- The Authors
Jeff Thiboutot
Matt Schoeneberger
HCG and Weight Loss – An Update
The written update will be published soon, full of references and that good science-y stuff!
Filed under: weight loss — Tags: HCG, weight loss — Matt Schoeneberger M.S. @ 11:50 am
HCG and B12 Injections for Weight Loss – You Must Be Kidding Me!
Can HCG please go away? And could it take B12 with it?
Filed under: weight loss — Tags: b12, HCG, weight loss — Matt Schoeneberger M.S. @ 1:44 pm
A Friend in the HCG for weight loss game?
Jeff saw an add for Medshape Weight Loss Clinic, LLC in Clipper Magazine recently. He ripped it out because it caught his attention.
“Beyond Conspiracy – The Truth About hCG Weight Loss Programs”
Wow! When Jeff and I first looked at this we were happy that someone else was really getting to the bottom of this whole HCG kick that seems to be happening around here. It even says, in smaller print:
“Don’t let Myth, Conspiracy, & Misinformation sabatoge your weight loss efforts”
Cool!
So we go their website, medshapeweightloss.com. It says lose up to 30 pounds in 30 days in large print (the add said 45 days, they must have gotten even better since then. It also says lose up to 20 pounds in 30 days in smaller print below – maybe they just can’t make up their mind?).
It also becomes very clear that they are actually using HCG. I guess the “conspiracy” they mention is science that actually proves whether or not something works. In this case, science has proven time and again that HCG is ineffective for weight loss.
They have a Medical Director and a Staff Physician, both have Dr. in front of their name. It’s amazing to me that doctors could peddle something like this. Something that decades of scientific research has shown to be ineffective. Really? Have some integrity. There are plenty of weight loss methods with large amounts of research. Sell one of those to people.
If this is the first time you’ve read about HCG, please see our Special Report, HCG & Weight Loss: Enough Already! You can find the link at the bottom of the page. The HCG myth is included in the Myths chapter of our weight loss book, S.P.E.E.D. – The Only Weight Loss Book Worth Reading.
-Matt
Filed under: diet — Tags: HCG, weight loss — Matt Schoeneberger M.S. @ 10:41 am
Conversation about HCG: Am I a Jerk?
I thought I would re-post a discussion that I engaged in over on the YouTube comments section after one of my video posts. I want to do this because I think some of the topics we discussed are important for potential HCG users (or anyone else) to understand. Also, I’d like to know if you think I handled the situation well. I’m passionate about delivering well-supported advice and sometimes I might get upset, so I want to make sure I’m remaining fairly inoffensive. So, tell me… am I a jerk?
The following discussion is taken from the YouTube comments section after my video post “Testimonial and Anecdotal Evidence and HCG.” My comments are blue and others’ red.
Tradeeagle: I’m sure you are well intentioned but you are ignoring that most people using HCG show the weight loss as a reduction of fat as measured by body fat %. This as compared to other quick weight loss diets or very low calorie diets without the benefit of HCG in which case you are right that the loss comes from the wrong places. You might want to read Dr Simeons’ “Pounds and Inches” before any other such postings with regard to HCG
Matt: I’ve read “Pounds and Inches”. It’s outdated. The terminology in it is no longer used. A much clearer understanding of body fat and its roles in the body has been accomplished since Simeons’ publication. Where is the proof for the HCG protocol’s effects on body fat percentage? There is none! Exercise has been shown to have a muscle-sparing effect on VLCDs, making HCG unnecessary even if it were effective. Please visit our blog for more information and read our special report.
-Matt
Tradeeagle: Hey Matt we all realize you have something to sell and I’m sure it’s effective. That’s fine But why put out misinformation on HCG which has been the answer for so many and about which you know nothing.
Matt: Tradeeagle,
I’m currently not selling anything. I am in the process of writing a book with a partner of mine. If you read our special report carefully, we’re happy for people who have seen results using the protocol, but there is no evidence to support that HCG does anything. There are no proposed mechanisms for HCG and its supposed effects that have any proof backing them up.
I know quite a bit about the human body and about HCG. I’m also dedicated to the use of PROVEN methods. Show me proof.
Tradeeagle: Please kindly direct us to the controlled trials to which you make reference. I assure from first hand knowledge that the weight loss on HCG is from fat not muscle and bone mass. Any weight loss is part water including your program’s. By the way I have been a weightlifter for 40 years, still am at 58. Again you may be right yours works fine good for sell a million books I doubt you have anything new to say but you’re wrong wrong wrong about HCG. Research for yourselves folks out there
Matt: Please download our free HCG report. All of the references are listed there. Feel free to contact me privately and I’ll email you the full text versions if you don’t have access to them.
I have not and will never disagree with SOME weight loss being water on any program! We’ve also stated, multiple times, that if controlled trials show a benefit to HCG we’ll talk about that just as much. There just hasn’t been any thus far.
Tradeeagle: I went through your website/blog. You really have nothing to add to what’s out there for decades desperate people will be swayed by you to pay for a book that is rehashing of rehashed ideas. What you are doing is straight from these idiot internet marketers. Next we will find your”book” is a clickbank product. I do not have a monetary interest in peolple using HCG. You are a guy using Youtube and HCG ascending popularity to sell a product at the expense of help to others from HCG use.
