Hello All

Astralmage
Astralmage Posts: 9 Member
edited September 21 in Introduce Yourself
Hello Everyone,
Wish I had found this sight a few weeks ago, but I will give everyone a little background and let you all in on my secrete. My wife came to me with this crazy idea of an HCG diet, which only allows 500 calories a day. After taking nutrition classes, working out, and struggling with my weight for close to twenty years now, I was sure she was nuts. But she had done some pretty thorough research and her sister had gotten some good results so I thought I would check it out. Well needless to say, we went with the homeopathic drops and without the lab and doctors to save cash. Now we have both been on it for just over 3 weeks. It works. You have to follow the diet to the hilt but it really works. I have averaged around a pound a day loss and she has a loss of three quarters of a pound a day. Thats pretty good since she stalled out during the, well that time of the month thingy.
If I continue at this rate, I will have 30 more days until I have lost all that I wanted to loose and have gotten to my goal weight. Great thing will be this site to help us continue with forming a permanent healthy diet and chart. If you choose to do this diet, I stress that you should follow the diet completely. There is no slip up days or oopps. You need to eat exactly as they tell you to, and you need to follow up the next sections as they say too. It you fail to do so, you may be doing harm to your body rather than good. If you have medical conditions I would talk with your doctor prior to starting it, and follow up with him while on it.
I am not promoting the diet, I just am telling you that it really works. If you want to knw more about it, there is pleanty online you can read, or you can friend me and watch what I post so you can see what my diet is like, and what my losses are like. I still have 30 lbs to go. There should be only light to low cardio work done on this diet since you get barely enough protein to keep you going. Tearing down muscle will burn more calories, but your body will repair your damaged muscles by eating your muscles to do so. NOT GOOD.
Anyhow, just wanted to say hello, and let you know what is working for me. Do your research well, and search around for the right drops. You can get a bottle for aprox $30 to $60. There are kits that offer books and such, and their are clinics that specialize in the diet but its not needed as long as you educate yourself, let someone know what your doing, and take council with a doctor for those who need it. Good luck, and hello to the rest of you.

Patrick

Replies

  • saligator
    saligator Posts: 96 Member
    Hi Patrick,

    welcome on board!

    never heard of that diet but sounds good to kickstart your weight loss! what about keeping it off though?

    like you said, mfp is good for developing long lastiing healthy habits, it's slowly but surely working for me!

    feel free to friend me

    Sal
  • seasha86
    seasha86 Posts: 38
    No matter which way you put it 500 cals a day just cant be good for you!!
  • second_1
    second_1 Posts: 45 Member
    Ordinarily you would be right. but in the hHCG diet your body is getting additional energy/ calories from the body's store of the abnormal fats. Therefore it is making up the difference in the calories your body needs to function. Your body will not use muscle or organ tissue for energy- only the fat and then the calories that you are consuming. I have not had any loss of energy nor any other symptoms of a starvation diet and I am losing on average 3/4 of a pound each day. There are a couple of different stages to this diet to ensure that you actually reset your metabolism so you dont gain back the weight when the diet ends. And of course sensible eating and moderation will help with that. Its not an easy diet by any means but very do-able, and I did weeks of research into it before I started on it. It works for us and we are seeing success. To each his own....
  • Astralmage
    Astralmage Posts: 9 Member
    Sesha86,
    That is exactly what I thought. But like Julie pointed out because of the HCG drops, the body burns up and uses the worst fat on your body. Not the good fat that is used for emergency fuel and muscle use, but the stuff we all want to be rid of. As the body burns this fat, everything that was stored at that time when the fat was stored is released into the blood and is used as needed. Everything else gets flushed. Thats why you need to make sure your water intake is good. There are no dips in energy, and no starvation pains. I would just say do the research yourself and talk to your doctor. Make sure your doctor is familiar with the diet, and again be careful for the scams and clinics.
    If we were on a starvation diet we would be starved all the time, but also our energy would be lacking, we would be prone to illness because of improper diet etc. Then our good fat, muscle, and organs would be used to feed our bodies as well. HCG is not something that is new. It was first discovered in Italy and has been around much longer than most of the hokey diets that I have heard of. Here is the most important part. It works.
    As far as keeping it off, that is what the next stage is for. You go in 6 week sessions of on then off the drops. 6 weeks on drops, then 3 weeks increasing your caloric intake to what it should be, but you still have to eat healthy during this time. No extra sugars, nothing that is not on the 500 calorie diet, you just increase those and then your good fats so as your body gets what it needs since you are no longer on the drops. The following 3 weeks you increase your other foods, sugars and starches slowly. If you need another session it all starts over and you do the 6, 3, 3 again. But in my case i think I will not have to.
    As far as those following this site and getting results great. I had a lot to loose and I am impatient. Since this diet is working for me, I will continue with it, then I will follow up doing as this site suggests. I will continue to post for quite some time, so that I have record of how I have done and how I have maintained. So to all the ney sayers out there, just watch my progress. Do some research and then decide for yourselves. I do agree though, this site is great. I believe that when I get to where I want to be, this site will help me stay there.

