What the heck is HCG?

So we have established one thing thus far: I have a weight problem. I'm pretty sure I was in denial about it for a long time after that dreaded doctor's visit. It would come to me in little moments of realization sometimes. Por ejemplo:

• I would go shopping and want to try something on. BIG mistake. So I would just never buy new clothes for myself.
• At work I would constantly have to turn and squeeze my way through the line. Granted, the line is small, but my butt was large...
• I even went as far as to avoid looking at myself in mirrors, except for if I was checking my makeup. From the neck up, that's how I operated.

One day, a friend of mine at work came up to me and asked me if I wanted to do this diet with her. Intrigued, I asked her about it. She said it was called the "HCG Diet" and that her brother and a friend of hers had both done it and lost 60 and 40 pounds, respectively. I took the bait and was very interested. She couldn't tell me much more about it than you had to take these drops and do a really low calorie diet. So being the techno whore that I am, I rushed home and googled this wonder diet. Boy is it controversial! The thing about it that intrigued me though were the people who had actually done it. They swear by it. I researched it for several weeks before we finally decided to give it a shot. We decided to use homeopathic drops, as her friend had, and see where that took us. We got the drops and started the diet on May 31st.

Before I get into all that, I'll give you a brief background on what the diet is because if you're like me, you probably had never heard about this. HCG stands for Human Chorionic Gonadotropin which is a hormone that is produced by pregnant women. It reacts with your hypothalamus (the control center for telling your body what fat to burn) to burn adipose (fatty) tissue. While taking these drops you are only allowed to eat 500 calories per day. Normally when you are taking part in a semi-starvation diet, your body will burn your muscle tissue for energy, but the HCG reacts with your hypothalamus and instead burns your stored fat. The diet is done in Phases. Phase 1 is an optional cleanse of some type. Phase 2 is when you begin to take the drops (or it can also be taken as injections). You begin with two "Load" days, where you load your body with as much fatty foods as you possibly can to build up your fat storage. Personally, I found this to be a lot harder than I thought it would be because the drops just make you feel not very hungry. After those first 2 days, you begin the 500 calorie diet. It seems scary but it's really not too hard. The protocol is outlined in Dr. Simeon's "Pounds and Inches" manuscript, which can be found for free in several locations on the internet.

As of today, I've been on P2 for 35 days now. I've lost about 23 pounds. I hope to reach 25 pounds before moving on to Phase 3, the maintenance phase. P3 lasts 21 days and you are allowed to reintroduce healthy fats back into your diet, as well as up your calorie intake to around 1200 per day. However, you can't have any starches or sugars. The idea of this maintenance phase is to keep your weight steady for 21 days so that your hypothalamus can "reset" itself and your body's weight set point will also be reset, ideally so you won't gain weight back. I should be getting into P3 sometime this week, my drops are running dangerously low.

After P3 you can take a break, or you can go right back into P2 again if you want to lose more weight. Once you reach your desired weight goal, you then move into Phase 4, which is referred to as lifetime maintenance. Here you are urged to make lifestyle choices that will help you keep the weight off for good (i.e. eating organic foods, eliminating processed foods from your diet, etc).

It all sounds too good to be true, but I've read about people who have done it and kept the weight off. On the flip side, I've also read about people who have done and then gained all their weight back. But these people went back to eating junk. You can't expect to go back to the way you were living and eating before and keep the weight off. That's just ridiculous. That's how you got big in the first place.

So there's a little info on the diet I'm on. As I told you, I'm almost nearing my P3 time, which I'm kind of excited about. The next posts I do will probably be much shorter and will be updates of my weight and things of that nature.

Until next time!