Looking for peeps who did HCG diet...with bad results

you lose the hair bc ur on a low fat diet- once you go back to normal eating after ur hypothalamus is reset, the hair grows back....and while doing the protocol it is advised to take biotin daily for the hair loss..... HCG works, and it is def not the placebo effect. With out the HCG a person can not continue eating a 500 calorie a day diet. Its just impossible---There have actually been studies done on actual placebos- and the results are all the same- people are starving, not losing weight as quickly- and losing all muscle mass. Opposed to Real HCG- where u can hardly finish ur 2 tiny meals and drop NOT only POUNDS but INCHES. On top of all of this information

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how could you possibly say something doesn't work, if you haven't tried it? Maybe you shouldn't judge a book by its cover and try the actual 23 day Protocol. Then come back and say the same thing.

Actually it is the HCG that does this..............and I wouldn't go to a nutritionist or a dietician that subscribed to the knowledge of conventional wisdom. I, myself, have went on after learning so much from my Naturopathic Dr who is also a nutrition expert that I have become a licensed and holistic nutrition educator.

I did the 500 calorie per day without the HCG and was losing MUSCLE mass like crazy, no energy and was compromising my immune system.

However, I experienced the exact opposite with the HCG injections. No muscle loss, lots of energy and I was losing pure fat.

MY doctor who is an M.D., Naturopathic M.D. and Nuttrition expert for Washington University in St Louis, MO put me on the HCG plan for other reasons than weight loss, but told me the weight loss would help with hormonal issues I was also having, in which it did because my pituitary and thyroid functions went back to normal and I was able to cease taking medications for this.

The weight loss was an added benefit and I don't regret doing the 2 rounds - not for one minute.

This is all anecdotal. How about some real clinical peer reviewed studies showing that NO MUSCLE is lost on HCG diet. There has to be some University, Independent lab or Science academy that has absolutely proven this to be true if that's what you're saying.


Also for those that don't know it. Male bodybuilder's (and some female bodybuilders) use HCG after they've done a cycle of steroids to "restart" their natural testosterone output. HCG in NY is a schedule III drug (like steroids are).

Of course that is what their research shows..............it is not the truth though. The research will be this way so that the pharmaceutical companies don't lose money on the millions they make off weight loss drugs that have detrimental effects on someone's health.

HCG is not harmful. it is naturally occurring in every single human being and more abundant in pregnant women of course. There is nothing that the small amount of HCG you inject could do to harm the human body.

I injected doses about 1,000 times higher when I was trying to conceive via IVF..............

And I have lost weight the "normal" and "healthy" way before and did not get off the thyroid and pituitary meds............

Wait, but the research you believe with no validity to back it up (other than the discoverer's which wouldn't make it peer reviewed) is true? I'm sorry, but there's a reason it's not been picked up by a Pharmaceutical company..........because it doesn't work. Don't you think that the money hungry pharmaceutical companies would take advantage of it if it did? And real HCG isn't cheap. Think about it.

I don't have any research...only my own personal experience. I did HCG through a nutrition center where I had a doctor monitor my progress and a nutritionist help with meal planning. I took prescribed nutritional supplements at the same time to counter the nutrients I was not getting.

PROS:

Weight loss. I lost 20 pounds in a 21 day cycle.

Healthier eating habits. True, you can say that I could have accomplished that all without HCG, but without the instant reward of weight loss I wouldn't have tried nearly so hard. Because of HCG scaring me to death with their "you can't cheat at all or you lose everything mentality" I was terrified to mess up even once. I could do it only because I knew it was only 21 days then I could adjust however I wanted. I found after the 21 days were up that I on a daily basis continued to eat a much higher volume of veggies and fruit and even protein then I ever had before. I know that is a personal mental block but nonetheless one I had.

I was 100% more aware of my body and what I was putting in it at all times because everything was so precise and methodical. That worked for me.

