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A good friend of mine has recently completed an intensive weight loss program that involved a very low calorie diet (VLCD) plus daily shots of HcG. Calories were 500 kcal per day, coming mostly from protein and HcG was shot daily at 125 iu per day, delivered intramuscularly. This particular diet is advocated by Kevin Trudeau, the unorthodox diet and health "expert" famous for his late night infomercials as well as a medical practicioner named Dr. Simmeons (might have spelled not one but both of their names wrong). I was against this whole thing due to the lack of strong medical support for the use of HcG as a weight loss agent but the results were impressive.
Below you will find his first had account of this diet as well as how much weight was lost while on it. Before you read this up, please allow me to share a few observations. First of all, the diet advocates going all out before you begin this regimen; you just gorge on very high calorie food for a few days before starting to dramatically reduce calories. So you will go from a very loaded to a very carb depleted state and a good chunk of weight will be lost as a result of water and glycogen depletion alone. Secondly, note that this particular individual holds a great deal of muscle at almost any weight. He is one of my best friends and a champion wrestler back in high school. He also is my jiu-jitsu training partner and strong as a bull; very typical endomorph and puts on muscle very easily. As his begging weight shows, however, he also gains fat very easily and was holdnig a load of fat at the beginning. However, this was more of a powerlifter look, not a couch potato appearance by any means. Also, I have every reason to believe that his account and measurements are extremely accurate. He is a very diligent individual, very attentive to details and extremely disciplined. So here is what he experienced:
...........................................................................
I've just completed my first two phases of the HCG diet, and wanted to report my results. As an overall, my impression of this diet is that it is by far one of the easiest diets that I've ever engaged in. I've done various other types of dieting from Atkins/Zone/ABCDE/Extreme Naga weight loss, and by far this one is easy for the following reasons:
1) no hunger throughout the diet;
2) fairly easy to follow but strict eating methodology;
3) weight loss each and every day.
This diet involves taking HCG an ingredient from the urine of pregnant women. What this ingredient does is it simulates to the hypothalamus that you're pregnant, which triggers two things: 1) a lack of appetite and 2) fat loss from abnormal fatty deposits in your body. To cause your abnormal fat to be reabsorbed by the body, however, while taking HCG, it is super important to maintain a very low caloric diet (VLCD) of 500 calories per day. Furthermore, what Dr. Simmeons postulates is even more profound: 3) that by giving your hypothalamus a rest, that it will be "reset" and after this diet, you can eat whatever and whenever you like without gaining a single pound ever again.
My summary is as follows:
Starting weight: 242.5
Ending weight: 204
Days on diet: 46 days
Total weight lost: 38.5 lbs.
Average weight lost per day: 0.84 lbs.
Total inches lost (on waist, hips and chest): 14.25"
I have a few thoughts on this diet: 1) on the lack of hunger, 2) forecast on the daily weight loss and 3) the forecasted inches lost.
Lack of Appetite. I'm a fairly big eater but also have an extreme amount of discipline (from my wrestling days). I have noticed in the past when cutting an extreme amount of weight or going on a diet, that I commonly get what I call "hungry breath." I remember reading many years ago that this mechanism is thought to send these bad tastes from your stomach to your mouth and tells the brain that you're no longer hungry (so that you can concentrate on getting food, rather than being hungry). This mechanism works backwards when it comes to aneorexic girls, but that's another article entirely. However, two things occur prior to this hungry breath, and that is an amazingly voracious appetite while I'm dieting for two to three days before getting hungry breath. This is usually the time that I'm losing the most weight, which is encouraging, but it is extremely difficult for me to maintain a low caloric intake and almost painfully so, until I get to hungry breath stage. On this diet, I experienced no hunger at all even at the early stages of the diet, and never experienced hungry breath.
Daily Weight Loss. Dr. Simmeons forecasted a few things from his experiences with this diet. Both of them came true. With regard to the daily weight loss, Dr. Simmeons forecasted that each and every person on this diet, regardless of how obese they were, would lose just under 1 pound per day on this diet. This was amazingly accurate. There would be days that I would wake up and weigh myself not expecting to lose any weight whatsoever, as I was eating the recommended diet, but since it was so easy, I did not expect to lose any weight. I was amazed each and every day that the weight came off. I lost 0.84 lbs per day, which is right in line with Dr. Simmeon's forecast. There were two or three days where I was forced to come off the diet. On each occasion, my weight either went up, or stayed the same. The hardest part of this diet is not with appetite, but rather in social settings, when everybody is eating your favorite foods, and you cannot eat anything but your 100 grams of protein, your designated vegetable and fruit, and your breadstick.
