HCG diet

Has anybody tried the HCG diet? I know it is advocated by Kevin Trudeau, who I think is a bundle of crock, but supposedly based on a Dr. Simeon’s diet plan from the 1950s.

My mom did it and lost about 18 lbs in 5 weeks. It’s quite restrictive however, and advocates a 500 calorie diet for about 6 weeks while taking the HCG supplement. It seems to me that anybody who eats 500 calories per day will lose weight, though.

Any thoughts or insights?

My thought is that this diet cannot be sustained. The only potential I see in it would be for it to act as a jump-start to a healthy eating plan, but even in that situation, it would still be unhealthy even for a period of a few weeks.

hCG is a hormone produced during pregnancy which ensures that the fetus will stay healthy even if the woman carrying it is not being sufficiently nourished. In this diet, hCG causes the body to retain lean muscle mass while eating away at the body’s extra fat stores to make up for the extreme calorie deficit. It would seem that it prevents the body from going into starvation mode while following this diet while starving oneself…

As Dr. Simeon is one of the few people who did any sort of “research” on the connection between hCG and weight loss, I would avoid this diet. I personally would not take hormones for cosmetic purposes (weight-loss, anti-aging, etc) until more research has been done

I pulled all of this information off of wikipedia…so you don’t have to trust me :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_chorionic_go…

it seems totally unhealthy to:

*listen to a crook
*inject yourself with something from an embryo or just inject anything
*be on a 500 calories per day diet
*base anything on research done nearly 50 years ago

just my thoughts…

jmccoy, you are so right.

hCG is available in droplet form, so it’s not necessary do injections. But yeah, it’s somewhat of a sketchy diet which is why I was looking for some feedback.

All that said, my mom had good results and has honestly not gained the weight back now 2 months after, so there probably is something to it.

You don’t need to go on this diet to loose weight. all you need to do is eat well and exercise!!!! thats it.
If you go on this diet you will loose weight, but i guarantee you will put the weight back on and it is no good for your body.

I have just completed my first round of HCG injections. I was able to lose 30.7 lbs during the 6 week protocol. I am taking 3 weeks off then plan to start my second round on July 4 weekend.

I understand that those of you who are not proponents can be skeptical of the HCG protocol but unless you have done the extensive studies you cannot guarantee its failure.

I have first hand knowledge. I have done the protocol and I have lived on the 500 calorie a day diet which was not hard at all to follow. There is no hunger associated with the diet so you simply cannot say there is unless you were on the diet yourself and experienced hunger.

Dr Simeon conducted years of studies that did compare the hcg with placebo while on 500 calories and the results were conclusive. Those on the 500 calorie diet without hcg were not able to maintain the 500 calories without hunger while those on HCG suffered no lingering hunger.

Those on placebo lost lean muscle while those on HCG lost abnormal fat deposits.

I respect your opinions but please do some research before posting your opinions of a subject you have little first hand knowledge of .

How can a 500 calorie diet be healthy? The diet doesn’t sound healthy to me and I would never do it – like other extreme diets.

PS: Isn’t is strange that we have four positive comments by new members who did not track data before

http://www.exploreexpandevolve.com/health-welln…

We’ve all seen this “rebound” phenomenon time and time again. A 500-kCal/day diet is difficult for a reason; the HCG – in some cases – simply makes it a little easier to do something that you shouldn’t do – something you know doesn’t really have lasting positive effects and something that will probably backfire anyway. And at what cost are we continuing to trick and manipulate our bodies?

Here’s a list of some of the possible negative effects of HCG:

• Ovarian Hyper-stimulation Syndrome (OHSS) – which is a life-threatening condition
• Arterial Thromboembolism – another potentially life-threatening condition
• Blood clots
• Risk of multiple pregnancies (twins, triplets, quadruplets, etc.)
• Abnormal enlargement of breasts in men (gynaecomastia)
• Over stimulation of the ovaries causing production of many ova (eggs) in women
• Acne
• Tiredness
• Changes in mood
• Irritation in area of use
• Excessive fluid retention in the body tissues, resulting in swelling (edema)
• Hair loss
• Prostate hypertrophy

My thought with weight loss is that if you are not willing to live like that for the rest of your life don’t live like that now. When people use fast fixes to lose weight they miss out on the lessons on how to maintain weight loss. I have seen it time and again when people use surgery, pills or such to lose weight quickly. But they never took care of the emotional side of teaching yourself that life is not about food.

