Leptin is the Master Fat Hormone, and it works by signaling the hypothalamus of the brain. The questions for fat loss now under study are starting to look at how leptin and HCG interact. The idea is that they may be using the same or similar brain receptors. It is a great topic for understanding more about how HCG works.

Here is a great article that goes down the road of explaining leptin metabolism. Let me know if you have any questions, class!

Dr Mel Siff Discusses Leptin and Fat Loss

Here are some extracts from a highly informative article on leptin, a hormone secreted by fat cells that influences energy expenditure and food intake.

All the best in fat loss,
Dr. D

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Good HCG diet information is hard to come by. Most folks who are thinking about doing the protocol worry about starving on such a very low calorie diet (500 calories per day). Yes, this would be a starvation diet without the hormone. Here is why HCG makes all the difference in keeping you from starving.

HCG Diets

The specific foods in limited amounts during this protocol are designed to support the fat burning metabolism that is directed by the HCG hormone. That is a mouthful, and if you have a fear of starving on this diet those words will not help. Here is what you must consider. Let us just say that you normally have a metabolic rate that requires 1500 to 2000 or more calories per day. It would be pretty simple math to say your metabolic rate would burn through 500 calories pretty fast. So the effective question to ask is where do the remainder of your calories come from while on the protocol.

They come from your own fat. Yes, you can count on at least 2000 calories from your own fat. Specifically, this is abnormal fat. You will see the result wherever you have it … usually belly, thighs, buttocks, or upper arms. For women, this also means breasts, depending on how much abnormal fat has accumulated in them.

The Visual

Now, to get really visual on how this works, note how I explain this to my clients. It goes like this. Imagine that you have a magic knife that you can use to cut off a slice of your own belly fat (without pain or other trauma … remember, this is your imagination at work here).

Slice off a good sized chunk, say about 2000 calories worth. Lay it out on your cutting board, sprinkle it with some salt, pepper, and garlic (okay, these are my favorite spices … use your own if you wish). Now put it on the grill, being careful not to let flames engulf it. It is fat, after all, and will burn really fast if you are not careful.

Whenever you feel that your new fat steak is done to your satisfaction, sit down to a nice dinner of 2000 calories and eat it. There you have it. You have eaten your own abnormal fat.

The great thing about the HCG hormone is that it directs your metabolism, through a signaling pathway in the hypothalamus of your brain, to effectively give you a fat steak from your own fat every day. So that is why the HCG diet is not a starvation diet. Is that a little clearer now?

Have fun with it!

All the best in HCG info,
Dr. D

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Nothing like a good video for seeing how to mix HCG injections. Mixing HCG can sometimes seem a little complicated. All you have to do is know how much HCG you are starting with and the concentration that you want for daily dosing. Take a look to see how it is done and how you inject it.

hCG Preparaton and Injection Demonstration using Sub Q Injection

All the best in natural health,
Dr. D

The medium chain triglyceride component from coconut oil offers health benefits, unlike other fats and oils from plants. MCT oil helps with weight loss, which makes it a beneficial component of phase III of the HCG diet and beyond. It even trumps other oils for cooking, especially the highly processed ones such as canola oil and corn oil and the high-smoke ones such as olive oil.

Here is an informative post on the topic that I found at the link below:

Coconut Oil: Under Rated : Nutrition Nibbles

The MCFA (medium chain fatty acids) or MCT (medium chain triglycerides)  in coconut oil are different. Because of the small size of the fatty acids that make up coconut oil, they actually yield fewer calories than other fats.

All the best in natural health,
Dr. D

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HCG diet phases can get a little mixed up unless you know what they mean. They are numbered, Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III, for each major component of the Simeons diet protocol. Phase III is especially crucial to follow closely, because it sets your metabolism after you stop taking the hormone. This is when people can gain back too much weight and ruin all their prior effort.

Oral HCG and the Protocol: Understanding Rounds and Phases …

Phase III “Maintenance”–During this phase, you slowly add high glycemic foods while continuing to monitor your weight. If you begin to gain rather than maintain, you need to restrict these sugary or starchy foods.

Keep their great advice in mind for a successful protocol all the way to completion of your slimming goal.

All the best,
Dr. D

It is just plain silly that the HCG diet can be remotely considered as controversial. This hormone-directed diet protocol was established more than 50 years ago. It continues to increase in popularity because of its effectiveness. The HCG hormone targets the reduction of abnormal fat, which is not possible by diet alone or by any combination of diet and exercise. Here are some new perspectives.

HCG Diet Plan

The original plan was created by a British medical doctor, Dr. A.T.W. Simeons, in his clinic at the Salvator Mutidi International Hospital in Rome in the 1950s. His book, Pounds and Inches, describes his discovery and experience with the protocol. He also outlines the protocol in sufficient detail for any reader to follow it without difficulty. This book is freely available on many websites.

The purpose of this article is to provide some updated information on the HCG diet and to puncture at least a few fallacies that have arisen regarding it.

