A rant post here.
A friend of mine has decided to do the HCG Diet which promises guaranteed fat loss with no effort or exercise required whatsoever. All the diet requires is that you take 10-15 drops of HCG Oil each "meal" (Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner) along with a prescribed "diet plan" as shown below from HCGWarrior.com:
I'm all for weight loss. I had trouble with being overweight for a large chunk of my life and have tried many diet plans, ranging from slow-carb, ketogenic type diets and so on. From all of my experiences, the main determining factor of a successful weight loss program is consistency and flexibility.
There are many problems with the HCG Diet. Sure, you will lose weight but that's at the cost of your health due to the extremely low amounts of calories/nutrients. Here are reasons why it sucks:
You're at Risk of Rebounding
As you can see from the image above, you're severely limited in what foods you can enjoy. 100 grams of protein twice a day with 2 handful of vegetables and a couple of apples is what you're limited to having. There's no flexibility at all. Which is ironic because the diet advertises itself as a "no effort diet that requires no exercising at all". The rule of calories in and calories out still applies, you won't need to go the gym but you will have to eat what amounts to kitchen scraps.
Trust me, I've done extreme type diets before due to not having enough knowledge. You will start dreaming about food and you won't be able to think straight. And once you've achieved your target weight loss goal, what happens next? Rebound.
You end up gorging yourself on all the foods you've religiously abstained from. You treat yourself to all the Popeye's Chicken and Steak Dinners because you're slim now and you deserve it after all your hard work. The problem with this diet is that it doesn't teach healthy habits for the long-term. It's just not a lifestyle that can be sustained for a healthy period of time. The rebound effect can be demonstrated by contestants who have regained most of their weight after completing the show (http://theconversation.com/why-so-many-people-regain-weight-after-dieting-65095).
Your Health will Suffer if done for the long-term
The normal human body needs a required amount of calories in order sustain itself and to perform it's normal metabolic functions. This is your Resting Metabolic Rate as calculated below:
(RMR) kcal/day:
(males) = 9.99 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) - 4.92 x age(years) + 5;(RMR) kcal/day:
(females) = 9.99 x weight(kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) - 4.92 x age (years) - 161.Source:
Mifflin, MD; St Jeor, ST; Hill, LA; Scott, BJ; Daugherty, SA; Koh, YO (1990). "A new predictive equation for resting energy >expenditure in healthy individuals". The American journal of clinical nutrition 51 (2): 241-7.
For example, Joe is 25 year old who weights 80kg (176.37 lbs) and is 182.88 cm (6') tall. His RMR is 1824.2 calories per day. Keep in mind, this is a your RMR and doesn't include the calories needed to perform your daily activities (such as walking or going to work - that is your TDEE). The RMR can be thought of as the amount of energy you burn if your body is in a comatose state.
From the HCG diet, after inputting an example day into MyFitnessPal, the total amount of calories amount to 500 calories. As you can see, you're at a severe deficit. You will lose weight but you're putting your body through some really shitty times.
Here is one redditor's personal experience:
Goodbye Social Life
As I've said before, you have to be consistent and flexible with a diet program in order for to be successful. You need to be able to learn good habits that can sustained in the long run. You can pretty much say goodbye to any form of social outing. I found that social pressure was a huge factor that is often unaccounted for when beginning a weight loss program.
If a group of friends invite you out for dinner. Nope, you can't.
Your girlfriend wants to go eat. Nope, you can't.
There's no flexibility in this regard. You're pretty much stuck at home, watching Game of Thrones because you've taken a huge chunk of your life out of the equation and that is eating food and most social activities revolve around that.
It's Expensive and Oil has been proven to do absolutely nothing
To make this diet even more outrageous is the cost of it. Here is the price (in CAD) on the official website:
You're paying close to $200 CAD a month (including shipping and other fees) to do this diet. That is money that can be spent on groceries on a more reasonable and FREE diet plan.
But get this? You're paying for the oil which does absolutely fuck all.
Here is the abstract from paper that was published studying the effect of HCG on the treatment of Obesity:
The effect of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) in the treatment of obesity by means of the Simeons therapy: a criteria-based meta-analysis.
- A meta-analysis was conducted to assess if there is scientific ground for the use of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) as adjunctive therapy in the treatment of obesity. 2. Published papers relating to eight controlled and 16 uncontrolled trials that measured the effect of HCG in the treatment of obesity were traced by computer-aided search and citation tracking. 3. The trials were scored for the quality of the methods (based on four main categories: study population, interventions, measurement of effect, and data presentation and analysis) and the main conclusion of author(s) with regard to weight-loss, fat-redistribution, hunger, and feeling of well-being. 4. Methodological scores ranged from 16 to 73 points (maximum score 100), suggesting that most studies were of poor methodological quality. Of the 12 studies scoring 50 or more points, one reported that HCG was a useful adjunct. The studies scoring 50 or more points were all controlled. 5. We conclude that there is no scientific evidence that HCG is effective in the treatment of obesity; it does not bring about weight-loss of fat-redistribution, nor does it reduce hunger or induce a feeling of well-being.
For more emphasis:
We conclude that there is no scientific evidence that HCG is effective in the treatment of obesity; it does not bring about weight-loss of fat-redistribution, nor does it reduce hunger or induce a feeling of well-being.
You're basically paying $200 a month for a product that has been proven to do jack shit. The only way that the diet works is because it is coupled with you eating only 500 calories a day.
/end Rant