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Well, I don't know much about HCG, but I'm intrigued because I know two people who are very intellectual types and understand the science behind it and got excited about it. If those people had said read the scientific information and said it didn't add up, then I would think what a lot of you here are thinking.
I have known people who told me they were starting HCG and then I never hear anything else about it, so I assume they don't stay on it for long. I'm sure it's hard. It is my understanding the drops are supposed to make you not feel hungry. If you were just eating 500 calories a day and no drops, of course you'd feel as hungry. I'm not sure what else the drops do, but I know it's not just to stave off feelings of hunger.
Also, sometimes rapid weight loss is the best thing a person can do for their health. I know one doctor who tells obese patients to go on a crash diet because their lives literally depend on it and the faster they get some weight off, the better. No, for a normal weight person that is not an ideal thing to do and yes, it can be cause electrolyte imbalances and that can be dangerous/deadly. But when a person is so overweight that their health is in jeopardy because of the weight, rapid weight loss is the best thing they can do.
Just throwing thoughts out there. I'm the first to admit I haven't done the research, but know a couple of people who are no dummies who seem impressed with the science behind HCG.
Well, I don't know much about HCG, but I'm intrigued because I know two people who are very intellectual types and understand the science behind it and got excited about it. If those people had said read the scientific information and said it didn't add up, then I would think what a lot of you here are thinking.
I have known people who told me they were starting HCG and then I never hear anything else about it, so I assume they don't stay on it for long. I'm sure it's hard. It is my understanding the drops are supposed to make you not feel hungry. If you were just eating 500 calories a day and no drops, of course you'd feel as hungry. I'm not sure what else the drops do, but I know it's not just to stave off feelings of hunger.
Also, sometimes rapid weight loss is the best thing a person can do for their health. I know one doctor who tells obese patients to go on a crash diet because their lives literally depend on it and the faster they get some weight off, the better. No, for a normal weight person that is not an ideal thing to do and yes, it can be cause electrolyte imbalances and that can be dangerous/deadly. But when a person is so overweight that their health is in jeopardy because of the weight, rapid weight loss is the best thing they can do.
Just throwing thoughts out there. I'm the first to admit I haven't done the research, but know a couple of people who are no dummies who seem impressed with the science behind HCG.
HCG does not prevent hunger or cause weight loss in any way. There is no "science" behind it. The person who "invented" the diet made it up out of thin air.
Most truly knowledgeable weight loss physicians still would not put a patient on a 500 calorie per day diet. For the morbidly obese, a surgical approach might be the best option.
HCG does not prevent hunger or cause weight loss in any way. There is no "science" behind it. The person who "invented" the diet made it up out of thin air.
Most truly knowledgeable weight loss physicians still would not put a patient on a 500 calorie per day diet. For the morbidly obese, a surgical approach might be the best option.
How is a surgical approach (where you end up eating less than 500 calories a day) different than a 500 calorie diet on your own (other than with surgical weight loss you aren't physically able to eat more - at least at first)?
And the doctor I know that recommends crash diet to obese patients isn't a weight loss diet, he is an internal medicine doctor, and a well respected one at that. If you are morbidly obese you are at imminent risk of heart attack, stroke, and any other number of things that could be fatal. Getting some weight off quickly is the best thing those people can do. Come to think of it, he's not the only internal medicine doctor I have heard say that.
How is a surgical approach (where you end up eating less than 500 calories a day) different than a 500 calorie diet on your own (other than with surgical weight loss you aren't physically able to eat more - at least at first)?
And the doctor I know that recommends crash diet to obese patients isn't a weight loss diet, he is an internal medicine doctor, and a well respected one at that. If you are morbidly obese you are at imminent risk of heart attack, stroke, and any other number of things that could be fatal. Getting some weight off quickly is the best thing those people can do. Come to think of it, he's not the only internal medicine doctor I have heard say that.
The maintenance diet after bypass surgery is about 1000 to 1200 calories per day, not 500. The minimum recommended protein intake alone is 60 grams, which is 270 calories.
Bypass patients lose weight because they cannot eat a lot at one time, and too much fat or sugar can cause "dumping syndrome," AKA diarrhea. They are forced to consume fewer calories. They should aim for at least 60 gm protein and 1000 to 1200 calories per day after the recovery from the surgery, usually about 5 weeks for lap band procedures.
Obviously, if the patient could go on a long term 1000 to 1200 calorie diet, he would lose weight. That's why bariatric surgery is for people who have failed with diet and exercise.
The maintenance diet after bypass surgery is about 1000 to 1200 calories per day, not 500. The minimum recommended protein intake alone is 60 grams, which is 270 calories.