Public Perception vs Scientific Research

As you can expect, media coverage of Dr. Simeons’ protocol has been mixed. This is to be expected because of yellow journalism, not necessarily because of the merits of the protocol itself. For this reason, using HCG for weight loss has been called controversial. This controversy has been made up out of thin air.

Most of the scientific research evaluating HCG for weight loss was published in the 1960s and 1970s. Some medical researchers confirmed Dr. Simeons’ original results in controlled clinical experiments. Other medical researchers failed to confirm these results, even when following the same experimental design. If anything, this would be a legitimate source of controversy. However, media coverage has never mentioned this body of research.

500 Calories Per Day Does Not Lead To Starvation

People from all walks of life, health professionals and the public alike, rightly observe that a 500 calorie per day diet alone would be too little food for normal metabolism. What they fail to note is that the HCG hormone changes metabolism to make up for the calorie restrictions of the Simeons protocol. This means that abnormal fat becomes a source of calories for daily living.

The statement above means that you can live off of your own fat when you are using the prescribed dosages of HCG and eating the prescribed foods in the right amounts. Explaining how the protocol works in this statement comes across to some people as pure gibberish, so all they can dwell on is the fear of living on only 500 calories per day. It doesn’t seem to matter that another 2000 calories can come from their own fat.

New Perspective On How HCG Works

Dr. Simeons astutely pointed out that HCG influences fat metabolism by signaling the hypothalamus of the brain. He was guessing that this protein hormone fit into hormone receptors of some kind that were already in the brain. The exciting aspect of his guesswork is that, in 1994, a new protein hormone was discovered to influence fat metabolism by signaling the hypothalamus, too. This hormone, called leptin, is now widely known as the master fat hormone.

Current research on laboratory animals is starting to show how HCG and leptin might interact by signaling the same receptor sites in the hypothalamus. Research on this interaction is too new to show how this works. However, HCG and leptin clearly influence one another. Furthermore, the influence of leptin on insulin also leads to an indirect response between insulin and HCG. One property that all of these protein hormones share is that overexposure to each one leads to resistance. Leptin resistance leads to storage of too much fat. Insulin resistance leads to abnormal blood sugar metabolism (and fat storage) and eventually to diabetes. HCG resistance simply stops this hormone from working completely.

Unusual Side Benefits

As weight loss proceeds on the HCG diet, skin seems to shrink up, too. The benefit is that, unlike all other weight loss diets and even weight loss surgeries, skin does not get loose and saggy while you lose weight.

Some people believe that a great benefit of HCG is that it works regardless of whether they exercise. The entire protocol is effective whether you sit on the couch the whole time or run 10 miles per day, and at the same level of effectiveness either way.

Perspective of the FDA

The FDA is not a government agency that is concerned with helping us be healthy. It is the enforcement arm of the pharmaceutical industry. The position of the FDA on HCG for weight loss is irrelevant to anything useful for the public. In fact, I predict that the FDA will ban the use of this hormone for losing weight as soon as it gets enough attention to threaten the drug industry.

Fake Scary Stuff About HCG

HCG was first called the pregnancy hormone because pregnant women produce high levels of it during the first trimester. One subunit of this complex protein is also produced by women during menstruation. Comments that imply some kind of feminization of men upon taking HCG are plain silly. Quite the contrary, since bodybuilders often use HCG to restore low testosterone levels after taking an anabolic steroid series.

HCG is not just a hormone that is produced only by women. Men have the genetic machinery to produce it, too. One of the subunits shows up in measurable quantities as a product of certain kinds of cancer. It is used clinically as a marker for testicular cancer. Keep this cause and effect straight. Testicular cancer causes a positive test for HCG, not the other way around. Comments on the Internet that invoke the fear of HCG causing cancer get this cause and effect backwards.

Maintaining Long Term Weight Loss – Really?

No. Weight loss on this protocol does not grant carte blanche to eat poorly without consequences. Ice cream and cookies will make you fat, regardless of whether you lose weight on this protocol or any other kind of diet. Claims about keeping off fat forever are true only when dieters adopt appropriate lifestyle changes that support healthy weight management. It is only logical. If you do things that made you fat in the first place, then those same things will make you fat again.

All the best in natural health,
Dr. D

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Constipation on HCG

Constipation on HCG is more common than most people realize. If you have a tendency toward constipation, HCG will be more likely to make it happen. Constipation may even occur regardless of whether you have had this problem before. Here is what happens and what you can do about it.

In this case, constipation means not having a bowel movement for more than three days. If you are expecting to lose a pound per day, almost all of your weight loss is stuck inside you when you are constipated. You much have one or more bowel movements per day to stay on track for weight loss on HCG.

Drink More Water

Several natural (i.e., non-laxative) strategies can be very helpful. The simplest and easiest one is to increase your water intake. Eight glasses of water per day can be miraculous in many ways, including preventing constipation.

