The HCG Diet discussions

In this post I would like to talk about the HCG Diet in general and about all the discussions I've seen around on the web and on TV. First of all, I'm a doctor or anything related to expert of nutrition and similar, I speak or I'd say write based on my personal experience.

Lots of website and videos on YouTube are totally against about this Diet, and I could understand why, first time I read: 500 Calories I thought it was insane. Whoever is against claims the fast weight loss on the restrictive daily amount of food, which is logically true; we don't need to be genius here to understand that with only 500 Calories a day I may lose weight. Often I see the results of a research conducted to a group of people who were given HCG and to some of them only a placebo, both groups lost weight without feeling hungry apparently. It might be that human brain is strong enough to elude your hunger feeling; I think it could be possible. What was not mentioned though for this research is what type of physical results they got from the Diet? Did they lose fat or muscle? Did they feel weak and tired or always energetic? Were both groups in starvation mode? How was their Ketosis?

What I want to say here is that I personally went to a very strict Diet, with nothing, just Vitamins, sure I lost weight and quickly but I was always starving, always weak, always dizzy, I couldn't think about anything else but food, that was my Dr. Bernstein Diet: a medically supervised scam!

When I started my HCG Diet, of course I had my doubts, I already lost lots of money and my health with the previous one, I am not stupid to go back and do it again. I promised myself that if I ever felt as before I'd stop immediately. Having an Eating Disorder due to a Diet is nothing I wish to anyone.

But in my experience, after a first rough VLCD day on HCG I felt amazing, absolutely amazing, full of energy and free from my food addiction. Still today, after 14 days using it I'm amazed on how I don't feel almost ever hungry, how I can still walk and do my things with no issues, my body feels amazing! I am burning fat daily with high traces of Ketosis, I'm happy for no reason; sometimes I ask myself how come you're happy?! I know it's silly but I'm studying my own body's reaction to this Diet, I'm evaluating every single day. I don't want to risk my health again, and I don't want to fail again.

 So in conclusion, you can blame HCG to be a scam but I've the proof that this Diet works, not much for the weight loss, but for all the rest: I'm really feeling changes in my body and my hormones, all I can thank is HCG.

HCG Diet - VLCD #14 - My Detox Bath good results

Today is a good day for my HCG Journey; I lost 600gr since yesterday morning (which in pounds would be around 1.3lb I believe).  I had my Detox bath yesterday, who know if it might helped the weight loss but, in any case, I'm grateful for that. I don't like seeing the scale not reporting any change….I will think differently during maintenance I guess.

This morning for some reason my mood is very good, I'm sure HCG have some sort of effect on that, I clearly noticed a huge difference when I started using it, I was always sad and down previously, sure my weight would make me unhappy too sometimes but I'm still more less the same, it's been only 14 days anyway.

I forgot to pack my grissino this morning, at the begin I thought I'd not have it, since I sadly switched to having an apple for breakfast, I figured it might increase too much my daily carb amount, that's ok I guess I may have at home or a couple of celery pieces instead. I forgot that too!

I've to admit, this morning I had a strong desire to add some organic cocoa powder on my apple, and then I changed mind, thinking about Dr. Simeons and how easy could be to get off the wagon when dieting, I'm hungry a bit now though, which usually doesn't happen in this way, again it might be my ovulation….women we have it all!

This is my VLCD #14 and I am still full of energy, no dizzy, no weak at all with this 500 Calories Diet, I still can't believe it. You would understand me only when you first tested what's being on starvation mode and feeling incapable to do anything, even walking was a challenge for me with Dr. Bernstein Diet, I felt fainting many times! What crazy Diet, if I look back I think I wasted so much money for nothing, quite the opposite actually, I had only negative results from it: my anxiety for famine, my binge eating disorder, my thin hair, my depression, my over re-gain weight, my period missed for months. Oh well, we live & learn I guess.

HCG Diet - VLCD #13 - Non-Fat Cottage Cheese alternative

This morning my scale did not show any change in weight since yesterday, oh well I hope somewhere, on my body, inches are changing though. It's my VLCD #13 today and I'm feeling a bit dizzy, not hungry but I've cravings here and there, I can't tell if I'm just bored and I want something to chew on, or it's my food-deprivation that is talking. Nothing unbearable though, I might just be victim of my own ovulation period. I'm not necessarily craving sugar though, and this is a good thing.

Yesterday, for the first time on my HCG Diet, I had 100gr of Non-Fat Cottage Cheese for my protein serving, to dip with some celery. It was good, I was worried my body would not process the cheese properly, but it didn't so I'm thinking to change sometime and have some cheese, instead of the usual chicken. I believe eliminating all those food categories for so long might hurt my tolerability to it, same thing for carbs, I usually have my grissino or my melba toast during the day. I don't want to give up gluten forever, I might reduce it of course, but I still want to be able to eat pasta or pizza once in a while, never forget I'm Italian at the end.

