Understanding HCG Diets Better: Do They Work?

By | April 20, 2015

hcg diets
You’ve probably heard of HCG before. It stands for human chorionic gonadotropin, and is better known as the pregnancy hormone.

In modern medicine, it plays a significant role in pregnancy detection. However, HCG has more recently come into the spotlight as a major diet fad. We’re going to go through how an HCG diet works, and whether it is something that you should be going for.

What is an HCG Diet?

The HCG diet involves eating as few calories as possible, somewhere in the range of 500 to 800 calories a day. This is a very extreme diet, seeing as the human body needs around 2000 calories a day.

Consider this: between 1300 and 1700 calories were fed to inmates of Auschwitz every day; those doing the HCG diet are consuming half that, or even less. The 500 calories that you do consumer will be supplemented either with HCG drops taken orally, or a daily injection of the hormone.

This diet is classified as a VLCD, or very low calorie diet.

How Does the Diet Work?

Well, human chorionic gonadotropin has the ability to make the body mobilize existent fat stores, in order to feed the growing baby during pregnancy.

So, when it comes to the HCG diet, the point is to use the hormone’s tendency to allow your body to access (and use up) its fat stores faster than it otherwise would. Therefore, the idea is that you’ll start losing body fat right away, instead of beginning by losing muscle and bone mass.
It can never be denied, prescription viagra cost nor can it be underestimated. Causes for ED can be either physical viagra no prescription uk or mental in psychological point. Vigorelle is carefully packaged in a medical-grade buy viagra from canada appalachianmagazine.com state-of-the-art facility. Women Disappear All the Time in Sweden Stieg Larsson says it’s all too easy in Sweden, since women disappear all the time and nobody takes note of what (and why it) is happening. cialis low cost

The idea behind an HCG diet can be summed up as possible: consuming so few calories lets you lose weight. Meanwhile, you ensure that you burn fat and not muscle, and keep your appetite under control, using the daily HCG supplements.

Pros of the HCG Diet

We’re sorry to say that there is no scientific evidence proving that there is a correlation between HCG use and weight loss. The idea sounds great in theory (major health issues aside), but otherwise has not been shown to have any good effects.

However, it must be said that anyone who is selling HCG drop or other supplies is probably going to make quite a lot of money. That’s the only pro that we can think of.

Cons of the HCG Diet

For one thing, exercise is not considered to be an important part of this diet, and importance is not given to the major lifestyle changes that accompany it. And, as you’ve probably guessed already, the calorie restrictions are extreme, and considered unsafe by most people in the medical profession, especially if you’re going about it without any medical supervision.

The side effects of long term use of gonadotropin are not yet known, but there is some evidence that HCG use works against the early detection of some cancers. This is, unfortunately, a quick fix, but no one knows if it really works. And then there are issues like infection, fertility issues, gall stones, diarrhea and nutritional deficiency, to name just a few.

ted kallmyer coaching