Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Yes, you’re right, it is. Unsustainable indeed.
One definition of unsustainable: something that is unsustainable cannot continue at the same rate.
In short, that’s okay, because the hCG protocol is not DESIGNED to be sustained.
Many Activities In Life Are Unsustainable
So is cycling and lifting heavy weights. You can only do those activities for a certain length of time before you have to take a break. In the case of heavy weights in fact, you can really only sustain it for a few seconds really before you gotta take a breather.
People frequently injure themselves by using bad form, lifting too heavy, or trying to lift a certain amount or certain number of reps when they are already too fatigued. I am frequently commended at my crossfit gym for my good form while weight lifting and I’m sure this has to do with why I haven’t experienced any major injuries in two and a half years of crossfit.
The point is, there are plenty of things that are very healthy to do for a short duration, that would not be healthy, or even possible, for long durations of time.
All Diets With Weight Loss As the Aim Are Unsustainable
In fact, every diet on the planet that has an aim at weight loss is actually unsustainable because to lose weight you have to consume less calories than you actually need to be at a homeostatic level – ie. your body staying in the same place.
Once a person has lost the weight they want, they HAVE to increase their calorie intake in order to be a maintenance level, so you can’t stay on any diet aimed at weight loss forever.
The hCG diet is not meant to be sustained or done for long periods of time. The original protocol designed back in the mid 1900’s had patients on this diet ONLY for 3-6 weeks at a time, with successfully longer and longer breaks between each course of the diet.
This is a sane and reasonable way to do it. Both myself, going on 2 years of maintaining my hCG weight loss, as well as the many hCG interviews I’ve conducted are living proof of this. The bodyfat testing I’ve done showing that I went from 34% body fat to 17% body fat from this protocol (which to make the numbers more clear means I lost almost 2/3rds of all the the fat on my body), and retained these results while eating a normal healthy diet (including carbs and corn tortillas) post hCG is clear proof.
If you take anything and misuse it, it will be unsustainable and will cause harm.
Take my iPad mini for instance. I don’t have a cover for it because I feel it makes it too bulky, but I carry it around quite carefully in my purse. Sadly, my husband was rather rushed one day and carried it out, sitting all rickety atop a stack of books he was carrying to the car, and yes, the inevitable happened. Amazing my ipad still works, but it doesn’t LOOK like it does, and I’m pretty sure its life span has been dramatically shortened by this little accident.
Lesson: iPad minis should either have a cover or do not let your husband touch it. Carrying iPads on top of books without cover = misuse.
No wait, actually the lesson is:
Yes the hCG diet is unsustainable – doing the diet for a long period of time would be a misuse of the protocol. The hCG diet being unsustainable is not a good argument for whether it is healthy or not, since it is not designed to be sustained.
This protocol, done for periods of 3-6 weeks, with long breaks between, I have found to be a VERY effective and efficient way to lose not just weight, but fat.
hCG Gives You a Choice – Be in Diet Mode for A Year Or More, or for 3-6 Weeks
Instead of having to spend an entire year or years in “diet mode”, living under a maintenance level of eating, I can do this just a bit more strictly, for a much shorter period of time, and then spend several weeks or months eating at a maintenance level.
This requires much less emotional and mental energy overall to me.
To me, this is a good thing because losing weight is most likely not the sole thing you got goin’ on in your life.
And while we all need to learn how to operate a consistent healthy lifestyle alongside all our other obligations and stresses in life, that’s the thing….
a consistent healthy lifestyle at a MAINTENANCE level is much different than losing weight.
Losing weight isn’t a lifestyle we need to somehow become accustomed to for life. In fact, that’s something we don’t want right? We’re trying to get AWAY from that! Can I get a “you got that right!” from all the yo-yo dieters out there?
When we have children we are raising, parents or grandparents who are getting cancer and need care, abusive relationships, a stressful job, oh the list goes on and on, if there is a way to avoid having to live under a maintenance level of eating for long periods of time, to me, I feel this is makes sense to do.
I hope this helps.
Just trying to dispel a little of the misinformation out there.
Just to harp a teensy bit more, just cuz it’s fun, I came up with a list of things that most of us, including myself, enjoy at least occasionally that are not sustainable:
– eating french fries 3x a day
– surfing Pinterest for more than 12 hours straight
– buying everything that catches your eye
– peeing perpetually (okay that is not something we all occasionally enjoy)
Okay I’ll stop now.
If you are interested in doing this protocol and want to do it in a healthy manner, just check out the learn section. As I said earlier, I’ve been maintaining my own weight loss with the hCG Diet for over 2 years now (as of the date of this publishing, November 25, 2014 and have not needed to use hCG at all during that time. If that doesn’t say something, I don’t know what does.