These things can work for the short term but when you reach your goal will you really understand what it means to eat healthy and exercise? Just be careful with the decisions you make now. The short term results look and feel great but the long term impact could be harmful both physically (as Ferdi suggested) and mentally.

I did a lot of research before starting this diet, I am on day 24 now and have lost 29 lbs. I have not experienced any sort of exhaustion but I did feel hungry for the first two weeks. I take it sublingually, under my tongue, twice a day. I was pounds away from qualifying for barriatric surgery, which requires a 500 calorie diet for months after surgery.This seems to be a much safer option and has given me a great head start on the 70lb loss I wish to achieve.

I have found out that my body hates carbs, now that I am getting over that addiction I plan to move to a high protein diet. for the first time in years I have enough energy and motivation to do a little exercise. I was never an emotional eater, I just chose the wrong foods.

I do not recommend this diet if you don’t really want it… and I mean really want it. The cravings are still there… i almost assaulted a my husband over a soft taco…. lol. But if you feel like you are at a point in your life to make this decision… by all means do it.

the key is finding something that gets YOU motivated. with the progress I have had so far, I am planning and have changed a lot of things. Progress motivates me… this is working

I think that no matter what you do, you will lose weight if you restrict calories. (Look at an anorexic person…they will lose weight because they are restricting calroies.) What matters far more to me is how to attain lasting weight loss. I don’t think there is any way around changing your lifestyle in order to keep the weight off and I think it’s easier to make gradual changes that you can stick with than going on a crash diet and then worrying about how you’re going to keep it off after you come off the diet. I’d rather make smaller changes that make me stronger and healthier and that I can sustain. I may not lose the weight as quickly, but I also won’t have it back as quickly!

You’re right Ferdi.

Ellymay, Cindyok and other newbies…
I really love people that appear from nowhere and will post here only once or twice, especially to tell us incredible stories like :
I am on day 24 now and have lost 29 lbs.

And to recommend us a dangerous and expensive diet. That’s crazy they dare doing this on a forum like here.

So what’s next ? Let me try :

“My sister-in-law has lost 150 pounds in 2 weeks, thanks to the magic crystal diet… It is safe and she never feels hungry, she just takes magic crystal suppository before every meal. This month, you can get a great Summer discount, with our trial offer. 1 week of diet for $500 only ! "

“And to recommend us a dangerous and expensive diet. That’s crazy they dare doing this on a forum like here.”

@cccc—that’s why i love daily burn! people can “spam” us in the forums, but we all know better than to listen to them, which makes their efforts futile. this is a smart community of people! :)

I have spent a total of 76 dollars, i have done it on my own, bought the hcg online. I’ll post pics.

Seems like a lot of spam in this topic. And spam is not good for losing weight :)

I agree Doo. Spam has never been on any weight loss plans I have read!

Ellimay: being cheaper does not change the fact that using HCG is generally not a healthy means of weight loss. It does not teach you anything about eating right and exercising.

If everything goes well for ellimy and her HGC diet, she will back in year, overweight again, but willing to learn to do it the right way. If it doesn’t go that well she will have a severe weight problem which will become worse in the upcoming years and she will complain that she tried everything to lose weight…. :-(

will smoking affect the hcg diet?

and how about smoking weed?will it also affect the hcg diet?

Does smoke have calories?

chaddukes have u ever tried the hcg diet??? smoking does affect our hormones right?and anyway the hcg injection contains hormones..so will smoking affect the hcg???

No, I haven’t. And I won’t. I know enough to know that weight loss is all about calories in v.s. calories out and no gimmicky diet can change the laws of thermodynamics.

ok..but can somebody please tell me if smoking will affect this ‘hcg diet’..no need to tell me its unhealthy or whatever.please.i just want to know if its ok to smoke while still under the hcg injections.thanks :)

It seems to me that you are not focusing on a new healthy lifestyle but rather for a way to lose weight fast. Losing weight really shouldn’t be the goal of and in itself – a healthier lifestyle is the goal. This means eating clean, getting exercise and not smoking (to me anyway).

If you really want an answer to your question you will have to ask an expert in HCG diet and not this forum. Most people here are not into this kind of diet and don’t have the information that you are looking for.