My Sister Loses One Pound/Day on hCG
Reset Your Metabolism and Lose Weight with the hCG Diet. Learn what hCG is, how it works, the process of the regimen, the best kind to use. And get the ebook of the MD who invented it.
UPDATE: This could be a mini test case underscoring the controversy of the hCG diet – While my mother loved the diet, had energy and lost and has kept off more than 40 pounds, my sister did one “round” (as she describes below) and wound up feeling poorly and has decided not to go further, despite her success in losing weight.
If you do a Google search for “hCG Diet” today, November 12, 2010 at 12:33 PM Pacific Time, you’ll get 2,170,000 results. hCG is the most well known diet you’ve never heard of. And although most people lose a pound a day, the reason for its relative obscurity may be that this diet seems crazy.
How can taking a strange hormone (often by injection), and consuming only 500 non-carb calories a day be good for you?
That was my thought and I held to it as my mother went through three “rounds” of the hCG Diet over a period of about ten months. My sister and I would huddle and say, “Can you believe what mom’s up to now… this is sooo unhealthy!”
But it’s hard to reject success, and my mother has not gained back one of the 50-something pounds she lost, now three months since she completed the diet. This did not go unnoticed by my sister, who has battled her weight problem since her teenage years.
Like my mother, my sister has tried everything to lose weight. Almost everything she tried worked, at least a bit, but – invariably – all the weight lost came back, and then some. Still, she was resistant to the whole idea of hCG until her conservative chiropractor suggested it to her.
Sis was blown away. This chiropractor was typically dismissive of easy, hocus pocus cures. From out of the blue – knowing nothing of my mother’s experience with hCG – this guy was pitching it my sister. Along with an MD and Naturopath in his practice, the chiropractor guided patients through the procedure and had dramatic results. This opened my sister to it, and now she’s on day 18 of the first “round”, and has lost 18 pounds. (Update: She’s now done with her first round and lost 24 pounds.)
So, What is hCG and How Does it Work?
There’s more information on the Web then you’ll ever be able to read on this subject. Suffice to say that hCG (Human chorionic gonadotropin) is a hormone produced by a woman’s body to help support pregnancy. Despite the source from which it’s derived, hCG is equally effective with both men and women for weight loss.
The hCG Diet was developed over fifty years ago by British endocrinologist T.W. Simeons. While studying pregnant women in India on a calorie-deficient diet, and “fat boys” with pituitary problems, he found that both lost fat rather than lean (muscle) tissue when treated with low-dose hCG. Simeons reasoned that hCG must be programming the hypothalamus to do this in order to protect the developing fetus by promoting mobilization and consumption of abnormal, excessive adipose deposits.
Simeon’s hypothesis is that our bodies hold different kinds of fat, and the “abnormal” kind sticks around no matter what we do to get rid of it. At 500 calories a day from non-carb food – far less than any adult needs to match caloric output – in combination with hCG, the body is forced to use this “abnormal” fat to supply the rest of the caloric requirements of our bodies.
The Process
How the diet is done is similar whether you inject it, take it subliminally or spray the roof of your mouth. According to the Naturopath who is consulting my sister on this program, studies demonstrate that the injectable form of hCG works over the long term to reduce so-called “abnormal” fat and reset metabolism. There are not yet conclusive studies on the homeopathic or sublingual forms of hCG. Needles can be scary, but in this case diabetic needles are used – the same used by millions world-wide every day – and do not hurt.
[Note: To obtain the injectable form (quality) of hCG requires a subscription from a health practitioner (MD not required), must be mixed before use, and refrigerated. To circumvent this, many people use the sublingual or homeopathic forms, but these may not be as effective. (See a discussion of this below.)]The specs on the diet are very exacting. Certain foods MUST NOT be eaten, and certain foods MUST BE eaten; for instance, a specific protein combined with a specific vegetable. It would be impossible for most of us to subsist on such restricted food of 500 calories per day if it weren’t for the energy released by metabolizing the abnormal fat along with the appetite suppression provided by hCG.
Each round is between 26 and 40 days, depending on how much weight you wish to lose. After a round of hCG use, the dieter enters a “stabilizing phase” for 21 days (three weeks) where she can eat whatever is wanted except carbohydrates or sugars. Then the dieter slowly adds in different foods in a maintenance mode over a period of 21 days (another three weeks) before she can begin the next round, if desired. (This is so the body doesn’t develop resistance to hCG.) No more than three rounds should be done in one year.
Given that most people do not lose more than about 34 pounds per round, those wishing to lose more must complete a second or third round in a given year. As mentioned, a second round can be started after an interval of not less than six weeks, though the pause can be more than six weeks.
When a third, fourth or even fifth course is necessary, the interval between rounds should be made progressively longer. Between a second and third round, eight weeks should elapse; between a third and fourth round, 12 weeks; between a fourth and fifth round 20 weeks; and between a fifth and sixth course, six months. In this way it is possible to bring about a weight reduction of 100 lbs. and more without hardship to the dieter.
As a general rule, 60-70% of hCG dieters experience little or no difficulty in holding their weight permanently. This is remarkable since most dieters regain most of, all of, or more weight than they lost to begin with.
What if You Only Have 15 Pounds to Lose?
People who need to lose 15 pounds (7 kg.) or less require 26 days treatment with 23 daily injections. (For this situation, I don’t know the protocol for the sublingual/oral form of hCG.)
The extra three days are needed because dieters must continue the 500 calorie diet for three days after the last injection. This is a very essential part of the treatment, because if they start eating normally, if there’s a trace of HCG in their body, they will experience a rapid weight gain at the end of the treatment. This does not happen if calories are restricted to 500/per day for three days after hCG has been used, because the blood is no longer saturated with food and can thus accommodate an extra influx from the intestines without increasing its volume by retaining water.
Injections vs Sublingual (Oral)
The Web is rife with sellers of every kind of hCG, with perhaps the edge (in terms of numbers) going to those who offer the sublingual or oral form (hereinafter referred to as “oral”). This makes sense because it’s a lot easier to take the sublingual/oral form than injections, and so there’s presumably a larger market for it.
But does the oral kind work as well as the injectable stuff?
There’s a scientific slant that says no!
The arguments against the long-term effectiveness of the oral hCG boil down to this:
- hCG can only be delivered to the blood stream via injection because the size of the hCG protein molecule is much larger than what the mucous membrane (if taken orally) can absorb.
- hCG injected into the body substantially suppressed appetite, whereas the oral forms must include appetite suppressants supporting the contention that there is insufficient (or no) hCG present.
- Published reports of hCG’s benefits are all based on the injectable form; none have demonstrated any hCG in someone’s blood who has taken the oral form.
You can read more about this controversy here.
My take on the subject is that there are hundreds of testimonials on the web where people say that the oral form worked great, but two questions remain: 1. Do they keep the weight off long-term because it was the abnormal” fat that was lost, not any other (or muscle)?; and 2. Has the metabolism been reset?
Get More Information
I’ll be blogging more on this topic in the weeks to come as I follow my sister’s experience on the hCG diet. If you’re interested in more information, read Dr. Simeon’s ebook.
Please, DO NOT venture into this diet before reading Simeon’s ebook and thoroughly understanding it! (Well, as much as a non-scientist can.)
Hey, I’d really like to know what you think of this information, so please “weigh in” in the Comments section below. Thanks!
Last Updated on April 11, 2023 by Joe Garma
