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.

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.