Bypass patients lose weight because they cannot eat a lot at one time, and too much fat or sugar can cause "dumping syndrome," AKA diarrhea. They are forced to consume fewer calories. They should aim for at least 60 gm protein and 1000 to 1200 calories per day after the recovery from the surgery, usually about 5 weeks for lap band procedures.
Obviously, if the patient could go on a long term 1000 to 1200 calorie diet, he would lose weight. That's why bariatric surgery is for people who have failed with diet and exercise.
I will defer to your expertise, as I have read a lot of your posts and you seem to have a lot of knowledge on subjects like this. I still wonder if there might be something to HCG, though. Seems like it really does work for a lot of people and I don't think that can all be attributed to placebo effect. But again, I am far from an expert on the subject.
It's a combination of two things:
1. placebo effect - they're psyching themselves into believing they won't be hungry when they essentially starve themselves.
2. they're not sticking to the 500-calorie diet, as you can see in many of the posts here from people who claim they've been using hcg successfully. Unless I missed one, every single person who's posted a "successful" use of this growth hormone, has NOT actually been on the diet. They've just taken HGC, and eaten a normal low-fat low-carb diet, which IF you do it right, will work just fine without the HGC and not make you hungry.
So they're not hungry, because they're not actually dieting to the extent of 500 calories a day.
They're not hungry, because they've psyched themselves up into believing it's the drug that's preventing them from being hungry.
Add the two together and you have someone following a reasonable diet, that doesn't need any drugs to succeed with, AND taking a drug they erroneously believe is the cause of their lack of hunger.
I can see how the placebo effect might help someone not feel hungry for a few days, but I doubt it would really keep hunger away for 40 days. I personally think there is something to HCG, and I don't care what others say. I know some of you will feel the need to repeat yourself like a broken record about how it doesn't work, but it's working for me and that's all I care about.
I am well aware that if I don't change my eating habits, I'll gain the weight back. This is what's happened with every other method I've tried, including low cal/high exercise, Atkins, South Beach, NutriSystem, etc. All those times I gained the weight back, it was not the fault of the method I chose to lose the weight. It was my own fault for not having self control, and indulging my sweet tooth and eating at restaurants too much.
With the HCG, I am dropping weight and my body is reshaping. Is it easy? Heck no, it's not. It's certainly not a miracle cure that allows one to eat whatever they want. It's very strict and regimented. Is it possible that the loss is occurring from the low calorie level, and not from the HCG? Sure, it's possible, but as long as I'm losing I don't really care. I'm not hungry, and my energy levels are fine. For me, that's good enough. I have had a good experience with HCG, but I would not recommend it to anyone who is lacking the motivation to stick with the protocol.
I think what it comes down to is that there is not just one solution that works for everyone. There are many different diets and lifestyle choices that work, depending on the individual. I have no doubt that lots of people find success with WW or Jenny Craig or whatever. We all just have to find what works best for us. For me, HCG gives me comparable weight loss to when I did Atkins, and slightly higher losses than when I did NutriSystem. All 3 work well though, if you can stick to them.
Anyway, I just wanted to post my experience, since I see that everyone who posts anything positive about HCG gets accused of making an account just to promote it. I've been a member since long before I ever even heard of HCG, and I've tried to present my honest account of my successes and failures at weight loss. I wish success to everyone who is trying to lose weight. I would recommend HCG, but I would also recommend Atkins or NutriSystem. NutriSystem for me was the easiest of the 3, but I got bored with it because I was vegetarian at the time, which greatly limited the available food options.
I am not obese, but am someone who has a major sweet tooth and love of carbs, so as a result I am constantly taking off and putting back on the same 20 pounds. At this point, I think it's more about my mental state than my diet- I just need to have better will power to avoid the bad stuff. HCG has helped me get the pounds off, and now it's up to me to do the maintenance. The one common theme between all these diets, and the one thing I'm sure we can all agree on, is to avoid excess sugar and refined carbs. That's probably the best place to start for anyone who doesn't want to do an extreme diet.
Thanks for posting and I'm very happy to hear that the HCG diet is working for you. You are absolutely right in that diets work differently on everyone, what may work for one person, may be intollerable for another.
One question, are you using the drops or the injections? Forgive me if you already mentioned this. I saw Dr. Oz's program on HCG and he said he did agree with the science behind the diet although he felt the only way to go was with the injections since the drops are often unregulated and thus often very weak.
Thanks for posting and I'm very happy to hear that the HCG diet is working for you. You are absolutely right in that diets work differently on everyone, what may work for one person, may be intollerable for another.
One question, are you using the drops or the injections? Forgive me if you already mentioned this. I saw Dr. Oz's program on HCG and he said he did agree with the science behind the diet although he felt the only way to go was with the injections since the drops are often unregulated and thus often very weak.
