It has now been one week since I started the HCG diet program, and 40 days since I started my Weight Loss Challenge with Tyler Cruz.

In this post I’m going to share my results so far after one week on the HCG drops and diet program, as well as cover some of the psychological / mental struggles involved in weight loss in general.

Firstly, let’s go through through my results so far.

HCG Diet Results After One Week

As you may remember, exactly one week ago when I started the HCG diet I weighed in at 227.2 lbs.

This morning, exactly 7 days later I weighed in at 221.8lbs, which means I have lost 5.4 lbs in the first 7 days.

I think that’s a pretty impressive weight loss accomplishment for the first week.  We will see how things go in Week #2.

Here is a chart of my weight loss so far in blue.  As you can see my weight starts to drop pretty quickly once I started the HCG diet one week ago, in comparison to the month before where I wasn’t doing any kind of dieting.

And here is Tyler’s chart.  As you can see Tyler is also on a slight downward trend, straight from the beginning, but his weight is fluctuating big time.  I believe one the reasons for this is because he’s utilizing massive amounts of low-intensity exercise to try to lose weight and doing his weigh-ins typically at the lowest points of his weight right after exercise.

For example, the last big low point you see on the graph corresponds to his weight after he did a 17.5 km walk/jog.  And if I remember correctly, the others also correspond to weigh-ins which happened after long walks/jogs or badminton sessions where he was sweating like crazy.

Because of this, I believe that his weight is fluctuating like a yo-yo because he’s weighing himself in right after prolonged low-intensity exercise where he is dehydrated and has lost water weight due to sweat, and then when you see a higher peak – that is after he has properly hydrated himself.

For myself, I’m focusing about 90% of my effort on diet and only about 10% on exercise and I do my weigh-ins every morning as soon as I get up, and I am drinking massive amounts of water on this diet to stay properly hydrated, which is why I think my graph is much smoother.

Anyway, here is Tyler’s graph.  I don’t have a weight for him for today yet, so I just put in his weight from yesterday, but you get the general picture of what his weight loss looks like.

And here’s one more graph showing both our weight loss graphs overlapped.  Mine is in blue, his is in red.

As you can see, we’re pretty much neck to neck now with virtually the same amount of weight loss.  However, keep in mind that Tyler started implementing his plan 40 days ago, while I’ve only started 7 days ago.

I’m curious to what my weight loss is going to look like in another week, as I know that the first week on any diet is always the best and then things tend to slow down a bit with the same efforts.

The Weight Loss Mindset

The next thing I wanted to cover in this blog post is the weight loss mindset.

I was chatting with my younger brother Bart, yesterday – who has also been on a diet / exercise program for a few months now – and we both agreed that 99% of weight loss happens in the mind.

If you don’t get your mindset right, nothing else matters.

Weight loss is about a lot more than just calories in/calories out, diet and exercise.  The psychological, emotional and mental aspects of losing weight are tremendous.

For example, if you look at my graph you will see that prior to this morning, for the last two day before that I was actually gaining weight for a few days.

Not a lot, but my weight-loss trend reversed before going back down this morning.

Why did this happen?  Because my mind started playing tricks on me.

Firstly, on Sunday I had hit a new weight loss low since starting the program of 222.0 lbs.  I was proud of myself, and my mind started telling me to “celebrate”.

And by “celebrate” I mean EAT!

After all, I deserve it right?  At that point I had lost 5.2lbs in 4 days and the whole program was going great.

So on Sunday I indulged a little bit in eating a little bit more food here, and a little bit more food there.

I went to Costco to get some more veggies, and at the local Costco here they have hotdogs and a pop for $1.50.  I was hungry and it was lunch time, and I allowed myself to get a hotdog to see if I would like it.

A Costco hotdog and a pop are definitely NOT on the HCG diet plan.  The hotdog tasted okay, but the pop tasted syrupy and super sweet so I didn’t drink a lot of it.

Overall I’m glad I had the hotdog as the fantasy of how great it would taste didn’t live up to how it actually tasted, so now I no longer crave that.

However, when I got home I also started eating a few extra pieces of fruit, a little bit more food here and there, and then at night I made popcorn.

My mind convinced me to eat popcorn – another no-no on the HCG diet plan – but it basically started saying “C’mon Paul, it’s just popcorn.  Just don’t put butter on it, and no salt, then it’s just fiber.”

