Advances in Mental Health

In terms of "doctor approved diets," the HCG diet is currently one of the most popular. This diet requires injections or drops of human chorionic gonadotropin, which is a hormone that occurs naturally in the body during pregnancy. It has also been shown to help people lose weight by resetting your metabolism. Many people who have tried this diet swear by it, even considering they need to go to their doctor's office for injections or will need to find a place to purchase the HCG drops. Here are some facts about the HCG diet and what you can expect.

Benefits of the HCG Diet

The main benefit to doing the HCG diet is that the HCG hormone from a company like Intermountain HCG can help boost your metabolism so you are still able to eat without feeling ill. With many fad diets, you are put on an extremely low calorie or low carbohydrate diet, which can cause nausea, dizziness, and headaches. The diet plan still limits your calories for a period of time, but the hormone helps you avoid that intense hunger and illness that is common with other types of diets. People who have gone on this diet have also reported a large amount of weight loss.

Forms of HCG

While the most common method of getting HCG into your body for this diet is with an injection, there are other options now available. You can get drops that are placed on your tongue, use a spray for your mouth, or get pellets of the hormone that you take like a pill. These later options are available at drug stores at homeopathic stores, but you must see your doctor for the HCG injection.

The Diet Plan

The HCG diet plan lasts for eight weeks and allows just 500 calories a day. The diet plan consists of eating twice a day, including one meal for lunch and one for dinner. For each meal, you need to fill your plate with one vegetable, one bread product, one protein, and one fruit. The meat products can be shrimp, fresh white fish, crab, lobster, beef or chicken breast. Tuna, herring and salmon is not allowed.

Vegetables choices include tomatoes, celery, green salad, chicory, spinach, cucumbers, radishes, onions, asparagus, cabbage, and chard. The only bread you can have is a piece of melba toast or a breadstick. The diet leans more toward strawberries, apples and oranges for the fruit serving. For drinks, you can have unlimited water, coffee or tea, or a small amount of milk with each meal. No fruit juice, soft drinks, oil or butter is allowed while on the diet.

It is important to note that you should be monitored by your doctor while you follow the HCG diet plan due to the limited amount of food and calories consumed each day.