Day 15: Little Things

Another 1.2 pound loss this morning!  I've had some decent drops this week, so I was expecting today to be 0.5 pounds or less.  Gotta love the unpredictability of the HCG!  


HS and I have been noticing little changes taking place in the past couple of weeks.  I know it's gross, but pre-HCG, I was ALWAYS hot and sweaty---even while I slept.  I realize the weather has cooled down a couple degrees, but the thermostat has actually been cranked up a few degrees, and I've started using a blanket at night.    We think that's probably a result of our decreased blood pressure, but maybe it's just because we have less blubber.


Pre-HCG, I was having a lot of trouble sleeping.  I had a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep, and an even harder time getting up in the morning and making it through the day without a nap.  Now I go to sleep almost as soon as my head hits the pillow, I stay asleep all night (unless my bladder wakes me up), and jump out of bed in the morning to see what surprise the scale has for me.  Oh, and I don't think I've had a nap since the dreaded "load" days.  I'm fairly certain that the HCG isn't giving me the extra energy; I think the food I was eating before was sucking the life out of me.  


That brings me to my next "little thing."  I was a HUGE soda drinker.  Even as a kid, I used to love drinking an icy cold Pepsi.  As I got older and my tastes changed, I started to favor icy cold Coke, and then in an attempt at compromise between my tired, caffeine-fueled brain and my squishy, high fructose corn syrup-fueled body, I switched to Coke Zero--and lots of it.  It never made sense to me that I weighed even more after I made the switch, but I get it now.  I've been hearing about the dangers of artificial sweeteners for years, but politely ignored them.  Now I can say that I feel the difference in my body after stopping them.  I don't have headaches.  I'm not tired.  I don't feel hungry (and as a result, I don't snack) all the time.  Here's a website that breaks down some of the dangers of artificial sweeteners (Aspartame and Acesulfame Potassium are both in Coke Zero).  My point here?  I realized today that I don't want to drink soda anymore--even when I'm "allowed" to.  I've become a huge fan of the flavored stevia drops in my water or mineral water and iced tea tastes even better with stevia than it did with Splenda (make sure you check out the dangers of that one, too).  Surprisingly, I'm not even missing the caffeine that I was sure my body needed.  I drink about 16 oz of iced tea per day now, but that's mostly for the benefits my body gets from the tea.  


Another thing (kind of a big one for me) is that my back pain has decreased significantly.  Perhaps that's a product of the weight loss, but maybe my diet played a part in the pain as well.  Maybe I've had food allergies to all of the garbage I've been eating my whole life.  (Yeah, that's it...I'm not fat.  It's only an allergic reaction.)  Maybe it's just my imagination, but LittleBoy's Buddha-belly seems to be shrinking along with mine.