From many years the HCG diet plan has been very popular. The HCG meal plan is a very extreme diet which helps to reduce weight very fast. A person can lose around 1 to 2 LBS or you can say 0.5 to 1 kg in a day.
It is a process in which you are not supposed to feel hungry at all. But let me tell you that the FDA has told that this diet is quite dangerous as well as illegal too. In this article we will examine the HCG diet menu for the study purposes.
HCG
First of all let me tell you what HCG is. It is a hormone that is present at levels which are high in the early stages of pregnancy. HCG has been used for the treatment of the fertility issues in women as well as men.
If there is an elevation in blood levels of the HCG then it might also be a symptom of the several types of cancer which includes ovarian, placental and also the testicular cancer.
In the year 1950 the doctor named Albert Simons who was British proposed the idea of use of HCG for the weight loss.
The diet he suggested included mainly two components which were –
- A diet which consists of 500 calories in a day.
- Injecting the HCG hormone with the help of injections.
Nowadays the HCG products are available in the market in various different forms which include sprays, petals and also the oral drops. These are also available in different websites as well as some of the retail stores as well.
Does HCG really help you to lose weight?
It is said that the HCG diet plan menu helps in the boosting of metabolism in a person and does help to lose a large amount of fat without even feeling hungry at all.
There are many theories which have concluded that the HCG diet meal plan doesn’t help you to lose weight. The real reason behind the loss of weight is the really low intake of calories during this diet and it has nothing to do at all with the HCG meals.
When compared the effects of HCG diet meals with the regular diet meals with a similar calories count, the loss of weight was similar in both the cases and was almost identical between both.
These tests prove that HCG planner is not at all effective and it just helps in the reduction of hunger and that’s it.
How the HCG diet plan affects your body
- When you follow the HCG diet plan it is going to decrease the muscle mass in your body. This is a very common side effect in the diets which have a severe restriction in the intake of calories such as the HCG diet plan.
- Your body automatically reduces the number of calories that it burns so that it can conserve the energy.
The proponents claim that the HCG diet plan only causes fat loss and not the muscle loss. I also see that the HCG diet plan helps in the elevation of hormones and also boost the metabolism. However there is not any kind of scientific evidence which is available for these claims.
There are other ways with the help of which you can stop the loss of muscle other than following the HCG phases. You can go for weight lifting and it will help you and preventing the loss of muscles in your body. You can also take a diet which is high in protein for the prevention of muscle loss.
What an HCG diet plan looks like?
The HCG diet plan consists of a very low calorie diet which is also low in fat.
The division of it is done in three different phases –
- The loading phase
In this phase you will have to take HCG and also eat a lot of high fat as well as high calorie food for around 2 days.
- Weight loss phase
In this phase you will have to continue the intake of HCG and eat 500 calories a day for a round 3 to 6 weeks.
- The maintenance phase
In this phase you will have to stop taking the HCG and increase the intake of food gradually but you will have to avoid the intake of starch and the sugar for around 3 weeks.
This is a type of diet which is usually taken when a person follows the HCG diet plan. The HCG diet plan menus are recommended by the people who are certified nutritionists and people should not follow the HCG diet plan on their own.
Availability of HCG products in market and are they fake?
Most of the products that you will find in the market which consists of HCG are homeopathic which actually means that they don’t consist of HCG.
The real products which consist of HCG are only in the form of an injection and it is administered only as fertility drug. You cannot get it without the prescription of a doctor.
You should not buy the products which contain HCG and are available in the online stores as they are complete fake.
Their are also better proper nutrition plans than the HCG diet plan at which you should take a look.
Side effects of the HCG
First of all you should know that this is a product which is not at all recommended by the FDA and you should not take this product at all for the weight loss.
Other than that this product has some side effects too which you should know. Some of the side effects include –
- Fatigue
- Headache
- depression
These Side Effects are caused due to the starvation and the low intake of calories.
If you want to loose weight you don’t need to go for HCG. You can loose 15 pounds in a month with a diet which is much better an easier to follow.
All in All
According to the studies the HCG diet plan actually doesn’t help you to lose weight at all and the real reason behind losing weight is the low intake of the calories.
If you want to lose weight then there are many other options which you can follow and get really good results as well such as ketosis.
You will be glad to know you can also get to know when you are into ketosis.
You should also never take steroids in any case as steroids have many side effects.
I hope this article was helpful and if you have any suggestions then you can mention them in the comment down below.
If you have any other theoretical questions about this topic then you can mention them in the comments as well.