Certain aspects of the HCG protocol are designed around the reality that one’s body will build up a tolerance to the hormone. This is why the protocol lasts only six weeks,* and also why you take a “day off” from your HCG injection every week — this helps lengthen the amount of time before your body goes into what I’ve been calling “HCG saturation.”

Obviously, the idea of “HCG saturation” is rather significant because once you’ve built up HCG tolerance, then your body can’t use the hormone to sustain ketosis, which means that instead of drawing energy out of your body’s fat stores, you’re just trying to extract it from your super-low calorie diet — which means that, given enough days, you could start going into ugly starvation mode with your hair falling out, etc.

This has been on my mind because the last few days, I have been feeling a much higher level of physical hunger than I’d had during the rest of my HCG journey. Now I’ve talked at other times about having emotional food cravings and habitual ones, but in those cases I was always able to distinct between those cravings and the level of physical satiation I was feeling. This week, not so much. The feelings of hunger have been genuinely rooted in the physical body, and I’ve been watching this carefully to try and figure out if I’ve hit “HCG saturation” a couple days early.

Another indicator I’ve been watching is my morning pee-stick. I talked about this briefly before, but I don’t think I explained that the purpose of said pee-stick is to check/confirm the level of ketosis your body is in. Well, after the first few days of the protocol, my ketosis levels have been consistently reading as either “medium” or “large” throughout my entire HCG experience. Until yesterday morning and today, that is, when my ketosis level read as “small” instead.

So there is some evidence that my body might be reaching this finish line a tad earlier than expected.

As of tonight, my intention is to finish out this phase of the HCG journey pretty much as originally scheduled: shots ending Monday, and (mostly) staying on the low-calorie diet till the end of Wednesday. (I am going to be giving myself some extra leeway to have some additional vegetable or protein during these days, if my body needs it — staying strictly within this phase’s rules about which foods are allowed, but taking a little flexibility as needed around the amount of said foods).

But if my morning ketosis level goes down to “trace” or — more significantly — to “negative”? All bets may be off, and I might be hitting the next HCG phase ahead of schedule.

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One extra fascinating aspect to this is how my detox/consciousness center is currently running a weekend course, which means my coaches are deeply occupied in the important work of running said course and taking care of that group of students. And Mr. Mezzo is out of town for the weekend.

So if my levels drop to the stage where I need to make a call about staying the course or making a pivot, I’m pretty much on my own.**

Given all the ways this journey has been about accepting help, guidance, and support, that’s really kind of ironic. On the other hand, considering my ultimate goal with the detoxing and the consciousness work is to become a stronger mother to myself and my world, there could also be something very fitting about reaching this decision point on my own, in centeredness and maturity.

* “Only” six weeks, she says. (Have I gone mad?!?)

** I say “pretty much” because I can imagine some text-message consultation happening: certainly with Mr. Mezzo, even if that’s not possible with the center staff. And I can always pull cards to help guide my next steps.

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Image credit: http://moodahocka.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/a-full-glass/