HCG

It's the 500 calorie a day diet that made her lose weight, and the 500 calorie diet that is dangerous. Does she realize that most people put all of the weight on plus more after they stop? Also...it's not all fat she's losing, she's also losing muscle. It's hard to get that "toned" look so many women with little muscle mass. It's not sustainable, and it's not healthy.

I don't think those drops are actually dangerous. A scam, yeah. But I don't think the drops are real. People who get actual injections may be setting themselves up for trouble. But those OTC drops, from what I've heard, are nothing real.

It's the 500 calories/day that makes people lose weight. Everyone I know who has done this had to stop because they got hungry. I think your friend will, too. Just let it ride.

People go on fad diets all the time. But they go off of them. Lots of women spend their whole lives gaining and losing the same ten pounds. They're happy that way.

I wouldn't sweat my friends over fad diets.

My mom is the same way.
It's her hobby to try fad diets & makes her feel relevant I guess.
She gets to kvetch in the usual manner & when I try to talk sense to her, she says 'Oh, let me have my fun'....so I figured, why the hell not? :laugh:

My aunt does this 1-2 times a year EVERY year without fail. The reason she needs to do it so often is because she gains all the weight back that she had lost. My aunt is by no means even in the obsese catagory, but she refuses to count calories (I think because she drinks her body weight in wine every week) and she claims to not have time to work out with two kids.

So usually right before the holidays she goes on a month long cycle, gets cranky, drops weight, and then gains it all back in like three months. Right before summer same thing.

The HCG shot contains a hormone (If I remember correctly its one found in pregnant women) that promotes muscle retention. The weight loss your friend experienced is a result of the extremely strict diet yes. The shots help to reduce muscle loss so most of the weight statistically comes from fat and water.

Also worth noting. HCG is not offered or recommended for more than 1-2 months consecutively. Its not a lifetime plan. My mother did a HCG diet for 2 months with weekly checkups with her physician. She lost weight (about 20lbs) after being stuck at a plateau with a regular calorie restricted diet. The HCG shot helped with muscle retention (per the body fat testing at the Dr office). After the 2 months she went back to a regular calorie deficit. She did say she felt losing weight was easier afterwards... who knows if thats just the fact that a normal calorie intake felt like alot or if it was due to the fat loss and muscle retention?

Personally the thought of giving myself a shot every day for any reason is terrifying...way worse than the calorie restriction! No needles for me thanks! But to some people its worth it I guess

The bold statement isn't true. Now if you mother did it for a month or two and is obese, it's possible she maintain her based on the amount of fat reserves available. But I personally now several women that did the diet, followed the protocol and 50% of their weight loss was from lean body mass (water, tissue, muscle, bone density, etc..).

The bigger issue is going to be long term. If you suppress calories for a long time (especially at dangerous levels such as 500 calories) you will increase the amount of lean body mass lost, which will slow your basal metabolic functions and your resting metabolic functions which leads to a decrease in TDEE. So it will make sustaining a lot hard because your total allowable calories in is much lower. I can tell you I have worked with a few women who have done this diet. Their intakes are 300-500 calories less than the average person with similar stats and in all those cases, it's taken a year to make progress with them.

This biggest issue with HCG, is there is NO way to get all the nutrients you need on a 500 calories diet. Not only will you not get enough protein, which will lead to muscle loss, you can't work out which won' t maintain metabolic functions and you probably wont get enough fat so nutrient absorption is going to be bleek at most. There is a reason it was designed for morbidly obese individuals under doctor supervision.

I don't think those drops are actually dangerous. A scam, yeah. But I don't think the drops are real. People who get actual injections may be setting themselves up for trouble. But those OTC drops, from what I've heard, are nothing real.

It's the 500 calories/day that makes people lose weight. Everyone I know who has done this had to stop because they got hungry. I think your friend will, too. Just let it ride.

People go on fad diets all the time. But they go off of them. Lots of women spend their whole lives gaining and losing the same ten pounds. They're happy that way.

I wouldn't sweat my friends over fad diets.

My mom is the same way.
It's her hobby to try fad diets & makes her feel relevant I guess.
She gets to kvetch in the usual manner & when I try to talk sense to her, she says 'Oh, let me have my fun'....so I figured, why the hell not? :laugh:

I have a very close friend who has done every single stupid diet she reads about and has been doing this for at least 25 years (and probably before I met her, too.). Every new diet pill, she takes it.

For TWENTY FIVE YEARS, I have heard about this great new diet and that great new pill, only to hear that they didn't work out well in the end, but now there is something new! She's generally a bright person and if I pressed her, I know she would admit to the craziness, but I see no need.

If it were serious and she was getting really skinny or really fat, then I would. But it's not. It's just her thing.

