HCG Diet - Win or Lose?

My doctor had tried it with some of her nurses, and the results were neutral. She does not recommend it to the patients. I say don't waste the money.

It's pretty obvious what this diet does. It supplies you with a "drop" that costs money and then you eat 500 calories each day. You're not losing weight from the drops, you're losing weight by only eating 500 calories per day and starving yourself. Dangerous crash diet, it's not healthy.

I am watching Dr. Drew and I was astonished that a person could eat only 500 calories per day. It claims that you can lose 1-2 pounds per day. Doesn't seem healthy, and once the diet is over and you go back to eating the amount of calories per day that you're supposed to, won't you gain a ton of weight back?

I'd like to know if anyone's tried this, the results, and what you think. If it's worked and you haven't gained everything back, I may just try it.

LOSE. And I mean it as bad thins.

A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Hello,

Good luck with your weight loss goals, but the HCG diet is not a safe way to jump start the process. I know people that tried it and had horrible experiences. Yes, they lost weight fast, but they were tired and sick most of the time they were on 500 calories, and then when they started eating in a normal, healthy calorie range again, they regained rapidly -- even though they were eating healthy and exercising. So basically, it's just another yo yo fad diet, but more dangerous than most because of the extremely low calorie limitations.

The only reason people lose weight on that plan is you are only allowed to eat 500 calories a day. HCG has been scientifically proven to do NOTHING to help with weight loss or to make it safe to eat only 500 calories a day. It will not protect muscle, reset your metabolism or do anything else the snake oil salesmen that sell it claim. Dr. Simeons was a quack doctor. His "HCG protocol" has absolutely NO scientific backing and is not worth risking your health on.

The HCG diet has been studied by many scientific organizations, and they all concluded that HCG, even the "real" injectable version, is no more effective than a placebo, and eating only 500 calories a day for weeks, as recommended by that plan, can cause more health problems than it solves.

The MFP moderators have been cautioning members against attempting that diet because it is so dangerous.

Please read the articles on these websites before you try HCG. I know some people that put their faith in the HCG diet, and became very ill from malnutrition as a result. Then they regained more weight than they lost. Now they wish they never heard of HCG.

The Government is now in the process of getting all that fraudulent stuff off the market, and it's about time!

http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm281333.htm

http://www.myhealthnewsdaily.com/hcg-diet-dangerous-1428

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/hcg-diet/AN02091

http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/truth-about-hcg-for-weight-loss

http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/weight-loss-cure-dont-want-you-to-know

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

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

I don't know anything about the HCG diet but when I was 17 years old I ate 500 kcals a day because I heard that was how Nichol Ritchie lost weight *rolls eyes*. I lost 4 stone in 2 months and my hair started falling out, my nails all snapped off and I started bruising easily. Luckily I stopped starving myself before I became anemic but I gained back six stone :-(
On the up side I joined MFP and now I'm 12lbs away from the weight I was when I was 17 (& healthy) and I did it in about 6 months on 1400kcals a day :-) xx