HCG Diet

Didn't the FDA recently say that it's an illegal substance? I recall it's a controlled substance in many states and you need an RX for HGC, but I recall the FDA saying recently it was BS and illegal at that.

Ah found the article: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/49921/

"Weight loss products that contain hCG are fraudulent and illegal, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said over the weekend, according to an exclusive report from USA Today.

The advertisers claim that the products, which are heavily advertised on the Internet, are homeopathic and sold in pellets, drops, and sprays. They are sold in drugstores, General Nutrition Centers, and via the Internet, the report said.

The products, which contain the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) as an active ingredient, are said to be taken by a person while he or she consumes less than 500 calories per day.

The FDA told the newspaper that no evidence shows that hCG is effective as a weight loss product.

Elizabeth Miller of the FDA’s Internet fraud team told USA Today that they might not be dangerous, but at least they are an “economic fraud.”

"We are aware of hCG products that claim to be homeopathic, but it is not recognized in the Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia,” she said, adding that they “are not recognized by the FDA as homeopathic drugs, so they are unapproved drugs and are illegal.”"

As with ANY diet do your own research. I did. Many of the people adding their opinions in are adding just that- opinions. If you actaully did the research you would know that the HCG diet ENCOURAGES healthy food choices. Everybody gets stuck on the 500 calorie portion of the diet -IF they have not looked into it further and they form their opinions from that. MY husband was one of those people. Until he started checking into it further. Yes it is a pregnancy hormone- but it does NOT trick your body into thinking its pregnant. But it does encourage your body to release the energy/calories and nutrients that it has stored- up to about 3000 calories worth daily, in addition to the 500 calories you consume. And when you are eating healthy foods-not processed junk- 500 calories goes a loooong ways. On that portion of the diet I ate more than I did BEFORE the diet, on a daily basis. Two protiens, two vegetables and two servings of fruits a day plus crackers. It was enough to keep me from having any hunger. I lost about half a pound a day. In all I have lost close to 50 pounds and my husband, who also ended up on the HCG diet, lost 80 pounds. We have maintained with no problems for several months now- we started back in July. Being on the HCG diet taught us to make healthier food choices and to recognize proper portion sizes.
Using any diet aid is cheating? wow, really? To each his own, if it works for you and is not harmful, and it gets you to drop the weight which IS harmful -then who are you to call another a cheater? Harsh. I am almost 50 pounds lighter and maintaining beautifully, thank you very much. HCG is what helped me to accomplish that.

give it time. im sure this too will soon be recalled, or doctors, nutritionists, etc, will be hollering about all the side effects. (short term, long term, whatever) and yes. i believe it is cheating. why cant you put in the hard work and get healthy yourself?

Give it time? This diet has been around for over 40 years. How much more time do you think we should give it? It was developed and throughly researched by a medical doctor. There have been no side effects found. Maybe we should wait another 20 to see? Call it what you will- sounds like a pre judgement based on very little knowledge. I AM healthy and have put in hard work. No healthy lifestyle change is easy or without effort.The hHCG portion is for a short period of time- the lifestyle change is for the rest of my life. I am now in a healthier place than I have been in my entire adult life.
If you have not spent time researching and learning about it or actually experiencing it- dont make the judgement calls. Thats like asking a mechanic about how to fix a cars engine and the gardener pipes up with the horror stories he has heard from a friend of a friend...

lmao. to each their own. ill stick to doing it the natural way. and ill keep my opinion of how unhealthy i think the hcg diet crap is.

BTW- Found this interesting: http://fatlosschronicles.blogspot.com/

As with ANY diet do your own research. I did. Many of the people adding their opinions in are adding just that- opinions. If you actaully did the research you would know that the HCG diet ENCOURAGES healthy food choices. Everybody gets stuck on the 500 calorie portion of the diet -IF they have not looked into it further and they form their opinions from that. MY husband was one of those people. Until he started checking into it further. Yes it is a pregnancy hormone- but it does NOT trick your body into thinking its pregnant. But it does encourage your body to release the energy/calories and nutrients that it has stored- up to about 3000 calories worth daily, in addition to the 500 calories you consume. And when you are eating healthy foods-not processed junk- 500 calories goes a loooong ways. On that portion of the diet I ate more than I did BEFORE the diet, on a daily basis. Two protiens, two vegetables and two servings of fruits a day plus crackers. It was enough to keep me from having any hunger. I lost about half a pound a day. In all I have lost close to 50 pounds and my husband, who also ended up on the HCG diet, lost 80 pounds. We have maintained with no problems for several months now- we started back in July. Being on the HCG diet taught us to make healthier food choices and to recognize proper portion sizes.
Using any diet aid is cheating? wow, really? To each his own, if it works for you and is not harmful, and it gets you to drop the weight which IS harmful -then who are you to call another a cheater? Harsh. I am almost 50 pounds lighter and maintaining beautifully, thank you very much. HCG is what helped me to accomplish that.

give it time. im sure this too will soon be recalled, or doctors, nutritionists, etc, will be hollering about all the side effects. (short term, long term, whatever) and yes. i believe it is cheating. why cant you put in the hard work and get healthy yourself?

