HCG

On April 1, we began the HCG diet protocol. I bought the HCG from a woman at work who sells it on the side. This is her website: http://www.hcgdietproduct.com/. I've done a ton of research on this diet and though many say it's not safe because of the calorie restriction, it is indeed safe. Basically, HCG, the pregnancy hormone changes your metabolic system and melts away fat. The 500 calorie allowance (in a day) is very strict. However, your body is hardly using your food intake to nourish itself. It's plenty nourished by what the drops do to your body. Here are the phases:

Phase 1: 2 days. Fat loading days. You start the drops (10 drops under your tongue first thing in the am, 30 minutes before lunch, 30 minutes before dinner). You eat everything you can that's high in fat, but not necessarily sugar. So pastas, creams, butters, oils, etc. This food intake is what helps your body kickstart the metabolism changes. You also start weighing yourself in this phase. You weigh yourself every morning when you first wake up.

Phase 2: 19-40 days. 500 calorie restriction phase. There is a very strict plan of what you are allowed to eat. Only certain fruits and veggies and meats. You are allowed 100 grams of a fruit, 100 grams of a veggie and 100 grams of a meat for lunch. Same for dinner. You cannot combine fruits together or veggies together. Only one of each. For fruits, we were allowed strawberries, oranges and apples. For veggies, we were allowed cucumbers, lettuce, spinach, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, and some other weird ones I don't even know what they look like (like chard). For your protein, you are allowed chicken breast, steak, lean ground beef, shrimp and some other kinds of fish. What saved us during these days was the HCG gourmet cookbook which is filled with FABULOUS recipes that are HCG approved. You have to take your drops during this phase or it's not enough food intake.

End of phase 2: 2 days. 500 calorie restriction phase with no drops. All the foods as above but do drops.

Phase 3: 21 days. Maintenance phase. No sugars, no starches. But you are allowed dairy, oils, dressings, etc. No calorie restriction but you have to keep weighing yourself. If you gain more than 2 lbs from your bottom line weight the end of phase 3, then you eat nothing for breakfast and lunch that day and have a large steak for dinner. So this phase is all about locking in the weight you lost.

Phase 4: Healthy, well balanced meals. You can slowly incorporate some sugars and starches back in your diet but continue to weigh yourself daily. And do the steak thing if you gain 2 pounds above your bottom line weight.

After a few weeks of phase 4, you can do another round of HCG if you want to.

Our story:

Phase 1 was fun. Phase 2 was hard, especially at first. I would be lying if I said I didn't miss eating real food. But we were highly motivated. And seriously, your weight loss is INSTANT. We started dropping the pounds quickly which made you even more motivated to stick to it. However, we only did it for the minimum time, 21 days. Of course, the longer you do phase 2, the more weight you lose. We just completed phase 3 yesterday. So it's been 6 weeks since eating sugars and starches (well, we've had little cheats along the way like at Easter time). Evan lost 23 pounds, I lost 17 during phase 2. So phase 3, we maintained that. It's a huge kickstart to losing weight. Now, we can focus on more weight loss because we are eating healthy. But we probably won't do HCG again. Evan's started a new program that's helping him lose even more weight. He ended phase 3 earlier than I did so he could start his new program. He's lost an additional 10 pounds. He's doing amazing, I'm super proud of him. I don't think I've ever seen him this skinny.

Before and after pictures coming soon......