Is anyone on the HCG Diet?

What is HCG other than hCG as in human chorionic gonadotropin which would imply you're pregnant?
: )

The hormones and one and the same. HCG offers a protection to a pregnant woman's internal organs and muscle and a British doctor did clinical trials using it as a weight-loss aid back in the 1950's. If you search for HCG in these forums, you'll find more than a few individuals here that have had success with it.

Never seen so many people proud to be starving yourself. Talking bout the same debunked 1950 study. Good job. You have a eating disorder you should be proud.

I lost 9.2 the first week and now, at the end of week three am at 17.2 lost, so I averaged 4lbs per week the 2nd & 3rd weeks. Try not to be too discouraged on days you have small losses. From what I have heard from those who are further along, by the time you are done you will average .5 to .8 per day which means that your losses will be smaller as you go. Still - keeping in mind what wasn't working for me before - 3 1/2 lbs a week is a miracle!!

This is not easy, eveyone is right that you must follow to a T. I did an extra 250 cal yesterday and gained back 1.5 lb. I am struggling to stay focused and not think about food as I am very hungry. It is so easy to eat an extra ccouple hundred calories! I lost 9 lb in first week since then I have hovered gaining losing a half pound for a week until yesterday's gain. I want to buckle down and stick to 500 calories for the remainder of this diet to make this worth it but I am HUNGRY!

My best suggestions to you are to:
1: be sure to get your fluids. Find a drink you love (I love my iced tea with Stevia) and drink alot of it. Lemon juice in water with some stevia may work for you. My sis is/was a big water drinker - a gallon a day easy.
2: Be sure to get all 100g of protein at each of your meals. It is a vital part of the VLCD to help maintain your lean mass.
3: I have not thwarted my diet by going overboard on the veggies. Handful, shmandful. You know what 50 calories of lettuce looks like - its ALOT!!! Or cabbage, or celery, or spinach, or tomatoes. If my protein is between 100-150 calories, I allow myself to supplement my 'meal' with my vegetable up to 50-75 calories - which can be a large serving.
4: Try some creative recipes. I have made a celery soup using no sugar chicken broth (5 cals per cup) and seasonings suggested by recipes found online.
5: Find something else to occupy your time. Read, walk, play - something that gets you away from where you eat.

Feel free to check my food diary, my blog, or message me for recipe websites if it might help!

Good luck.

I went on it for a while once. While the calories are extremely limited, the constant results (about a pound a day) make it worth it. However, soon after stopping you go into the phase where you can't have carbs and then you go back into "normal eating" which won't sustain your weight loss after being stuck on 500 calories for so long. Shortly after the diet everything is fine, even if you want to do a couple more rounds, it'll work. But, I've never personally heard of anyone maintaining HCG weight loss. I lost about 40 lbs on it and gained every last pound back. Now 'm doing it the old fashioned way. Oh, that's the other thing that really bothered me about HCG, not only is it 500 cal a day, but it's also recommended that you not exercise. Talk about unhealthy and ultimately disappointing. Before this diet I was able to lose weight semi-easily but it just wasn't fast enough (like everyone at one point or another, I wanted a quick fix) and that stuff really messes with your metabolism (and not in the good way that it claims) it's taken me a year to feel comfortable with dieting properly again. This of course is just my experience, and if you feel differently that's great too.

I haven't tried the HCG Diet but I have tried several others. For me, diets screw up my metabolism and I end up gaining all the weight back plus much much more. I don't want the unhealthy fat coming on again and messing up my metabolism especially shrinking my muscle mass. I saw a body builder on you-tube a who said, " You want to be skinny and fit not skinny and fat". I agree with him, that is why I am exercising and eating a well balance diet. I wish everyone a good journey to their goal weight.

I was doing some research on VLCDs today (with or without HCG) and found that much of the 'unhealthiness' comes from not eating enough protein to maintain lean mass and not drinking enough fluids and becoming dehydrated.

I don't feel that the way I am doing it is unhealthy at all.

I DO feel that whether or not I am able to maintain my weight loss will be a measure of the discipline I have gained during this process.

I DO feel that maintaining a food diary should be as regular a part of my life as my exercise routine and eating itself.

I can't tell you about maintenance yet but hope I have great things to say in 6 months.

Also, I had a body composition analysis done before starting HCG and plan to have another in September after HCG. I am very curious to see the results and if/how my lean body mass was affected!! I'll let you know!

In the scientific literature, weight loss is only considered "successful" if it is maintained for at least 2 years. By those standards, every meta-analysis I have ever read that studied "diets" --the one mentioned here and every other one that has ever been tried--reported a 2 year failure rate of 95+% for all of these "programs".

You can do the math.

I am missing your point I think . . are you saying all diets fail and this one is no different?

Or are you saying that regardless of how you get there, its how you stay there that matters?

It's a matter of percentages. The research suggests that almost all "diets" (which would include this one) fail when it comes to realizing long-term (greater than 2 years) weight loss. Many of them "succeed" in the short term, and that's when you hear all of the publicity. But no one is there down the road when all the weight has been regained and the person feels worse about themselves than they did before.

By "diet", I mean any kind of radically different eating plan (the HCG one included), including the use of almost all OTC supplements. There are medical interventions that are sometimes necessary--although they often have less than optimal long-term success rates as well.

Anyhow, my job is to present facts. Anyone who wants to roll the dice can make their own decisions. The main thing is that 1-month, 2-month, or even 6-month tesimonials of "success" are meaningless as far as "proving" the long-term effectiveness of any "diet strategy".

Well, I guess I'll get back to everyone in two years to see if I am in the 95% or the 5%:bigsmile:

I'll be right behind you.

kera - no offense taken.

I worry about the same thing happening. No way to know until we see. At this point I'm willing to risk it.

Just wondering if you were exercising at all during the 'gain' era, while you were trying to maintain?

I just started the diet on Sunday. Sunday and Monday were load days and were they hard. I think the best part of the diet is that the load days make you so absolutely sick of fat foods that you really have no craving for them.
Also, it forces you to prepare you own food. So, even if all it does is get you in the habit of making food rather than getting take out (which is what I've been doing for years) it's a good thing.

If you are taking the hcg then the hcg supposedly allows your body to metabolize fat rather than lean muscle. I don't know if this is really true, but if you are eating an adequate amount of protein (60 grams a day - 2 servings of a roughly 100 grams of a raw, lean protein source) and getting all your carbs from veggies (and two grissini) and maintaining lean muscle mass by doing weight bearing exercise then I don't see how you can loose that much muscle mass.

By Monday, I intend to try some keto stix to see if I'm burning fat. Also, I've been monitoring the change in body fat percentage and I've seen it go down as my weight is going down, so something is working.

I have not been hungry. I've actually missed my fruit servings most days. My big concern is calcium and good fats. I am getting no Omegas and no calcium from dairy. I will begin supplementing the calcium, but the good fats will just have to wait until my 23 days are over.

I have found nothing unhealthy about it. Every calorie you ingest is nutrient rich. There are no empty calories. How many of our 1200 to 1500 calorie diets have empty calories in them to begin with?

Also, every calorie is "clean" . No processed diet foods, no chemicals, nothing.

After the initial phase, you do add calories, but again they are nutrient rich and not empty - just clean proteins and veggie carbs.

I am liking it so far. We'll see if I say the same thing next week