Is HCG Just Fasting?

(Tina Emmons) #1

It just dawned on me that on the HCG diet(which I tried and lost 30 pounds in 45 days) you consume only 500 calories. According to the 5:2 guy, that’s low enough to be fasting so…does anyone know if there’s anything to the drops or was I just fasting? Might have helped me the last few years as I couldn’t look at another skinless chicken breast or plain burger patty for a looooong time. I would have felt so empowered knowing I could do that and may have continued to fast since. I’ve gone a lot of miles since then to get here, with my extra 50 pounds.

(Rob) #2

HCG diet is STARVATION with a side order of probably TOXIC crap.

If you starve yourself, you will lose weight fast. It is absolutely endorsed by victims of torture and hunger strikers the world over! But as many here will attest and your experience has proven, it damages your metabolism and you yo-yo right back. The drops are probably neither here nor there for you (but an F’n goldmine for them!).

The only diet I’ve seen that consumes some level of food but may still count as fasting (not like egg fasts or bacon fasts and other arbitrary restriction diets) is the Fast Mimicking Diet by Valter Longo. I don’t know much about it nor am I interested but some people seem to swear by it.

There are other diets that use starvation levels of calories to attempt to reset metabolisms that are severely deranged (e.g. T2Ds) like the Newcastle University experiments by Taylor and commercialized by Moseley but these are specifically short-term and not focused on weight loss as a primary goal.

Effective fasting primarily happens when your body is adapted to burning fat and happy to use internal fat reserves instead of food but MAINTAINING your BMR. Starving is generally when the body crashes its BMR in response to inadequate food levels. This does not bounce back well, if at all. Ironically there seems to be a significant difference between some food and no food and a lot depends on your situation when you start.

Lots of threads to search here on the difference…

(Crow T. Robot) #3

I also tried the HCG plan a few times with very good success each time (lb/day approx.). Looking back, you’re right, it’s just a “modified fast”, and would work as well or better without HCG. Personally, I was using the homeopathic drops, which probably didn’t do anything at all, but I reported the same results as those who were injecting hormones.

The foods themselves are really quite low-carb. I was probably in ketosis much of the time I was doing it, without even knowing it. The only difference from keto is that it’s also very low-fat. in that respect, it’s basically a PSMF, just with a bit of added variety.

(Randall Burns) #4

There is on important factor in using HCG some folks miss:
HCG tends to maintain testosterone levels. Body builders using steroids use it for that purpose: to counter the tendency of natural testosterone production to shut down when using those drugs. Some folks using testosterone replacement therapy also use it for that purpose.

When folks are on an extended water fast, about half the weight lost will be muscle, not fat. What I have never seen good data on: how does that compare with folks using HCG using a fast or VLCD.

HCG is approved to boost sperm count in men with infertility issues.