The second time around

Marc's breakfast

Sharon's breakfast

You'd think going back on the HCG diet would be easier the second time through, right?
For one thing, it seems it would be easier on the budget and on the kitchen because you're basically eating nothing.
But it's harder actually.
You're clearing the boards, tossing out perfectly good foods so they won't be a temptation and because they'll go bad before you can eat them.
You're buying lots of strange things like limes, Melba Toast, Stevia sweetener and way more onions.
There's a precious tiny bottle of serum in the fridge where eggs used to be and syringes on the table with the salt and pepper.
Suddenly the postal scale has a prominent place on the counter.
The bathroom scale takes on a major role as you weigh in each morning to see if the pounds are indeed dropping off.
Trips to the grocery story are arduous because so much of the merchandise is off-limits. The bakeries and sweet shops call to the brain and stomach.
Marc and I promised ourselves the first time we would only do this once but for one reason and another there are still pounds we want to shed.

Mid-morning lifesaver

I've loved not taking insulin and he likes fitting into his current clothes.
Our doctor says one more time through the starvation diet and we'll be in control so...here we go again.
We're counting the calories and cooking up lots of chicken and fish.
We're talking a lot about food or more truthfully, the lack thereof.
We're also realizing more fully this time that it's not so much a physical diet as a mental one.
On the load days you're conscious of the fats you're encouraged to consume. It feels so wrong.
On the starvation days you're incredibly aware of just how many calories are in every food you are allowed to put in your mouth.
On the protein days you avoid sugars and starches so by the end of the six weeks, you never really relax around food again. Bread becomes literally manna from Heaven that's out of reach until the end.
For me, this easiest way to sort it out is to recognize that nearly everything I really like is loaded with fat, sugar or starch.
I just should've started out in life with more appreciation for things like beets, chard and chicory.