My brother, sister-in-law and nephew were in town a couple of weeks ago and my sister in law looked fabulous! I asked her what she had been doing and she told me about HCG. I started my research the next day :) My SIL is very fit and always has been but a recent knee surgery has put a stop to most exercise since last year. On the HCG protocol she was able to lose 19 lbs in 23 days!
I approached David about us doing it together and he was totally on board.
If anyone's intrested in deeper information, I'll let you do your own research. But in a nutshell, HCG stands for human chorionic gonadotrophin which is the hormone produced during pregnancy. Basically you pair the hcg supplement with a very low calorie diet (VLCD) and you will lose 1-2lbs a day. You spend the first two days "loading" up on carbs, sugary foods etc. In this way your fat stores are at their maximum. Then you begin 21 days of the VLCD while taking the drops 3 times a day. What do I mean by very low? Well, 500 calories to be exact. Are you ok, have you picked yourself up off the floor yet? Yes, 500 calories. I thought the same thing when I first heard it. I though there was no way it was a healthy diet. I probably would have stopped reading then if it wasn't for the success my SIL had seen. If she trusts it, I trust it.
The originial protocol was first developed in the 50's by endocrinologist Dr. Simeon and his is proven to be a successful routine. There are digital copies of his book "Pounds and Inches" available online. The concept is simple. You are "disposing" of your fat daily and in the 2nd and 3rd stage(s) of the diet you are re-setting your body and re-training your brain.
It has taken me forever to finish this entry! It's now July 13th! We're done with stages 1-2 and are now in maintenance. In just three weeks I lost 17lbs and David lost 20! I must admit that we fell off the wagon over July 4th weekend and it took about 3 days to recoup what we gained. With that being said we are both very happy with the results. It feels amazing to be so much less bloated. Another thing I noticed since day one of the restricted diet is how much better my complexion has been. I don't miss the sodas or fried food. I occasionally miss the sweets though. During this final phase of the diet you gradually add in foods that have been off limits. We can now eat anything but carbs, starches and sugars and work up to 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day- whatever you can maintain your new weight with. This doesn't really seem that obtrusive since we have been so limited up until now. Avacados never tasted so good! We like pork so I bought pork chops and a pork tenderloin. We grilled the chops and had grilled peaches one night and tonight we had the pork tenderloin which had been in the crock pot all day. Yum!
As soon as we were done with the VLCD David began adding in exercise; it's generally discouraged in the first 3 weeks. Tonight I joined him at the gym. I haven't worked out since I had been doing yoga last year. I'm going to ease back into it and hopefully this will help me take off a few more lbs and re-shape and tone my new body. I'm generally not a fan of the gym. It smells. The ppl smell. And at Gold's so many of them are intimidatingly large and/or fit...and then there's me. Blah. Oh well. It was nice to work out side by side w/David tonight. We walk/ran (David ran, I walked) on the treadmill for half an hour and then rode the bikes for about half an hour. A few miles and many calories later burned, I feel great! Saturday I'll try their Body Flow class which combines yoga, pilates and tai chi.
After these three weeks of phase 3 we can begin having limited amounts of carbs and sugars again. I think we'll definitely have made some long-time changes by then. I have been having sandwiches without bread, burgers without buns and learning how to grocery shop, cook and occasionally eat out differently. Also this week I've focused more on the kids eating habits as well. It killed me the first week or so that David and I were eating so "well" and still feeding the kids chicken nuggets, corn dogs, pizza and macaroni and cheese. I don't expect them to eat asparagus and tilapia, but there will definitely be other changes coming their way. It's our job to establish healthy eating habits NOW.
Overall I give this diet two thumbs up. No side effects (aside from one headache on the first VLCD day since my body was detoxing sugar), great results and a plan that can work long-term! I think we are considering completing another rough of HCG, you should wait 6 weeks after you've stabilized.
I'll do a separate post w/pictures from some of the things we've been eating :)
