HCG Blog

Ok, so it's been 3 weeks of maintenance to lock in the wt. loss and it went spectacularly!!  Not only did I maintain my weight, you know, not gain any back, but I acutally dropped a few more lbs.  I got as low as 193.3lbs, which I haven't seen since 1993!! 

Now many of you may be asking yourself, what about Thanksgiving, did you stay on your program thru the holiday?  Not a chance!!  I ate pie for breakfast every day!  It was awesome.  Speaking of pie, I need to thank my friend Tony Crivellone and his daughter Danielle who own Delray Pie Company.  They made the best pecan pie I've ever had.  I also got a pie from the Upper Crust in Lake Worth, who is known to be the place to get pies.  Not any more.  Tony and Danielle's pie blew them away!!  I'm excited for christmas when I can eat more pie!!  Other than that, I hate christmas, but that's a story for another day.

Anyway, where was I?  Oh yes, pie for breakfast!  And then of course a sugar induced coma for a nap with my dog.  We had and awesome weekend. 

So then how much did I gain?  I gained 6lbs.  I went up to 199.6lbs when I weighed in yesterday, and was down to 197.4lbs today.  See, by cleaning up my system, or at least, resetting my set point, even though I ate garbage, all I have to do is to eat clean again and the weight will come right off, which it is!!  I'll be back down to 193 - 194 in a few days, just in time to screw it all up again over the weekend!!  Just kidding, I'll be keeping it clean, and I'll pick my times when I eat bad and then clean it up the next day.

This is why I can say the HCG plan is the easiest and most permanent wt. loss plan around. It's the most effective and easiest one I've ever seen, and I've been studying this for over 17yrs!!

Once again, if you have some weight to lose and need a quick, easy and reasonably permanent way to do it, HCG is the way to go.  Plus, we can ship out of state if need be!!

Talk to you next time!!

I know I'm a week late in posting my final weigh in.  Anyhow, here are my final numbers.  My starting weight was 215.6lbs and my final weight was 197.8lbs, which is a loss of 17.8lbs.  My body fat went from 21.6% down to 14.7% which is a loss of 6.9% body fat. 

This worked better than I could have ever imagined it.  The spray that is.  I know the injections work, and now I know the spray works just as well, if not better.  Again, there was no hunger and I had no cravings.  There were times I thought I may have flet hungry, but a cup of tea and it went away.

There is no other eating plan, diet or weight loss plan out there that will work better than this.  Better plans don't exist.  The best part of this plan, besides the quick and almost permanent weight loss ( I'll explain that in a minute), is that this plan teaches you how to eat properly and resets your body and set point. 

Now it's just two more weeks of maintenance eating, which means I get to eat up to 2000 calories a day of vegetables, protein and fruit and my body will be reset, and I'll be able to expand my food choices and keep my weight where it is!!  Oh happy day!!

As for my comment above about being almost permanent.  If you are going to eat stupid, meaning bread, pasta, rice, cereal, cakes, candies and cookies, you will gain the weight back period!!  I don't care what weight loss or diet plan you are doing if you eat like this, grains and processed foods, including diet sodas and junk, you will gain the weight back.  This includes if you did the gastric by-pass or lap - band procedures.  In fact many of the people that did those procedures are gaining the weight back and more.  This is because they never were taught to eat properly, or they just don't care.

Now on occasion there are hormonal problems with obesity, but once you go thru the hCG program, most of your hormone problems will reset and clear up.  It's amazing how many health problems will clear up with a good clean and healthy diet of vegetables, protein and fruit.

So here I am, one week into my maintenance program, feeling great, my clothes are too big, especially my pants, and haven't been hungry much at all.  What I've learned, or at least been reminded of this time around is that I don't need as much food as I thought.  I can get away with a lot less and still be very satisfied.  Also, as I tell everyone that goes on this program, your stomach will shrink to a normal size and so you will feel very full when you increase your food amount on the maintenace program, this is particularly true.  I think of the amount I used to eat, and now the thought of eating that much is very unappealing and kind of makes me sick just to think about it.  All this in time for my favorite gluttenous holiday, Thanksgiving!!  How fun will that be?!  I figure I'll put back on all the weight I just lost, but the next day, back to vegetables, protein and fruit, and the weight will come right back off, and I'll be back down to 197lbs!!

Thank you all for following along with me on my journey and I'll be updating every so often to show you how permanent this weight loss is.

Talk to you soon and I'll see you around the office!!

All right everyone, it's day 15 and I'm down a total of 14.2lbs!!!  How about that? And overall it's been with minimal effort!! Although, I have to come clean with you all, I cheated a bit over the weekend.  Yesterday I had 2 pickles.  It's tough over the weekend.  It was miserable and rainy yesterday, so I was just sitting around the house with my dog and I was a bit bored, especially watching the Dolphins lose again, so into the kitchen I saundered, looked in  the fridge and saw the pickles.  They were of the half sour variety, and on the label it said less than one gram of carb with no fat or protein so I had two, and they were good.  Apparently it didn't matter much, because I still lost weight.