Give it time? This diet has been around for over 40 years. How much more time do you think we should give it? It was developed and throughly researched by a medical doctor. There have been no side effects found. Maybe we should wait another 20 to see? Call it what you will- sounds like a pre judgement based on very little knowledge. I AM healthy and have put in hard work. No healthy lifestyle change is easy or without effort.The hHCG portion is for a short period of time- the lifestyle change is for the rest of my life. I am now in a healthier place than I have been in my entire adult life.
If you have not spent time researching and learning about it or actually experiencing it- dont make the judgement calls. Thats like asking a mechanic about how to fix a cars engine and the gardener pipes up with the horror stories he has heard from a friend of a friend...

Nicely statement. Dr Simeons wrote this plan back in the 1940's............

If HCG were bad for us, any woman that became pregnant would be causing damage to her health. The amount of HCG we are even using isn't even a fraction of what a pregnant woman makes during her pregnancy or what fertility doctors prescribe for fertility treatments, which I know all about given I did 3 rounds of Invitro Fertilization and had to give myself HCG shots as part of the fertility treatment - the doses were way higher than what the Dr prescribed to me for the HCG plan.

HCG is utter woo. (That's the slightly more polite way to point out that it is crap.) Many double blind studies have shown that the results you see are due to it being a starvation diet and there is no difference between taking HCG injections and injections of saline or water. If you have access to proquest then do searches for studies on HCG and you'll see that it is basically worthless. You'll always see people defending it (typically the types who believe in homeopathy and other unscientific things), but you have to remember that the plural of anecdote is not data.

It's hormone drops or shots that help speed up you metaboism, and eating just 500 calories per day.

500 cals a day isnt healthy! your body NEEDS at least 1200!!

Your body is burning fat so you are "consuming" way more than 500 or even 1200 calories per day. The vitamins and minerals that are stored in the fat are then utilized.

... Only SOME vitamins are stored in fat. They're called fat-soluble vitamins. Others (water soluble) are not and must be eaten to be replenished.

Sorry, I have to agree with the above posters assessment that this is "utter woo. (That's the slightly more polite way to point out that it is crap.)" Starvation diets are BS. Eat healthy. 500 cal a day? Not healthy and I despise it even more because it can lead to eating disorders even more so.

"Nothing frustrates me more than people who dont have any knowledge of what they are speaking of, yet they throw their OPINIONS out there as though they are facts."

Here are some facts from just a few papers I ran across in my research- peer reviewed documentation:
- Disorders Fuel Metabolism: Medical Complications Associated with Starvation, Eating Disorders, Dietary Fads, and Supplements - Bryan S. Judge MD and Bernard H. Eisenga PhD, MD. Published in Emergency Medicine Clinics of North America Volume 23, Issue 3, August 2005, Pages 789-813 (pay close attention to the section Disorders associated with abnormal intake- Eating disorders and the section Fad diets in this paper)
- Illicit Use of hCG in Dietary Programs and Use to Promote Anabolism - Laurence A. Cole. Published in Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, 2010, Pages 209-213

Fact 1- Starvation diets are "utter woo" and incredibly unhealthy. A REASONABLE caloric restriction of around 500 cal under what is required by ones body (like what MFP uses) will produce weight loss. More than can lead to nutrient deficiency/malnutrition, eating disorders, and yes even death. [Seriously, I'm not posting the links to the papers to substantiate these claims. They're linked in the papers above and I'm not going to re-post them. There's plenty of sources that substantiate this without me having to point them out.]
Fact 2- There's no proof that HCG promotes weight loss at all. The 500 cal restriction (disastrously unhealthy as it is) is likely the driving factor in that weight loss, NOT the HCG. - S. Barrett, HCG worthless as weight-loss aid: Diet Scam Watch Web site http://www.dietscam.org/reports/hcg.shtml Accessed September 27, 2010. (Includes 18 references including this gem: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2405506?dopt=Abstract )



Ignore the "little blue pills". They're "utter woo". Go with a good diet, cut calories reasonably to loose weight and get exercise. Everything else is snake oil and in this case extremely bad for you snake oil.

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." - Michael Pollan

HCG is utter woo. (That's the slightly more polite way to point out that it is crap.) Many double blind studies have shown that the results you see are due to it being a starvation diet and there is no difference between taking HCG injections and injections of saline or water. If you have access to proquest then do searches for studies on HCG and you'll see that it is basically worthless. You'll always see people defending it (typically the types who believe in homeopathy and other unscientific things), but you have to remember that the plural of anecdote is not data.

Those so called double blind tests are biased and can not be trusted. I trust the research and the results of Dr Simeons. There are too many people that have had success on this plan to call it "utter wooo".

There is a huge difference between trying to consume 500 calories with or without the HCG. Ask ME how I know???? I tried it.

Without the HCG, utter hunger and fatigue and problems sleeping. With the HCG, no hunger, better sleep and lost weight effortlessly.

How exactly can a double blind test be biased?

Your personal anecdote is in no way scientific or a reliable indication of the potential for success. Like I said, the preponderance of scientific evidence shows that HCG diet is woo and any effect seen is purely placebo. Now if you don't believe in science, that's okay, but pushing a dangerous and ineffective diet on people is wrong.

I can't imagine that 500 calories a day would be healthy.

I did the hCG diet and I am both pro and con about it. Yes, 500 calories scares me, BUT this diet is all about AFTER you stop the drops. Read Dr Simeon's protocol, it talks a lot about what to eat after it is over. Yes, you will meet tons of people who have gained the weight back after the diet, because they are off the drops and hunger is back. Along with this, with this hunger it is easier to cheat and that is why the weight is gained. To everyone who is anti-hCG, check out the maintenance phase of the diet and what it involves. It is very healthy living!