HCG…is it a healthy approach to weight loss?

I have had several friends and family members question my using HCG with the usual comment, “Of course you are losing weight, you are only eating 500 calories.” Actually, I don’t blame them for the comment – it is the same one I used before I understood the HCG protocol:

When I was 16, I went to a diet doctor and was injected with HCG and ate only 500 calories, a very low calorie diet (VLCD).  At that time, I doubt that I followed the directions for maintenance because I gained the weight back. Consequently, for many years when I told my “story” of my life-long challenge of losing weight, I mentioned that as a teen I even got an injection every day and ate a VLCD. Whenever I related this story, I added the comment, “Well, of course I lost weight, I was limited to 500 calories.”  Even though some of my friends and family are mouthing the same words that I used to use, now I know better.

During my years of seeking a weight loss solution, I have avoided very low calorie food plans because I didn’t want my body to go into starvation mode.

Under normal circumstances, your body does everything possible to consume, store, and retain fat to guard against food becoming scarce in the future. Your body makes sure you don’t starve … it has not evolved enough to know that there is a McDonald’s at every corner! When your body detects a prolonged lack of calories, it enters a starvation mode in which your metabolism slows down and your body cannibalizes muscle tissue to avoid giving up stored fat. That is why unaided low calorie and starvation diets are so unhealthy and always fail.

Before starting the HCG protocol a few weeks ago, I did lots of research and found:

1) HCG  (human chorionic gonadotrophin) is a hormone produced in great quantity by pregnant women.  It is nature’s way of guaranteeing a healthy baby – it tells the body to release and use stored fat that is typically hard to get rid of.  In a pregnant woman this fat is used to provide energy and nutrition for the mom and baby (even in prolonged cases of daily morning sickness, the baby gets nutrition from the stored fat). Following the HCG protocol, this fat is burned off -- HCG causes your hypothalamus to release stored fat, which makes thousands of calories per day available for your own metabolism. Therefore, doing the HCG protocol (HCG plus VLCD) prevents your body from entering starvation mode and keeps your energy at its normal level.

 2) According to Dr. A.T.W. Simeons who developed the HCG weight loss diet protocol more than 50 years ago, we have three types of fat:

          *Structural fat, which cushions the organs in the body.

          *Normal fat which is the free fuel.   

          *Abnormal fat – stored on belly, hips, thighs, chin, flabby arms, etc. Also known as localized fats, these deposits are locked away sources of energy.

The HCG protocol targets abnormal fat. Without it, when an overweight person attempts to lose weight by starving or going on a low calorie (LCD) or very low calorie diet (VLCD), the good fat reserves are the first to be used. Once the fat used as fuel has been depleted, then the body begins burning the structural fat. This results in low energy levels, loss of muscle and a wrinkled, haggard appearance from rapid weight loss.

Dr. Simeons found that taking HCG while on a VLCD, patients lost the abnormal fat quickly and the skin remained toned. HCG (with the help of the VLCD) targets the abnormal fat bank and discharges 1500 to 5000 calories into the bloodstream. Furthermore, it directs the hypothalamus to generate more calories from the localized reserves (abnormal fat). Therefore, following the protocol, the HCG resets the metabolic rate and melts down the localized fat reserves. A friend of mine who has been very successful on the HCG plan told me that every day as she got weighed she vocalized, “I’m melting, I’m melting!”

The original protocol involved HCG injections and now we can also take sublingual drops of HCG or HHCG (homeopathic version). Since I understand (sort of!) the concept of vibrational medicine and homeopathy, I am using the HHCG form. Although I am only consuming 500 calories a day, my body is actually burning 1500-2000 because it is using the abnormal fat. People have remarked that although I have had a quick weight loss, my face is not gaunt and I am looking more toned.

For many years I have been on a personal quest to find a way to eliminate my own excess weight. I chose healthy foods, exercised, sometimes followed a specific diet, but I was unable to lose weight. In the fall of 2009 I discovered ADIO, a weight loss wellness center in Tucson and lost 30 pounds in five or six months, and I was thrilled. You can only imagine how much more ecstatic I am with the HCG—13 pounds off in less than a month. I continue to share my excitement because I think this is the miracle weight loss cure that so many are seeking.