It is the pregnancy hormone HCG that is helping people lose weight, in a new program. It may sound bizarre, but there are many who want to use this new kind of weight loss program to help knock off the extra pounds.
The HCG diet uses, as the name suggests, the human chorionic gonadotrophin that occurs naturally in pregnant women, to help lose weight.
According to Diet consultant Jacque Martinez, the diet has been administered to 60 individuals since May this year, and some of them have lost as many as 30 to 50 pounds in the 70 day duration program.
In the 70 day period of the program, for 40 days, a daily injection of the hormone is administered.
According to Matinez, it works like this – “You gorge for two days, and you start the injections and then that’s building up your metabolism so that way when you go down to a low-calorie diet, it’s going off all that fat you have stored.”
Along with the hormone, individuals have to adhere to a very low calorie diet; which may be severe calorie restriction of only 500 calories a day in some cases. Also one has to cut out carbs and sugars. Side effects of this include headaches and not surprisingly, feeling very hungry!