I also think that bringing some sort of variation in the everyday diet is always good, so the body doesn't become too comfortable with the same food and decide not to lose anymore. I do have to admit though that I'm loving my baby spinach chicken salad, and for now I'll keep it as a staple on my Diet, till I get bored of it, then I'll change with something else.

Today I did my injection on my belly again, I felt I was doing so well in the first few days and wanted to change back to see if my body will keep on behaving for my weight loss.

Since it's Wednesday I'll have my Detox Bath tonight before bed, it's relaxing, I put baking soda in it too and I enjoy the warm water for about 20 minutes or so, my cat comes always around curios on what I'm doing, I can tell that he would like to come inside the bath tub…if there was no water in it!

Right now I'm sitting at my desk in my office, and I'm freezing, I hope it's the Ketosis, this morning I was a +2 Small Traces of Ketosis, yesterday I had 2 fruits and my grissino. Too much carbs and also the Cheese has milk, which contains sugar so, it might be for that, but I also noticed that I cannot have 2 fruits per day, I've to try with the strawberries but 2 of Apple / Orange doesn't work for my body. So I might need to stick to 1 fruit per day. I'm pretty sure if I don't eat any fruit in a day, my Ketosis will sky-rock to +12 in few hours! At the end I'm eating only 500 Calories per day.

One great thing of the HCG Diet is that – contrary to the Dr. Bernstein Diet – does not put you in starvation mode. The body "think" that I'm pregnant (which I'm not), so it gets all the abnormal stored fat to release the missing amount of daily calories and save the "baby" from starving basically. Doing a Diet that puts you in starvation mode is not healthy at all, I've my personal experience, weight gain is back in no time and developing an Eating Disorder is very common in this situation.

HCG Diet - VLCD #12 - Protein Powder for P2

Today is my VLCD  #12, the Diet is proceeding well, this morning the scale reported a promising loss and I'm now officially into the 61 Kg mark. Being over the 62Kg-s is motivating for me, although I know slowdowns and brief stalls are part of the Diet, nobody likes seeing unchanging-weight when having such a small amount of Calories.

I've to admit, today for lunch I might had way too much chicken, I had hard time to portion exactly gr on Sunday when I cooked in advance all my meat. I bought 3 packages of organic chicken breast at the supermarket and I wanted to grill and portion so I'd have ready for my salads for the whole week and more. I tried to give estimation on how many portions I will have with the amount bought, but then – since I removed lots of fat from it – I estimated a slightly smaller amount of portions. I don't think I was over that much, I'd say rather than 100gr of chicken breast I had maybe 120gr or 130gr. Cooked chicken has an extremely lower weight than the raw one, I have the proofs!

So now it's just after lunch and my stomach feels full, due to the large amount of spinach I had with the chicken too I guess, I should remind myself to be careful with my portions if I don't want to waste a week worth of HCG and hard work. I don't believe in the typical suggestion that lots of people give when dieting: "don't be hard on yourself if you cheat, it's ok", no it's not ok, I need to be disciplined, I was a compulsive eater for this reason, allowing myself to binge and thinking that would be better tomorrow….which never happened. That's the similar reason why people go to those boot-camp gym classes, to be yelled in their ears to push hard on exercise and never stop. We need strong directions on our weaknesses; well at least this is for me and might not apply to everyone.

I'm researching to buy some protein powder for my P2 Phase, I know it's not in Dr. Simeons protocol but I believe that if I find a non-fat protein blend I'd be ok with that. The reason why I want to buy Protein powder is because I know the importance for my body to have my Protein intake every day. Sometimes I find myself skipping a meal and that means skipping a Protein serving. The body gets in alarm-mode, hunting for food and it's not healthy for my metabolism and a healthy food-relationship.

I checked online which could be the best Protein Powder I could buy, and I found a brand name called Jay Robb, apparently it's a guy that makes some good tasting Protein powder with 0 Fat and very low in basically everything. I want to find it today after work, I might use it just once in a while but I thought it could be a very good habit even for my HCG P4-life Phase, learning on how to properly nourish your body is fundamental at the end.

Talking about protein I read a very interesting article about it, so true that when the body has the right amount of protein is content, that's why sometime is good having protein before bed, so you can sleep better, rather than being on alerting hunting-mode (explained the strong nap-desire after meals!).

Another thing I noticed affecting a lot my weight loss is the amount of water I have daily. If I don't drink more than 2L of water, I don't lose weight, I don't feel right either. When we lose weight we release lots of toxins that are stored in our fat cells, those toxins need to be eliminated from our system, or they will make us sick or with uncomfortable feelings. One proved way to help this elimination is drinking water, it helps a good kidney functioning so the liver (which is the main organ for the detoxification) is not busy doing double job! 