Matt: Our Bio-Psycho-Social approach has not been used frequently, if at all. Our HCG report is free. Our blog is free. Our book is not currently for sale. The intro and first chapter of the book will be made available free, to give an overview of the information contained in the book. People can hen decide to buy or not.
Please refrain from ad hominem attacks, I have not attacked you or anyone else personally.
Tradeeagle: You did engage in an insulting, condenscending answer on your blog to 1776 comments. You are a bully and your argument in answer to 1776 was incoherent and rambling. There isn’t the room for or time for any more of this. People will see this is all about you making money with an e book at some point. No argument from me that weight train is good for plenty but the idea that it is ever speedy is just crap. where is the double blind of your theory? No more please. CPS CET grow up.
Matt: I never once attacked 1776 as a person. I rebutted his/her arguments. I am not a bully. I have not once commented on any of the hundreds of videos that support HCG on youtube, because I was not invited to. I merely defended the ideas in my video.
I never said weight training was speedy, I said exercise helps target visceral fat and spares muscle, with references behind the statement. I’m truly sorry you’ve found my comments offensive but I won’t apologize for my stance on HCG. Take care.
Tradeeagle: I can’t resist. You say didn’t say it was speedy what the hell is the name of your blog? “SPEEDWeightLoss”. Make your comments that’s why there are comment areas. what you will get back is those hundreds of sincere people without a fimancial interest telling you there experience of fat loss. About the water loss with all weight loss. You are a scientist ? Every cell in the body requires some water in support and so when cells are gone or downsized that water, no longer necessary is eliminated.
I decided not to respond because the conversation was no longer progressing. So, this is where it ended. As members of the scientific community, we appreciate discussion because we know that questioning what we know is the only way we can learn more. We hope many people question the recommendations we make in our weight loss ebook, S.P.E.E.D. For now, I hope you can learn something from this discussion.
I was accused of being a buly. Am I a jerk?
Matt (more…)
Filed under: fat loss, weight loss — Tags: HCG, weight loss. fat loss — Matt Schoeneberger M.S. @ 4:09 pm
HCG and Weight Loss: response to a YouTube comment
We received a comment at YouTube in response to our recent video entry regarding HCG. Since YouTube limits the number of characters in the comments section, we posted our response here. The comment and our response is posted below:
Quote from 1776in2008 : “You’re wrong. The diet ALLOWS the body to release fat, but the HCG causes your body to lose the right kind of fat while protecting LBM and structural fat. Without the HCG, it would be just water and muscle weight. In those so-called ‘trials’ that you site, they only compared the weight that was lost, NOT the type of weight that was lost. Sure, someone will lose around 20 pounds on a 23 day 500 calorie diet too, but it will be water and muscle weight, NOT actual fat, like on the HCG protocol.”
First we’d like to thank you for your comment. I’ll respond to your post one issue at a time.
“You’re wrong.”
No I’m not.
“The diet ALLOWS the body to release fat”
I believe you mean that a 500 calorie/day diet will put just about anyone in a state of negative energy balance, which will most likely cause the loss of some tissue (fat or muscle for the sake of our discussion)
“but the HCG causes your body to lose the right kind of fat while protecting LBM and structural fat”
First, your use of the term structural fat is incorrect. This term is antiquated and is only still being used in this way by those in the HCG camp who seem to read nothing but the HCG literature, which has remained largely unchanged since the original work of Dr. Simeons in the 1950s despite many advances in the understanding of the human body, and fat in particular, since then. You can’t ask the scientific community to prove or disprove HCG’s effects on something that doesn’t even exist. Why not ask them to disprove the existence of unicorns and Santa Claus while we’re at it? The term “structural fat” is now typically reserved for the use of fat in cosmetic surgery. Please begin using the terms visceral and subcutaneous fat and others (brown adipose tissue, white adipose tissue, etc) that have been adopted by the current scientific literature (by current, I mean the last 2 or 3 decades!).
Terminology aside, HCG is not necessary, or proven, for these effects of muscle-sparing and visceral fat targeting. Exercise has been proven to do this time and again (unlike HCG). (Hill, Tsuzuku, Layman, Kay)
“Without the HCG, it would be just water and muscle weight.”
This statement is laughable. It would all be water and muscle weight lost? A person would lose 20 pounds of water and muscle? This reveals a gross misunderstanding of basic human physiology and a stern belief in HCG folklore. In the metabolic ward study by Hill et al., obese women who DID NOT exercise and ate an 800 calorie/day diet lost an average of 57% of their weight as fat after 5 weeks. Exercising women lost almost 75% of the weight lost as fat. Where is the evidence to support your claim of “water and muscle” loss without HCG?
“In those so-called ‘trials’ that you site, they only compared the weight that was lost, NOT the type of weight that was lost”
Why is trial in quotations? They are trials. That’s what they’re called. And, by the way, they’re the gold standard of proof of causal relationships when performed correctly. Trials like these are what have allowed the scientific community to distinguish the bad from the good, the lies from the truth.
