This is a question I received the other day. Here’s my response:
First of all, that’s great that you tried something and lost weight. Congratulations! Now it’s time to build on the momentum you have developed to keep the weight off permanently or, ideally, to make even more progress.
Pieter Cohen, assistant professor of medicine Harvard Medical School, comments about the HCG Diet in this US News article , “Can you lose weight on it? Of course, but that’s mainly because you’re hardly consuming any calories. And any benefit is not going to last.” In other words, the reason you got results with the HCG diet is because you were on an extremely low caloric diet (500 calories per day) while taking HCG which is supposed to suppress feelings of hunger. 500 calories a day is not something you can keep up. Many nutrition experts believe that going below 1200 calories will result in malnutrition. Although I’m not a dietician, I do not condone starvation diets either.
There are two key things you will need to do in order to keep your new body:
1. Healthier Eating/Drinking Habits
2. Exercise
Let’s address the Eating/Drinking Habits first since that is the way you’ve been making progress. First of all, be clear that although you lost weight on the HCG diet, you will not be able to maintain 500 calories a day. Malnutrition might result, but you will start losing muscle mass which will lower your metabolism and make it harder to lose weight in the future. Another thing to keep in mind is that losing weight through diets like these may result in loose skin which is another whole issue in itself. Not good.
So what SHOULD you do diet-wise? Start by reading my two brief articles: Weight Loss Nutrition – How To Determine If Your Diet Is Right For You and Fat Loss Nutrition – Start Losing Weight By Using These 8 Simple Nutrition Tips. That will start you on the right path towards developing a way of eating that will help you lose weight and keep it off. If you really want to develop eating habits that will keep you looking in sexy, slim beach-body shape, contact me and I’ll show you how to shop for food and how to eat to get and keep the body you want. Click here to get started.
Now lets talk about Exercise. You MUST exercise to get the body you want. You may lose body fat from a well designed nutrition program but you will NOT have a tone, shapely body without the proper exercises for your body-type. For example, if you have a “flat” butt and you lose weight, your butt will just get flatter without developing the gluteal (butt) muscles to give your backside a shapely curve to it. Or if you feel that your arms are too bulky, you will want to stay away from certain exercises (e.g. isolated arm or heavy pressing exercises) to avoid making them even more bulky. Read my brief article on 5 Principles Every Workout Program Should Have to get an idea of what type of exercise you should be doing. If you really want to get beach-body-ready with a professionally designed workout, click here to contact me. I work with people online as well as locally so contact me here to have me design a program that will address your individual needs to give you the body you’ve always wanted.
The Big Take Away
There are NO shortcuts to getting and keeping the body you want. It’s only through hard exercise and proper nutrition that you will get the body you want. That may not be the marketing hype get-skinny-quick spiel that’s so popular in the media today, but it’s the TRUTH!
Quick fixes like fad diets and liposuction may give you a fast result, but the weight will ALWAYS come back unless you address the reasons you put it on in the first place.
Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