Forecasted Inches Lost. Dr. Simmeons also forecasted that for every kilogram a person lost, that you would lose 1 cm on the most problematic of areas. This was also amazingly accurate. I lost 38.5 lbs which equates to 17.46 kilos lost which equates to 17.46 cms which equals 6.88." I lost a total of 6.75" around each of my hips and my waist, my most problematic area of fatty areas. So I'd give Dr. Simmeons the benefit of the doubt and give him the 0.15" difference and strike this up to Dr. Simmeon's experiences with many more patients of which I probably fall within the norm.
Where Do I Go From Here? Okay, so after this diet, I have done largely a South Beach diet for three weeks, upon which time I understand that my hypothalmaus is being "reset." What was completely amazing to me was that during this time as well as after this three week period my appetite has returned, but I haven't gained any weight. In my past dieting and cleansing experience, I have found that I gained 40%-60% of my lost weight within the first couple of days of regular eating. Yesterday, for example, I ate three slices of pizza and a huge helping of eggplant parmagian with no weight gain.
After six or seven weeks, sometime in the New Year, I plan on doing another round or two of this HCG diet (you need to wait at least six weeks before starting HCG again, lest you become HCG resistant, which is supposed to start with a great deal of hunger and furthermore means that the HCG is no longer acting on the hypothalamus and no longer burning your abnormal fat. He has had instances where people became HCG resistant within 30-40 days, and his plan of action in that case is to immediately remove the patient from this HCG diet. My ultimate plan is to get down to 179lbs.
If anyone has any thoughts, comments or questions, please feel free. Now I know that none of you guys have had any weight problems, but still I respect all of you guys for different reasons.
Attached for your review is a fairly detailed chart of my weight loss, a graph of my weight loss and a graph of the inches that I lost and where I lost them.
....................................................................
With all this in mind, what do you think? Can HcG be the wonder drug for fat loss or is this experiment too flawed to draw any conclusions? Beyond this particular experiment, is there a sufficient theoretical basis to use HcG as a weight loss aid?
Below you will find his first had account of this diet as well as how much weight was lost while on it. Before you read this up, please allow me to share a few observations. First of all, the diet advocates going all out before you begin this regimen; you just gorge on very high calorie food for a few days before starting to dramatically reduce calories. So you will go from a very loaded to a very carb depleted state and a good chunk of weight will be lost as a result of water and glycogen depletion alone. Secondly, note that this particular individual holds a great deal of muscle at almost any weight. He is one of my best friends and a champion wrestler back in high school. He also is my jiu-jitsu training partner and strong as a bull; very typical endomorph and puts on muscle very easily. As his begging weight shows, however, he also gains fat very easily and was holdnig a load of fat at the beginning. However, this was more of a powerlifter look, not a couch potato appearance by any means. Also, I have every reason to believe that his account and measurements are extremely accurate. He is a very diligent individual, very attentive to details and extremely disciplined. So here is what he experienced:
...........................................................................
I've just completed my first two phases of the HCG diet, and wanted to report my results. As an overall, my impression of this diet is that it is by far one of the easiest diets that I've ever engaged in. I've done various other types of dieting from Atkins/Zone/ABCDE/Extreme Naga weight loss, and by far this one is easy for the following reasons:
1) no hunger throughout the diet;
2) fairly easy to follow but strict eating methodology;
3) weight loss each and every day.
This diet involves taking HCG an ingredient from the urine of pregnant women. What this ingredient does is it simulates to the hypothalamus that you're pregnant, which triggers two things: 1) a lack of appetite and 2) fat loss from abnormal fatty deposits in your body. To cause your abnormal fat to be reabsorbed by the body, however, while taking HCG, it is super important to maintain a very low caloric diet (VLCD) of 500 calories per day. Furthermore, what Dr. Simmeons postulates is even more profound: 3) that by giving your hypothalamus a rest, that it will be "reset" and after this diet, you can eat whatever and whenever you like without gaining a single pound ever again.
