. I did finish all the yakisoba itself but didn't touch the rice side it came with. Also downed another 30oz of water with it too.

 

My water intake actually has been pretty easy, I work a desk job so I don't really notice drinking that much. A good tip is to get BIG tumblers, not just bottles of water. My car/home cup is 32oz and my work tumbler is 20oz. Roca Labs recommend 9 - 8oz bottles of water, which makes it 72oz. With my tumblers, I can easily do that portion in one morning. Definitely good to think about!

  

 

Tomorrow I plan to just down the formula in liquid form. I understand it won't be AS effective, but if makes it substantially easier to take (which I believe it will), I'm all for it. I do okay controlling my portions and getting some exercise in anyway. Plus I haven't utilized the Anti-Cravings yet, so it should help.

 

 

Weight: 178.5!!!!! I gained! Given the weekend I was half expecting it, but what I'm most upset about is my stupid scale! I probably got 178.5 about 4 times, 180 a few times, and then 183 another 2 times. I changed the battery and everything. I'll give it some credit cuz it's about 4 years old and hasn't been used much until Roca Labs.

 

 

Plan for tomorrow: drink Roca Labs with a lemonade mix; walk for full lunch hour; one yogurt cup for lunch; salad for dinner; new scale. We'll see what happens!

Gag........

Happy Monday!

I began my Monday.....gagging on my formula. I've never experienced this before! Mixed it the same way, same flavor, same EVERYTHING, and here I am gagging on it. I tried to breathe through it, set my mind on other things (I was having it while driving to work as usual), swallow it with water like a pill, biting down on it as if it was jello, NOTHING worked!

Finally I sat down at my desk at work and literally nibbled at it and was able to get through half. I felt horrible about wasting my expensive formula but I was also mystified why I was gagging on it a week later.


I immediately emailed Roca Labs and they sent me their standard 'Tasty Ways to take your Dose' or something like that. It talked about various methods like smelling the powder, thinking about your desired results, mixing it with applesauce (which I think would be REVOLTING), anddddddd blending it into a smoothie!

Link: http://rocalabs.com/support/instructions/tips-for-tasty-dose/

And there was my AH-HA moment.

I will blend it into a morning fruit smoothie and it'll be great! I even did some research about the formula in smoothie form and found good reviews. So it was decided, I'm heading to Costco for some frozen mixed fruit/berries after work!

Lunch: 3 pieces of skinless fried chicken (1 thigh, 2 drumsticks), after some research, it supposedly put me out to about 250-300 calories

Exercise: After lunch, I went to a nearby park and walked around their track for 40min. For my weight, the walk basically cancelled out my lunch.

Dinner: The fiancé had work obligations until around 8:15pm, so I just did some wedding DIY while waiting for him. I was practically dizzy with hunger by then....I know, not good, but I knew we had planned to eat out and didn't want to risk snacking, only to have him return 5 minutes later. We went to a teriyaki joint and we shared a gyoza (dumplings) appetizer, I ate his side salad cuz I was about to pass out, then I had maybe 15-20% of my chicken yakisoba. I got a takeout box and it filled up all the little slots!

 

Overall, I think it was a successful Monday, considering I had not even half of my formula goo, I still filled up quickly and even exercised for 40 minutes! I'm super excited to try my smoothie tomorrow, let's see how it goes!