It was expensive enough that I still to this day (with this program as support) want to maintain the weight loss and I have since lost an additional 15 pounds. HCG is not a miracle. If you don't maintain, as with any diet, you will re-gain the weight. I didn't want to throw my money away.

CONS:

I was EXTREMELY hormonal. (It's a hormone, go figure). I was uncharacteristically snappy and grumpy a lot of the time.

The food got VERY boring. You can only mix it up so much. The list of allowed foods is extremely limited.

It was socially difficult. You don't realize how much food plays a role in our society unless you have a highly restrictive diet.

At times I had to force myself to finish because the portions were SO big. I know, you're saying how? It's only 500 calories. But there are only 6 calories in 1 ounce of spinach. Do you know how much 40 calories of spinach is??? I would go through SO much produce. It was insane. Beyond the first week I was never really ever hungry, just bored with the food.

Remembering to take the shots. Luckily I remembered.


Conclusion: Would I go back and do it all over? I think so. I didn't have any of the health problems you've described though, or the hair loss. It was the HARDEST thing I have done weight loss-wise bar none. I know it sounds like a quick fix but unless you are an extremely dedicated person I wouldn't start it because you'll just get frustrated if you cheat. I don't need it anymore now not because I don't still have weight to lose but I think I learned all I needed to learn through the process. I will lose the rest slow and steady with diet and exercise. The structure ingrained in me the habits I have today. It worked for me. Honestly if I had not done it I don't think I would have the lifestyle I have today.

I have no prejudices either way. This is just my own personal viewpoint from my own experience.

Bump for later reading....just because it's interesting...

Of course that is what their research shows..............it is not the truth though. The research will be this way so that the pharmaceutical companies don't lose money on the millions they make off weight loss drugs that have detrimental effects on someone's health.

HCG is not harmful. it is naturally occurring in every single human being and more abundant in pregnant women of course. There is nothing that the small amount of HCG you inject could do to harm the human body.

I injected doses about 1,000 times higher when I was trying to conceive via IVF..............

And I have lost weight the "normal" and "healthy" way before and did not get off the thyroid and pituitary meds............

Wait, but the research you believe with no validity to back it up (other than the discoverer's which wouldn't make it peer reviewed) is true? I'm sorry, but there's a reason it's not been picked up by a Pharmaceutical company..........because it doesn't work. Don't you think that the money hungry pharmaceutical companies would take advantage of it if it did? And real HCG isn't cheap. Think about it.

No, pharmaceutical companies ONLY pick up medications and drugs that can be PATENTED. Another reason it would never be picked up by the pharmaceutical companies is because the HCG plan has you eating basically natural, whole foods. Meat, vegetables and fruit.

If everyone that was overweight went on HCG, lost the weight and continued on with the lifestyle of eating natural whole foods it would run them out of business.................And this statement came from a friend who is a vice president of a pharmaceutical company in St Louis, MO

My doctor pulled out several scientific studies in the books in her office and showed me the REAL data. Not what the government and the pharmaceutical companies want you to see.

Here are some peer reviewed studies showing no significant benefit in weight loss with HCG vs. placebo:

1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1875285/?page=1
2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/321723
3. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2405506
4. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/786001
5. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/595585
6. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3609673

Here is a peer reviewed study that showed a significant difference between HCG patients' and placebo patients' weight loss (this study's methods have been "severely criticized" by the scientific community):

1. http://www.ajcn.org/content/26/2/211.long

The program is expensive and a 500 cal/day diet is below the daily calorie intake considered to be anorexic. I will add that just because an MD is administering the treatment does not mean that it is good. Not all doctors are entirely ethical in their practice. I worked for a doctor whose clinic also had a diet center peddling some meal replacement and appetite suppressant program. He was all about the money and a specialist in a completely unrelated area.

Those websites are government owned and operated websites and I don't trust what it has to say.

I will continue to trust my Naturopathic M.D. who also does not trust these government sites.

And if you go through your regular or a naturopathic dr who will just write the script - it is not expensive at all.