HCG diet - VLCD #11 a former weight to deal with

I'm officially into the double digits VLCD days; today's my very low calories day #11 and – although my scale did not show any change this morning – I'm happy of the overall Diet.

So far this has been for me the best experience I could ever imagine while losing weight; I know it might take some time for me to reach my goal, but I'm good with that, I cannot expect to become thin overnight so I'll be patient and enjoy the journey. Actually sometime I even think that I'll be afraid of getting off of HCG, it gives me so much boost in terms of mood and energy. I am EVERY SINGLE day amazed on how good I feel, no weak, no dizzy as with the Dr. Bernstein Diet.

My weight today's the same as yesterday, but I knew it would happen since I'm in the 62Kg, which is one of my former weights I had for long in the past, it's common to hit a plateau when reaching a former weight. I did again my measurements this past weekend, after a week on HCG and overall I lost 1cm here and there, some places none, but what is most rewarding for me is that I lost 8cm just on my belly -which is the spot where I usually gain more weight, in general middle section let's say.

In many blogs, videos I learned that usually when you are not seeing any change on the scale, it might be in inches on your body. To be honest, I'm not here every day to take measurements of my body's changes, but I can tell when I won't see much changing the day after on the scale. Since the food is so little there are no regular daily bowl movements in this Diet – as well as with any Low Calories Diet, I had same issues while on Dr. Bernstein; this might be another reason why the scale doesn't show a weight loss. Maybe that's why Dr. Simeons defined a real plateau only after 4/5 days of no weight change, not less than that.

I noticed that if I have 2 fruit servings in a day or twice chicken then I'd feel big and most likely my weight is not going to change the day after. This was happening even during my Dr. Bernstein strict Diet.

For my body white fish or strawberries are things that will make me lose lots of weight, but I had so much in the past that now I can't stand it anymore! Like the Jell-O…

This morning I also change my injection spot, till today I had my shots on my abdomen, but I switched on my buttocks, since my belly is full of bruises right now, nothing painful or anything but I just wanted to try a different spot, thinking that maybe the HCG will be absorbed better close to such a big muscle. Who knows…it might be just a crazy theory!

Weight = 62.2Kg

BF = 25.7%
BMI = 22.6

HCG Diet - VLCD #8 my reflections

It is finally Friday and I can report another loss today; so far since I started my VLCD days I lost a total of 4.4Kg that means in pounds about 9.7lb in a week. I know that the first 7/10 days the weight loss is more consistent, but that's ok, I'm happy even with just 300gr loss daily, I don't want to stress too much my body losing lots of weight so quickly. Apparently I read that the Loading Days, and how they're done, is very important for the best results of the HCG Diet. If you load properly you will lose lots the first week and with no hunger or side effects from the 500 – Calories diet. Personally I believe I ate lots of fat during my 2 days of gorging, and definitely eliminating sugar, prior to start my diet, helped me so much to avoid any craving or withdrawal.

It's my VLCD #8 today and I often smile thinking on how amazing I feel and how incredible is still to me the fact that I'm not hungry for most of the day. Sure around meals time or in the morning I get a bit hungry, but it's not bothering me at all, it's bearable, I eat my orange for breakfast my detox tea and I'm super happy, I don't even feel eating. How could this be real!?! Because I still don't know what's happening to my body and to my mind. I see my belly pouch going down every day, I don't feel weak, I'm not grumpy – quite the opposite – my skin is changing in better, I'm glad every day that I found the HCG Diet!

Tomorrow I'll be checking again my body measurements after this first week with the HCG Diet, I already know that I'll see a decrease in terms of inches, I noticed on my clothes, I can fit almost normally in some dresses, not all of them yet but I'm working on. Some people say that if you don't see a weight loss on the scale most likely you will see it on your inches, because this Diet is really all about Pounds & Inches!

This blog is for me like a sort of personal diary for my Diet-life journey, although maybe nobody will read my words, I could go back to old posts and see what was my experience at the time, and learn maybe something. For the HCG Diet there's a big community on YouTube, very nice, lots of normal people uploading videos on their channels, sharing experience and support, some people find this experience of shooting videos and following the HCG Community on YouTube a great help for accountability. I thought about on making videos too, but then I recalled my accountability with the nurses at the Dr. Bernstein clinic, and the feeling of freedom I had when I was not going there anymore or just skipping a day. When the accountability came less for me, I let all my self-control with food go away, it brought me to Binge Eat and to my disorder. I had no more no one telling me that I was not in Ketosis or that I had to stick on the strict diet, so I did whatever I wanted. For this reason, this time, I wanted to be accountable only to myself, I want to reach my goals without depending on someone else opinion if I don't do it. I might be wrong and this might not work for everyone, but I try to learn from my previous mistakes and change what I think was wrong.