Weekends are the worst for this program.  It gets you out of your habit or routine and can give you too much free time to sit and think of all the things you are going to want to eat when you are able to.  Or maybe that's just me.  I'll just sit and watch the Food Channel and look at all the stuff I want to eat.  Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives is especially torturous.  All that big, cheesy and greasy food makes me hungry.  So that's what I found to be the most difficult part of the program.  The weekends.

At times like now, when I'm hungry, I'll fix some green tea or yerba mate tea with some lemon or lime and the hunger goes away.  It makes it easier at work because I don't keep any food here anyway, just the tea, and if I'm having a good day, I'm too busy to eat anyway, or to think about eating until lunch when I go home, make my little meal and have my apple.

That's all for today, see you next time,

Dr. Friedman

All right!!

Day 10 and I'm feeling great.  Overall more energy and clarity and not too much hunger at all, although I did have to choke down my Brussel's sprouts last night.  Do not put curry and five spice on them, not a good combo.

So I lost another 1.6lbs last night to bring my total weight loss to 11.2lbs in 10 days.  Not too bad.  I can't think of any other program that will allow such rapid and virtually permanent weight loss so quickly.  Heck, if you even lose 10lbs on any other program, it'd take months and I did it in just over a week.

What I am learning, or I should say being reminded of while on the program though, is that my system doesn't appear to do very well with dairy, specifically cheese.  This makes me very sad, because I love cheese.  Especially when it's melted over anything, a nice crusty piece of bread comes to mind, but bread hasn't been on my list for over 17 yrs, so it's a now and again arrangement I have with the grain products.

So I know what my future food intake now holds for me, as I've known for years.  It's simple like I tell all of you, vegetables, protein and fruit.  It may not be easy, but after this program, it's a lot easier than you'd think.

Talk to you next time.

Hi Everyone,

So I'm officially one week into eating only between 500 and 800 calories a day, and I'm down 9.2lbs.  I'd like to think that I could normally do this with a low carb diet, but I've been having trouble not cheating and drinking wine, especially when my wife like to drink wine.  So for me to be able to eat clean for a few weeks, the HCG is the way to go.

Overall, the program has been reasonable easy.  Just some times when I think I'm hungry, or I think I should be hungry.  I think most of the time it's because I'm bored, or because I'm eating very little fat, I'm craving fat more than anything, mostly butter or olive oil on my vegetables.  The thought of a fatty rib-eye just is not as appealing to me right this second.  But I also know a sirloin is one of the most God awful cuts of meat available.  Tough and lean and flavorless!!  From here on out, it'll grass fed burgers or filets.

Once again, I can't think of any other program where I'd lose 9lbs in one week with very little effort on my part. 

I'll talk to you all tomorrow or the next day for my next update.

Dr. Friedman

Huge news people.

I dropped 4.2lbs from my weigh in yesterday!!  I brought home the office scale, so my weigh in was at 6:30am.  I weighed 208.8 and my body fat is 18.1%, a much more livable number for me.

The main reason that the loss was so dramatic, was that my weigh in also was done before I had my morning tea and and other liquids.  You may not think it makes much of a difference, but it makes much more of a difference than we think.  This is why you always want to do your weigh in first thing in the morning after your morning pee.

The funny thing about this drop, for me, is that I ate what seemed to be a lot yesterday.  Each of my proteins were about 6oz, they were Mahi and a chicken breast in case you wanted to know, but my vegetables were huge.  Each vege portion I ate yesterday could have been cut up for 2 meals.  I also used about a teaspoon of olive oil to saute my fish in.  I think I'll use the grill from now on.

What also is very common on this program is constipation.  When you are backed up, so to speak, weight loss will slow or stop because you are not releasing anything.  We have a few different herbal products that we use to enhance you to poop!!  They work really well, everyone who takes them come back with glowing reports.

That's all for today, just wanted to give you an update, and I'll talk to you soon!

Hello Everyone!!

So today is day 5 on HCG and day 3 on 500 calories.  I totally forgot to bring my spray home last night, so I didn't have it first thing again this morning.  So I did my spray at 8:45am this morning.  I did drop another 1.2lbs since yesterday and my bodyfat dropped to 20.8%  Never thought I'd say dropped to 20.8%.  That for me is a very depressing number, but at least it's going down.

I had an observation last night after eating my handful of grape tomatoes for my app, 6oz sirloin and 10 Brussel's sprouts and having my orage for dessert, it was that I felt I should be hungry, but I wasn't.  I could easily have eaten more, but I wasn't convinced that I was hungry, I was just used to eating more.  Mindlessly stuffing my face, that's what I was used to!  The last time I did the program, I had the same observation, I just must have forgotten it.  Although I am hungry now, I guess it's time for my apple and some iced green tea to take the edge off.

