In no particular order of importance…
1. I have a six-year old daughter. She is healthy and strong and big boned and athletic and not an ounce overweight. But there will come a day when she thinks she is overweight, and I want to set the example of healthy, sane eating for her, not crazy restrictive diets.
2. 500 calories is not enough food. It seems impossible that you would not feel famished every waking moment. It seems impossible that 500 calories can provide enough nutrition.
3. It seems likely that a lot of the weight loss is probably muscle mass, even though Simeons says it’s all abnormal fat. Without expensive tests or an expensive scale, how will I know? And I bet you can’t exercise very much without feeling weak. And if I don’t exercise for 40 days, I will be weak.
4. My friend the scientist says there are no replicated studies that show any difference in hunger, weight loss, or fat distribution between a group of people taking HCG injections and a group getting a placebo. In other words, the HCG might not even work.
5. Even if you grant that hormonal HCG injections work, I would be doing the homeopathic HCG, and I honestly don’t know if I believe in homeopathy. I mean, I believe in science, and there is no real scientific evidence that homeopathy works in general, much less that homeopathic HCG works. (I’m talking science, not anecdotes). Homeopathy makes absolutely no intuitive sense to me. But I also think there are a lot of things in this world, especially related to energy and healing. I have no problem suspending my disbelief about some things. But the fact is, no one has proven one iota of the “science” behind this diet is real at all. It bothers me when people say that homeopathic HCG is safe because it doesn't have enough HCG in it to cause any of the hormonally-related side effects, but that it is also incredibly powerful and effective because it is so potent. How can both of things be true? Either it has HCG in it and comes with all the associated risks, or it doesn't. Which is it?
6. Dr. Simeons, author of Pounds and Inches and creator of the diet is kind of a douchebag. Have you read his whole manuscript? He has a whole chapter called “Liars and Fools” about patients who aren’t losing because they are either a) deliberately cheating and misleading their doctor about it or b) too stupid to know what they’re doing wrong. He also has this charming and descriptive commentary on binge eaters: “They only feel a feral desire to stuff . . . almost anything edible is crammed down with terrifying speed and ferocity. . . I have occasionally been able to watch such an attack without the patient’s knowledge, and it is a frightening, ugly spectacle to behold, even if one does realize that mechanisms entirely beyond the patient’s control are at work.” It just strikes me as spectacularly insensitive.
7. I know in my head and in my heart that the best and healthiest way to lose weight is by eating plenty of nutritious food, getting lots of exercise, and drinking lots of water. It makes sense. It is scientifically proven. It is healthy. Anyone who cannot lose weight this way is a weak-willed, lazy, worthless slug who either isn’t trying hard enough or doesn’t want it bad enough.
8. There is no way I can keep this weight off even if I do succeed. How many times have we all seen the articles about the ideal weight loss rate of 1-2 pounds per week, max? It is drummed into us that severely restrictive diets will screw your metabolism for life, reduce your muscle mass so that you are a weakling, and result in a total regain of all the weight, plus some. If I do this diet, I am setting myself up for failure.
9. My husband really disapproves (for reasons 1-8). My friends will disapprove when they find out about it, and they undoubtedly will find out about it the first time I bring my own scrawny chicken breast and spinach to a dinner where everyone else is eating baked spaghetti. Everyone will think I am a naïve, gullible idiot. What would be even worse than having everyone think I am a naïve, gullible idiot would be if they felt sorry for me because I am a naïve, gullible idiot.
10. None of this really solves the problem. The reason I am fat is that I overeat. I binge. You might even say it is “a frightening, ugly spectacle”. I don’t know you all well enough yet to share more than that, because it is one of the deepest sources of shame in my life. But the point is, unless I fix whatever is causing me to binge (my brain, my self-esteem, my childhood scars, my anxiety, whatever it is), I will continue to overeat, and I will gain this weight back. This diet doesn’t address ANY of the emotional reasons behind overeating.
To those of you who are already HCG converts, I apologize for the negativity. I am working through some stuff and feel a need to acknowledge that I KNOW all this stuff and that I'm not just ignoring it.
Positivity coming up shortly.
1. I have a six-year old daughter. She is healthy and strong and big boned and athletic and not an ounce overweight. But there will come a day when she thinks she is overweight, and I want to set the example of healthy, sane eating for her, not crazy restrictive diets.
2. 500 calories is not enough food. It seems impossible that you would not feel famished every waking moment. It seems impossible that 500 calories can provide enough nutrition.
3. It seems likely that a lot of the weight loss is probably muscle mass, even though Simeons says it’s all abnormal fat. Without expensive tests or an expensive scale, how will I know? And I bet you can’t exercise very much without feeling weak. And if I don’t exercise for 40 days, I will be weak.
4. My friend the scientist says there are no replicated studies that show any difference in hunger, weight loss, or fat distribution between a group of people taking HCG injections and a group getting a placebo. In other words, the HCG might not even work.
