New Here and New to "Supercharged HCG"

duncnmollysmom

Hi Everyone!
So, knee-deep in middle age, I've determined that my metabolism is pretty much shot. I've decided to go agains everything I believe and give a go at this Supercharged HCG stuff. I started the VLCD phase on Monday and can happily report being down 7.8 lbs which is a MAJOR kick in the head...in a good way. My concern is the weekend...(ominous music inserted here). Being a chef means I'm around food all day, which makes not eating a whole lot easier (strangely enough) because you're innundated with smells and sounds and you actually feel like you've eaten when all you've done is sniff and maybe taste a little. What tricks are y'all using to get you through those days of full-and-ready-access-to-all-the-same-food-your-family-is-eating?
I'm frankly terrified.
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SandyLee1961

Are you talking about the HCG diet? The one where you take the pills or whatever it is?

katcena

I would say just keep youself busy. That always helps me....I'm a boredom eater...so if I keep myself constantly occupied I am not tempted to snack. Also, try to get in some exercise. Sometimes the mental "high" of exercise will replace that temporary "high" we get from food.

Becca_007

I'm frankly terrified

I'd be terrified too!!:glasses: I prefer the healthy method of eating, working out and keeping the weight off but then that's just me.

GaveUp

Hi,
Did you go through a clinic for HCG or git it online. I am struggling with perimenopause and have gained 25 lbs over the last 3 years. Almost 50 I want to stay healthy and in shape. I walk 2-5 miles 5 days a week and am now addicted to it. When I called a clinic they told me I would have to slow my exercise down in order to do this diet. I dropped my calories down to 1100 and on a 5 mile fast pace walk the other day I almost passed out. I wanna lose too!!

GuammyMommy

I have done a lot of research on this diet plan. Please be careful. Are you restricting your calorie count to 500 calories? Anyone (hCG or not) would lose massive amounts of weight by restricting the diet to such a low intake. This is well below the minimum recommendation of 1200 calories for your body to function properly.

You could be setting yourself up for the worst yoyo yet.

Be careful!

Becca_007

I would say just keep youself busy. That always helps me....I'm a boredom eater...so if I keep myself constantly occupied I am not tempted to snack. Also, try to get in some exercise. Sometimes the mental "high" of exercise will replace that temporary "high" we get from food.

I don't believe they allow exercising on the HCG diet last others shared that are on it. You're only allowed to eat 500 cals a day I don't know how you could begin to workout on that many cals .

ETA: To the OP with only 35 lbs to lose (according to your ticker) it doesn't seem worth the risk. Many on here have shared it's for the extremely obese not for those that could lose it by eating healthier and working daily. It just seems such a risk ppl take to lose weight when there is the tried and true method (check out the Success section of MFP) of losing that actually works and keeps the weight off. Simply change up our eating habits, add in exercise. Plus it'll even save money by not buying the drops and doc visits.

hjsyndrome

As soon as you got off of this diet and ate food over 5oo cal you would baloon right back up. This is not a healthy way of doing this. Take it slow, work it, and eat right. It pays off better in the long run. Make this a life style change to be healthy not a fad diet. Please just re-think of what you are doing. I'm on the "dont do it" fence. Please dont turn the electricity on the fence, Im wearing shorts!

bebhinn

I have done a lot of research on this diet plan. Please be careful. Are you restricting your calorie count to 500 calories? Anyone (hCG or not) would lose massive amounts of weight by restricting the diet to such a low intake. This is well below the minimum recommendation of 1200 calories for your body to function properly.

You could be setting yourself up for the worst yoyo yet.

Be careful!

All of the research I have done on this diet shows that people who follow the plan exactly do not regain the weight... as long as they commit to learning new cooking/eating styles to go forward with. Also, anyone doing this plan without the HCG would be hungry and miserable and dizzy for most of the day... the premise of HCG is that it causes your body to consume its own fat stores for energy and sustenance, hence the quick loss with limited to no hunger/misery/dizziness.

Becca_007

"Please dont turn the electricity on the fence, Im wearing shorts! "

@ TJ - please don't fall on my duck while you're up on the fence!:noway:

Jill_Clemmons

The HCG diet is very dangerous. I know people that did it, and they were suffering the whole time they were on 500 calories. They were so tired that they could barely get through the day, and were hungry most of the time. Anc once they finished the diet, the weight they went to all that trouble to lose came right back. In over 50 years, no scientific proof has been found to support the theory behind the HCG diet.

If you already invested your money in the homeopathic drops, they probably wouldn't do any harm if you use them with a safe eating plan of at least 1,200 calories. But eating 500 calories a day and putting your trust in the HCG weight loss theory is just NOT worth the risk.

When people do manage to lose weight on this diet and keep it off, it's probably just because they eliminated a food from their diet they had a sensitivity to that was making them fat, and did not reintroduce it once they were finished. But you could do that on an elimination diet or a clean eating diet without have to torture yourself with a 500 calorie diet or risk your health on unproven, unscientific theories

.The website below has some good links to why the HCG diet is a very bad idea and dangerous to your health.
http://www.tucsonmedical.com/pages/hcg.php

bebhinn

Just my two cents here, I work an active job - I follow the diet to the letter, I'm losing weight regularly on 500 -600 calories a day, (almost 20lbs in 22 days) I am not tired, dizzy, hungry and I'm not releasing ketones. I know people.. PEOPLE not a person, who has done the diet, lost 75+ lbs, went back to a healthy eating plan of 1400+ calories after stabilizing and they haven't gained back a lb - yes they eat bread again, and foods they ate before. There are a lot of opinions about a lot of diets... not every diet works for each person, this is well known - people should be able to make their own decision. I am saying this as someone who lost almost 70lbs following MFP - the only reason I am trying this plan is to support my partner in her quest with it.