Watch Melissa’s Full Interview here
Want Motivation?
37,000+ hCGers Join
hcgChica's
Email Tribe
how-to's | interviews | pep talks
Yup, I want this!
I am in tears in thankfulness of finding your website !!! What a blessing you are !!
Thank you so much for your heart for others !! ????
Yay! Thank you very much for your warm & sweet appreciation, Sherri! Rayzel is also blessed to have people like you who supports her. 🙂
Wishing you a wonderful week ahead!
Li-an, Rayzel’s assistant
This sounds like something I can do to see fat loss results & be able to stop taking so many meds. that makes me feel so bad.Im hoping that it’s not too expensive!I want to be able to do more and enjoy my family.i would be more motivated to exercise.
The HCG diet is very sustainable, I have tried traditional diets, as well as the very fashionable Atkins, only to wind up regaining weights under those routines. I had decent success with Atkins but gained about half the weight I lost when I started eating carbohydrates again. Atkins also had a very nasty side effect, I began to lose my hair, I read somewhere from a fitness expert that Atkins and long term low carb dieting can result in hair loss, I engaged in Atkins for over period of nine months which caused damage to my hair. I wound up having to take medication to reverse the that hair loss.
The issue with HCG is that you need to stabilize the weight that you lose after phase 2 properly, which means Phase 3 is the most important phase of the diet, and must be done for minimum of 3 weeks after phase 2, my physician told me that I needed to do it for at least 2, but I actually did it for four weeks of abstaining from any kind of starches or sugars.
I only then slowly began to add back starches to my meals after four weeks, and at that point I focused on quality, I added in oatmeal in the morning in the 5th week, then brown rice in the 6th week, then a sweet potato in my evening meal in the evening.
I had some constraints to work with, my wife is a vegetarian and does not allow me to bring meat into the house, she would allow me to bring fish and eggs, and some poultry products like frozen chicken breasts due to her religious beliefs I cannot bring in beef and pork into our home. Anyway it worked to my benefit as red meat is just not good for your health, although some may disagree, but honestly there is a lot of cruelty involved in the production of red meat so I just learned to avoid eating it.
HCG gives you a second chance for you to start again, to correct a mistake. If you return to poor eating and exercise habits, you will regain the weight you lost but if you learn healthy eating and activities, you will maintain your weight loss and have a healthy body.
OMG, I love you so much. You have spoken words that I have had in my mind about the word “unsustainable” to dismiss the hCG protocol.
For me, the protocol is a sustainable fat loss method, because I can sustain it for the few weeks required to achieve the results I seek. A “moderate” restriction plan, with a 500 calorie deficit per day, is not sustainable for me, precisely because it is a lot harder for me to stay in dieting mode, fighting my body’s natural desire to eat at maintenance levels, for months or years at a time.
I find the hCG protocol is sustainable, because, by the time my body and mind are fatiguing of the process, it is time to end the round anyway, and go to a more liberal, varied, and plentiful eating plan. I find the so-called “healthy” diets for losing fat unsustainable, because, in addition to having to constantly micromanage amounts and type of food, I also have to commit to an exercise routine which I personally find unsustainable. If I don’t pay attention to calories, macros, cardio, strength training, and sleep patterns, *ALL AT THE SAME TIME*, I don’t lose fat on a “modest deficit” diet.
I can achieve results with the hCG protocol, because my mind and body can sustain it for the short time required. I have difficulty achieving results with other, less intense methods, because I have to spend too much physical and mental energy on the weight loss effort, over a period of time far longer than my body, mind, or soul can handle.
Hey @disqus_IrS8P552AA:disqus! Yes indeed good thoughts. I agree, any way to avoid micromanaging food intake is key. I just couldn’t handle having to do that. Every time I consider trying to calorie count for even a day, it makes me instantly unhappy lol. Definitely some may prefer to have a seemingly less strict diet for a longer period of time, but for me (and you!) these shorter periods of focus and then being able to relax the reins has been the ticket.
Agreed! The term ‘sustainable’ ( and the un- variety) is a huge over-used buzz word these days. I like how you brought out the real issue for us ‘hCGers’ is not to let this negative publicity put a bad spin in our mindsets as we apply the protocol. Thank your for this encouragement at this busy, food-oriented time of year. Your thoughtful, creative blog settings are always a treat for my soul: color and nature! Ahhh! Oh yes, and the nice softened edges to the lens, nice! Happy Thanksgiving, hCG Chica and all the 4000 strong hCGers out there!
Great thoughts @Sunnie Side Up – Thanks for enjoying my creativity too! It’s probably a bit much for some people’s tastes, but I just love it so it makes my work more fun for me. :)- And don’t worry I haven’t forgotten our interview- I’ll probably be emailing you next week to get a date locked down- excited!