Help With a Research Paper on Fad Diets

Water weight would be my guess, if you're talking about the first week.

Assuming they actually have some energy, they could be exercising as well, which would up their caloric deficit.

BUMP!!! Cause I wana know too!!!

I hadn't thought about it that way. Perhaps the real world enters into this. For the same reason a person could eat right, exercise, burn more calories than they ate and then gain weight.

At the beginning it is probably a lot of water weight.
They are also probably losing muscle too.
You also have to keep in mind these people are overweight, so their body burns more calories just to maintain, so the calculations are going to be all askew. A person that weighs 300 lbs is going to need more calories to sustain, than a person who weighs 150lbs. If they both start consuming the same number of calories then the one that weighs more with lose more. Their daily activities are different.
Their body is going to react differently due to the shock factor too. (Their bodies have go to be in shock with that low of eating.) Some bodies will fight it some with thrive.
Unless you have a body bugg with them all in a completely controled environment you are going to get more variables, than you know what to do with. Gender, age, weight, muscle mass, all of these things will alter the outcome.

Good luck on your paper. I don't know what angle you are going for, but best wishes anyway.

Have you read Dr. Simeon's original book about the HCG protocol, "Pounds and Inches"? He explains that the hcg helps us to burn our abnormal fat stores that we already have in our body. Look at men who aren't on hcg or anything, they go on a diet and bam, lose faster than women and we attribute it to the fact that they have more muscle mass so the muscle helps them burn fat. I think the hcg must be working in somewhat the same way.

I'm about to finish my 3rd round of HCG since May, have lost a net of 55 lbs and feel great and am eating so healthily. I can't explain HOW it works. I just know that it does.

There isn't a shred of peer-reviewed science to support that HGC does a thing to promote weight loss, and plenty to show that it doesn't do a thing.

Thank you hmalin and dlaplume2. Both good points. Without a controlled enviornment it is hard to know all the veriables I was just hoping to get an idea. As far as my angle it strictly a research paper so I have no opinion on WHEATHER it is a good or bad thing.

I'm sorry I didn't mean to imply any secret angle. I meant as to what angle you were looking at as far as technical medical aspects, societies opinion on fad diets, whether or not there is an scientific evidence that they work or not, maybe the placebo aspect of whether the results are real or just optomistic thinking. That kind of angle.

As with most topics you show me ten surveys for it and I will show you 10 against it, from any angle. I was just curious to know which angle you were coming from. It would also depend on what class it was for. If it's science then the technical aspect comes into play. If it was english, any thing could go. If it were a political class or socialogy, then the way society accepts these would be pertinent.

Just my 2 cents

How do we know they wouldn't have lost just as much by eating the 500 calories alone?

Well, I for one have done the 500 calories per day with and without the HCG.

Without the HCG I barely lasted 3 days due to starving and rumbles in my stomach and constantly feeling like I wanted to throw up. I only lost a pound or 2 this way also.

Taking the HCG injection that my doctor prescribed to me I was never hungry and sometimes had to force myself to eat. I did 2 rounds of HCG and lost 38 pounds last year that I kept off.

Read this.. This should help with some solid info.

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance-equation.html

Nice Read!!!

Earlier this year my daughter did the HCG diet and lost 52 pounds, I was against it after reading up on it on the internet...I started a program of using my elliptical machine for 40 minutes 6 days a week, and a well balanced diet of about 1200 calories, well minus the work out calories I'd say we were about even, like I said she lost 52 and my weight loss, oh yeah, a great 2 pounds!!! At 57 nothing seemed to get the weight moving, I am very active have a very physical job and am in good health eat healthy, just overweight!!
Out of desperation I finally gave in and said I too would try the HCG, well in 45 days I have lost 30 pounds and did not lose my energy. My husband who has been a body builder most of his adult life also then did a quick round and lost the extra body fat around his middle, not his muscle. I was simply going to give it a try to show how it did not work...but that did not happen.

Earlier this year my daughter did the HCG diet and lost 52 pounds, I was against it after reading up on it on the internet...I started a program of using my elliptical machine for 40 minutes 6 days a week, and a well balanced diet of about 1200 calories, well minus the work out calories I'd say we were about even, like I said she lost 52 and my weight loss, oh yeah, a great 2 pounds!!! At 57 nothing seemed to get the weight moving, I am very active have a very physical job and am in good health eat healthy, just overweight!!
Out of desperation I finally gave in and said I too would try the HCG, well in 45 days I have lost 30 pounds and did not lose my energy. My husband who has been a body builder most of his adult life also then did a quick round and lost the extra body fat around his middle, not his muscle. I was simply going to give it a try to show how it did not work...but that did not happen.

I'm not saying the HCG was what worked or didn't work, but did you try it at 500 calories without the HCG, or, at your normal calories with the HCG. If it were the HCG, then why can't you eat normal and take the HCG and lose weight?

How about when you go back to eating normal?