Living Fitness

Most hCG diet reviews come from sites that (surprise!) sell hCG products. It’s a hard task to find any reports from sites that aren’t dedicated to advocating the hCG diet, making their objectivity questionable at best. The following four hCG diet reviews are from sites that aren’t about the diet. Three of them are first person accounts rather than doctors’ theoretical opinions. The fourth is a critical review of the many studies that have been conducted over the years.

The Controversial Diet that Really Works. Erin Flaherty of Marie Claire magazine published Alison Edmond’s account of her experience with the diet. After researching the diet, Edmond remained skeptical of the theory, but decided to take a chance by enrolling in a Studio City weight loss clinic. 45 days and $1250 later, she lost 25 pounds. This is a great resource for anyone considering dieting with the help of a clinic, especially since she seems to reflect the disposition of the average person adopting the diet—cautious, but open-minded.

Simeons Protocol Review – HCG Diet. AnabolicMinds.com’s forum member badfish51581 has written one of the most informed personal case studies of the classic Simeons protocol, distinguishing it from Kevin Trudeau’s adaptation. Badfish lost 31.5 pounds on the diet in 30 days using a 125 IU injection of hCG daily. Meals for each day consisted of one apple, 100 grams of chicken in salad, another apple, then 100 grams of chicken in a broth. He doesn’t rule out possible placebo effects, but he does insist that he has able to distinguish between psychological cravings and actual hunger pangs, and strongly believes that hCG significantly reduced his appetite without suffering from fatigue.

I Started the HCG Diet. Beauty Bets blogger Elizabeth Dehn made three blog entries about her experience with the diet immediately after starting it. While this hCG diet review isn’t particularly extensive, or even complete (it trails off after the second week), it’s noteworthy for its candor and its real time reporting of progress rather than retroactive assessment. While she did lose four pounds in the first seven days, she attributed this to the calorie restriction rather than the hCG itself. She experienced more hunger and fatigue than most hCG dieters would admit, and increased her calorie intake from 500 to 800 (which “slowed down the weight loss process to a screeching halt”). The final entry, concludes with her giving into cravings and, presumably, ending the diet.

HCG Diet An Evidence Based Review. Rather than go on the diet himself, Joe Cannon of Supplement-Geek.com decided to review nearly 50 years’ worth of scientific studies, providing a synopsis of six individual studies and two meta-analyses. The individual studies included anywhere from 20 to 202 patients each. One meta-analysis compiled and analyzed data from 358 patients between six individual studies, while another meta-analysis reviews an unreported number of patients between 24 studies. Only one of the individual studies concluded that dieting with hCG performed better than dieting with a placebo. Homeopathic hCG drops are handled in a separate research based review with even more negative conclusions—again, not a first person account, but well-vetted third party data. Not everyone wants to read negative reviews of the hCG diet, but everyone can benefit from multiple perspectives.