Safety and efficacy are often the two primary concerns for people looking into trying the HCG diet. Anything that promises to provide fast and lasting weight loss results is often looked at with suspicion, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If you have a substantial amount of weight to lose, and are looking into the HCG diet in order to lose it, then you might want to try performing the HCG diet protocol more than once in order to lose the weight you need to. The HCG diet is broken down into 3 phases, a loading phase, weight loss phase and stabilization phase. The entirety of the diet lasts about 6-7 weeks, with phase 1 being 2 days in length and phases 2 and 3 being 3 weeks each.
Phase 1, the loading phase, requires that you eat as many high-fat foods as you can in a 2 day period while beginning each day with your HCG injections. Good foods to eat during this time will be foods that contain not only high amounts of fat but protein as well. High fat, high carb foods will often not provide you with the kind of fat you need to sustain yourself during phase 2, and should be avoided. These are things like pastries, potato chips, and sugary drinks. Better foods to eat during phase 1 are things like cheesecake, hamburgers and pizza. While pizza may seem like a high fat, high carb food, if you get one with a good amount of meat, it will help out immensely.
Once the initial 2 days are over, you will then begin phase 2 which consists of a 500 calorie a day diet. This diet is in sharp contrast to that of phase 1 as it contains extremely little fat and a very, very much reduced amount of calories. It can often be difficult for people to transition from phase 1 into phase 2, but it’s important that you do it right. If you eat the wrong foods, or too much food, during phase 2, your weight loss results run the risks of being greatly diminished. Be sure to stick to the 500 calorie a day limit and eat only things on the list of approved foods that prevent HCG diet side effects and maximize your weight loss results.
Phase 3 is the stabilization phase. This lasts 3 weeks and during this time you are to make sure your weight does not fluctuate more than 2lbs up or down from the last time you weighed yourself at the end of phase 2. It is often regarded as the most important phase because this will make or break the permanence of your weight loss. You are to abstain from starches and sugars during this phase (as in phase 2) and exercise is often encouraged in order to keep the weight off. Once phase 3 is complete, you should continue to eat a healthy, nutritious diet to maintain your weight.
If you have a large amount of weight to lose, you can begin the HCG diet protocol again and experience even more weight loss. However, it is important that you complete the entire 3 week duration of phase 3 before beginning the diet again. Also, you should talk to your doctor before beginning any diet, but especially before restarting another cycle of the HCG diet. You will want to make sure your body can handle another month or so on a low calorie diet. Sometimes it is required that people wait a little longer before going back on the diet to make sure that their bodies have recovered fully and are capable of going through it again.