subject: Pregnancy Hormone Helping Women - And Men - Lose Weight [print this page] Pregnancy Hormone Helping Women - And Men - Lose Weight
A new diet is claiming to help a lot of people lose weight.
The HCG diet uses the same hormone, HCG, that's found in pregnant women to help men and women drop extra pounds.
36-year-old Brian Smith is anxious to start the HCG program.
"It seems like every day something else is coming out that has something harmful in it, so that's encouraging to me that it's already something that's in the human body," said Smith.
Diet consultant Jacque Martinez has administered the diet to about 60 people since last May and says clients have lost as much as 30 to 50 pounds on the 70-day program. Forty days of that includes a daily injection of the hormone.
"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," Martinez said.
There are two ways to do the HCG diet. One is at a clinic, and the other is online. Online is much cheaper, but you'll have no doctor supervision, and dieters have to mix their own HCG solution.
Along with the hormone injections, users must stick to a low calorie diet, as low as 500 calories in some cases.
Dieters can eat no carbs and no sugar. Martinez says side effects are minimal and include headaches in the first week of the program and feeling really hungry.
Martinez agrees. Anyone eating as few as 500 calories a day is bound to lose weight. However, she says the HCG injections help dieters by increasing their metabolism and decreasing their appetite.
The HCG diet will range in cost from $50 dollars to about $650 at a local clinic.