"Pounds & Inches"

In this post I would like to talk about "Pounds & Inches". When approaching Dr. Simeons Protocol a.k.a. HCG Diet, inevitably we come across this manuscript. Lots of people think that "Pounds & Inches" is just a book, to read in the spare time…if! Well that's the worst thing you could do if your intention are to embrace this HCG journey.

Pounds & Inches is – without any doubts – an instruction manual for the HCG Diet, written by hand by Dr. Simeons, with all his thoughts and results from his past experiences trying to fight obesity. Latest version – which I believe is the 7^th edition – was published in 1971.

In this manuscript you'll find all the information you will need to follow the protocol, it's a complicated Diet, lots of details are explained, as well as the reasons why he did or did not something. Dr. Simeons talks also about cases he studied during his researches, and it's impressive how everything makes perfect sense.

I personally read it three times, I highlighted some information that I considered relevant for me, and I often go back to read, searching for answers. I could not start this Diet without "Pounds & Inches", not only from an instructions point of view but also, and most importantly, because it gave me the reason why this HCG Diet is so effective, why people are losing weight as never before and be able to maintain it. This little manual gave me the motivation and the excitement that I was looking for since years now, this manuscript made me understand why all my previous tentative on losing weight, since I was a teenager, were unsuccessful, and the more I was trying the more I was failing.

Do not underestimate this manuscript, read it more than once, keep it always handy, you will need it along your journey. The more you strictly follow the Protocol (detailed in Pounds & Inches) the more your Diet will reward you. Don't believe only on my words, search online about it, how many people went slight off from the Protocol and they had stall, weight gain and general unpleasant feelings during the treatment.

Kevin Trudeau wrote his own book based on Dr. Simeons Protocol, but his is really a book, he's not a doctor, he took all the details of the HCG diet to make a fortune his own. "Pounds & Inches" is a free – PDF downloadable – manuscript, a quick search online and you can find it everywhere for free. It's just few pages, easy to read, classified in clear chapters, so no excuse for anyone to skip this mandatory step when starting the HCG Diet.

HCG Diet - on my VLCD #7

So today I am on my VLCD #7 and I'm still astonished about this Diet and HCG. What I believe is absolutely amazing is the fact that I am not hungry at all. Yesterday I had barely 400 Calories and I was ok, yes maybe at night I felt a bit hungry, since I skipped dinner, but it was bearable, plus I did skip dinner by choice, I really didn't want to eat. Without HCG I would be starving every second of the day, but with this hormone I know that my fat has been released in this right moment (without me being hungry) – and that's all I need to know.

Dr. Bernstein Diet puts you in starvation mode and, although being in Ketosis could be a good thing that means you're reducing carbohydrates, being in starvation is extremely deleterious for your metabolism. Every person on a Diet wants to lose weight and fast, but nobody wants to gain it all back and some, and that's pretty much what happens if you are starving yourself. It does suck I know.

I lost pounds every day so far, it's been only few days but I can feel the effects of HCG, it affects my mood making me feel happy, everyone is telling me that they see me different and better, I feel I'm not depressed anymore about my weight, my shape, although I'm still overweight and far from the end of my Diet, but I'm extremely motivated and I believe 100% in this Protocol, I've tons of energy – something amazing for me since I'm having such little Calories per day.

I don't know which Diet are you following but if you find yourself more than often starving, well my suggestion is: quit, whatever you're shedding off with so many sacrifices, it's going to be back on pretty soon.

I've to say I did everything exactly as Protocol …and beyond. I started a pre-Diet phase detoxing with Detox Tea and Detox bath with Himalayan salt (I've one scented with Vanilla that I love). I stopped to eat sugar almost a month before starting my HCG injections, I eliminated all the carbs like bread, pasta, rice, pizza and so on, many days before my Diet. I started to add more fat to my Diet and my loading Days were clean of sugar, carbs or starchy vegetables. I tried to eat healthy fat as much as I could, gorging to capacity. That helped me to get into the Diet smoothly and with no issues whatsoever, I felt a bit hungry on the very first VLCD and after that day my food-life completely changed, my mood changed and now I'm so happy, that just thinking about what is happening to me makes me smile; this is priceless!

HCG Diet - VLCD #5

Today I'm on my VLCD 5 – so I'm on a very low calories diet since 5 days and 7 injection days. Although I've been on the Protocol just for 5 days, it's been an extremely positive experience. My weight is going down, first couple of days really fast, now obviously it is slowing down, but totally normal; I cannot expect my body to lose 1Kg per day, which wouldn't be healthy for sure. For me, as long as the scale goes down: I'm happy! Even for just a little…

What makes me happy even more though is the way I feel, the energy that I have, is almost unbelievable to me, injections are easy to do it, painless, the hunger is almost inexistent and I still can't believe I'm eating only 500 Calories in a day, if all! In the past days I either skip a fruit serving or a carb serving, but really not feeling any desire or restriction on doing so. The Diet is easy and simple: just one protein type, just one vegetable type, just one fruit.

