I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but it has appeared to me in the HCG Youtube community that most people seem to gain 1-3 lbs while loading on their first HCG round, but then on subsequent rounds of HCG Injections these same people all of sudden can gain upwards of 8-12 lbs in those same two loading days for the diet.  Why is this? I wish I knew the exact answer.  Could it be because people “load better” on later rounds, filling up on even more calories than before because they know the food deprivation that is about to occur as soon as VLCD 1 hits? (Although it’s hard to believe people are actually eating 4-5 times more calories than the first loading round).  Is it because the body recognizes the hormone more quickly on subsequent rounds?  Is it because previous to the loading for Rounds 2 and on, the individual is coming off of a very clean eating pattern, and the sudden dramatic increase in carbs and sugar causes a large amount of water retention?  It seems like it could be one or more of these reasons for different people, and certainly other reasons may come into play that I’m not even aware of yet.

I will tell you one thing though- the less carbs and sugar you use in your loading process, the less of a gain you’ll have.  Don’t get me wrong.  You do want to gain some weight while loading for the protocol.  But it scares me when I see some individuals gain 10 or 12 lbs loading, and then instead of all those pounds coming right off in the first 48 hours of vlcd (very low calorie days) as Dr. Simeons wrote usually happens, it may take them 2 weeks on the protocol to lose it all.  What??  This doesn’t seem right.  I admire those individuals who when this happens, suck it up and make it painfully through their round, but I’m pretty sure they are thinking they wished that wouldn’t have happened.  I know I’m wishing that for them!

The purpose of loading is to saturate your system with fats before you start the vlcd part.  But is loading on high carbs and sugars really necessary?  Some point to what Dr. Simeons said in his book as a reason for needing to load on carbs and sugars, as well as fats.  In his book Pounds and Inches, Dr. Simeons writes, “One cannot keep a patient comfortably on 500 Calories unless his normal fat reserves are reasonably well stocked. It is for this reason also that every case, even those that are actually gaining must eat to capacity of the most fattening food they can get down until they have had the third injection. It is a fundamental mistake to put a patient on 500 Calories as soon as the injections are started, as it seems to take about three injections before abnormally deposited fat begins to circulate and thus become available.”  While there is still no mention of high carb or high sugar foods in this quote, another paragraph or two down he further adds, “Some patients say that they can no longer overeat because their stomach has shrunk after years of restrictions. While we know that no stomach ever shrinks, we compromise by insisting that they eat frequently of highly concentrated foods such as milk chocolate, pastries with whipped cream sugar, fried meats particularly pork, eggs and bacon, mayonnaise, bread with thick butter and jam, etc.”

We probably all read things differently, but what I get out of this is that Dr. Simeons felt eating high quantities of high fat foods is necessary for the first two days of injections while on the HCG diet, and, in response to some who were obviously being very resistant to the idea of loading for one reason or another, mentioned some foods for these types of individuals that, while being high in fat, were also high in carbs and/or sugars.  But I don’t personally come to the conclusion based on what Dr. Simeons wrote that it is necessary to eat high carb high sugar foods.  I see high fats being necessary, and all the other stuff more like an “if you want”.

Now I realize that the majority of HCGers and HCGers-to-be out there will keep it easy and just load on whatever they want- if they’re near a donut shop, they’ll stop and get donuts, if they’re at a Steakhouse they’ll get a ribeye, baked potato and a huge brownie for dessert.  There’s nothing wrong with this- after all it’s your personal decision.  And if Dr. S said could load on milk chocolate and pastries with whipped cream sugar, obviously you can still be successful on the diet by loading this way.

I have though, for more than one reason, realized that I must stick to the bare bones of what he meant in my eyes, which is to load for the protocol with high fats.  For me, it is a strategic move to leave carbs and sugar out of the equation almost entirely.  One happy side effect of this is that you will not have a huge load gain on subsequent rounds.  Mine is pretty much always between .8-3 lbs, and it always comes off in 1-2 days, as Dr. Simeons says it should.

I have a couple other bigger reasons I have chosen to load only with fats and proteins and to leave carbs and sugar out of the picture, but that is for another post, as this one is too long already……

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