Posts Tagged ‘ diet drugs ’

The 61.5 Fat-free Wheat Thins Diet (aka the HCG Diet)

April 22nd, 2011. By AbiK

That caught your eye, huh?

And it’s not all that far off, except it is carbs. Not far off, that is, from the much-in-the-media HCG diet. See, along with the so-called weight-loss miracle HCG injections comes a 500-calorie per day, uh, diet. To those of you who’ve picked up a pack of Suzy-Q’s lately (880 calories per pack) that 500 may seem a tad bit miniscule—though it is the equivalent of 61.5 fat-free Wheat Thins. Your average apple weighs in at about 72 calories.

You’re getting the picture—500 calories is paltry. I’m sure if I decided to only ingest 500 calories per day and not even exercise—hell, who’d have the strength?—I’d probably lose a few extra pounds. Enough to have “waif” attached to my name. To put this in further perspective, most references to the average daily caloric intake per capita in the Congo seem to hover in the 1,300 -1,400/day range. Now envision consuming about a third of that. You betcha you’d lose some serious weight—if you could hold yourself back from desperately grabbing the Doritos—or just some plain lettuce!— first.

So what’s the big deal with this HCG diet?

Most folks—paticularly women going through IVF—know HCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin, as the “trigger shot” administered just before retrieval to stimulate ovulation (aka, the “butt shot”). But HCG has become increasingly popular for weight loss—off label. How’s that happen? An article over at Discovery Health provides some background:

“It was during research in the 1950s when one doctor, A.T.W. Simeons, noticed that boys being treated with hCG for underdeveloped gonads were also able to lose excess weight by eating much less without any accompanying hunger pangs. His interest in hCG soon shifted to its potential as a diet aid, and he published a paper touting its effects, as well as developing a dietary regimen for use of the drug as a weight-loss tool.”

Weight loss? Without hunger pangs? Sounds like a Jenny Craig-Weight Watchers-Lean Cuisine-heading toward gastric bypass addict’s answered prayer, no? And for some, it apparently has been. For a commenter, Toni, at Discovery Health, the HCG diet resulted in this:

“I did the hcg diet with great results. I did it 3 times and I lost 80 lbs. My husband lost 120 Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: diet drugs, HCG, HCG Diet, weight loss
Posted in Drugs/Medical, Emerging Issues | 4 Comments »