I was always struggling with Dr. Bernstein Diet with all the chopping and the preparation of breakfast and lunch and dinner, I was constantly cooking, and although I love to cook, that was too much even for me. With Dr. Simeons Protocol the choice is so limited that it removes the headache of what to eat and what not, definitely I can cook in many ways the same ingredients but guess how I feel about it?! I cannot care less about eating neither of what I eat! It's not that I don't enjoy food or anything; I'm just more focused on everything else in my life.

I had a Binge Eating Disorder for more than one year and my mind was constantly occupied thinking about food and what to eat next, for me this feels like freedom, finally healing from a mental disease that I thought I should live with for the rest of my life and restrict myself every time I was desiring food. Now conscious of the fact that portion control is obviously important I don't feel any challenge going forward, I'll check my weight every day, and if I gained a couple of pounds, I'll cut back my food intake for few days to get back on track. Now I know I can do it because food is not controlling my mind anymore.

It does sound that I'm blabbing just about my psychological status yes, but what I think is that we struggle almost all our lives about dieting and food and don't eat this and that, and I personally never accepted the advice of: "You have to love yourself as you are", sorry but I don't. I do not like seeing me fat and I will never love it, hence I want to lose weight. Those struggles are our enemies, all the thinking about what we can eat and what not makes dieting an important primary thing in our lives, we live for that…that's why we tend to care too much about food – well at least it was for me – but the point is that if you just could make food and eating something really not important, something that even when your stomach is growling you could think: "stomach it's growling, so what?!", that almost-impossible-to-believe thought will make your diet way easier. Nobody under a torture diet could have any long term success, I tried…multiple times; I ended up with anxiety, semi-depression, obesity, eating disorder and I could go on and on.

For you reading my post, if you never did before: search HCG, you have to give it a try!

Amazed by HCG - VLCD #2

It's Saturday today and I am speechless on what's happening to my body. I woke up a bit later this morning, had my HCG injection and went to bed again, I felt kind of hungry when I woke up, but too tired to do anything else. Good news was that my scale reported a 2Kg weight loss this morning; I thought ok, that was exactly what I gained during Loading Days so no big deal. After sleeping another 3/4 hours I woke up again and wondering if I was hungry or not, I'm really trying to listen to my body, to see how this Diet is going, and mostly because I did not find any trace of Ketosis this morning in my urine, so I was worried about the overall diet. Well I wasn't hungry – at all – I tried to drink a bit of a terrible French Roast decaf coffee, I couldn't swallow and I throw it away.

Since I had to work today I prepared my lunch and snacks to bring with me in the office, with my Vitamins and Detox tea too. Since this morning I do not care about food, I don't feel hungry but mostly I do not care about eating! I felt a couple of times my stomach growling but I didn't care much eating, it was like my brain, my desires were completely disconnected by the urge to eat, to think about food, I wanted to do other things, I felt anything else would have more relevance than "eating", and trust me for a Binge Eater with compulsive desire of food and addictions, this is absolutely astonishing!

I'm speechless, HCG gives me so much energy, I feel I can go for a run, at the gym, talking even faster than my usual (wherever is possible!), eventually I had to force myself to go in the kitchen and grab my salad, I'm trying to eat an orange and I'm not even enjoying it. It's just incredible to me how this hormone is changing my body, my mind, that's what I always wanted, I'm on a 500 Calories diet and no hunger pain, no desire of sugar, not even thinking of what I'm going to eat tonight or so. I used to have food always stuck in my mind, constantly thinking: when I'm going to eat and what I'm going to eat next. Now I don't care, I can't even believe it! It's the first time since more than a year that I didn't feel like this. During my Dr. Bernstein Diet I felt always hungry, dizzy, constantly weak and sleepy, even though the doctor told me that I should've felt fabulous all the times, well it didn't happen to me, with just Vitamins B and a starvation Diet what do you expect?!

I've to admit it, although I read so many good things about the HCG Diet and Dr. Simeons Protocol, I was a bit skeptical about it. I thought it was too good to be true, I had to try in person and have my personal opinion about it. At the end everybody is different, someone can find Dr. Bernstein Diet perfect and be able to maintain what is lost forever. Me, I wasn't and what I read in the past about dieting in general and how human body reacts on stressful diet (see my Binge Eating Disorder), made me realize that I need more a cure than a Diet, something that will set me free from this food-addiction in my mind. I hope I found it, I'm already thinking if I could just use HCG for the rest of my life, to remove from my brain the obsession of food, to help maintain this positive and healthy approach on what I eat!

HCG Diet - VLCD #1 The Begin

I had my third injection of HCG today, and this signs the begin of my VLCD days. So far I'm ok, it's just early morning but I feel I had so much food in the past two days that I could go for a while without eating, but of course I'll be starving pretty soon knowing my body!

