Day 1 of the HCG diet
I’ve decided to try and eliminate the wavy fat that is accumulating under my arms and on the top of my legs when I’m not looking! It has to go, once and for all.
I’m no great fan of diets if they are painful and leave me hungry. Also if it is dramatically outside the way I think I should be eating, which is SLOW (whole foods, organic, sustainable produce and locally produced), then I’m not going to be inclined to stick to it. I have a real passion for food and am seriously emotionally connected to it. I’ve also got a cake/sugar addiction and I find that dieting is so confronting I can’t stick to the plan and need to give in to the sugar cravings sooner rather than later. Then I feel like a failure…
HCG diet seems too good to be true
Enter the HCG diet. The first stage of this diet combines the use of HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) with a 500 calorie per day eating plan for 3 weeks. HCG is a pregnancy hormone that a woman’s placenta makes in large quantities during pregnancy. It supports fat storage between meals, fat that is released to provide a constant stream of nutrients and calories to the unborn baby. For people who are not pregnant, taking HCG can unlock stores of fat in the abdomen, so allowing that fat to get burned for energy.
By taking HCG during the diet, a 500 calorie per day intake is not too difficult to maintain (at least for 3 weeks, I figure). The diet is technically what’s known as a “caloric restriction” diet and there’s heaps of research on the benefits of caloric restriction.
Benefits of the HCG diet
For me these are the benefits (of caloric restriction via the HCG diet) that have enticed me to this approach as a means to reform my often unruly eating habits:
- I can lose 400 g or more per day so my target of being really lean so I can better see my muscle tone will be met
- I can lose weight quickly, so I get a quick hit of positive feedback and don’t have to languish in the grey zone of pain, having nothing enticing to eat and waiting for the weight to drop sufficiently so I can see an ab and get some encouragement
- It seems to have a positive effect on gene expression and I can sure use some help in expressing good genes and suppressing some bad ones
- It is a very easy eating plan because, guess what? You can’t eat much! 500 calories per day is a couple of pieces of meat, chicken or fish with a handful of veges and 2 pieces of fruit. I can’t dwell on food as there’s none to dwell on. No exotic planning or learning new recipes.
- I should be able to differentiate the need to eat associated with hunger and with emotion. I’m keen to change my eating habits and stop emotional eating and cake binging.
- I won’t be hungry as the hormone suppresses appetite
- I won’t look emaciated as the hormone seems to enable the removal of fat from storage areas first, so enabling better sculpturing of the body as it doesn’t eat into the much needed fat in the breast area or face
- I’ll be able to re-set my weight at a lower kg and it will be more easily maintained at the new low weight. I’ve done this diet before and this happened which was great. I’m now finding it easy to keep my weight down to my desired weight.
I’ll blog each day of the diet so I can share my experience with others. I’ve done this diet before and it was fantastic and the closest I’ve found to a “quick fix” in weight management. I’ll also video myself so I can look back and have a good laugh!
Last reviewed 26/Feb/2014
