What is The HCG, or "Hormone" Diet?

The HCG diet promises to help you lose weight quickly. While many claim it works, it has a potentially damaging effect on your metabolism. The diet is based on the properties of HCG, or human chorionic gonadatropin. This hormone is produced during pregnancy, so pregnant women can use the right kind of fat when burning off calories. 

The HCG diet pills contain small doses of HCG which are advertised by those promoting the HCG diet as helping your body tap into stored fat and burn it off. They also advertise that HCG suppresses your appetite so you can consume as little as 500 calories a day. Initially, this diet may help you rapidly drop pounds -- as any diet dropping your calorie intake will do. Ultimately, it destroys your metabolism, as you are essentially starving yourself. Another negative side effect is the loss of muscle mass, so much that you will no longer be able to effectively burn calories. If you’re looking to naturally suppress your appetite, Dr. Oz recommends using the four Fs: fiber, fish, fowl and good fats - like walnuts and flaxseed. I have been hearing a lot about the HCG diet on television and in articles.  It seems strange to me how easily people will inject substances into their body without really understanding the consequences.  Also, eating only 500 calories a day can't be good for you.  It is recommended to always keep at least 1,200 calories in your body per day to make sure you have the proper amount of nutrition your body needs to function.  

I went to Dr. Oz's website to see what he thinks about it and I agree with his findings: Most of this is directly from Dr. Oz's  web site: Which of the below statements is true about the hCG diet?

• You can lose 30 pounds in one month.
• Many dieters swear by it.
• Doctors say it doesn’t work.
• The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) calls hCG supplements illegal and fraudulent.

What’s remarkable is that all these statements are true. Let’s take a close look at the hCG diet to separate fact from fiction.

How does the hCG diet work?

The hCG diet combines extreme calorie restriction with daily shots of a hormone produced by pregnant women called human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG). 

How much can you eat on the hCG diet? 

Very little. The hCG diet requires that you eat only 500 calories a day. You would hit your daily limit with one turkey sandwich with Swiss cheese and mayo. Any diet that limits you to 500 calories a day is unhealthy, but will work, since starving yourself has always been a way to loose weight, but has also always been a really, really bad idea. 

Can you lose a lot of weight on the hCG diet? 

Yes. If you don’t eat, you’ll lose weight. Skipping meals and extreme restriction of food has been used by dieters for decades to try to lose weight. If you stick to a diet of only 500 calories a day, it’s possible to lose 5 or more pounds a week. But, again, starving yourself is NEVER a good idea. 

If you lose weight fast, then why don’t doctors recommend it? 

You don’t keep the weight off. Decades of research have demonstrated that if you diet by eating only 500 calories a day, you regain a lot of weight after the diet ends. It turns out that these crash diets lead to no more weight loss after one year than if you modestly reduce calories and increase exercise. It's unsafe. Common sense tells us that starving is not very good for our bodies. Your mom probably have told you this. Scientists have also proven this.  If you only eat 500 calories a day, there are serious health risks. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has investigated over a dozen deaths linked to very low calorie diets as far back as the 1970s. While dieters are unlikely to die from a limited duration hCG diet, the diet is long enough to lead to other health problems like hair loss, constipation and gallstones – a painful condition that often requires surgery.

What about the hCG injections – doesn’t that make the diet more effective? 

If hCG injections don’t make you lose more weight, do they make the diet safer? 

People on the hCG diet say they don’t feel hungry. If it doesn’t work, how can that be? 

Do hCG drops work?