HCG Diet, fact or fad???

I'm really not being a smart a** or anything, but I can choose 3 parts from your short post that give the answers by themselves. It is never healthy to inject an artificial hormone into your body. 500 calories is not a healthy amount for any person to consume, you may lose weight, but then you'll lose muscle and go into starvation mode. Never feeling hungry? Nuh uh, either untrue or extremely unhealthy. This sounds like a horrible idea...hope this helps!

Isn't HCG the pregnancy hormone? I would think that diet could cause your hormones to go all out of whack because your body will think that it is pregnant.....doesn't sound like a good idea to me. And I haven't even thought of the 500 calories a day....yet....

DON'T DO IT!!! Never inject a hormone into your body unless you are receiving some sort of medical treatment provided by a licensed physician. You didn't put your weight on overnight, so you can't expect to lose it overnight, either. It's much healthier for you to do this the right way, by eating the right foods & exercising. If you need more help, then I suggest you contact a dietician at your local hospital/clinic, or a diabetes center (you don't have to be diabetic to meet with them). They can help set up a healthy eating plan to get you headed in the right direction.

I think you know the right thing to do from everyones responses here - good luck!

I actually just heard about this last Friday night. It is supposed to reset your metabolism. My mom has a client who is doing it and has lost 17 pounds in 3 wks. So, yes, it works, you lose weight, and it is supposed to be good for you. I suppose it's just one more thing that is controversial when it comes to natural health. I honestly am on the fence as far as how I feel about it. I was considering it, that is until I read the extremely strict guidelines for taking it. It goes way beyond diet. There is a list of which deodorants, soaps, shampoos, etc. to use. There is another list of how much of what to eat when, and what to absolutely avoid, such as certain oils and stuff. Regardless if it were proven to be safe or not, those guidelines already are enough for me to say no! I'm a single mom of two kids, I don't have the energy (or brain capacity, LOL) to worry about all that stuff on top of trying to be super-mom!! Concentrating on what I eat now and logging it on MFP takes up enough time and energy without dealing with all of that other stuff.
There is a whole lot more to it that just taking drops...

I say no way. I'd rather lose weight slowly and steadily and keep it off because I've learned something about healthy eating and exercise than quick fix results that won't last.

You are suppose to have a Dr. inject the hormone into you. You would not be making the injection. Just wanted to clarify that.

I do not know much about this, but here is the site I was referred to when I found out about it...

yourhcg.com

These are drops, NOT injections. So, if you were going to go ahead and do it, this would probably the safer and less expensive way to do it.

Yes your suppose to have a Doc or a nurse inject it but they are not very strict on that. The people I know were able to pick it up and inject themselves after a couple of appts.

My dr. gave me a prescription that had HCG compounded into cream. I had extremely unbalanced hormones and was unable to lose weight naturally. My dr. is working at this time to correct the hormone problem and mentioned that a weight loss will also positively impact my hormone balance. It truly reset my metabolism and absolved abnormal fat. I lost 15 lbs and 6 inches in my belly alone. I was never hungry because the HCG burned the abnormal fat instead of calories I took in. I did not change my soaps or other products that I used. I even cheated throughout the diet which would cause me to stall for a day or 2 and not lose. I am now on mainenance mode and using the MFP as my calorie counter so I am careful at how many calories I consume. I am still not hungry now that the HCG is out of my system. I plan on doing another HCG cycle in 6-8 weeks to reach my goal weight! I feel like a new person with lots of energy I did not have before.

Before people respond to this person's HCG question, they might want to educate themselves about the diet itself. First of all, read Dr. Simeon's "Pounds and Inches" (free online, just Google it). Then go talk with some of the actual physicians (not just chiros offer this plan). This is not a fad diet or quick fix – at least it's not intended to be. It resets your hypothalamus to lower your "set point" of weight and helps you lose the desire for sugar and processed foods if you follow the plan.

The HCG and 500 calorie diet (or VLCD, for very low calorie diet) are only one phase of this program, and that phase only lasts from 21 to 40 days max, or your body can build an immunity to the HCG. The reason for the HCG and not just eating the 500 calories is that the HCG coaxes the body to use stored fat, not normal fat or structural fat (which helps hold organs in place). That's why people on HCG don't get sunken jaws and hollow eyes, or lose their chests. The purpose of the limitations is to do a type of chemical cleanse – as one person stated, our bodies are full of chemicals from the food and products we eat and use every day. I'm not a fanatic – I use my share of everyday products but am getting so much better about it now that I've educated myself. Just look at how many things have high fructose corn syrup in them, for example. That stuff is horrible for you and it's in almost everything in one shape or another.