Pubmed is a repository for pretty much all the peer-reviewed medical journals in the English language. The NIH just maintains it, not produces the data itself. The articles are produced by academics around the world. You can find the same papers by going to the individual journal websites (most of which don't have anything to do with the government). If you're going to ignore every peer-reviewed piece of medical information out there, I don't know what on Earth to say to you.

i have read through the good bad and ugly on this thread, and wanted to add my 2 cents worth. First of all, if you are doing this diet without some professional guidance, that is mistake number one. Our bodies are all different, and react differently, have different nutritional needs, heck even different blood types need different foods, it all needs to be tracked by a knowledgeable person, otherwise you can be causing severe damage to your health.

Homeopathic vs real hcg ... I personally have found a big difference in effectiveness. homeopathic hcg needs to be tweaked according to how your body responds to it, if you are not using the correct homeopathic dosage for YOU, it will not work as it is supposed to ... ie, even if you lose weight, you will lose muscle not fat. without hcg, if you were able to maintain a 500 calorie a day diet, your body would burn muscle before fat, that is how our bodies starvation defense mechanisms work, without the appropriate hcg dosage (homeopathic or otherwise), you will not burn the fat instead of the muscle ...
I did my first round with homeopathic hcg, and had miserable results, switched to real hcg, and did wonders, tried one more round with homeopathic hcg, and nothing again ... i personally dont have the desire to tweak my homeopathic hcg dosage while I am eating 500 calories a day, i want to be losing while i am eating 500 calories a day, so i just do hcg injections now (you can do hcg sublingual, but I had a really hard time holding that liquid under my tongue so long)

the premise of this protocol is that by taking hcg, your body burns fat instead of muscle ... if you dont know what you are losing, invest in a cheap body composition scale, you can get them for under $50, and well worth it to see what your body is doing.

no diet has ever worked for me, being a blood type O, I generally have to get up and work out like a banchee in order to lose weight, I have several friends (30+) who have done this diet, only one was unsuccessful. Remember also that this is not a diet, it is a protocol, if you do not let your body and metabolism adjust correctly, you will regain the weight. The entire PROCESS is what is important with this diet. and phase 3 and phase 4 cannot be confined to '3 weeks', it again depends on your body, and how long it takes to stabilize. I have heard of people that have needed to take supplements in order to get their body re-stabilized.
I have friends that have lost 60-100 pounds on this diet, and kept it off for over 3 years.
also remember that if you eat more than your needed calorie intake for your weight, you will gain weight, that is plain and simple, regardless of how you lost the weight to start out with !!

but because I saw the success my friends had with this diet, I decided to give it a try .. I believe it needs to be tweaked for anyones individual needs, and if people are losing hair, or having other health concerns, they need to find out what supplements, or what they need to add to their diet (even if it causes less weight loss)

i joined a couple hcg forums out there, and a few with biochemists who did a wonderful job of explaining how things may or may not work, i have read just about everything I can get my hands on about this diet, and there will always be people saying it is a scam, but for me, personally, I have tons of proof in the people who have personally done this diet, lost ALOT of weight, and kept it off ... so much so that I avidly promote it to anyone who thinks they can handle the strict guidelines ... every one of them has been happy with the results ....

I've never done it but a good friend did with horrible results.

She did lose all the weight she wanted to but she has pretty much cannibalized her lean muscle mass so even at goal weight she is overall very flabby and strangely lumpy. Her dream was to look good in a bikini, as it is she doesn't even want to go to the beach in a one piece. She had very thin hair to start with and lost a lot of it on hcg. It still hasn't fully come back. While she was on the diet she looked terrible. Really pale, almost greyish, her eyes were dull and the hair she had left was brittle and dry. We went to a birthday party together and all night I had people pulling me aside to ask me if she was ill and just wasn't telling anyone. Between the injections, supplements and food she spent an insane amount of money. Her immune system is trashed now and the list of foods she can no longer tolerate is too long to mention.