I'm excited that I've finally started this Protocol, I know that there will be challenges along the way, hunger, dizziness, ketosis and all those things a strict diet can bring with it, but I believe in Dr. Simeons "cure" for my metabolism and I will continue until I reached my goal following meticulously the protocol.

Today the injection was a positive experience; I used 50 IU (0.5cc) of the solution and – apart from a small amount of blood coming out – it was extremely easy and quick. I do not mind the blood per se but I figure that some HCG will be lost when blood is coming out after the injection and, since the quantity is already so small, wasting any amount of HCG is a big loss that in general could compromise the hunger feeling of the day and the results on weight loss. But I was happy to notice that the cheap insulin syringes that I'm using don't have dead space, the top part behind the needle, so no solution gets lost in the syringe after using it. They're still cheap in quality though. For some reason today, after the injection, I believe I felt the HCG getting into my system, maybe it was just a placebo effect but the procedure went well and if I keep on doing my injections like today's one, I think I will have soon a positive pregnancy test that validates the trace of HCG in my body!

Second Loading Day

I'm approaching the official start of my VLCD – Very Low Calories Diet under HCG and Dr. Simeons Protocol. Today is my Second Loading Day, I'm definitely less hungry than yesterday and I do not want to eat much, I believe is mostly due to all the fatty food I had. I'm drinking lots of water though, I guess it's a normal reaction to all this fat I'm eating, and I feel always thirsty. I had an increase of 2.1 Kg today and my BMI was the same as yesterday, strangely my body fat was just a tiny bit less, which I think it's just a machine error! I planned to check my BMI every day, together with my weight, the inches of body fat lost I might check on a weekly basis rather than daily, I don't think I would see any substantial change every day anyway. I also want to take some pictures today, which introduces the begin of the real diet at the maximum weight I ever had in my life, I do hope to see drastic changes in the coming weeks. I planned to take pictures of my body changing on average every week; I might not do it every week if I don't see big losses. From my previous experience with Dr. Bernstein Diet often I did not have any weight loss, sometime due to certain type of food that was not absorbed by my body in a good way (see tomatoes), sometimes when I reached a former weight that I had in the past; those stalls are the most annoying ones, it might take days before you can see the scale going down again. I think I kind of know now where I might find in the future a former weight, I can be totally wrong but I bet I will have hard time to go down 62Kg, 58Kg and 55Kg; I maintained in my past those values for a while so my body could remember and stop there again.

Sometimes I wonder if this new Diet and the fact that will bring me again into ketosis and starvation mode, could somehow generate new and strong urges to Binge. That's a fear for me; because they can halts the Diet and the emotional stress will be huge. Some people reported to have actually trained themselves using the HCG Diet, to stop bingeing. For me it's a new experience with the Eating Disorder consciousness, so I will have to see myself. I did though some sort of withdrawal from sugar and carbs already. I wanted to start my HCG Diet with no sugar and very low carbs intake; otherwise the withdrawal done during a 500 Calories Diet might be super tough for me that I'm a chocolate addicted.

Today I'll go to the grocery store to buy some organic vegetables and some chicken breast to prepare my meals for tomorrow. With my previous Dr. Bernstein Diet I use to prepare lots' of dishes in advance, some of them I use to freeze, but most of the time I frozen already washed and pre-cut vegetables. This time I might not do it, I would prepare my meals on a daily basis mostly. The reason why I do not want to have food pre-cooked is because I got sick of it! Eventually the frozen vegetables and my dishes tasted very poorly and I never enjoyed eating it. I could tell the difference between meals that were coming just from the stove than one that was coming out from the microwave. I might have stated the obvious here but that's ok, it still explains my point of view…

The only thing that I might prepare in advance is the chicken breast raw meat, I can buy it and remove the extra fat – if any – weight it and save in plastic bags in the freezer. That should not be too bad once defrosted. At the end the amount of food that I eat every day it's so little that a meal shouldn't take that long to prepare, why bother to do too many things in advance?! There are only 2 meals a day: lunch and dinner, and I must to say, I'm almost happy not to have breakfast. I was tired of preparing omelet during my Dr. Bernstein Diet; I'm glad I can skip altogether or just have a tea and an apple.

First Loading Day done

My first Loading Day is done; it was almost painful by the end of day. I truly believe I had a couple of Binge episodes during the day and it was concerning me a bit, since I'm going to approach a very low calories Diet starting from tomorrow, I cannot deal with urges to binge. I hope I won't.

