HCG Diet???? Anyone tried it?

[lcleave1]

I am just looking to see if anyone out there has ever tried the HCG diet with IC and what the outcome was. I would really like to try it but I am scared to death. What if I still eat what's allowed on the first column of diet only less and take the HCG drops. Does anyone have any feedback. Would love to hear from anyone in my shoes.

[ICNDonna]

It's not something I would want to try --- anyone is bound to lose weight on a 500 calorie diet, but it's not the kind of weight loss that will last. I did a little reading about this one this morning and there are a lot of negatives about it.

You might want to think about something like Weight Watchers, or just putting yourself on a sensible diet.

Warm hugs,
Donna

[lcleave1]

Thank you Donna.

[kadi]

Weight Watchers is working for me - goes fine with the IC diet

[Mothergoose]

I did the HCG diet last fall, it went great, but you have to follow Dr. Simions Pounds sand inches manuscript protocol (you can google this), exactly. The problem I had was he only allows 2 fruits a day, a apple or a orange or few blueberries, I think. I ate Blueberries. After the first few days you are not hungry at all, you are not supposed to exercise. I did the shots and it was a Dr. who put my husband and I on the diet and supervised it, we gave our selves the shots and 2 B12 shots a week.

They advertise this diet which costs a lot of money. It cost us a $200 for 2 bottles of medication and $40 dollars for needles etc, and 20 dollars ( 2 bottles) for the B12 medication.

If you follow it right to the T you are to lose about 30lbs in 40 days, you can't stay on the diet longer than 40 days, you can take a break and do it again if you neeed too. We lost exactly 30lbs each is exactly what happened with us. Many days we did not eat the 500 Cal's, we were not hungry, but my son ate all 500 everyday and he lost weight faster than us, so go figure. I still weight exactly the same, I eat more food than before and I feel better. My husband and son too.

But for me the big plus was my bladder has never felt better than when on the diet. It literally was the best it has been in years. I added foods back in very slowly so I could tell what bothered my bladder or not.

Yes I agree there are a lot of people out there tiring to make a quick buck off of this diet, I met a lady who paid 600 a week and she got one shot a week and was given no direction as to what to eat or not to eat.

I know a lady with IC who used the drops she lost lots of weight quickly, she ate the oranges and apples, and after a while had to quite as her bladder was going nuts on her, now she figures she is not diet sensitive, but that the dropped have alcohol in them and that is what was bothering her bladder. I don't know, she did not the do the 3 week where you don't take shots, eat as many calories as you need but eat nocarbs and no sugars. You do this after the 40 days of shots, and she gained weight back quite quickly.

You do not have to 40 days you can quite after 23 days but you still have to do the 3 week part.

I think it is great, I would do it again in a heart beat if for no other reason as to how good my bladder felt while on it.

I know there is a lot of negative stuff said about this diet but I wounder, how many of these people did the diet right or did it at all.

The HCG trigger your body to burn the stored fats, not the fat just under the skin and not muscle, you get all you energy from your fat burning off, I am hypoglycemic and never had my blood sugar drop too low, it stayed at and even 4.2 all the way through.

This is just my experience, but I think people need to talk to their Dr.'s about before doing it and read as much as they can about it. My Dr. said he would not prescribe it to just any one and he does not charge people to do it because of the health benefits of it.

To be truthful he said I could try it but he really didn't know if it would make my IC better or worse, I now know for me it made it better.

[4realtho]

I know of 2 people that did the HCG diet and they lost 13-20 pounds.. Once they reached their goal they started on weight watchers to maintain their weight loss. Good luck!

[Mothergoose]

Thank you

I don't have much choice now as to what I eat. I have to really watch what I eat for a number of reason's, my blood sugar level is too low, so if I eat sugar or simple carbs, my sugar level goes up and then drops down too low.

If you are not familiar with this it is not fun, you feel really awful, it is your body's way of letting you know you brain is not getting enough glucose (sugar) to function right, that you need sugar that will enter your system ASAP.

It is more common in people who take diabetic meads or are on Insulin. For me but my body produces too much insulin in reaction to sugar's and simple carbs which are converted into sugar easily and fast and absorbed into your blood stream fast and raise your blood sugar level fast, which triggers an Insulin response. This insulin then uses up the sugar in my blood stream and trigger's my blood sugar to drop too low, as you can see a very vicious cycle.

If I don't eat sugar or simple carbs this spike up doesn't happen so the sudden drop doesn't happen either. I actually was diagnosed with this as a teenager but till the last few years it was not too much of a problem for me, but as I have aged, my system has been changing and I was having lots of spikes and drops, so eating like this really helps. My Dr. tells me it is a sign that my body is having problems with insulin and it will go the other way and I will be a diabetic eventually, but that if I watch what I eat now I can ward this off from happening for sometime, everyone is different so he doesn't know for sure how long this will work. My father had Juvenile diabetes now called type 1, and my mom has type 2 diabetes.

I also am quite IC sensitive so I follow the IC diet closely, I actually gained the weight tiring different IC meds and during the time when my IC was bad enough that I could not do much and barely got out of bed except to eat. Following the IC diet my bladder is much better, and I have a regime that works for me, so I don't anticipate getting back to this place in my life again, I make a point of going out of the house each day, pain or no pain, and on really bad days I really try to make myself get up and move around so I don't fall back down into that rut. A big thing for me is being able to get out for a walk each day, I find it does wonders for my mind and body. In all fairness it took 2 years after diagnose and treatment to get to this place, and the HCG diet was part of it. I also had 5 years prior to diagnoses that I did nothing and hence gained the weight. This too in my book is a vicious cycle.