    Thanks for your posts

    Patrick
  • metizzy2
    metizzy2 Posts: 122
    Congratulations on yours and your wife's success, thus far. I wonder though, if it's possible to KEEP the weight off when you stop taking the drops? As far as losing weight so quickly, I have always heard that the faster you lose the weight, the faster you gain it back. You're more apt to keeping it off when you lose it slowly. I think if anyone is on a 500 cal. diet, you are bound to lose weight, but also important muscle mass as well. I'm not an expert, just an avid learner of healthy living.
  • Astralmage
    Astralmage Posts: 9 Member
    Metizzy2,
    Thanks for the congrats. Well, this is still new to me so I cant really say if I will or not. My thoughts, I dont see why not. Many diets that have those problems are ones where you diet, get tired of it then you quit. But this one is somewhat different. Our serving sizes are pretty small, but really no different than any other diet. 100 grams of meat twice a day, two fruit, though they are pretty specific on the diet plan we took, only apples, oranges, strawberries, and grapefruit. Two vegitables a day, mostly greens, but spinach, lettuce, celery, tomatoes, onions, asparagus, and that sort of thing.. The fruits serving sizes are an apple, or a small grapefruit, 6 strawberries. The vegi is around the same, a good handful or there abouts. But I am straying. My portions prior to this diet were out of control. Even off the drops I think that I will have a hard time eating all the calories I am supposed to in the next round. Which is what everyone on this site is already doing. I will probably have to add in two meals to my day, since I doubt I will be able to eat it all in 3 sittings and snacks. So one good thing learned, portion sizes.
    We are pretty limited on what we can eat during this part of the diet, so the next part of the diet when we are able to add more fruits and vegitables and the good fats will almost be like a cheat 3 weeks. By the end of that 3 weeks, then we add even more, but switch stuff around to keep our calories the same. So we are now, watching the foods we eat, and are actually happy with our change in diet. We are already planning how we will live after the diet is over, and are making some changes for good. Most people gain the weight back due to only making a temporary life change. My wife and me are making a permanent one.
    After I can increase my caloric intake and protiens I am headed to the gym to start working on the body. Getting in shape, and toning the muscle. We are already more active since we are both carrying around alot less weight. But to tell you the truth only time will tell. Please keep watch and see for yourself. But when I think of it, I see no reason for us to bounce back. We are not going back to the way we used to live, we will actually evolve to what everyone is doing on this site to lose weight. So we will change from diet mode to healthy mode, not that we are not healthy. We already eat more fruits and veggies now than I can ever remember, and our water intake is probably 3 times what it used to be. Soda is out of my life for good.

    Thanks for the reply

    Patrick
  • Astralmage
    Astralmage Posts: 9 Member
    Ok, I could be wrong, but I think I have this one down. If someone sees a flaw in the thinking, please point it out. Typically the body will start to eat your muscles and or organs when it is starving, or it need protein to rebuild with. So i got to looking around and this is what I found. Since this diet is feeding the body off or your fat and the meager 500 calories that you take in, it would seem to me that we are getting more than enough so that the body is not eating our good fat or our muscles and protein. Here is why, in the diet, it requires us to eat 200 grams of meat (protein) per day. I cheat a bit when measuring though not much. I try to give a little extra to cover any fat that is cooked off. Since the meats we do eat are pretty lean with all fat trimmed up, I keep it close to that. Here is what I found on protein intake.

    It comes from this link, it is not my own data and I wish to give them credit for their work. http://fatlossschool.com/blog/how-much-protein-should-i-eat-in-a-day/

    "For a standard individual i would recommend the numbers in the next segment on calculating your protein intake based on your calorie intake. But, If you are working out (and by this i mean weightlifting, trying to build muscle and even endurance athletes) you are going to need much higher levels of protein to support muscle growth.

    So the recommendation is that you should take 1g of protein per 1lb of lean body mass. So for example a 150lb man with 10% body fat would need 135g of protein a day. Remember that this intake is meant for very active people who work a minimum of three days a week and are looking to build lean muscle mass. If you are not as active then the excess protein will possibly make you fatter and could result in other issues."


    So for me, I am 240 lbs. As of last Sun my scale says that I am 34 percent body fat. Woa I know. So you would minus a third of my weight or just over that. That means I should be geting around 160 grams daily of protein daily to help maintain my body, and its protein needs. That does not account for someone working out. They will need much more. But on this diet, I cannot work out, because the extra calories burned plus the extra protien that I would need to rebuild muscles etc would be counter productive. In that case my body would probably feed on itself like everyone has posted above.

    Of course I do know that not all the meat taken in is 100 percent protein but the defference in what I need and what I take in still will balance out to my favor. So provided I dont work out heavily and damage muscle or body parts, I should not loose any muscle and or good fat. But nothing is set 100 percent in stone is it. So I have to rely on my senses and things that I have learned. Is my face sinking in? Do I have circles under my eyes? Do I feel weak or hungry? Do I have intense meat cravings or any other for that matter? Do I feel ill? Well it is a resounding no to all of those. I feel just fine, I look fine, and I believe that with what I have picked up from all the studying and such, that all is just peachy. Do let me know if I have something wrong. I dont believe I do though.

    Thanks for the thoughts.

    Patrick
  • second_1
    second_1 Posts: 45 Member
    Muscle mass -thats why the hHCG drops. You will NOT lose muscle mass, only the abnormal fat, on this protocol. 500 calories is very low, but added into that is the calories from the fat that the body is burning up daily. After we have reached our goal weights, we should be able to maintain without a problem, as long as we still eat in moderation and sensibly. The diet does address the issue of not just regaining once you are back to a normal amount of calories, it actually helps to reset the metabolism.
    There has been a lot of research on it and many people have succeeded. An interesting blog that I found to follow is onetongorilla.com
    Anyway, if your interested you can find lots of info online about it- Dr Simeones protocol. LOL no we are not trying to sell it and are not distributors- my husband is just excited to be getting the results he is and we both feel better than ever...... he can get long winded in his replys ;)
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