HCG Diet Dangers: Prescribing a Hormone with a Harmful Diet

It wasn’t long ago that a very popular doctor developed a weight loss plan that involved the hormone HCG, better known as the Human Chorionic Gonadotropin. This may sound like a mouthful, but many people thought that injections of this hormone, with a strict caloric diet would be their key to weight loss glory. The recent rebirth of this diet in today’s society reveals that there are many HCG diet dangers that most people aren’t aware of.

HCG was first prescribed as a treatment for obesity back in 1954, by Dr. A Simeons. His method consisted of prescribing patients with a strict diet of about 500 calories per day, combined with 125 units of HCG injected six days per week for eight weeks. (Whoa! Sounds fun, huh?)

This solution for obesity became more popular in the 1970’s when people displaying their love for this method took to the streets and claimed that they had experienced rapid weight loss with minimal hunger, no weakness, and noticeable loss of fat in their stomach, hips, thighs, and upper arms.

Contrary to these joyous claims, there has been recent scientific evidence that shows the hormone HCG has no effect on the treatment of obesity.

Although there have been no specific claims of HCG causing harm or weight loss in patients, it is the intense calorie-restricted diet that is the cause of most concern.

500 calories a day is like telling your body, "I don’t like you, so I’m going to punish you for making me so overweight." This way to lose is not the answer.

If you suffer from obesity, or just need to lose weight, the best thing you can do for your body is to eat satisfying portions of foods that are well-balanced with essential protein, carbohydrates, and yes, even fat. (the healthy kind!). You definitely don't need hormone injections of HCG to maintain successful weight loss.

Harmful diets like the HCG diet are detrimental. Why? Since your body is literally starving, it forces your body to feed off itself for energy to fuel your metabolism. This is a very disturbing fact, but it’s true.

You can still stick to a calorie-restricted diet, it just can’t be TOO restricted. In fact, Dr. A’s diet is dramatically far below the RDA's recommendation for daily caloric intake in adults.

In order to avoid HCG diet dangers, find a diet or meal plan that contains a controlled caloric intake between 1,200-1,500 calories. This may seem a like a lot compared to Dr. A’s prescribed 500, but diets like these actually cause your body to retrain its metabolism to maintain weight loss more effectively.

So, if someone tells you that the HCG diet is the way to go, remember the simple facts: Starving your body is never the answer. Our bodies need nutrition to function, and can't maintain successful weight loss without it.

By skipping the hormones, and eating properly balanced meals, you can avoid these diet dangers and lose weight the safe and smart way!

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