So I justified making pop-corn, and after it was made it tasted like cardboard with no butter and salt so I tried putting on a little salt but the salt wouldn’t stick.

So then I find myself justifying putting grease on the popcorn to make the salt stick, so I tried pouring a little bit of flax seed oil on it and some salt.

Overall it wasn’t that bad of a snack, but it was salty enough to make me retain water the next morning and instead of continuing my trend of losing weight every morning, I broke the trend by actually gaining 0.2lbs.

I know, no big deal right?

However, more importantly than the 0.2lbs weight gain, my mindset was “broken”.

On Monday, I had to go out for a business meeting lunch so I ended up ordering sushi (not too bad), but then I also ended up having two more shakes, a whole bunch of fruit and for dinner I had a huge stir-fry.

Once again my mind was working against me.

While making the stir-fry, I got the idea to make DOUBLE the normal amount so that I would have leftovers and then I wouldn’t have to cook lunch the next morning.

Instead, what ended up happening is that I ended up eating the whole stir-fry, both portions!

It’s not like the stir-fry was crappy food – 95% of it was veggies, with some prawns – but I still ate way more than the 900 calories I’m supposed to for that day, and the next day I paid for it.

The next morning – which was  yesterday – I weighed myself and was at 223.4.  That was a 1.4lbs weight gain from Sunday morning!

I was pissed.

I know that when losing weight, you will never have constant weight loss every day.  Some days you will gain weight, others you will stay the same, and sometimes you may hit a plateau for a period of time.

I am fine with all of those, as weight loss doesn’t happen every single day.

However, if the weight loss doesn’t happen because the body is adjusting, re-adjusting and making changes, I am fine with that.

But, if the weight loss doesn’t happen because your own mind is sabotaging your success by whispering little LIES to you – such as “It’s okay, just have the popcorn, you *deserve* it.” – then I get pissed.  Because that means that it is my own self that is sabotaging me.

Self-sabotage is a VERY common thing, not just in weight loss, but in every area of life.

Now, here’s the even BIGGER kicker that really ticked me off yesterday.  For this, there is really NO excuse.

Not only did I not follow the diet program on Sunday and Monday – which okay I can deal with that – but I also conveniently “FORGOT” to take my HCG drops both nights!

WTF?!

It literally takes 10 seconds to take the drops.  You just open your mouth and put 5 drops under your tongue.  It’s SO EASY.  Yet, somehow I “forgot” to do it – BOTH NIGHTS!

That is why on Tuesday I *knew* that it was self-sabotage, as there is no way that I should not be able to remember something as simple as taking drops.

Anyway, so yesterday I sat down and spent some time working on my mindset.  I reset my thinking and got clear once again on my weight loss goal, and the WHY behind it.

I used some of the goal setting/dreaming techniques I learned from my training in the Global Information Network and I also decided to do a short PSYCH-K session with myself to see if there were any subconscious limiting beliefs holding me back.

Sure enough I found two subconscious limiting beliefs that needed to be balanced out in order to stop my self sabotage.

After my PSYCH-K session, I felt different.

Yesterday, I took my drops both in the morning and evening like I was supposed to.  I ate the foods I was supposed to and avoided those that I wasn’t.

I went out to see a movie last night as well, and even though I was bathed in the smell of delicious movie popcorn and sat right next to my brother who had a bag of it – I literally had ZERO desire to eat that crap.

All my mind was focused on was waking up this morning and hitting a NEW LOW.  I wanted to reverse my trend of gaining that 1.4lbs and I wanted to hit a number below 222.0.

This morning, I woke up and weighed in at 221.8.

That is what happens when you have your mind working WITH YOU versus AGAINST YOU in situations like this.

Your mindset controls 99% of your weight loss.

Nobody talks about this.  Everyone out there is talking about “THE HOW”.  They talk about diets, exercise programs, pills, drops, injections, supplements, meal replacement shakes, fat burners and on and on and on.

And all those things are great – as tools do help you with your weight loss goals.

However, NONE of them are of any use if you first don’t get your MINDSET right.

I’m so glad I now have tools like the training from the Global Information Network and things like PSYCH-K and Matrix Energetics and Reiki at my disposal to help me deal with not just the physical aspects of weight loss (diet & exercise) but also with the mental, emotional and even spiritual aspects of it as well.

Have you ever experienced your mind working against you in weight loss?  How did you overcome it? Or have you?