My opinion on the HCG diet...

My hope is that people are starting to realize that obtaining a healthy weight should be a slow and steady process. But in this age of instant gratification, it can be hard to tell ourselves that this slow pr...ogress is worth it. Those seeking the instant gratification may find the HCG diet alluring so I thought I would post this article about it here - in hopes you would put it out of your mind (if it ever entered).

For those that aren't familiar with the HCG diet, you essentially eat nothing (500 calories per day) and inject yourself with HCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin - a hormone produced during pregnancy). Amazingly [as I roll my eyes] you lose weight. Well, ya! You're only eating 500 calories!!!!  You aren't losing weight as a result of the injections - though they may help people to keep their calorie intake this low by curbing their appetite, some with lovely feelings of nausea (as HCG is a hormone produced during pregnancy that also brings on morning sickness). It is ridiculous. It is dangerous. Your body's basic needs cannot be met with a calorie level this low. I would love to see the follow-up study to this to show exactly how quickly these people regain all that weight lost and what percentage gain even more than they started with since they've essentially killed their metabolism by atrophying their lean muscle mass.

My favorite paragraph from the article... "Two years ago, Lori Hill, 40, of Salt Lake City, Utah, began a 28-day hCG diet cycle. She says she lost about 26 pounds, including thigh fat, largely without hunger. But she felt ill almost immediately, and by the last week of the diet, Hill—a fit and active soccer referee—couldn't climb a flight of stairs without gasping for breath. The effort made her muscles burn and shake, too. After completing the cycle, Hill regained all the weight she had lost, plus an additional 15 pounds. 'I starved myself and threw all my nutrients out of whack,' she says. 'You're tricking your body into letting you starve, without feeling any major hunger. What you're doing to your body just isn't worth it.' "

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/diet-fitness/diet/articles/2011/03/14/hcg-diet-dangers-is-fast-weight-loss-worth-the-risk?page=2