This morning the scale reported an increase of 2.1 Kg, which is almost scary to me, I was expecting the weight gain with all the food I had yesterday but somehow I was hoping the HCG will give me the benefit of keeping the weight off, oh well maybe tomorrow, who knows…

My injection procedure today was terrible I have to admit. I took the little vial from the fridge and I gently shake it, thinking that the HCG powder might be residing on the bottom of the vial; after that I took one of my insulin syringes of 1ml and I started to draw – what to me looked as mixed solution, after removing the needle from the vial I found it completely crocked! I must to say those syringes are extremely cheap and I'm already thinking on buying better ones for my next injections. Anyhow, I decided to try to straighten the needle and continue with my procedure, so I did, but I couldn't tell if there was just air in the syringe or there was HCG in it, seriously it was hard to see due to the grey colour of the syringe! So basically I proceeded injecting only air in my belly….yes that was what I stupidly did! So, afraid of the subcutaneous air I had just injected in my tummy, I had to continue with I was trying to achieve there: having my HCG daily dosage. The second time I pay more attention on how I was drawing the solution from the vial, I was able to see liquid going inside the syringe, so I took around 52/53 units from the bottle and injected again in my belly, but in a different spot. BTW yesterday injection gave me already a big bruise, what a surprise. I decided to increase slightly my dosage today, thinking about the amount of HCG that can get wasted in the top of syringe and also because I wanted to be sure I had enough HCG in my body to saturate my blood with all the fatty food I'm eating in these 2 Loading Days. Hopefully my assumption can work for me; I figured I might need to understand exactly what dosage works for me just going forward with the VLCD days. This is actually a good point on why is not advisable to pre-prepare all the syringes with HCG solution in advance, if you need to change the dosage it might be impossible to do so without wasting HCG. The required daily amount is so little that really working around it, it's definitely not easy and the margin of error is always quite relevant.

Someone might argue why I don't use the drops, way easier in terms of administering. Well I do not believe in drops; it's scientifically proved that HCG cannot be absorbed in the body via mouth, it simply doesn't; it needs to be injected every day. HHCG is the Homeopathic version, which is just a scam from my point of view, there's no HCG whatsoever in this product, so why bother using it? Do your researches first before choosing this type of Protocol, we are never enough careful when dealing with our health and well-being.

HCG Diet and my First Loading Day

This first day of Loading is becoming really tough. Somehow I think I was looking forward to it, but now really all this greasy food is making me sick, I actually hope it's a HCG effect, which means that it's already circulating in my body….in small amounts maybe. But I think it might be better tomorrow, in terms of hormone effectiveness. I have to admit I am a bit concerning regarding the solution ratio of my injections, and if I took from the original vial all the HCG that was there, I somehow regretted not putting enough bacteriostatic water to help the HCG table dissolve properly. I watched many videos and most of them were saying that the tablet will dissolve almost instantly once in contact with the liquid bacteriostatic water. It was actually not quite like that, I had to wait and move the vial here and there (without shaking it to avoid air bubbles) to dissolve the HCG. I found that some residual of powder were still at the bottom of the little bottle, in the small crease of the vial, just wondering if this amount can somehow compromise me daily dosage. Maybe I'm just worrying too much, maybe I will have my answers in the next days, seeing how much hungry I am. 

From Dr. Bernstein strict Diet to Dr. Simeons Protocol

Today officially starts my HCG Diet Journey. This morning, very early, I prepared the solution of HCG and Bacteriostatic water. I decided to add 20ml to the 5000IU of HCG so the solution will go up to a 0.5 ml daily; an amount easy to draw with the insulin syringe and for me more convenient in terms of margin of error. I assumed that during my course of HCG I would have some drops of solution lost in the syringes or the bottle itself, with this ratio I figured the HCG percentage lost should be proportionally less, or at least I hope so. Dr. Simeons was somehow against the use of insulin syringes due to the amount lost inside the needle itself, but I did not feel comfortable proceeding with intramuscular injections for this treatment so I will take the chance and eventually increase the dosage along the way, if I'm feeling extremely hungry.

So today is my first Loading day of Phase 1, I thought – since I'm still a recalcitrant Binge Eater – that I would enjoy this Phase of the Protocol, however it's only 9:00 AM and I'm already so full that I feel I cannot eat anything else. I doubt is already an HCG's effect, way too early for the hormone to be in my body fading my hunger. Let's see how I will feel by the end of tomorrow with my second loading Day.

I joined a Community on YouTube, there are a lot of HCG-ers out there, everyone with different weight problems, different lifestyles and so on. I must to say, most of them do not use injections but drops. Homeopathic drops are way cheaper than injections, are easy to buy and I guess also very easy to use, they need to be absorbed under the tongue. I personally do not believe in drops, either regular HCG drops, even less the homeopathic ones (HHCG). It's scientifically proved that this type of hormone cannot be absorbed by the body if taken orally, it's like the insulin: it needs to be injected every day. The homeopathic one are clearly without any trace of HCG and can be purchased on Amazon….some people buy even at grocery store (absurd to me). The drops do work, because of course a 500 Calories regiment cannot fail with whatever product you are using. But the whole point of assuming HCG – which I mean real HCG hormone injected daily – is to preserve muscle mass, to rebalance the hypothalamus, to reduce the abnormal fat without affecting the metabolism. Any other Diet with this small daily amount of Calories is sure to fail, because done to the expenses of normal fat that will be regained quickly once extra food is introduced.   

