Original email for context: I am now on day 14 and have only lost 4.5 lbs. I was very hungry in the mornings so I lowered my dose and that help with my hunger but was still stalling so early in the process. I contacted the place I got my hCG from and they said I wasn’t eating enough and had me up my protein a bit at the 2 meals and told me to have two cups of broccoli/asparagus/cauliflower or spinach per meal. Nothing has helped. I gained 2.4 lbs on clean loading days and then lost 3.2 lbs on day 2 of VLCD. Since then I have stalled at least 4 days, lost a very little and even gained .6 one day- I am super frustrated because I feel that even if I wasn’t taking HCG I should be losing a lot more than 4.5 lbs in 2 weeks.
I am not fully sure of your history but let me share a few things that might help.
Of course, you can check out my series of posts on stalls and hCG here for additional ideas I don’t discuss here.
There are a few scenarios where losing less weight than seems typical during the first week of the hCG Diet might occur, so I’ll go over these in case one or more things apply to you:
THIS IS A CASE OF EITHER/AND/OR:
- You don’t have a lot of weight to lose – so perhaps you are only 10-15 lbs overweight.
- You have been eating pretty clean for while prior to this round (perhaps you already did a round of hCG and ate well during P3 until starting this next round)
- You loaded clean
- You attempted to continue strenuous exercise
SMALL AMOUNT OF WEIGHT TO LOSE
Let me explain them. Even just having a small amount of weight to lose, like 10-15 lbs, can definitely result in a slower overall weight loss, even at the beginning, however, it’s true that typically even in a case like this, the first week of the diet you might usually see a higher number. If you are not convinced, please stick around for a few examples I mentioned involving an average woman’s metabolism and some math to show what actual fat loss is possible.
This leads me to the next 2 things which are a very likely cause.
If you’ve been eating clean for a while prior to starting this round of hCG and/or loaded clean on the diet (if you don’t know what that is, click here) what this means is that you likely do not have the same level of inflammatory water weight that most who are starting the hCG diet have. When you see those big numbers in the first couple weeks of the diet, a large percentage of that loss in general (on someone who doesn’t say 100 lbs overweight), is going to be water. When you eat clean, you just don’t have that excess going on, so you don’t have it to lose. This means that the weight you lose those first couple weeks is more a true reflection of the actual fat loss that is going on.
And the good news is, this is totally normal. Those higher numbers are just inflated from water weight.
The fat loss going on is likely very similar to what you are experiencing.
Why is this so?
If you think about a woman’s metabolism, and how many calories total she expends daily on average, usually this is in the 1400-1800 calorie range. How you know is based on how many calories you can eat without gaining weight. Once you gain weight on a certain amount of calories, that means you are eating more than your body is burning. So for most, my guess is that’s the general range for women.
If your metabolism is between 1400-1800 calories of use per day, it takes 3500 calories to burn 1 lb of fat, and you are eating 500-700 calorie a day on the hCG diet, this means your daily calorie deficit as you work turns weighing 1 lb less will be somewhere between 700-1300 calories.
Example:
- Your metabolism: 1400 calories
- You’re on: 700 calorie hCG protocol
- Daily deficit: 700 calories
- x # of days 5 days
- = 3500 calories or 1 lb fat
So, in this case, it takes 5 days of eating 700 calories, to wake up on the 6th morning weighing 1 lb of actual FAT less.
Does that make sense?
If you are eating less calories like the 500 calorie protocol and have a higher metabolism, say 1800, you will obviously lose 1 lb a little faster – but even then:
- Your metabolism: 1800 calories
- You’re on: 500 calorie protocol
- Daily deficit: 1300 calories
- x # of days: 3 days
- = 3600 calorie or just over 1 lb of fat
So, in this case, it takes 3 days to lose 1 lb of fat, so that on the morning of the 4th day you weigh 1 lb less.
If we apply this to your situation, 4.5 lbs in 13 days (as you woke up the morning of the 14th-day with this situation so you haven’t done that day yet).
- 4.5 lbs x 3500 calories = 15,750 calories burned
- 13 days of 500 calorie diet = 6,500 calories eaten
This means you burned off about 22,250 calories in total during that 13 days. This would give us a guesstimate of a 1,211 daily calorie deficit to reach your current 4.5 lb weight loss. And hey, THAT’s super good! Because if you were eating 500 calories those days, that means your effective metabolism is about 1711 calories per day (1,211 daily deficit + 500 cals you ate)- which is totally normal and average for most women!
So let’s go back to the big question: BUT WHY do other people lose like 11 lbs in the first week then????? Because it TOTALLY happens. Yes. Yes, it does. You’re probably even comparing it your own experience- like my first round, I lost a lot the first week, then future rounds if I hadn’t been cheating or going back to prior ways of eating, I wasn’t.
It just goes back to what I said about water weight. Unless you are very very heavy, or a man, or a weightlifting woman, you are not losing lbs of fat every day on this or any other diet. It’s just not logical with the numbers.
And I totally didn’t get this at all either when I was knew to the diet, and I too would freak out. Once I learned all this and realized what was based in reality, I must admit feeling a bit let down. I WANTED those large numbers to be both real and always possible.
But once you adjust your mind to it, you realize, hey I’m actually accomplishing JUST as much fat loss as everyone else, it’s just that I’m actually starting off a little closer to the finish line than some others because I’ve been clean eating, or clean loading, or both.
EXERCISE
Let me address the last possible scenario that can cause a complete stall at the beginning of the round- I learned this one….the hard way. I attempted to continue Crossfit during P2. I share that experience and why I think it was a bad idea in my comprehensive:
So check it out!
SAME WEIGHT LOSS WITHOUT HCG AS WITH
The last thing I wanted to mention was your comment about what you think you would have lost just as much weight without hCG as you are losing weight with hCG.
This is a very common misconception and again, one I was also confused about at one time.
In a nutshell, the hCG hormone is not what is causing weight loss in the first place. It’s the calorie deficit you are experiencing from being on the 500 or 700 calorie diet that is causing the weight loss. hCG’s 2 important roles are to change the sensation of hunger and to preserve lean muscle while favoring fat loss during the weight loss process. A potential 3rd role is that it’s a protective mechanism for your metabolism to prevent it from slowing down too much and helps your body not “fight” the low-calorie diet and weight loss (which might explain why in some cases women can’t lose weight with a low-calorie diet but can lose weight with hCG). However, usually, in a healthy body, a person would lose the same amount of weight without hCG as with. It’s just a question of 1. how miserable and hungry were they, and 2. How much of that weight loss was muscle, and 3. how much metabolic slowdown did they experience?
HCG seems to address these things so that this diet can take place in a much healthier way, which greatly increases your ability to maintain your weight loss long term.
I hope this helps you. As you can see, there may be something you can adjust to change your results, but it’s also very possible that your results are completely normal and that you need to adjust your mind to the logic. And I know that takes a little while.