I agree with the guy below – check out Clockster's videos on YouTube. And yes, she does sell the sublingual kits on eBay, but didn't do that until she saw how great this program worked. She lost 71 pounds. And you don't have to do shots (yes, you CAN do them yourself if you can handle doing that. My son's diabetic so I'd have no prob doing my own, but it didn't seem as handy as the other methods). Instead, you can get inhaled HCG or sublingual, which is drops you hold under your tongue for 10 minutes twice a day. And yes, you CAN use the homeopathic drops, which a few people I know have done, and they worked for them as well. I got the real thing and mixed it myself – it's easy to do and again, the gal on Youtube even has vids on how to mix it. I bought my HCG from pharmacyescrow.com and they emailed me a 120-page booklet with "Pounds and Inches," the program and a bunch of recipes.

My first day of the very low calorie diet was today, and I wasn't terribly hungry, It takes time for the HCG to build up, but that's what keeps the hunger away, so once it's in my system more, I expect the hunger pains will go away. (I also mowed, edged and raked my yard for about four hours, so that made me feel hungry.)

it's not for everyone, that's for sure. But I've counted calories, done Jenny Craig, TOPS, Weight Watchers, etc...and lost less than 8 pounds each time over many months. I even joined a gym and had a personal trainer, etc. and while I was very toned, I still weighed 20 pounds more than I should have so I hope to just do one round of the HCG and then maintain. (You have to have a six-week time period between phases of HCG to prevent immunity.) Once you lose the weight you want to lose, this plan reintroduces foods back into the diet. (I'm looking at a recipe for alfredo sauce, which looks pretty good!) Portion control and exercise, once you get the weight off, are key, as is eating foods that are REAL foods, not processed. I suggest people look into Clean Eating with Tosca Reno of Oxygen magazine as another option after doing HCG.

I think we all know that no matter how you lose it, without changing your habits, it WILL come back, so it's not so much how you lose it but how well you maintain afterward. Gaining it back is not the diet's fault...it's the willpower of the person in my opinion. I feel that losing it quickly will keep me motivated and I'm confident in my ability to maintain, since I've maintained being 20 pounds overweight for 16 years, since the birth of my second son.

I should also mention that I met with my doctor about it before I started it. I talked to my GYN at my annual physical about it, and she said several nurses she knew were on it and had lost a lot of weight. She said the hard part is keeping it off, but she felt it was fine to try and told me that if I followed it, she had no doubt I would lose the weight. That was a great green light for me, and I'm hoping to be able to share my results with her in a month's time.

Good luck if you decide to try it!

My fitness trainer said this was the scariest fad out there. And she doesn't make any money off of training me, she is an Army civilian who trains the best of the best in nutrition and endurance.

It just doesn't make sense to starve your body...even if it is short term and you don't feel hungry. It almost always mean some muscle loss..and as she pointed out, your heart is not immune from this loss! I am willing to bet there will be serious health issues related to this. Remember how many doctors were pimping phen-fen? They were quick to prescribe and quick to renounce...but the aftermath is horrible.

I was shocked to hear HCG has come around again. It was very popular in the 1970's and I personally know of two people who ended up in the hospital because of this fad. Anyone who eats 500 calories a day is going to lose a ton of weight without the hormone injection. One of the people I know who ended up in the hospital was a close friend. Everything went crazy in her body including severe kidney problems. It wasn't the HCG that was the problem by itself it was also the starvation her body experienced by not eating enough calories. Everyone needs to make their own choices but before using HCG I would do a lot of research.

http://www.exploreexpandevolve.com/health-wellness/hcg-diet-dangers-is-using-hcg-worth-the-risks/

http://dr-oz-dieting-secrets.blogspot.com/2010/03/hcg-diet-dangers.html

Another site to check before jumping on an old fad brought back again.

I'm down 23 lbs in 16 days. Feel great, have lots of energy, am *never* hungry and couldn't be happier. I'm getting *stronger* while I'm doing this, so I'm not losing muscle weight. It's all FAT. I also sleep better than I have in over a decade, no longer have to get up to pee 3-5x/night, wake up feeling fully rested, and even my manager at work has commented how much more productive I've been since I started this program. The loss in my face has been the most noticeable. My double-chin is almost gone!

If there are any negative side effects, they have not affected me yet. But if they do, I will post about it.

Don't believe it if you don't want to, but there are thousands of people losing a whole lot of weight quickly & safely with this program, and I am proudly one of them.

To each their own...


Created by MyFitnessPal.com - Free Weight Loss Tools

Karen - I remember the seventies!

My seriously overweight (300ish) girlfriend would have me inject her with HCG which as I recall was derived from the urine of pregnant cows. I was young, so I forgive myself, but what an irresponsible idiotic dangerous thing to do. Thank Gd we got away with it and nothing horrible ever happened. If she had any weight loss it was very short-lived.

I am a Michael Pollen devotee - eat real food, mostly plants, not too much - and believe in the 'move more' philosophy, HOWEVER I don't believe everyone in the obesity range are lazy slobs. We accept that there are such things as metabolic issues, many accepted 'medical weight loss' clinics put you into ketosis to kick start weight loss - so, who knows, for certain people with certain factors this may be a way to get going.

But pregnant cow urine?! Ugghhh!