However, on the topic of HCG I am going to stick to my guns. Whilst I am not claiming to have read every study that is available on the topic of HCG, the studies I have read have mixed implications at best. For example this study showed that HCG can help you lose more body fat on a very low calorie diet (500 calories per day) but it does not help you lose more weight overall. My main concern with this study is the very low calorie diet aspect. The studies I have read have all tested HCG in combination with a low calorie diet. This is not the normal diet for an obese person and it is also not sustainable to eat 500 calories per day in the long term. Because of this there is no way to determine how much of an effect the HCG is actually having (the dietary changes could be the main factor) and also how sustainable this weight loss is in the long term.

I am not going to prove to you that the scientific articles you have read do not exist. I feel I have done enough research to validate this article and I am not going to spend hours and hours reading every single scientific study on the topic of HCG. If you want to highlight some of these studies to me I will read them and if I feel they are valid I will revisit this topic. Until then I am not changing the article.

Before taking HCG and personally losing almost 65 pounds (By the way, I’m a medical doctor trained at a very well know university so I know my science.) I was very skeptical. I did my research and found more scientific articles than I had time to read.

So unless you can prove to me that the scientific articles I read do not exist, I suggest you take another look and do a little more research before stating such things.

There’s a book out about the cholesterol myth and before it came out I had an idea that this was entirely a money-making myth to keep people on statins so that the pharmaceutical companies and Drs. make huge profits.

Dr. Simeon treated thousands and thousands of people with HCG and he wrote a manuscript about it and his experiences. Much of what he decided about HCG was a result of what he witnessed and what people said of their weight-loss, that they lost weight in different places than before when they dieted.

I’m afraid you have bought into the food pyramid that you’ve been taught and other fallacies. It’s hard nowadays to think independently with so many behind keeping us ill for profit.

Here’s a quote from the former FDA Commissioner.

The thing that bugs me is that people think the FDA is protecting them. It isn’t. The FDA is protecting the profits of the corporations that pay us and the politicians!
- Herbert Ley, M.D., Former FDA Commissioner

You say that some of the ideas about “eating healthy” are bogus but I don’t totally agree with this. I think that a lot of the claims made by food companies are very misleading. For example, a lot of low fat ready meals are low in fat but high in sugar and not very good for you. Many people associate low fat with healthy and therefore this does mislead them.

However, even though there is a lot of misleading information out there – healthy eating and exercise do help you lose weight. A lot of people can’t be bothered to do the research and instead just accept the claims that these products make. But if they did do the research they would quickly realise that (and this is a gross generalisation) the more processed the food the less nutritional value it has, a very basic example being an apple has greater nutritional value than apple juice (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16651652/).

So to summarise, yes the “100 Calorie Packs” are not healthy. This is partly the fault of the marketers who make these claim BUT it is also partly the fault of the consumers who fail to challenge these claims. I think deep down we all know that a sweet tasting treat is never going to be good for us, regardless of what it says on the packet.

If we rely on food companies to give us information on healthy eating then we really do not have any excuse. They are trying to sell a product and will bend the truth as much as possible to do this. Look at cigarettes. In the 1930s before the advertising of cigarettes became heavily regulated, Camel used athletes in their adverts to promote a healthy image for their product. Step forward to today and independent research has shown that cigarettes are not healthy, in fact they are very unhealthy.

A lot of what you have said is correct but I think people have to be accountable for their own health and do their own research. Trudeau’s other principles may or may not be correct (I do not know enough about them to comment) but I am standing by my guns on the HCG issue. It is a hormone produced by pregnant women and has no proven weight loss benefits. Whilst you seem to have been very successful on the diet I do not think the HCG will have been a contributing factor to your success.

I think the idea of diet and exercise as the best way to lose weight is a novel plan. However, some of the ideas of “eating healthy” are bogus, for instance the cereal bars that are sold at Curves locations nation wide that are loaded with high fructose corn syrup, or the “100 calorie packs” that are oh the rage right now. That stuff doesn’t work. I work out 3 days a week, but honestly if I bought into the crap that they sell at the gym I would be gaining and not losing.