Use Psyllium

It is also simple and easy to drink a daily glass of water with a spoonful of psyllium. This is the active ingredient of Metamucil, although psyllium itself does not contain sugar or artificial sweetener or any of the other useless ingredients that are in Metamucil (filler, food coloring, flavoring). Psyllium should be available in any supplement store. It is also a whole lot cheaper than Metamucil.

Best Herbal Teas

Herbal teas are the final natural strategy before you consider the synthetic laxatives. Some herbs are, indeed, natural laxatives themselves. These include Cascara Sagrada and senna. One or both of these are often the main active herbs in dieters’ teas. These are widely available in the tea section of grocery stores and supplement stores. Licorice tea may also be helpful.

Surprising Benefits of Magnesium

One more thing that is of great benefit in many ways, including preventing constipation, is an ordinary magnesium supplement. Almost everyone is deficient in magnesium, which causes long term problems in how your body uses calcium properly. A one-time dose of 400-500 mg of magnesium (for example, as magnesium citrate) can really loosen you up. In fact, the first time I took this amount of magnesium in a single dose, I got the runs. Sorry for the visual on this. However, it makes my point, doesn’t it?

All the best in natural health,
Dr. D

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Oral HCG has become a godsend for folks who object to the hassle of injections. It does have some difficulties, though. These are overcome by the new form of HCG as pills.

Sublingual HCG is easy to use if you count the drops exactly. If you do not do so, then the dosage will not be correct and the supply will run out too soon. This has been a common problem. Feeling exactly 5 drops is not easy for everyone. Counting out the drops in the mirror is the surest way to get the right number.

Many people also travel with their HCG drops. This causes a problem with keeping the supply cold so it won’t degrade too fast.

The good news is that a new pill form, which is actually a pellet, eliminates both of these problems. Each pellet contains exactly one dose for two doses per day. The dry form of the pellet requires no refrigeration, so it is easily stored on a counter top and it can be taken on trips without a cooler.

Where to Get Oral HCG Pills

They are not widely available yet, and I won’t have them for purchase here until I know there will be sufficient demand for them. This may be sooner than later. They do cost about a third more than the sublingual form, which is the only drawback. If enough visitors here ask for them or about how to get them (comment here), I will be glad to provide them to you.

By the way, just to be clear, the sublingual and pellet forms of HCG that I refer to are measured in IU, which indicates the concentration of the hormone (e.g., 30-day supply is 12000 IU). I say this so that you will not be confused by the commonly available oral HCG products that are homeopathic.

All the best,
Dr. D

Your skin does not have to suffer on the hcg diet in the absence of oils and lotions. Several excellent alternatives are available for hcg cosmetics. You may be pleasantly surprised to see what they are. Pay close attention to the comments in the following article about MCT.

This is the most complete and helpful article that I have found on how to get your skin through the protocol without having it dry up! Just click on the link here:

http://www.hcgcoaching.com/oil-and-lotion-alternatives

Too bad the my favorite emu oil is not on the approved list! It is the best aftershave that I ever discovered.

Enjoy!
Dr. D

So much misinformation! Ah, this is typical from supplement companies. Is vitamin B-12 an important supplement? It depends on how old you are. Whenever I want the lowdown on any kind of supplement, I can almost always find a very, very detailed analysis at the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University. Scan this essay to get all of your questions answered about this all-important vitamin for the HCG diet protocol.

http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/vitamins/vitaminB12/

One major disappointment that I had early in my career in plant natural products chemistry was finding out that this vitamin is not derived from plants. Bacteria make plenty of it, though. If your friendly intestinal bacteria are healthy, you are probably getting at least a minimum amount into your system. However, the older you are, the more you will have to get of this vitamin from outside sources. Indeed, I found that 2500 to 5000 mcg helped me with low energy during the HCG protocol. Clinics that offer injections of B-12 are even better.

Dr. D

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Nothing. Sometimes it is just plain fun to be a little goofy (not the Disney character!) and let out some real personality. So here goes, all you loyal visitors. The question in the title of this post arose when I got an email that an article about HCG was approved for posting on another website, which in this case is an article directory. I’m sure that it got there because I submit articles about HCG to an online article distribution service.

I kind of thought that anything I wrote about HCG would appear on directories about health or weight loss or the HCG diet. Well, in the immortal words of Gomer Pyle, USMC, “Surprise, surprise, surprise!” My article landed on this really neat website about cats:

The irony continues. I got a nice note from the website owner about posting my article. His name is Russell Clark … probably no relation. And, on top of all this, I have been a cat lover as long as I can remember. Indeed, recently I decided to start a blog about cats, too. As of today there isn’t much there, so I will have to take some time to build it up. If you just happen to be interested in how it’s going, you can visit it here:

TalkAboutCats.com.

If you happen to go there, let me know how you like my header image at the top of the page. I believe there is hardly any way to go wrong with photos of cats. I just thought those kitties at the top were too cute to pass up.

I had fun writing this silly little post about another subject that I love … in this case, cats. It’s back to the world of HCG tomorrow! Thanks for reading and putting up with my silliness today!

All the furry best,
Dr. D