It really is their hobby. They go on, they go off. They like it.

The HCG shot contains a hormone (If I remember correctly its one found in pregnant women) that promotes muscle retention. The weight loss your friend experienced is a result of the extremely strict diet yes. The shots help to reduce muscle loss so most of the weight statistically comes from fat and water.

Also worth noting. HCG is not offered or recommended for more than 1-2 months consecutively. Its not a lifetime plan. My mother did a HCG diet for 2 months with weekly checkups with her physician. She lost weight (about 20lbs) after being stuck at a plateau with a regular calorie restricted diet. The HCG shot helped with muscle retention (per the body fat testing at the Dr office). After the 2 months she went back to a regular calorie deficit. She did say she felt losing weight was easier afterwards... who knows if thats just the fact that a normal calorie intake felt like alot or if it was due to the fat loss and muscle retention?

Personally the thought of giving myself a shot every day for any reason is terrifying...way worse than the calorie restriction! No needles for me thanks! But to some people its worth it I guess

There is no valid evidence that HCG promotes retention of muscle mass. That is a new wrinkle in the HCG propaganda. A review of all valid research done on HCG concluded that there was NO independent effect of HCG on any aspect of weight loss. All effects of the "HCG plan" we're due to the 500 cal/day diet. And, contrary to the results from your mom's doctor's seemingly magic body fat analyzer, weight losses from HCG "plans" (aka VLCDs) show that 30%-40% of the scale weight loss is fat-free mass.

I don't think those drops are actually dangerous. A scam, yeah. But I don't think the drops are real. People who get actual injections may be setting themselves up for trouble. But those OTC drops, from what I've heard, are nothing real.

It's the 500 calories/day that makes people lose weight. Everyone I know who has done this had to stop because they got hungry. I think your friend will, too. Just let it ride.

People go on fad diets all the time. But they go off of them. Lots of women spend their whole lives gaining and losing the same ten pounds. They're happy that way.

I wouldn't sweat my friends over fad diets.

My mom is the same way.
It's her hobby to try fad diets & makes her feel relevant I guess.
She gets to kvetch in the usual manner & when I try to talk sense to her, she says 'Oh, let me have my fun'....so I figured, why the hell not? :laugh:

I have a very close friend who has done every single stupid diet she reads about and has been doing this for at least 25 years (and probably before I met her, too.). Every new diet pill, she takes it.

For TWENTY FIVE YEARS, I have heard about this great new diet and that great new pill, only to hear that they didn't work out well in the end, but now there is something new! She's generally a bright person and if I pressed her, I know she would admit to the craziness, but I see no need.

If it were serious and she was getting really skinny or really fat, then I would. But it's not. It's just her thing.

It really is their hobby. They go on, they go off. They like it.

omg...that's my mom too! and you're right, it's not hurting & they seem to like the hamster wheel thing :blushing::laugh:

I have done 3 rounds of injectable hcg. It helped me lose about 16 lbs, which I kept off for 5 years or so, until recently when I began having a hormonal imbalance and gained a little bit back. I was DILIGENT about doing the diet EXACTLY the way I was supposed to according to Dr. Simeons. It helped me kick my gluten/carb/coke/processed food addictions and I have continued to eat clean since then. In that respect, it was a life saver for me.
On the other hand, shortly after my last round (during which, I felt "weird" like my body wasn't liking it), I found out I had a thyroid problem and adrenal fatigue. I have some friends that have the same thing. I've been wondering if hcg might have caused the thyroid condition. Really makes me leary.
Many people use hcg as a crutch, which I DO believe is unhealthy. I don't see any problem doing it once or twice to kickstart a healthy lifestyle, but I think there are problems associated with using it all the time.
FWIW, hcg helps your body feel satiated even with 500 calories. I was never starving. But for me, it's not worth the risk to ever do it again.

I have a friend who did it, and gained back double what she lost afterwards.

"In 1959, researchers in Israel reported that they had placed 45 patients on Simeons' diet, giving half the patients HCG injections and the other half saline injections. The two groups both lost weight at the same rate -- and all 45 participants complained of being constipated, hungry or weak.

In the early 1960s, researchers at UC San Francisco and at a U.S. Army Hospital in Fort Carson, Colo., came up with the same results. All three studies were published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

In the decades that followed, researchers continued to study the diet and to show that the hormone added little to the low-calorie regimen. In 1995, Dutch researchers reviewed the results of the 24 studies that had been conducted on the HCG diet.

Just 12 of them were well-designed, the scientists found; of those, 11 reported that HCG was ineffective in treating obesity. The Dutch team published its results in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology."

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/02/health/he-nutrition2

Conclusion; it works as well as dropping saline (and saline is much cheaper).