I saw an ad years ago — I think it was for some burger-n-beer type food chain? Anyhow, the setup is like this: husband and wife have been waiting months to go to the hot new restaurant in town. (Cos you have to make reservations all that way in advance, don’t ‘cha know.)

So they show up in their fancy clothes and the snooty haute cuisine waiter sets down plates in front of them containing something along the lines of one pea and an inch-square piece of salmon, artfully arranged.

Hubby and wife look at each other, abashed. “This is Munchkin food!” one of them declares, and then they go off to eat at whatever chain was really being advertised.

I’ve transitioned into the main phase of the HCG protocol, when I’m in that no-sugar, no-starch, no-fat diet I mentioned earlier. It’s also designed to be a very low calorie diet: though my doctor (thankfully!) has worked out a system where you track portion sizes of the allowable foods and don’t have to slide down the obsessive calorie-counting rabbit hole.

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Sidebar: even though I wish there were more resources that talked about HCG through the detox lens rather than through the weight loss one,* here’s a trend I’ve noticed in the different ways doctors and HCG centers talk about why HCG works as a weight loss aid.

In my little bit of research out in the field, the centers/practitioners who just vaguely talk about HCG as some almost-magical cause of weight loss — those are the ones you may want to stay clear of.

To my perception, most of the more reputable practitioners explain it more in this way: Of course the extreme low-calorie diet causes the weight loss. The HCG helps that in two key ways, 1) by keeping you from losing your mind from hunger, and 2) by keeping the body feeding off of the energy in your fat cells, rather than going into starvation mode. (Hair falling out, lean muscle mass disappearing, etc.)

(End of sidebar.)

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Before I decided to take this HCG journey, I talked to six different friends who’ve done HCG from a detoxing perspective. Every single one of them said that living within the portion (calorie) restrictions of the protocol would be a lot easier than I feared.

Obviously, I trusted them enough to choose this path for myself. But, knowing my own system, and my patterns and tendencies towards over-eating and comfort food, I still had a bit of a question mark as to the level of internal challenge I would feel around living and eating within the protocol’s restrictions.

Well, after two days of eating within this structure, all I have to say is: this is NOT Munchkin food.

As I’ve been working with my nutritional coaches on how to shop and cook in harmony with the protocol’s restrictions, I’ve learned about all kinds of options and variety that’s available within the structure. I mean: serious options. And there have literally been a few meals that, once we had them prepared and plated, inspired me to look at my coaches and exclaim, “This is HUGE!!”

I understand that I still have the enthusiasm of a newbie, and the tremendous benefit of being here with coaches to guide and support me. There may be moments a few weeks from now when my culinary creativity is flagging, or even just a few days from now when I’m feeling the stretch of trying to rewire eating and cooking habits that I’ve set in over the course of months (or years).

Still, even if I have some less-easeful meals on this protocol than the last two days have offered, I am well-relieved to know that this structure will not be flipping me into all my fears around scarcity, punishment and deprivation.

Much to be grateful for around that.

* Hence my re-entry into the blogosphere and JALC’s resurrection.

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Image credit: http://www.chefs-resources.com/Authors-Bio