Centre for Optimum Health

We are riding your metabolism on such a fine line that any extra activities can throw off your weight loss. I know it’s hard for people to understand this concept but we see it happen. You are only taking in so many calories and your body already has dibs on most of those calories. Keeping your brain alive, keeping your heart beating and dealing with our everyday stresses are more important to your body than burning fat. So keeping your exercise to a minimal is going to give you the best results from the program. If you are not giving your body enough calories it will go looking for it. Then it starts burning your structural fat and muscles and turning it into the calories it needs which can throw you into reverse metabolism and you gain weight.  It puts your body in “survival mode”, where the body will hold onto weight. So if exercise is something you cannot give up on the program then we recommend that you figure out how many calories you are burning during the workout and replace those calories before and after the workout. An example of this is we had a patient who last winter went out to shovel while on the program. She did not eat any extra protein or calories and the next day had gained weight. So the next time she shoveled she calculated how many calories she would burn while shoveling and replaced them and lost weight the next day.   

There are a lot of reasons why you might stall during the program. Not drinking enough water or not eating enough proteins will cause a stall. Being more active and being under more stress, and unfortunately women, getting our cycle will also stall weight loss. The one thing that does the most to cause a stall is cheating! You may not think that one chip or one piece of cheese will not do anything but it does. We are working very hard with you to create this balance in your body and the slightest thing will tip the scales and make you stall.

Our bodies will also recognize a weight from our past and think its done having to burn any more fat. That’s where we come in with some tricks of the trade. We at the Centre like to do what’s called shake days to break a stall. I know the original protocol called for “apple days”, but  your body cannot function properly without enough protein. So we do a protein shake in the morning for breakfast and the same for lunch. Then do a normal low calorie dinner. You will also do some type of protein snack either in the middle of the afternoon or at night before bed. A protein snack would consist of actual meat protein or a 1 scoop whey shake. You may have to do a couple of days of this but you will break that stall and start losing again.

The biggest thing to remember is not to give up….

Our body is amazing!!! The goal is to keep it in balance. And that’s what we are trying to do with the HCG diet.

Protein is one of the key components to the HCG diet, eating enough protein whether you are on the diet or not is so important. Protein is the fuel that our body needs to do everything. We find that patients on the diet that are not eating enough protein tend to stall and in some cases even gain weight. Why you ask, it’s because your body decides what to do with the limited calories we are supplying on the diet. The most important thing your body will do is keep your brain alive and then the heart. Then let’s add some stress in and then you’re running all over the place trying to get things done. Sound familiar. With all that activity and not enough proteins you will hit a wall and send your body into “survival” mode. Which means it’s going to hold on to everything, including your fat, for dear life.

How much protein is enough, then? A general rule of thumb is that a 150 pound person needs roughly 140 grams of protein a day. How do you get that? One ounce of any cooked meat is 7 grams of protein. One egg, or one ounce of cheese, is 6 grams of protein. You can see that it adds up slowly! This is why all of us at the Centre supplement with protein shakes for breakfast and whey shakes as snacks in the afternoons or at night.

Once your body knows what enough protein feels like, you’ll never go back!