DANGERS OF THE HCG DIET FAD

Lately I have been meeting a lot of people who are on the latest fad diet called the HCG Diet.  For those of you who have not heard of this diet, basically what it consists of is, restricting your calorie intake to approximately 500 calories a day and taking HCG shots or drops.  These HCG shots and/or drops are suppose suppress hunger and trigger your bodys use of fat for fuel.  


Since, I am by nature very skeptical about any sort of fad diets, once I learned of this, I was astonished that anyone could last on this diet for more than a day or two.  Cutting calories this low just does not allow you to meet your daily nutritional needs.  How could anyone eat only 500 calories a day and continue to function without passing out from sheer weakness?   I mean this is just way below anyones BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) which is the number of calories your body would burn if you stayed in bed all day.   Most all literature that I have read on weight loss states you should never eat below your BMR as that can be counterproductive to your weight loss.  Additionally, here are some of the the noted side effects of this diet.

• Headaches
• Constipation
• Nausea
• Fatigue
• Hair Loss

In reality when you consume to few calories, your body not only burns fat, but also muscle mass for fuel, which can have lifelong detrimental effects on your metabolism.


After reading what the experts have to say on this diet, I just do not see what attracts so many people to it.  Therefore, do yourself a favor and before jumping on the bandwagon of this fad diet, save yourself the time, money and headaches and remember the old saying, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.  Slow and steady wins the race everytime.