For the last few years, the HCG Diet for weight loss has been a big rage. Eve medical doctors are jumping aboard. I know a local cardiologist who started offering it as a weight-loss tool for his patients and the package included the real HCG medication, follow-ups, councelling, etc… And he is getting some really good results!
For those not familiar with the HCG Diet, here are the basics:
- You start taking HCG hormone, either injection, sublingual or homeopathic
- For a specific amount of time (usually 2-4wks) you eat a very limited-calor diet, 500-800KCal/d
- Maintain a somewhat higher but healthy diet for a period of a few weeks
- Repeat!
Some people report loosing 10-30lbs in the first month or so. This got me thinking that this is darn similar to what patients report on a gluten/grain-free diet. Add to that a comment made by Dr. Willam Davis, author of “Wheat Belly”, in his book:
…the initial pace of weight loss [on a gluten-free diet] can be shocking, equaling what you might achieve with an outright fast.
The HCG Diet is not quite a fast nor starvation, but close to it. But I think the key is that many versions of the HCG Diet encourage cutting out or limiting bread and other grains. Afterall, there is no way to stick to a 500KCal diet and still have any appreciable amount of grains!
This may explain why some people do so well on HCG Diet and others don’t. The key may be one ingredients: grains!
Personally, I think taking HCG as part of the Diet is more a placebo affect then anything else – the power of suggestion to keep people from feeling excessively hungry or tired on such low caloric intake.
Could there be more to it? I don’t know, maybe. But for me, and many other no-grain converts, we are spared the costly injections and starvations while still acheiving outstanding weight loss.
Please let us know your experience.
Hi, I like your site a lot and congrats on the losses!!!! As someone who has done a few rounds of hcg, I wanted to comment on this post. I’m not saying you should try hcg or that I truly know how/why it works, but I very much want to say that it is not at all a placebo effect! Cutting out grain/gluten was a very healthy choice for me, but there is no way I could maintain a 500 calorie diet for even one day if there wasn’t an active component of the hcg. This becomes really clear during the end of the diet when you allow the hcg to clear your system while keeping the low cal diet for 2-3 days, suddenly feelings of ravenous hunger arise, where before there had only been mild and more psychological hunger. Again, I’m not advocating for any process, just clarifying the distinction of using a product like hcg.
Thank!
Thanks for your comments. I am glad the HCG diet worked for you, as it has for so many people.
The rationale for thinking of HCG as a placebo is two-fold:
1. there was a randomized controlled trial that showed that HCG was no better than placebo at controlling hunger (note: I am not vouching for the quality of the study, just simply stating the findings)
2. people using the homeopathic HCG preparations, which have very little if any of the actual HCG hormone, are also achieving results
I am not a homeopathic expert by any means, but if HCG is actually “doing” something than I do not see how it is plausible for an almost non-existent amount of it can also be “doing” the same thing.
I know what some readers are thinking: well think about this – would you give an insulin-dependent diabetic a homeopathic insulin preparation? Of course not, he would go into DKA and be dead! HCG is a peptide similar in fact to insulin.
Again, this information is more of a thought experiment. I would much, much rather have patients try the no-grain approach before I would recommend using any kind of hormone.
Doctor Z