HCG Diet. Don't hang me.

Everyone else already said all that needs to be said. Please stop the drops before the damage is done. You obviously haven't done all the research or else you only read the research you wanted to.

Hi everyone,

so yesterday I started the HCG 1234 Diet. I've researched thtis for about two months before deciding to actually try it. I've read the good, the bad and the ugly.

My HCG 1234 drops are not the ones that only allow 500 calories. This one has two diet options for 1200 calories and than 1500 calories.

I'm starting with the 1200 calorie one and than afterwards I'll do the 1500 calorie one and add a lot more active exercise and eventually go off HCG and keep that up.

I'm just curious if anyone else has done this one and what was your results/experience?

Apologies, long reply

Because I am incredibly hard-headed, only listen to science, logic, or reasoning when it agrees with what I have already decided, and am often simultaneously lazy and desperate, this was only one of the lose-quick-quackeries I tried eight or ten years ago. As background, after a serious illness and surgery, I stopped exercising and paying attention to what I ate. I gained about thirty pounds in a little over a year; I ended up forty pounds above the weight I had maintained for many years. I am, btw, six feet tall, broad-shoulders, and so on. I am not a small man. But it was still a lot of weight and I didn't much like it.

I wanted to get back to my pre-illness weight and I wanted it fast. I looked at a number of low calorie, no exercise options and "after doing all the research" I decided to do a "medically-supervised" HCG diet for forty days. I reasoned that I would fix my diet and start exercising again once I lost the weight. It would be so much easier, right?

Wrong. Here's what happened. I followed the diet to the letter. I lost forty pounds in forty days on a 600 calorie/day diet. I barely had enough energy to get through the day, so I slept an awful lot. I was constantly obsessing about my weight and the food I was eating (a requirement for this diet) even if I wasn't starving. At the end of the diet, I followed the rules about re-introducing food. I managed for about two weeks before I was hit with waves of endless, ravenous hunger which lasted for almost a month. I never did fix my diet; in fact, it got worse. I never did start the exercise program I promised I would start.

Six months later I was thirty-five pounds heavier. I was weaker. I was tired all the time. My eating habits were still bad. I still didn't have the energy to exercise. And, btw, I lost so much muscle weight during the diet that my body fat percentage had barely changed. Net result: I was worse off after the diet than before it.

I know four other people that tried HCG; all with similar results.

It was a bonehead move. It was expensive. It took years for my body to recover from it. And most importantly, it doesn't work over the long term unless you are willing to eat a very limited diet, weigh in every day and return to the diet if your weight changes by a few pounds, and fight off periods of ravenous hunger. If that is not enough, there is no clinical evidence that HCG does anything to limit hunger.

Please re-consider; that's what I suggest.

Edited: spelling

I don't diet anymore. I make sure I'm eating controlled portions of healthy foods and I exercise moderately every day. I've been stuck in a plateau for about a year - that is frustrating - but I'm not getting back on the roller coaster again.

Save your money, eat at a deficit and you'll lose weight for free!!! I've yet to see someone who did these, and actually kept the weight off afterwards!

Sometimes I really really wonder why I bother doing a normal job. I could start the "eat dog poop" diet or something, and with proper advertisement, I would be rich in a year. Apparently all it takes is having no conscience, and selling disgusting things to desperate people.

I did forget to mention that. Some people say hhcg works, I personally think it's a waste of money. To clarify, I'm on Rx hCG injections.

I have one friend who did this and lost 100lbs.. but she looks sick.. like low iron, too skinny and kind of looks like a melted crayon. But she's happy? Another one lost about 50 pounds but said it's almost impossible to eat now without gaining. Really messed up her metabolism. but that's my opinion. I say, don't take short cuts. good luck!

The site says you can't use skincare products with oil because you will absorb it and not lose weight.

Most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

Yeah, I've read that. It said the same thing about shampoo. I thought that was pretty idiotic. I got to tell you, the more I read the responses on this forum the more I feel like throwing the bottle away. lol.

Toss it!! While this way is slower, it's much more life friendly. :flowerforyou:

My bestie, and my mother in law both tried these drops. My mother in law thought the drops were he magic that made her lose weight not the extremely low calorie limit and would just eat anything when she ran out, causing a gain and perpetuating in her mind the belief that the drops were magical.
My bestie did them with both of her parents, her father lost well, her mother had to stop taking the pills as they were effecting a medication she took at the time, and my bestie was starving and miserable and lost less than she would have if she had just eaten at a reasonable deficit, which she proved a year later by losing 90lbs on weight watchers.

You don't need some magical supplement to lose weight on 1200calories, and your body can only lose so much fat so quickly. I say ditch the hcg and stick to the deficit, that's what would create your losses anyway.

You will lose weight...

In your wallet.