Why do we play with our health to save few dollars I'm not sure, I'd rather take just Vitamins B6 and B12 like the Dr. Bernstein Diet than unknown homeopathic drops sold at Walmart.

For my personal experience what most count is a realistic maintenance, it's clear that portion control and weight monitoring is an essential part of every maintenance program, but with my previous round with Dr. Bernstein Diet I had so many problems introducing even a small amount of food, the regaining process was extremely fast, my metabolism was compromised and I had no muscle strengths for the whole duration of the Diet. That alone tell me that there was something wrong with what I was doing. I do not want to make the same mistake, but people are hard to convince, we prefer to believe in a magical drop that will resolve all our fat-problems – forever! Which it never happens obviously.

Dr. Bernstein Diet: the missing piece!

In the past 2 / 3 months I did extensive researches online about my Binge Eating Disorder, Dr. Bernstein Diet, and dieting in general. Eventually I came across another Diet using injections: the hCG Diet or a.k.a. Dr. Simeons Protocol. After looking more deeply into this protocol I found out that Dr. Stanley Bernstein (whom Criminal Records from his past are quite impressive!  – see Wikipedia) actually discovered first Dr. Simeons protocol during a congress in Las Vegas in 1972.

He started to use hCG (a hormone produced by pregnant women) in his injections and he opened many clinics for weight loss across the country. However by the end of 1987 approximately, hCG was banned by Health Care regulations for weight loss, so he stopped to give hCG and he "switched" to his B-Comp solution of Vitamins B6 and B12.

As normal reaction I had lots of questions about this hormone and the effects on a weight loss.

Dr. Simeons was a British doctor that did lots of researches for obesity, he worked last years of his career in Rome for numerous patients, continuing his studies and helping people losing weight, and – most importantly – maintain it. Apparently even Lady Diana went to his clinic once in her youth!

Dr. Simeons wrote a brief document called: Pounds & Inches (you can find it online for free on many websites). This document, which I define as illuminating to me, gives a precise description of obesity, about 3 types of FAT and in general how to lose and maintain weight resetting our hypothalamus (hopefully this is the right word).

What he discovered, working in India during the war, was that malnourished women were still giving birth to healthy babies, so he started to look into this exceptional phenomenon of human body and he found out that this hormone hCG was produced in huge quantities during pregnancy. It was the signal to the body to use any abnormal fat reserve in case of undernourishment, in order to save the fetus.

If we imagine an undernourished diet with this hormone in our system (and no baby of course) the result is a loss of only abnormal fat and not lean mass. The weight loss can be as fast as 1 pound per day with no hunger.

Reporting some of Dr. Simeons words from Pounds & Inches is extremely important to understand the 3 kinds of fat that we have:

"The first is the structural fat which fills the gaps between various organs, a sort of packing material.

The second type of fat is a normal reserve of fuel upon which the body can freely draw when the nutritional income from the intestinal tract is insufficient to meet the demand. Such normal reserves are localized all over the body.

But there is a third type of fat which is entirely abnormal. It is the accumulation of such fat, and of such fat only, from which the overweight patient suffers. This abnormal fat is also a potential reserve of fuel, but unlike the normal reserves it is not available to the body in a nutritional emergency. It is, so to speak, locked away in a fixed deposit and is not kept in a current account, as are the normal reserves."

 

What hCG targets during its effect is releasing abnormal fat and ONLY abnormal fat, because this is the FAT that is not promptly regained after a diet.

Hence the missing piece of Dr. Bernstein Diet: hCG

(Which I believe is a sort of scam, unless he has hCG in his B-Comp is feeding us just with B-Vitamins!!)

Again from Pounds & Inches:

"…the patients begin to look weary and drawn, feel weak and hungry and any further loss of weight achieved is then always at the expense of normal fat. This is not only undesirable, but normal fat is also instantly regained as soon as the patient is returned to a free diet."

That's WHY most of the patients regain weight extremely fast after almost any Diet, just looking at the food will make you gain weight!

I experienced this problem first; I was gaining weight with an extra apple a day! Sure, portion control, calories and weight watching should always be part of any maintenance program but a strict diet, without a hormone regulator will only alter the metabolism and gaining weight back will be absolutely guaranteed. I lost my period for months after only 6 weeks of Dieting with Dr. Bernstein.

People on Dr Bernstein diet experience hair loss, dizziness, lightheaded, weakness and so many side effects that you just wonder how long your body can handle starvation without any sort of reaction.

I'm not suggesting to switch one Diet for the other one, just as my opinion, go on YouTube and look for hCG – you will find countless videos of people using injections, drops, spray of hCG and be amazed of this Diet.