The third thing is I really have a lot of food allergies, no spices, seasonings, herbs, sauces, garlic, paprika, soy, MSG etc. I have never eaten these things so I don't miss them, some of these are on the no list of IC diet, so in that respect it was a bit easier for me to cut them out of my diet as they were not in it to begin with.

I also have a lot of medicine allergies and then quite a few med I just can't tolerate because of side effects, these are a bit more challenging, as I am sure I am not neccsarily allergic to the med but an additive or preservative in it, but sometimes it is scary trying a med I have reacted too,but by a different manufacture.

I already have trouble sleeping and I have found that the newer long acting meds, which of course means you take less of them and less often, make me not able to sleep. So it is a constant battle to get enough sleep and it is known know that not sleeping contributes to weight gain. Then just to add insult to injury I am sure I am premeno, which doesn't help any of this.

Thanks for the reply, anyone who wishes to ask about the HCG diet feel free to PM me as it is not something IC network is really backing and it is not an IC treatment. It worked for me but as I said in my previous post my Dr. was unsure as to how it may effect me, I got lucky and it was good for me.

Have a great day MG

[lcleave1]

Thank you so much!!!!!

Mothergoose you rock, thanks for your inspiration. I am going to go for it, if it doesn't turn out well for the bladder I will just stop. I intend to stick with just gala apples and blueberries and steer clear of the bad stuff. I am going to do it eating the foods from the column one safe list of IC diet but still follow the HCG diet. Wish me luck. The only thing is that I only need to lose about 15lbs. I am 149 this morning but my inches in stomach are scary..lol I would like to be in the 135 range again.

Wish me luch and thanks again so much for your inspiration.

[Mothergoose]

The idea behind the HCG diet is you loose where you have stored fat, sounds like your stomach.

Please read Dr, Simions Pounds and INches manuscript beofre you start, it will tell you if you only want to loss a smaller amount what you need to do.

Good luck let me know how it goes for you.

I can't say enough that there a bunch of quacks out there tring to change the diet and say it is okay and then wonder why it fails them, or they are just using people to make a quick buck and they don't care if you are successfull or not, so I suggest read it all before you start.

Keep me posted MG

[judy45]

I am doing the HCG diet right now. It is pretty good. Being sick with IC and not sleeping my cortisol levels were so high I gained 30 lbs. This was while on a very restriced IC diet and excercised 5 days a week. It took me two years to reduce the constant pain and to get my sleep up to 5 hours a night, but I am 3 weeks into the diet and have lost 12 lbs. Most people have actually lost more than me at this point. Women usually lose 20 lbs in the 40 day treatment. I think my cortisol levels are still a bit high, but I am happy. It does a tremendous job at "melting" away the fat, so even if you lose only 3 lbs in a week, you clothes fit like you have lost 5. I would highly recommend this diet (Dr. OZ has) and it is Dr. supervised. Since us ICers generally lead a very restricted diet, it was so easy for me to follow. Lots of protein and veggies, the only fruit I can eat are pears, but you may have more leeway there. I say go for it! Good luck

[Mothergoose]

If I was you I would not worry about the weight loss amount.

For me I pretty much lost 1 lb per day and then have a few days where I didn't loss, this happened on and off throught out the diet.

My husband would drop like 5 lbs over night and then not loose for a while, one time he didn't loose for a whole week and was getting pretty frustrated. Then he started to loose again.

My husband to begin with was only do the 23 days then as he went along, it was well I do it till the weekend or till I loose x amount of weight, he ended up doing all 40 days.

We each did it for 40 days, but I started 2 weeks after my husband started, I had to wait till I had gone a month without a UTI, so my husband figured he may have to wait forever for me to do that so he started ahead of me.

At the end of the 40 days we both had lost exactly the same amount of weight just at different stages.

My son did the diet after us, now he is much younger, he golf each day, which is allowed, he followed the diet to a T, he had the benefit of learning from our mistakes, and he lost a lb a day everyday, no stalls no nothing, he quite after 28 days because that was how much he wanted to loose.

We all did the 3 weeks afterwards of no carbs and no sugars, which can be a bit of a challange, but worht it in the end as this is the part that is supposed to rest your metabolisum.

Good luck keep up updated on your success. MG

[DaffyDills]

I did homeopathic hcg and lost 40+ pounds. I think it was what allowed me to discover IC due to pinpointing foods that cause flares. I am also very food restricted--more than just the friendly foods on the IC list. I haven't eaten sugar or starches for almost 2 years.

I'm currently trying to figure out how to supplement iron and vit c which is suggested with thyroid meds.

I'm in a flare, mostly burning, U&F, after trying hormone cream against my better judgement when the doc was certain I needed it. It's amazing to me how the reactions can be so strong...I used 18/ daily dose, skipped a day, used 1/4 daily dose and BAM.

I'm on here tonight researching to see if anyone reports issues with cortisol before I spend money on those labs (especially after my $70 hormone cream fiasco).

[judy45]

I lost a total of 14 pound on the HCG and it was very easy. Unfortunately I did have a flare and my coristol levels did increase, so the last week I lost nothing. Since I am 5' 2" and gained 30 lbs, courtesy of IC and the stress pain and lack of sleep put on my body (that is when the coristol goes up and you gain weight no matter how little you eat or how much you excercise!) So I am doing a 1/2 version starting next monday, so that is 21 days. I actually can't wait. I have only 15 more lbs to go, but will be totally happy with 10. I am so glad I found this diet. Glad it helped you and your family too.

[Julie B]

This diet is a big no, not just for IC patients but for anyone. It is a hormone supplement that is used in fertility treatments. It is being used against the recommendations of FDA. There is evidence that it may even promote tumor growth.

NOT a good idea at all! Anyone would lose weight on 500 calories a day.

I am going to close this thread. No one should try this diet.