The HCG diet has been around for decades. Over the past several years, it has been growing in popularity as the rapid weight loss results are conveyed to ever growing numbers of people. In this day and age, people often find that they don’t have a lot of time on their hands. Between work or school, family, friends and just the general comings and goings of day to day life, it’s increasingly more difficult to find the time to exercise regularly, let alone the energy to do it effectively. If this sounds like your life, then the HCG diet might be a useful tool in helping you to lose weight. It requires no exercise in order to do so, and therefore has little effect on your daily schedule.
So, with no exercise involved, how does the HCG diet elicit weight loss? Simple. HCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin works in your body on a hormonal level to release stores of fat into the bloodstream. These stores of fat are then broken down by the body and turned into energy which is used to fuel your daily activities. In order for the HCG diet to reach maximum effect, it includes a 500 calorie a day requirement, allowing the majority of your energy to come from stored fat as opposed to food that you eat.
Depending on how much energy you require during your day, you might find that the 800 calorie a day HCG diet is more effective. Both versions require that you strictly adhere to the list of approved foods, and that you consume a lot of water over the course of the diet. In order to avoid malnutrition or vitamin deficiencies, additional nutrient supplements are often prescribed.
The 500 calorie a day limit may seem daunting, but the total duration of the HCG diet isn’t very long. It only lasts about 30-40 days, depending on how much weight you personally want to lose. There are other versions available that last for shorter or longer duration as well. The 15 day HCG diet, for example, is only half as long as the original. Dieters can expect to lose anywhere from 10-20 pounds over the course of the 15 day HCG diet, making it a great way to kick-start your weight loss, or for those who need to lose a few pounds quickly. On the other end of the spectrum is the 90 day HCG diet. This diet is for people who may need to lose large amounts of weight in order to improve their health.
Once the weight loss is attained and the diet protocol has ended, it’s important to continue eating a healthy, balanced diet in order to keep the weight off. The most common set back to dieters is that once they’ve lost weight, they go right back to eating the way they did before and often put the weight right back on. Exercise is advised once you’ve lost the weight from the HCG diet, but exercise for weight maintenance is far less rigorous and time consuming than the type you would need to do in order to lose weight. 30 minutes of moderate exercise a few times a week, combined with a healthy, balanced diet should be all you need in order to maintain your current body weight.
Should you find that you’re beginning to put weight back on after completing the HCG protocol, simply retool your diet to include more vegetables and less starches and sugars. This will greatly decrease your daily caloric intake and stave off any additional weight gain.