Another observation I had last night is that I hate sirloin.  It's like chewing a piece of leather.  There's barely any fat on it, and we all know that fat = flavor.  This is why when foods are made low and no fat, the food companies add a bunch of sugar, because sugar will also add some flavor.  Not as much flavor as fat, but some.  The other nugget I got was from one of my favorite celebrity chefs, Anne Burrell, if any of you watch her, you know she says "brown food tastes good".  What that means is that when you brown your protein, it gives it some flavor as opposed to it turning a greyish color.  I think I'll work on my charring next time to get my protein more brown and give it some better flavor.  Anne, you ROCK!!

Anyway, to prevent any future missing of sprays, I'm going to keep my bottle home and just spray at home, plus my weigh ins have been done here in the office around 8:45am.  This is a bit later than I'd like, especially when I tell my patients on the program to wake up, pee, weigh in and do your spray.  So I'm taking my scale home and will be weighing in first thing in the morning.  The other problem with the office weigh in is that we,my wife Janine and myself, have tea in the morning while we watch the news shows and catch up on email.  Kind of like a morning ritual we've developed over the past 2 years.  So my weigh in is after a french press full of tea, and some water if I've been to the gym that morning.  Now I'll be able to be more accurate with my weigh in.

Ok, just had a few kinks to work out, but I now think I'll be able to be more systematized and organized to get even better results.

Talk to you tomorrow!!

Dr. Friedman

Hey Everyone!!

As you may or may not know, we have been offering the greatest weight loss program I've ever seen, HCG!!  Now the reason that it's so fantastic is not just because you lose about 1lb per day, but because the program really teaches you how to properly eat. 

First, let's describe proper eating.  Proper eating is eating just vegetables, protein and fruit.  That's it! Simple as that!  Now for as simple as it seems, it's not easy, especially considering how much junk we all eat, and how addicted to the junk we have become.  Even for those of you who eat this way, I challenge you to write down and log what you eat and you'll probably see that you're eating more junk than you think.

What exactly is junk food you may ask? Anything made of flour, sugar, especially high fructose corn syrup and agave syrup, processed foods or grain based foods like cereal.  Why is this junk food?  Because this is what will make you obese and give you diabetes and heart disease.  Of course there are always exception to every rule, but by cutting out the sugar, grains/flour and processed foods, you'll do much better.

So now, back to vegetables, protein and fruit.  Which veges are we tallking about?  All non-starchy veges, such as broccoli, asparagus, tomatoes, Brussel's sprouts, peppers, onions, lettuce and the like, and just about all vegetables.  The only ones to really avoid are white potatoes, corn (which is actually a grain), carrots and other root vegetables.  Most importantly though is to avoid white potatoes.  Sweet potatoes can be eaten on occasion, every few weeks as can all the other vegetables, and even some grains, but no more than that.

As for fruit, I'll say this.  I personally avoid bananas due to high sugar content (plus I don't much care for the texture much), and I try to eat 2x the vegetables than I do fruit.  Too much fruit will cause all kinds of problems, and never use fruit juice!!  The optimal fruits are what's in season.  Right now it's apples, and I'd have issue with someone who says the Honeycrisp apple is not the greatest apple ever!!  Berries, including, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries and raspberries are wonderful, and so are oranges and grapefruits!  During the summer, I love cherries and am a big fan of mangoes and pineapple.  Always look for what's in season, and then try to get organic if possible.

Speaking of organic, buying organic and make someone bankrupt, so the Environmental Working Group, http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary/ has a list of the most important produce to buy organic called the dirty dozen and on the other end of the scale, the foods that don't exactly have to be organic, the clean fifteen.  Click the link and you'll get the list. 

Lastly, what proteins are we talking about?  Protein, as far as I'm concerned, is anything that has or had eyes or a mother.  We are talking animal products.  Soy is one you'll want to avoid due to anti-nutrients and other factors.  If you really want to know why, click this link, http://westonaprice.org and look up the soy info.

I realize that may have been a long winded way to explain what is meant by proper eating, but I felt it was important so you know what I meant.  Others may have a different definition, but seeing as how this is my blog, this is my definition.

So this is why I love the HCG program so much, because after eating this way for 30 or so days, your taste will change to craving good, real, healthy foods!!  Garbage and junk foods will taste just like that, garbage and junk, and they'll probably make you feel horrible with a gassy and bloating feeling, not to mention the sugar headache and hangover. 

Also, with the HCG program, because the diet is very strict while on the program, your stomach will shrink back up to a normal size, so the benefit is you'll eat a normal size portion and feel good and full but not stuffed!!  Imagine feeling quite full  on 6 - 8 oz of protein a handfull of vegetables and some fruit! 