Jill_Clemmons

If you chose to do the HCG diet, you are using your body as an experimental lab. Losing weight as quickly as you have been on the HCG diet is neither safe or healthy.

The percentage of medical doctors that will prescribe HCG for weight loss is very small because is has not been proven effective, is not approved by the FDA as a weight loss drug, and some people have experienced some pretty nasty side effects.

If you did not experience these problems, you should consider yourself lucky. But all the hype over how much weight people can drop on the HCG diet needs to be counterbalanced with the facts that both the eating plan and the HCG itself can be dangerous, there is no scientific evidence that it works, a large percentage of people are hungry and tired and experience other negative side effects while they are on the diet, and most people regain much of the weight they lost on the diet within several months to a year - and sometimes a lot sooner.

HCG is by no means the weight loss miracle that promoters and fans of this diet claim, and in many cases, doing the HCG diet does more harm than good. Even if the HCG diet "works as advertised" it does not seem like a good idea to me to try and fool your body into believing that you are pregnant and starving!

bebhinn

Wow, you certainly do come to MFP and light fires everywhere eh? To each their own... but I'm not on your *kitten* about what you choose. I lost 70lbs in 7 months, it was good, it was healthy and it didn't feel any different than what I'm doing now, just slower lol.

I don't see you having a gastric bypass bash fest, which some MFP users have done, and also has MULTIPLE side effects. And I'll say this, your body doesn't remove sections of its digestive system when its pregnant, but it sure does create HCG.

Frankly, I support whatever weightloss method YOU employ, but I suggest you spend more time working at it than posting here commenting on what other people choose to do and starting brush fires. MFP is a positive place, and I have always respected it for that.

Jill_Clemmons

I have close friends that damaged their health by doing the HCG diet, and I have a very personal interest in educating people about it's downsides -- the things people that promote the HCG diet don't want you to know.

duncnmollysmom

GOOOOOOD NIGHT, People! Sheesh! I had no IDEA I could tick so many people off so quickly! My bad, entirely! All joking aside, YES, the HCG is working for me. Am I dropping weight like a rock? No, because I'm not following the protocol exactly. I am trimming the calories, I am watching the diet, but as a chef, I defy anyone to spend the day in the kitchen cooking food (and subsequently tasting it) and keep it to 500 calories. What I WILL say is that the fat that I am dropping is coming almost entirely off of my belly and butt...precisely where I WANT it to come from. So I'm stoked. Trust me when I say, I've tried cutting the calories and upping the excercise (1200 per day with 40 min cardio per day for a month and lost jack jolly NOTHIN to show for it). I appreciate the concern that has been expressed and I am taking those concerns as I am sure they were intended, which is lovingly. Thanks guys. Let's just all get through our individual trials together - weathering the "weight winter" as the emperor penguins do, holding each other up!

LilynEdensmom

I'm on my second round of 15 day drops I lost 8 pounds the first time around, went out of town at what I wanted when I wanted and alot of fast food since I was staying in a motel for 5 days, I only gained back 2 of those pounds. I have several friends that have went back to eating normally 1200-1500 cals a day and haven't gained the weight back.

I've not had any side effects. Other than my period started back, which I'm only 30 so that should be normal. But I went over 8 months without one. So I look at it as a plus.

Exercising, I do exercise on it b/c I want to tone and help myself not have excess skin (my mom had gastric bypass coming up on 3 years ago and that was alot of extra skin) . The drops I'm doing said working out was fine but you just had to eat back 50% of your burnt off calories, with the foods on the protocol.

Jill_Clemmons

Based on the experiences of some very dear friends, I cannot recommend or encourage you to stay on the HCG diet. It has not worked as advertised for anyone I know that tried it, and the weight came back. It is not safe, and a waste of money.

Ultima_Morpha

I am on day 7 VLCD of my first round of intranasal HCG under a doctor's supervision. According to my scale (official weigh-in is tomorrow), I am down 10 pounds. The first day was a little brutal...and the weekend has been tough. Smelling peanut butter while I was making my daughter a sandwich caused me to have an out of body experience...lol. Otherwise, I can't believe how great I feel.

It wasn't an easy decision to go this route, but I needed a jump start. I couldn't help but recall how much weight I lost during my first trimester of pregnancy and that I only gained that much back. That is right...no net weight gain with an average size baby. I lost my cravings for almost all sweets for most of the 37.5 weeks I was pregnant. I had several phone calls with the clinic before I committed...I think they were ready to stop taking my calls!

Just like any other eating plan, it isn't going to work for everyone. It has risks, but we can all do our research and make an educated decision for ourselves. In the end, I figured that I did a lot more harm to my body during my roaring 20s than I would on 40 days of eating smaller portions of healthy foods.

Jill_Clemmons

Please, do something less risky than the HCG diet to jump start your weight loss. This so-called diet can cause all sorts of health problems! The only people that say there are little or no risks are the ones that make money selling it! They are providing the so-called "research" that make so many people think it's safe. But the HCG diet is NOT safe. It had a VERY negative impact of some people that do it. Your health is too valuable to gamble on this approach.

Any doctor that tells people to do HCG should have their medical license yanked because the FDA has never approved it for weight loss and the so-called diet protocol is downright dangerous!

It's not too late to get off the HCG!

KarenB4G

Hello Jill. I wish you would stop sending me messages. I do not know what your problem is....but keep away from me.

Thank you

Ms_Natalie

Hiya all,
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