Week 1 (AKA Hell Week!!)
I was so excited to begin and right from the start felt pretty good. I did notice that I felt more tired on the first couple of days but I was also sick so I'm not sure which was causing that. On the second and third day I had a headache but I learned this was caused from a lack of sodium. These products have very little salt so be sure to add sea salt. I don't normally salt my food so this took some getting used to, but made me feel much better. For the first few days I kept having the urge to go get a snack, but mostly out of habit more than hunger. I just paid attention to whether I was really hungry or not and usually I wasn't. If I really felt like I needed something to eat I drank some water and waited 2o minutes and then if I was still hungry I would have a dill pickle. During the first week you can have up to 5 packets or eat some of your vegies for a snack if you need to. I was fine without ever having to do that. By the third day into it I think I was in ketosis and all hunger went away. I sometimes even had a hard time getting all of my required packets in. I loved having some warm hot chocolate or pudding before bed because I don't usually have dessert and this felt like such a treat! Although I really liked most of the meals my favorites were the yogurt berry smoothie for breakfast, chicken soup for lunch, and I really enjoyed being able to eat dinner with my family. On 3 or 4 nights a week I make the same meal for them maybe adding rice or rolls to their dinner. On the other nights I make them tacos, spaghetti, enchiladas, etc and I use the main meat in their meal as my meat and just add veggies. I didn't want to totally change their evening meals and have them regretting my diet. So far, no complaints. My kids are even loving asparagus. On the occasional evenings when we are in a hurry to get to ball practice or something I will make myself 2 scrambled eggs with mushrooms and zucchini on the side and that is really yummy. The one thing that worried me during week one is that it didn't take long to get sick of salad with nasty dressing, so I made up my own salad dressings using ingredients that are allowed and I love them. Now my salads are no problem. I will include the recipes for those dressings. I didn't weigh myself all week so I couldn't wait to see what the results were and they were so worth it. In one week I was down 10.6 pounds and had lost 4.5 inches in my waist! I think from being bloated on carbs! I was so excited and already I felt so much better than just one week ago!