MY HCG DIET & WEIGHT LOSS

For the past 3 weeks, I have been following a very strict weight loss regimen that had me on a diet of not more than 800 calories with very few snack options. The goal was to shed a pound to 2 pounds a day, control my appetite and watch my food portions. When I started, I was weighing in at 204 pounds ( with 207 being the heaviest I've ever been) and by the end of 3 weeks, I weighed in at 190 pounds. The results were huge for me because if you know me, you know I like to eat and I have what is called "oral fixation". I have to be eating something almost all the time, I have a sweet tooth, care nothing about portion control and soda is my water. Every day, without fail, my mom would comment on just how big I was getting and how it wasn't the best for me health-wise; she has been saying this for years but of course I never listen. I liked to eat so I ate! Pretty soon I realized that my clothes were fitting a bit too snug (that's if they still fit at all), my cheeks were doing the most and my tummy had almost tripled in size..let's just say my "cute and sexy" was struggling and fast becoming "fat and lazy".


My brother-in-law is always trying to lose weight and it was he who "talked" me into going on the HCG diet plan with him. HCG or Human Chorionic Gonadotropin is a hormone present at high levels during early pregnancy and apparently this is a popular diet that has been around for many years that causes fast weight loss of up to 2 pounds per day. There seems to be some controversy surrounding this dieting style however because of what is considered to be a "starvation-level" calorie intake. The diet claims to significantly reduce hunger but I did not find that to be the case with me because your girl was "hangry" the whole damn time though I somehow managed to resist/control my urge to eat (most of the time) so maybe it was just my own willpower at work. I will admit that I did very little research on the diet before starting it and simply went ahead because I wanted to lose weight without having to exercise really. The diet plan is in 3 phases: The Loading Phase (start taking HCG and eat plenty of high fat and high calorie foods for 2 days), the Weight-loss Phase (continue taking HCG and eat only 700 calories per day for 3-6 weeks) and finally the Maintenance Phase (stop taking HCG  and gradually increase food intake but avoid sugar and starch for 3 weeks).

Having done a bit more research, I can see why this diet may be considered dangerous with many of its claims not scientifically proven or supported (you can read more of this at  https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/hcg-diet-101). I did lose a good amount of weight and feel a lot better about how I'm looking now but I did get headaches on some days (which is a known side-effect). I ate 3 meals a day as opposed to 2 and could snack limitedly in between. Sugar was substituted for sweeteners with my beverages and my fruit intake was also limited due to the natural sweetness of many of them. I took the HCG in the form of drops (15 drops 3 times a day) before each meal and had to wait 15 minutes before eating. Now that I've completed 3 weeks of the weight loss phase, I'm on the diet's last phase and my plan IS to increase my calorie intake but then add a light workout to it to keep the weight off. My brother-in-law lost a bit more weight than I did but that's really because the man does not sit still. He's always out back doing something with wood, hammers and power tools. He's a very active guy so the weight peeled right off his body.

Now that I have lost weight, I guess I'm going to have to put in the work to make sure I don't pile the weight back on.Would I recommend this diet to anyone? Maybe! but I would definitely change a couple of things: for instance, 500 calories a day is ridiculous, 700-800 is more reasonable and doable. I was only allowed 3 crackers a day as a snack option but if you ate 5 or 6, it wouldn't make a difference. Being active definitely does help so a light workout however you can get it in isn't a bad idea. As they say being healthy is what's important but I'm not going to lie, getting my sexy back has been a nice bonus.

Would you try this diet out? Let me know what you think in the comments. Have a super weekend guys!

Love Always