She used to be prone to seasonal depression, since finishing the last cycle she has been depressed pretty much the entire time. That might be a concidence but I don't think the overall shape of her body, thinning hair and the fact that she's constantly sick is helping.

bump

Here are some peer reviewed studies showing no significant benefit in weight loss with HCG vs. placebo:

1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1875285/?page=1
2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/321723
3. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2405506
4. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/786001
5. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/595585
6. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3609673

Here is a peer reviewed study that showed a significant difference between HCG patients' and placebo patients' weight loss (this study's methods have been "severely criticized" by the scientific community):

1. http://www.ajcn.org/content/26/2/211.long

The program is expensive and a 500 cal/day diet is below the daily calorie intake considered to be anorexic. I will add that just because an MD is administering the treatment does not mean that it is good. Not all doctors are entirely ethical in their practice. I worked for a doctor whose clinic also had a diet center peddling some meal replacement and appetite suppressant program. He was all about the money and a specialist in a completely unrelated area.

Those websites are government owned and operated websites and I don't trust what it has to say.

I will continue to trust my Naturopathic M.D. who also does not trust these government sites.

And if you go through your regular or a naturopathic dr who will just write the script - it is not expensive at all.

The websites are government maintained databases of research from a variety of government-independent publications. It does not mean that all of the research papers on Pubmed are funded, conducted or reviewed by the government. A number of the publications are not even from the United States. You're free to do what you want with your body, but it's irresponsible to suggest to others that they deny published scientific research because it's all put out by the government (which isn't even true) and instead listen to anecdotes. If your MD believes that it is safe and effective for you, that's great. I bet I can find a number of MDs who would say the opposite.

I'm also not sure how you think the government would take interest in/benefit from providing false scientific information that may call the hcg diet into question. Why would they care? If they were truly concerned with the diet it would be FDA regulated.

Bump


I've been against HCG since the day I heard about it.

Jade -

This is the parable I use:

I imagine "healthy weight" as a harbor. I used HCG as a "tugboat" to help get my ship to harbor. But was having trouble staying in the harbor and drifted out. Once I drifted out far enough, I couldn't even see to "row" myself back to harbor - so I used hcg to get me back to the harbor. That has never been the real challenge for me. Staying in the harbor has been the challenge.

I (like so many others) didn't stick to the healthier diet. If the 'harbor " is 160lbs, I would drift 3, 5, 8 pounds up and lose my will to "row" - fight to get it back down.

This time I am being diligent about counting calories and macronutrients and as soon as I hit the 'magic number' - I do a correction day. I mean that exact same day - and it tightens the ropes to keep me in the harbor.

Yes I fluctuated. Yes 10 lbs seems like alot (although 150 wasn't a reasonable goal for me last year . . maybe in the future but not right now either). But when I had 'success' down to 150, and found myself looking at 170s and 180s again because I was depressed and went right back to food and my 'I don't care anymore' attitude, HCG helped me lose the weight. It doesn't fix the problem that made me eat but it keeps the weight from adding to the depression. Only God has helped me out of the depression and anger - he, like my husband, loves me no matter what I weigh and is teaching me to do the same.

That said . . . maybe there are other diet plans that could have done the same thing but this is the one I know. I know how to eat it, how to live it, how to respond to it. I trust it. And it works for me.

I am glad to see MFP members coming forward about the terrible experiences they had with the HCG starvation diet. Hopefully, others will heed your warning and avoid similar experiences. I know people that tried the HCG diet, and are now sorry they ever heard of it. They lost a bunch of weight from starving on the "recommended" 500 calories a day, but then it came right back and their metabolism was worse than ever. I also know people that felt fine on the plan, then suddenly became very ill when the malnutrition from this diet finally caught up with them.

Study after study has shown that HCG does NOTHING to help with weight loss. It does not protect muscle mass, make it save to eat only 500 calories a day, reset your metabolism, or do anything else the snake oil salesmen that sell it claim.

http://www.dietscam.org/reports/hcg.shtml

http://www.tucsonmedical.com/pages/hcg.php

http://factoidz.com/the-health-risks-of-the-hcg-diet/