The hCG diet plan is hormone-driven. It works because it specifically enhances the metabolism of excess fat. In contrast, simply eating less, including starvation, leads to loss of muscle tissue. Here is how to tell the difference.

How much fat are you carrying? Unless you know this detail, you will not be able to tell whether your weight loss on the hCG diet plan is due to losing fat, muscle, or water weight. If you have done your research about the Simeons protocol, by now you should know that it is designed to eliminate abnormal fat. This is the fat that builds up primarily in your abdomen, hips, or thighs, depending on your age and gender.

Your weight and your appearance are the obvious indicators, at least at first, that you are carrying too much fat. Let’s look at my own experience as an example of such a starting point.

Before I discovered the Simeons hCG protocol, I was about 25 pounds overweight. I knew how to reduce it based on past experience, pre-hCG. My strategy was always to go nuts by exercise. I would go into marathon training mode, running 40 miles per week in preparation for my next marathon. This was physical abuse, pure and simple. However, I could always drop 10-20 pounds this way, within about 3 months.

Unfortunately, I always got sick during my training, with whatever that season’s flu virus was. Long-distance running created a tremendous inflammation load on my body, with one consequence being a diminished immune system. This is not news to science. Indeed, it is typical.

I also knew that I could lose weight by eating less, although this doesn’t work for everyone. In fact, since then I have learned that it doesn’t work for anyone as a long-term, sustainable strategy for health and weight management. Besides, I have never been too interested in the idea of being hungry every day for the rest of my life, even if it did work to keep my weight down (which it wouldn’t).

Does This Sound Like You?

If any part of my experience sounds like yours, then the good news is that reduced calorie dieting and exercise won’t help you any more than it helped me. I say that this is good news because it drove me to find different solutions to my predicament. The first one that I found, although not the only one, was the Simeons protocol.

As a scientist, I think it is important to dig into the research behind something and to understand how it works. That second part isn’t critical, or even necessary, although it is how I have been trained to think.

The Critical Point

This is why I immediately discovered the critical distinguishing feature of the Simeons protocol: fat loss. NOT weight loss! Fat loss!

Why is this a critical point? Imagine following the hCG diet plan without taking hCG. You would be consuming a specific diet consisting of certain foods that added up to a maximum of 500 calories per day. All by itself, this is a starvation diet, regardless of what the foods are. You can most likely lose a lot of weight by following this starvation diet. Maybe even a pound per day, just as you could with the full hormone-driven protocol.

If you or I followed this starvation diet, we would be shorting ourselves anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 calories, or even more, each and every day for a month. Do you think we would be hungry? Absolutely! Miserably ravenous every single day!

Our weight would drop super fast. Our body fat, however, would hardly change at all.

Now for the clincher on what should happen, and did happen, when I went on such a diet accompanied by daily intake of hCG: Within a month I dropped 25 pounds AND 8 percent body fat.

8 percent body fat!

When I calculated the amount of fat that I had metabolized away during that period, my 8 percent drop in body fat composition amounted to about 17 pounds. This is the key information for you to know when you undertake the hCG protocol.

(By the way, the remaining amount of weight loss was primarily water weight, which I flushed within the first week on the protocol. This is typical for any such diet that is highly restrictive of carbohydrate intake.)

In other words, I knew that Dr. Simeons’ claims about reducing what he called ‘abnormal fat’ were on the mark, because that is exactly what I experienced. In fact, keeping track of my actual body fat composition wasn’t the only indicator. My waist size shrunk, my knee blobs went away (those fatty deposits on the inside of each knee – take a look at your own knees to see what I mean), my turkey neck tightened up (that loose flab under my chin … a disgusting, and unnecessary, indicator of aging), and my face started taking on its former oval shape again (i.e., not as round and chubby looking).

The Most Important Thing To Do

On any diet, whether it be the hCG diet plan or some other, the most important step you can take is to keep track of your body fat composition. If your body fat does not drop, then you are heading to dieting failure. This is the failure that underlies yo-yo dieting programs that drive weight loss without addressing the underlying metabolism of fat.

By the way, nowadays keeping track of your body fat composition is super easy and inexpensive. All you have to do is pick up a bathroom scale that includes a bioelectric impedance device that measures your body fat at the same time you weigh yourself. Nothing fancy. Department stores carry them – I think I got mine at Target for under 40 dollars.

Evaluating Homeopathic hCG

I have written much about homeopathic hCG products (and other so-called hCG products that contain no actual hCG) and don’t have much good to say about them. If you insist on using one, you will find them to be cheap and widely available over the counter (at Walmart, for goodness sake!). They are worth every penny, meaning not much. When using such a product, be absolutely certain that you are reducing your body fat percent during the protocol. I suspect that you will not. Oh, you will lose plenty of weight alright. And you will probably feel miserably hungry all the time.

If you, indeed, succeed in dropping your body fat percent on a cheap homeopathic or herbal product (e.g., 30 dollars for a month’s supply), then please do return to this post and make a comment about your success. I am not at all interested in how much weight you can lose, just in how much fat. Thanks in advance for your input!