A reader sent me a note over the weekend asking me what I thought of the HCG diet. To be honest, I never even heard of it, but hey, I’m always open to learning about new things. So I turned to my trust search engine (hi Google!) and started researching. Here’s what I came up with.
What Is It?
HCG is a diet regimen in which you limit your daily calorie intake to less than 500 calories a day. At the same time, you inject yourself with HCG, Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, a hormone found in the placenta of pregnant women.
Does It Work?
Assuming you’re still curious after hearing that you’ll have to inject yourself daily with hormones from the a human placenta, then yes, this diet works. Dah! OF COURSE it works. YOU’RE EATING 500 CALORIES A DAY! Heck, at 500 calories a day anyone would lose weight and the injections have nothing to do with it. You can inject me every hour with hormones from the testicles of a rabid hyena and I’m still relatively sure I would lose weight on a diet of 500 calories a day. It’s not magic folks, it’s simply starving yourself, and the hormone injections are just pseudo science intended to fool you.
Do I Recommend It?
In case that last sentence didn’t get the point across. NO. NO WAY. NOT A CHANCE. NO CHANCE IN HELL. This diet is crap. You’re starving yourself plus you’re injecting yourself with something that has no basis in science. If you want to starve yourself, be my guest, but don’t fool yourself into thinking it’s healthy just because some one put scientific sounding words in the description.
Seriously
- The diet claims you will lose .5 to 3lbs A DAY. Even if you starve yourself you won’t lose this much. 3lbs lost a day means you burned 9000 more calories than you took in. Unless you’re Michael Phelps, your metabolism just doesn’t work that way. Anyone promising you more than 1 to 2 lbs lost in a week is either a quack or a liar, or both.
- Speaking of liars and quacks, let’s do some research. The guy who’s selling this diet, Kevin Trudeau, was busted multiple times already. Once by the FTC for claiming his calcium supplement cured cancer and another time by the FTC because Trudeau “has misled thousands of consumers” about his weight loss plans. This is the guy you want to buy hormone shots from? I’d rather take stock tips from my 6 month old nephew.
- While we’re on the subject of nutrition, the American Journal of clinical nutrition already looked into HCG and guess what they found? It’s useless. That was back in the 70′s, but hey, I guess everything old is new again at some point.
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Repeat after me, there are NO quick fixes. There are no easy cures for extra weight. There are no magic weight loss plans, no magic pills, no wonder drugs. You want to be fit and healthy? Eat healthy, be active and exercise. It’s that simple.
did shots, did not follow diet and still lost 28 pounds in 20 days
I did it for 40 day and lost 20 pounds 2 years ago. None of it has come back. Best thing I ever did, changed my life.
Wow. the Gal J is completely uninformed. Anybody reading his uninformed remarks should stop reading after the first rant…no claims of 3 pounds per day.
1-2 pounds per day. 2 is the max (consisantly) for those with high BMI. Yes, even some chubby folks have a high BMI.
Don’t mistake Trudeau’s book for the original. Dr Simean’s ‘Pounds and Inches’ is the original protocol.
Apparently, Gal J is uninformed by choice and is the real quack on the subject.
It would be more credible if you had tried the product and put in a review instead of just basing it on nothing. Of course anyone can lose weight on 500 cal per day. However, the point is the HCG hormones makes it so that you don’t feel starving. That’s the trick. Anyway, I am doing my first round of HCG drops and I have to say that I am losing weight AND not hungry all the time like I was before. I am not losing 1-2 lbs a day but that’s because I am not following the diet to a t.
This diet sounds retarded!
Essentially the philosophy behind it is…
“Are you fat and lazy? Well, now you can malnourish yourself and be skinny and lazy!”
It honestly doesn’t work well… I mean I’ve been on it for 3 weeks and my weight fluctuates from losing 5 to gaining 3 the most I lost was 12 (221) and now I gained back some weight now I’m 232.. My starting weight was 234.. This is terrible Idk how this is possible it’s a rip off
I have tried it for close to 15 days have only lost 4 lbs not followed 500 calorie diet and absurd requirements to not even touch fat when cooking for family…
I do eat less and to alot of veggies intake i do not feel hungry but i take it its because of volume of veggies, i do not weigh tmy ffood i agree its the low calorie or no carb requirement, i belive if you just follow the no carb rule you would loose same amount and save youself $400, i was desparate and did not do my reserch.. please do not spend your money on this FAD…please just eat light, with no carbs ,
I first ran into this diet from an article on Huffington Post, and the first few sentences of that article, I thought was a cruel joke. But as I kept reading it, I figured it want’t a joke at all, but a cruel reality. Something like 500 calories a day and take shots of pregnant women. That’s sounds insane.
I have lost 22 lbs in 17 days. I follow the 500 calorie plan strictly and I feel great. My blood pressure dropped, My heartburn has gone away, and my wife tells me I am no longer snoring. Not to mention my body has changed dramatically. Tell me again how this doesn’t work??? Readers please try it for yourselves and follow the plan. You will be amazed!
I didn’t say it didn’t work. Any diet where you starve yourself on 500 calories a day will help you lose weight. I’m simply saying you’re an idiot for thinking this is doing good things to your body.
You’ve lost more than 1lb per day because you’re starving and injecting yourself with hormones won’t change that. Good luck with whatever happens to you once you stop this diet. I honestly wish you the best and hope you recover quickly.
I Lost 18 LBS in 20 days on this program. The point isn’t that anybody can loose weight on a 500 calorie diet. The point is you feel great and not deprived. Unlike not using HGC, you feel tired deprived and starved to death. Doesn’t work, hell it’s a miracle.
This diet does work. I have tried for 30 days not and go down 3 and up 3. I have stuck to the 500 CAL DIET. no luck.
Best of luck keeping it off when you stop the plan folks. It’s like any other quick fix fad.. it may work wonderfully so long as you pay for the hormones and stick to the ‘intake limitations’.. but good luck keeping it off. Diets are temporary. Only permanent lifestyle changes will take the pounds away forever.
I was as skeptical about the claim as anyone. Who wouldn’t be? 30lbs in 30 days? I decided to try it, sort of do my own “study.” After 2 load / 10 VLCD days, I’ve lost almost 16lbs, about 12lbs when you exclude the load “gain.” The typical BMR formula says I should have only lost 4.5 lbs. I keep a running calculation of projected loss given my caloric intake, age, weight, and activities, versus actual scale loss. I logged all of my daily data, food journals, charts, photos, and so on here: http://hcg-review-weight-loss-diet.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html). I keep thinking it has to be a fluke – maybe it’s the HCG, maybe it’s not. But if it’s not do me a favor and LOOK AT MY DATA. Then, you tell me what it is.
@ProjectMe
At no point did I say that this diet will not bring weight loss. It’s pretty easy to see how consuming 500 calories a day will in fact lower your weight. What I am saying is that you are doing damage to your body this way and there are far healthier ways to lose weight.
Gal
sorry its a waste of money
i think it stupid that you guys fighting about this stupid diet . i am doing it now and it is not working fo me then thats me i cant just go around and tell others it dont work , because it works for my friend.. u dont like it, dont use it, then live it alone. you like it it , itworks for you good luck enjoy your new body. Simple.