HCG diet plan is not something that you can follow or apply without detailed study. Let me warn you at the outset itself that this diet plan calls for severe restrictions in the daily calorie intake and is not at all recommended to be used without expert medical supervision or advice.
What Exactly is HCG?
Well, HCG or Human Chorionic Gonadotropin is a naturally occurring hormone produced by the body during pregnancy. This is in fact a drug that is currently approved by the medical fraternity for treatment of sterility and not for weight loss per se.
Details of the HCG Diet Plan
The HCG diet plan is not a difficult one to incorporate in to your daily lifestyle. This is owing to the fact that you need not pursue any exotic diet plan or do tiresome workouts to lose weight with this HCG weight loss plan. But the diet which you consume needs to consist of the 4 major components as listed below:
- Protein which is sourced from low fat meat
- Vegetables
- Fruits
- Crackers or breadsticks.
The important thing to note here is that the HCG weight loss plan can be categorized mainly into the protein and carbohydrate groups. The animal protein which is permissible comes from the meat, which necessarily needs to be low in fat content.
Choose Your Carb With Care
The carbohydrate is sourced mainly from the vegetables and fruits and the crackers which are supposed to be consumed in small amounts. The carbohydrate content specifically needs to be kept towards the lower range because when the Liver gets overloaded with carbohydrates, it begins to convert the excess amount in to triglycerides.
These triglycerides are then sent through the circulating blood to fill the fat cells, which is obviously not going to be a good sign when considered in regard to the total accumulated body fat.
Will HCG Diet Suit Vegans?
If you are a vegan, then there is both good and bad news for you. If you are on a vegan HCG diet plan to achieve weight loss then get ready to find your protein solace in spinach and spinach alone. The good news is that you can eat as much spinach as you can and as you want. The bad news is that all the other vegan protein food stuffs like beans and grains are a strict no-no owing to the high amount of carbohydrates in them.
Major Drawbacks of HCG Diet
The most stringent rule in the HCG fat burn diet is that you necessarily need to restrict the total calorie content of your daily diet within 500- 800 calories which is as good as starving yourself.
Moreover you must see to it that the 500- 800 calories from your diet must be sourced from 25 % of carbohydrates, 35% healthy fats and 40 % of proteins. This demarcation has to be done strictly and doing the math every day at the dining table can seem like a big torture to many people.
Moreover, medical professionals are quite wary of the fact that this particular diet regime calls for severe limitation in the daily calorie intake. When the calorie intake is rigorously limited for extended periods of time, it can act as a precursor to many dangerous side effects on health like blockage of arteries by blood clots, heart attacks, arrhythmia, gallstones, fatigue etc.
How Much Weight Can You Lose?
Well, the weight loss on following this plan probably has got nothing to do with HCG as such because even without any HCG you will lose considerable amounts of weight within a short period owing to the extreme calorie restriction and semi-starving. But all that weight could come back afterwards if not followed up with a healthy lifestyle and exercise regime.