He didn't say the only way to go was injections. He said that only the injections were worth further research. He ALSO said he would never recommend that a patient go below 1200 calories a day without direct physician supervision (meaning, the doctor tells you what you'll be eating, not some book you buy online, and the doctor monitors you regularly to ensure that you really are doing exactly what he tells you to do).
Dr. Oz acknowledges the validity of the existing research: that 14 random control studies involving injections and placebo saline solution, NO patients were able to tell the difference between one and the other, and dietary/weight loss changes were identical between the two.
Dr. Oz feels that there are enormous risks involved in ANY diet at 500 calories daily. Dr. Oz also thinks that the results were mixed, AND that because there were some positive results, that the hormone is worth investigating further before completely discounting it. That doesn't mean consumers should try it. That means the doctors who are so interested in profiting from its use, should get together and form a research team and actually do some research to find out IF there is a safe way to use this for weight loss.
Currently its only use is to promote fertility in women. And that, only injections. Drops are illegal in the USA; it is illegal for HCG to be sold directly to the consumer in this country, in any form at all. It is ONLY available, legally, through injection by someone licensed to administer injections.
So I've been seeing that there are a lot of questions regarding this topic. I started the HCG shots this week and if anybody wants, I can update this page. A friend recommended this diet to me and she did great on it. She was under a physician's care during the entire process. She also got her husband to do it a few months later. He used the drops and not under a physician's care. Although he lost weight (who wouldn't?!), he did have headaches and was hungry a lot during the diet (which you are not supposed to be). He stuck with it and eventually his body adapted. I don't recommend or dissuade anyone from doing this diet but if you do it, please be under a physician's care.
During the diet, I'm actually eating pretty healthy. The foods I can eat are limited and I'm not a very good cook so I'm a little concerned how long it's going to take for me to get sick of eating the same things every day. Alas, I have no choice but to lose weight so this has a big influence on my will power.
Here's the scoop thus far:
Day 1 and 2. Ate all the fatty foods I wanted and started the injections. For me, it was actually pretty hard b'c the foods I crave are more exotic foods like mushrooms, noodles, rice - anything Asian. Don't get me wrong, I love a good burger but two days in a row? I really had to force it! Having a pint of ice cream every night though was nice. I gained like almost 7 lbs according to my scale on these two days. In hindsight, I should've planned these two days a little better that way I could've gotten more "good fats" in like nuts and avocados and the like.
Day 3. Start of 500 calories. The morning was the worst b'c I was soooo hungry. After lunch, I was full for about an hour and got hungry again. Same thing happened during dinner.
Day 4. Same as above.
Day 5. Hunger pains are getting better and the meals seem to be "lasting" longer as it take a while longer to get hungry. Many people have talked about getting headaches the first week b'c your body is "detoxing" from food or something like that. I have not had any headaches. My weight is 3.5 lbs less than Day 1 so I've lost all the weight I gained during the first two days and then some.
Breakfast consists of tea or coffee and I can have this in any quantity throughout the day. I can only use Stevia as a sweetener. Tried it for the first time yesterday and did not like it at all!! Tried it again today and it's slightly better.
Lunch and dinner consists of 100 grams of either veal, beef, chicken breast, white fish, lobster, crab or shrimp. Need to take out all the fat before cooking. I can also have one type of veggie (it's also very specific what types I can have - pretty much stuff that's low in carbs). One Melba toast is allowed but I can't have b'c of my braces and one fruit: apple, orange, handful of strawberries, or one-half grapefruit.
There are certain things I can put on the food for taste but so far I've only used salt, pepper and lemon. Like I said, I'm not a very advernturous cook nor am I very good at it!
I can't use any make-up or lotions with oils. Not a big deal for me except for the lotion part. My skin is sooooo DRY RIGHT NOW!! I weigh myself every morning and have been informed the more sedentary I am the better. That is not an option for me as I am going through physical therapy. Probably not the best time to start this diet but I don't do anything strenous so I'm not too worried about it.
Oh yeah, one last thing, I do inject myself. It doesn't hurt at all but every morning when I get it ready, it always takes me a while to poke myself with the needle. It's all mental, I know, but I hate needles. If you are afraid of needles, like me, it isn't easy but hopefully you can get past it!
If anyone has any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them for you. However, if you are against the HCG diet and just want to bash it or judge or anything negative, quite frankly I don't care.
Hi, I would like to ask were you bought the HCG. So how much have you lost since you've been on it?
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Just throwing thoughts out there. I'm the first to admit I haven't done the research, but know a couple of people who are no dummies who seem impressed with the science behind HCG.