5. Even if you grant that hormonal HCG injections work, I would be doing the homeopathic HCG, and I honestly don’t know if I believe in homeopathy. I mean, I believe in science, and there is no real scientific evidence that homeopathy works in general, much less that homeopathic HCG works. (I’m talking science, not anecdotes). Homeopathy makes absolutely no intuitive sense to me. But I also think there are a lot of things in this world, especially related to energy and healing. I have no problem suspending my disbelief about some things. But the fact is, no one has proven one iota of the “science” behind this diet is real at all. It bothers me when people say that homeopathic HCG is safe because it doesn't have enough HCG in it to cause any of the hormonally-related side effects, but that it is also incredibly powerful and effective because it is so potent. How can both of things be true? Either it has HCG in it and comes with all the associated risks, or it doesn't. Which is it?
6. Dr. Simeons, author of Pounds and Inches and creator of the diet is kind of a douchebag. Have you read his whole manuscript? He has a whole chapter called “Liars and Fools” about patients who aren’t losing because they are either a) deliberately cheating and misleading their doctor about it or b) too stupid to know what they’re doing wrong. He also has this charming and descriptive commentary on binge eaters: “They only feel a feral desire to stuff . . . almost anything edible is crammed down with terrifying speed and ferocity. . . I have occasionally been able to watch such an attack without the patient’s knowledge, and it is a frightening, ugly spectacle to behold, even if one does realize that mechanisms entirely beyond the patient’s control are at work.” It just strikes me as spectacularly insensitive.
7. I know in my head and in my heart that the best and healthiest way to lose weight is by eating plenty of nutritious food, getting lots of exercise, and drinking lots of water. It makes sense. It is scientifically proven. It is healthy. Anyone who cannot lose weight this way is a weak-willed, lazy, worthless slug who either isn’t trying hard enough or doesn’t want it bad enough.
8. There is no way I can keep this weight off even if I do succeed. How many times have we all seen the articles about the ideal weight loss rate of 1-2 pounds per week, max? It is drummed into us that severely restrictive diets will screw your metabolism for life, reduce your muscle mass so that you are a weakling, and result in a total regain of all the weight, plus some. If I do this diet, I am setting myself up for failure.
9. My husband really disapproves (for reasons 1-8). My friends will disapprove when they find out about it, and they undoubtedly will find out about it the first time I bring my own scrawny chicken breast and spinach to a dinner where everyone else is eating baked spaghetti. Everyone will think I am a naïve, gullible idiot. What would be even worse than having everyone think I am a naïve, gullible idiot would be if they felt sorry for me because I am a naïve, gullible idiot.
10. None of this really solves the problem. The reason I am fat is that I overeat. I binge. You might even say it is “a frightening, ugly spectacle”. I don’t know you all well enough yet to share more than that, because it is one of the deepest sources of shame in my life. But the point is, unless I fix whatever is causing me to binge (my brain, my self-esteem, my childhood scars, my anxiety, whatever it is), I will continue to overeat, and I will gain this weight back. This diet doesn’t address ANY of the emotional reasons behind overeating.
To those of you who are already HCG converts, I apologize for the negativity. I am working through some stuff and feel a need to acknowledge that I KNOW all this stuff and that I'm not just ignoring it.
Positivity coming up shortly.
Hi Kat,
ReplyDeleteThis is a good list - You have written a great post. I also have a blog, it's called the HCG Diet 411 Blog, come and check it out some time; we have a forum with a lot of cool members, and the blog posts aren't too bad either.
Anyway, hope to see you there g00
Thanks. I'll check out your blog. I'm really excited and hungry for information and it is proving to be really hard to find people that are not spammers. I'm glad to connect with you!
ReplyDeleteOne of the first warning signs about this diet was the most recent promoter of it, Kevin Trudea who has had numerous run-ins with the FTC.
ReplyDeleteLike you wrote, 500 calories is far too few calories to eat per day. Dr. Simeon’s wrote that he has witnessed people binge eating, I would binge eat also if I only ate 500 calories per day for a month.
Losing weight is not a quick process and the only healthy way to lose weight is what you wrote, eat good food and exercise. I think people have forgotten what good food is. Eating healthy is cutting out all processed foods and cooking your own meals.
I wrote an article about the dangers of the HCG diet also, I included links to studies at http://factoidz.com/the-health-risks-of-the-hcg-diet/
I look forward to reading more of your blog’s posts.
Sam Montana
Sam, I totally agree with you. I should have put it on my list of cons that the diet was popularized by a crazy con man.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting...you're right about the issue of good, non-processed foods. I assume you've read the Michael Pollan books.
I'm going to do a blog post soon about how I'm starting to look at this diet as a cleanse/detox/purify kind of diet because it's all natural and organic, and obviously minimal calories. I have this (perhaps naive) idea that if I can get all the crap out of my body and lose some weight, I will be able to start fresh and eat more like Pollan says: eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
I came across your article in my research and had already read it. Lucky for me, since the HCG I'm taking is probably a placebo, I won't have the HCG dangers. But I will be on the lookout for the lo-cal diet dangers. I have a fat/muscle scale on the way and am going to try and make sure I'm not losing all this weight at the expense of muscle mass.
But yeah, I know this is all kind of crazy.