Original email for context: Hello, this is my 4th round of HCG over the last 6 years. I have NEVER on any round had a weight gain- and this morning I was up 1.2lbs- I did absolutely nothing different yesterday at all accept mow the grass (on a tractor) lol. so I am at a loss here not knowing why that happened. I am post menopause so know cycle or ovulation. My last shot is Wednesday and now I am discouraged!! I did not have much to lose so Wednesday is 26 days total this cycle- and I am pretty lean-HELP!! Do I do an apple day?
There are few reasons that a gain on P2 can happen that I will lay out here for you ladies but I also suggest you take a look at my posts on hCG Diet Stalls as it covers the same types of things.
First, let me say occasional gains and fluctuations ARE normal and do happen from time to time. I know it can be super disconcerting though – especially when it’s never happened to you before. But please don’t panic- if you have not been cheating and you’ve been losing on the foods you’ve been eating, I would not worry about this- just proceed as normal on the diet.
Here are the main reasons for gains on P2 when you have not cheated and are following the 500-800 calorie diet:
- More sodium than usual
- More physical exertion than usual (this can even be a simple walk)
- Ovulation
- Menstrual Cycle
- Miracle Noodle consumption
- Fiber consumption
- Constipation (how to fix)
- Weighing yourself at a different time than normal
- Sleeping less hours than usual
- Eating a different P2 food that didn’t agree with you.
Most of these things above are not likely really preventing actual fat loss – but can cause the scale to temporarily be higher due to either water/fluid retention or bulk of food retention.
I’ll give you my own example: I gained 2 lbs overnight on hCG after 1 particularly delicious salty P2 soup. 2 lbs! The salt/sodium cause you to retain water – think about it – just 1 16oz glass of water weighs 1 lb! This isn’t actually that much water. Since I was doing that round of hCG in the fall, my solution was to continue having salty soups every single day on P2 – you don’t keep gaining more and more water weight when you do this- you just create a baseline for amount of fluid retention with that amount of sodium in your system and then after that first soup or two, it will stay at that level while you continue losing weight.
Exercise or even more physical exertion than usual can easily cause fluid retention. And again, this is not preventing fat loss from continuing- it’s just the weight of that fluid retention is “masking” your results on the scale temporarily. I don’t think this means you should sit on the couch and not move a muscle.
The miracle noodles too are fine they just create more bulk in your system that weighs something is all- my miracle noodles post explains this in more detail. If yo consume fiber of some sort, same thing, and then of course you need to drink water with fiber, these things just create bulk.
The 3 things that you do have control over that may be worth addressing are the last 3:
- Weighing yourself at a different time than normal
- Sleeping less hours than usual
- Eating a different P2 food that didn’t agree with you.
Weighing at Different Time
If you normally weigh yourself at 8am, but this morning you weigh yourself 2 hours earlier at 6am – it’s very likely you will either show a “gain” or a zero on the scale. Our bodies also process our fluids in a pattern so when you pee in the morning at 6am vs. if you are in bed longer and pee at 8am, you will weigh less because you have process more fluid by that time 2 hours later. Makes sense right? So you either need to just know that in your head mentally and ignore the scale that day if you have to get up earlier, or perhaps just don’t even weigh yourself on a day when you have to do this to avoid the mental hangup.
Sleeping Less Hours
This is a big one where I think it can actually hamper your weight loss results in a very real, concrete way – please see my article on hCG and Sleep to see a study about fat loss and muscle loss ratios that involved sleep deprived individuals vs people not sleep deprived – it’s eye opening! Sleeping enough hours on hCG is very important to proper fat loss.
Sleeping less also goes hand and in hand with weighing at a different time as well – if your body has had less time to process fluids while in a sleep state then it stands to reason this will effect the scale as well. I have definitely noticed on nights when I ended up staying awake till 2am, that the next morning I felt quite puffy – hello water retention!
Eating a Different P2 Food
Sometimes people report a certain P2 food seeming to not agree with them- they report stalling when they have that P2 food- and for everyone it’s different but a couple commonly reported culprits are cabbage and beef. So if you tried a new P2 food, you might consider taking it back out. Or if you continue struggling with weight loss and you’ve been eating the SAME P2 foods over and over, you might consider removing them and trying something new.
I hope this helps!