My summary is as follows:
Starting weight: 242.5
Ending weight: 204
Days on diet: 46 days
Total weight lost: 38.5 lbs.
Average weight lost per day: 0.84 lbs.
Total inches lost (on waist, hips and chest): 14.25"
I have a few thoughts on this diet: 1) on the lack of hunger, 2) forecast on the daily weight loss and 3) the forecasted inches lost.
Lack of Appetite. I'm a fairly big eater but also have an extreme amount of discipline (from my wrestling days). I have noticed in the past when cutting an extreme amount of weight or going on a diet, that I commonly get what I call "hungry breath." I remember reading many years ago that this mechanism is thought to send these bad tastes from your stomach to your mouth and tells the brain that you're no longer hungry (so that you can concentrate on getting food, rather than being hungry). This mechanism works backwards when it comes to aneorexic girls, but that's another article entirely. However, two things occur prior to this hungry breath, and that is an amazingly voracious appetite while I'm dieting for two to three days before getting hungry breath. This is usually the time that I'm losing the most weight, which is encouraging, but it is extremely difficult for me to maintain a low caloric intake and almost painfully so, until I get to hungry breath stage. On this diet, I experienced no hunger at all even at the early stages of the diet, and never experienced hungry breath.
Daily Weight Loss. Dr. Simmeons forecasted a few things from his experiences with this diet. Both of them came true. With regard to the daily weight loss, Dr. Simmeons forecasted that each and every person on this diet, regardless of how obese they were, would lose just under 1 pound per day on this diet. This was amazingly accurate. There would be days that I would wake up and weigh myself not expecting to lose any weight whatsoever, as I was eating the recommended diet, but since it was so easy, I did not expect to lose any weight. I was amazed each and every day that the weight came off. I lost 0.84 lbs per day, which is right in line with Dr. Simmeon's forecast. There were two or three days where I was forced to come off the diet. On each occasion, my weight either went up, or stayed the same. The hardest part of this diet is not with appetite, but rather in social settings, when everybody is eating your favorite foods, and you cannot eat anything but your 100 grams of protein, your designated vegetable and fruit, and your breadstick.
Forecasted Inches Lost. Dr. Simmeons also forecasted that for every kilogram a person lost, that you would lose 1 cm on the most problematic of areas. This was also amazingly accurate. I lost 38.5 lbs which equates to 17.46 kilos lost which equates to 17.46 cms which equals 6.88." I lost a total of 6.75" around each of my hips and my waist, my most problematic area of fatty areas. So I'd give Dr. Simmeons the benefit of the doubt and give him the 0.15" difference and strike this up to Dr. Simmeon's experiences with many more patients of which I probably fall within the norm.
Where Do I Go From Here? Okay, so after this diet, I have done largely a South Beach diet for three weeks, upon which time I understand that my hypothalmaus is being "reset." What was completely amazing to me was that during this time as well as after this three week period my appetite has returned, but I haven't gained any weight. In my past dieting and cleansing experience, I have found that I gained 40%-60% of my lost weight within the first couple of days of regular eating. Yesterday, for example, I ate three slices of pizza and a huge helping of eggplant parmagian with no weight gain.
After six or seven weeks, sometime in the New Year, I plan on doing another round or two of this HCG diet (you need to wait at least six weeks before starting HCG again, lest you become HCG resistant, which is supposed to start with a great deal of hunger and furthermore means that the HCG is no longer acting on the hypothalamus and no longer burning your abnormal fat. He has had instances where people became HCG resistant within 30-40 days, and his plan of action in that case is to immediately remove the patient from this HCG diet. My ultimate plan is to get down to 179lbs.
If anyone has any thoughts, comments or questions, please feel free. Now I know that none of you guys have had any weight problems, but still I respect all of you guys for different reasons.
Attached for your review is a fairly detailed chart of my weight loss, a graph of my weight loss and a graph of the inches that I lost and where I lost them.
....................................................................
With all this in mind, what do you think? Can HcG be the wonder drug for fat loss or is this experiment too flawed to draw any conclusions? Beyond this particular experiment, is there a sufficient theoretical basis to use HcG as a weight loss aid?
