hGC d e f…?

This weekend I had an interesting brush with the Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG) diet.

If you’re not familiar with it, hCG is a hormone produced during pregnancy, and a British endocrinologist named A.T.W. Simeons discovered it could help with weight loss in some cases back in the 1950s.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago, and hCG started appearing in wacky diet plans along with bee-venom injections (hmmm, I can’t find that on the internet anymore. Maybe the bee sting craze blew over?). I had a couple friends mention they were trying hCG but  they didn’t seem to be dropping pounds any faster than I was on my “stuff my face intermittently and hope for the best” diet, so I didn’t pay much attention.

However, I have another friend who’s had pretty good success with prescription-grade hCG. She’s a lot better organized than I am–a key ingredient in successful dieting–but claims it’s been easy.

What’s the system? Well, you take a bunch of hCG while sticking to 800 calories per day (not all of them chocolate). The claim is that taking hCG sends your body into “release fat for the baby” instead of “shut down you’re starving” mode.

And of course, you’re never hungry. So it’s a breeze. The testimonials say so.

So…am I going to change my 5x10x15 fitness plan to  5x10x8 instead?  I’m a sucker for pseudoscience, so I might buy a bottle of what claims to be real hCG (but is it  available over the counter, or is this a scam?) and check out the “no hunger” claim.

Miracles can happen. Right?

Here’s an interesting related article from US.News Health.

Progress: Spent most of last week nursing a sore shoulder and sulking, but I’m back on the plan. Because ya gotta keep trying!