Your comprehensive resource to answer your questions about the hCG diet protocol.
I highly encourage doing your research before embarking on this HCG protocol. This page is a work in progress guys…..just so you know there is MUCH more to come.
Please also see my HCG HOW TO section for video and blog posts on this topic.
Cheating on the hCG Diet
How to Minimize the Effects of an Unavoidable Cheat on the hCG Diet
Okay so sometimes a cheat is absolutely unavoidable, like the following case:
A woman emailed asking how she could minimize the damage from the required wedding cake tasting she had to go for her wedding. Her plan was to “look like a weirdo” as she put it (love that! Yes be weird and be proud!) and “take one small tiny bite of each of the 6 samples.”
So I have discussed recovering from unplanned MAJOR cheats but in this case where it’s something relatively small and unavoidable, what kind of planning can be done in advance?
Three things:
1. Skip your hCG shot that day.
Even though hCG actually stays in your system for 72 hours, the amount does gradually reduce as the hours wear on, so it makes sense that having a little less hCG in your system on the day of the “cheat” may aid in having less negative effects.
2. Eat only your 2 proteins and the phase 2 veggies that day (outside of the small cheat items).
By removing the Phase 2 fruit and melba servings, this is where the main source of sugar and carbs is on the VLCD, so this will possibly help “balance” out whatever sugar/carb content you’ll be taking in with the cheat items.
3. Drink plenty of water.
Water is always good for flushing things out. Can’t go wrong there!
Please tell me I’m not the only one who has cheated? clean eating and back on program best?
You are not the only one! Only aliens doing hCG have never cheated. ;0 The best way I’ve found for getting back on track I’ve detailed for ya here: Getting over a cheat fast on the hCG Diet.
Can it do more harm if you cheat?? Like will the weight come back on easier later?
I think this has to do with where in the timeline of your round you’ve cheated, as well as how frequently it’s happened. For instance how close to the end of your round was the cheat? If you are early or mid round, I think you can recover and get your body back into a groove more easily. If you are very close to P3, it might present a little more of a challenge. If you have cheated frequently throughout the whole round, I could see this presenting a big problem.
My naturopath’s secretary actually scared me- told me that if you cheat your body holds onto fat.
I agree that cheating is not a good thing on hCG. And I do think that you will gain fat from a cheat much more quickly than if you were to eat those same foods off of hCG. Ie. chocolate cake off hCG might give you a .2 gain, but chocolate cake ON hCG might give you a 1 lb gain. It’s crazy stuff. That said, I don’t believe in scaring people into thinking that cheating will ruin their entire course on the diet or maintenance after. I just don’t think it’s that drastic. I have had at least one cheat I think on most of my rounds, and I managed to stabilize and maintain my weight loss. I did indeed gain from the actual cheat, and it took some days to start losing again, which was totally not worth the cheat true, but once the cheat was behind me, I do not feel it hampered my long term results, if that makes sense – and this is coming from someone who maintained her weight loss between rounds, and now almost 3 years after my last round. So don’t beat yourself up over those mistakes and fear super long term consequences. I think our bodies are quite resilient and if you do the logical things to get back on track, your body will get back on track too.