We found, you'll have more energy and sleep better while the pounds drop.  Plus your blood sugar will normalize, which means no more afternoon crash and no more sugar cravings!!  Imagine, sleeping thru the night, waking feeling well rested and having energy all day!!  This can be your reality, as it is mine!

Speaking of me, I did this program myself almost 4 years ago and dropped 39lbs in 5 weeks, and have kept off about 30 of those pounds.  After being married for two years and eating stupid more frequently and loving wine the way I do, I'm shocked I haven't gained more back! 

Let's do a qucik reality check!  Yes, if you eat stupid you will gain the weight back.  It won't come back as quick as it would have in the past, but you'll gain it back.  But, all you have to do is to go back on the maintenance portion of the program, vegetables, protein and fruit, and the weight will come back off.  Or if like me, the wine and weekends throw you off and you make bad decisions, you just start from the beginning and get strict for a few weeks and the weight will drop off as easy as can be!!

For those of you who don't know what HCG is what the program is, here's the back story.  About 60 years ago, a British doctor A.T. Simeons, realized that small injections of a glycoprotein (sugar protein) called HCG,which stands for human chorionic gonadotrophin, will stimulate a part of the brain called the hypothalamus to use fat for energy in an ultra-low calorie diet.  So yes, even though it's starvation diet, because of the HCG, there's hardly any hunger and virtually no cravings.  The HCG stimulated the hypothalamus to use FAT for energy and preserve muscle, where without the HCG, you'd be breaking down muscle as well.  Plus the fat burned up is the abnormal fat, not the important visceral fat (the fat that protects the organs).  This is why you're losing about 1lb per day ALL FAT!! 

I've been studying health, nutrition, weight loss and a low carb diet for over 17 years, so when I saw this program I didn't believe it, and figured it was due to the starvation diet.  Boy was I wrong.  From what I found, when the HCG was used, the bodies' set point, or the weight where it was happy was reset, and the weight wasn't regained, the weight stayed gone!!  Those that didn't use the HCG lost muscle as well and regained all the weight and then some quickly!!  Once I saw that, I decided to try the program myself.

Let me give you a bit of my background.  I've always been chubby or heavy/husky growing up.  I've always carried my weight in my belly.  Once I got thru puberty and had a growth spurt or two, I got leaner, but never thin like I wanted.  Plus my mother is insane and gave me severe body image problems.  Not to blame my mother only, my father didn't help either.  My father's side of the family are large people.  I really didn't have a chance.  This is probably why I got into nutrition when I got into chiropractic school, so I could learn how to get thin and lean. 

Back in the early 90's a friend of mine got me into low fat/ no fat, and I ballooned up, plus I had stopped teaching karate full time and moved up to northern Calif. to go to chiropractic school and had quickly gained about 15 - 20 lbs.  My waist went from a 33" to a 36" in a matter of months.  Thankfully in Sept of '94, I got into an arguement with a friend of mine about what makes you fat, carbohydrates or fat.  Then he pulled out our biochemistry book and showed me how insulin will take carbs and make fat.  Talk about an instant paradigm shift.  The next day I went to my biochem teacher and asked him about this whole sugar, insulin and fat system and he explained it to me  and that was all she wrote.  I never again made carbs a normal part of my daily life.  I carried around a carb counter and could tell you the carb content of any food.  I was and for the most part still am a low carb warrior. 

So here we are 13 or so years later and I read the HCG manuscript.  I saw it was very low carb friendly and so just to see if it would work, I started the program.  Well, 5 weeks and 39lbs later I was sold.  I stopped my program a week early because I didn't want to lose anymore weight.  I went from 237lbs, which was my alll time high down to 198lbs.  I hadn't been under 200lbs in bout 15 years.  So I did the three week maintenance, which was a breeze because you now can increase your calories to a reasonable level and start to mix in more foods.  So I decided to lock in my weight at about 202 - 205lbs.  That worked for me, and I've been able to hold that weight for the past few years. 

But like I stated earlier, two years of marriage, lots of wine and eating stupid more frequently than in the past, my body fat went up and hasn't come down.  I went  from 9% body fat while getting ready for my wedding to 21.6% today!  Ouch!!  So I started the HCG program again on Sat. Oct. 15 and will be giving daily updates on what my weight and body fat!

Yesterday, my starting weight was 215.6lbs and body fat was 21.3% and today my wt. is 214.6 and body fat is 21.6%  So lost 1lb the first day, but body fat went up.  The body fat measurement will be questionalbe due to the variations in measureing it with the scale I am using.  It's a Tanita Ironman scale that gives all kinds of measurements, and it will be consistent for my purposes.

So that's where I am.  Please feel free to comment if you'd like or call or office if you have any questions.

See you tomorrow with the update!!

Dr. Friedman