Yes, these trials compared the amount of total weight lost. And, actually, in addition to weight lost they compared the ability of HCG to affect the subjects’ feelings of hunger, feelings of well-being, anxiety and depression, not to mention HCG’s ability to promote fat re-distribution. All were found to be negative.
Show me a study that proves HCG promotes positive changes in body composition better than placebo. And if you would be so kind, please also explain the mechanism behind this effect, because the ‘re-setting the hypothalamus” mumbo-jumbo has no merit in relation to your body composition argument, if it ever had any in the first place.
It seems, based on your comment, that the HCG camp is changing their tune regarding what HCG is supposed to do. Since it’s been shot down on all the original claims (increased weight loss, reduced hunger, anxiety, depression, increased feelings of well-being, the ability to take fat away from ‘problem areas’) now you must say it changes the composition of the weight lost, that it targets the “right kind of fat while protecting LBM and structural fat”. Well, the onus is on you to provide evidence that it works.
Dr. Simeons even stated in the forward to his original manuscript:
“Thus, when I make what reads like a factual statement, the professional reader may have to translate into: clinical experience seems to suggest that such and such an observation might be tentatively explained by such and such a working hypothesis, requiring a vast amount of further research before the hypothesis can be considered a valid theory.”
Where is this vast amount of research? If you can provide real proof that HCG does anything it’s purported to do in regards to body composition and weight loss, I’ll post a video trumpeting the benefits of HCG for body composition, Jeff and I will edit our HCG special report to reflect the new information and I’ll admit I was wrong. Go ahead, show me proof. Scientific proof.
These are scientific references, providing proof for claims made above. You can get your own at a library near you:
Hill, J. O., Sparling, P. B., Shields, T. W., & Heller, P. A. (1987). Effects of exercise and food restriction on body composition and metabolic rate in obese women. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 46(4), 622-630.
Layman, D. K., Evans, E., Baurn, J. I., Seyler, J., Erickson, D. J., & Boileau, R. A. (2005). Dietary protein and exercise have additive effects on body composition during weight loss in adult women. Journal of Nutrition, 135(8), 1903-1910.
Kay S.J., Fiatarone Singh M.A. The influence of physical activity on abdominal fat: a systematic review of the literature. Obesity Reviews. 2006;7: 183–200
Simeons ATW. Pounds and inches-a new approach to obesity. Rome, privately printed 1967.
Tsuzuku S, Kajioka T, Endo H, Abbott RD, Curb JD, Yano K. Favorable eVects of non-instrumental resistance training on fat distribution and metabolic proWles in healthy elderly people. Eur J Appl Physiol . 2007;99:549–555
Filed under: Research, fat loss, weight loss — Tags: fat loss, HCG, weight loss — Matt Schoeneberger M.S. @ 2:48 pm
HCG for Weight Loss – Practitioners Should Know Better
Today, I got an email from a practitioner I respect announcing the use of HCG in their facility. The message touted all the usual HCG nonsense; re-setting the hypothalamus, three kinds of fat… all the stuff straight out of Simeons’ and Trudeau’s books. Here’s a quote from the email:
“The third type of fat is the abnormal Secure Fat Reserve. This third fat is also a reserve of fuel, but unlike the normal, readily accessible fat reserves spread throughout the body, this fat is located in what is called the “problem areas” and is virtually inaccessible.”
Fat around these areas is not virtually inaccessible. They just tend to be the places the body preferentially stores fat, and this is regulated by the difference in hormones between sexes.(Power) Continue losing weight and it will come off these areas eventually.
What about the fact that stored fat in the hip area is correlated with good health? Yup, that’s right. Here’s an excerpt from our upcoming weight loss ebook:
“…larger hip and thigh measurements, commonly due to subcutaneous fat, are negatively associated with increased health risks. (Janssen) This means your risk goes down.”
One more thing. Promoters of the HCG diet commonly take text straight from Simeons’ book, written far too long ago. Can they at least update it with the current vocabulary? Maybe mention visceral fat and subcutaneous fat instead of structural fat and the fat reserve? The HCG diet and nearly everything I’ve seen written that promotes it is just plain nonsense.
Please, read our HCG report and pass it on to as many people as possible.
Hey! HCG Promoters! Look Here! This is what real research looks like:
Power MP, Schulkin J. Sex differences in fat storage, fat metabolism, and the health risks from
obesity: possible evolutionary origins. Br J Nutr. 2008;99:931–940
Janssen, I. et al (2004). Waist circumference and not body mass index explains obesity-related health risks. American J Clinical Nutrition; 79: 379-384.
Filed under: weight loss — Tags: diet, fat loss, HCG, HCG diet, weight loss — Matt Schoeneberger M.S. @ 3:05 pm
Feedback on our report, HCG & Weight Loss: Enough Already!
So, we’ve gotten some comments about our HCG report that attack us for taking the wind out of people’s sails. This is not our intention! We are supportive of people who can stick to a difficult diet plan like the one commonly associated with the HCG protocol. We hope anyone who has tried, or is in the process of following the HCG plan loses unwanted fat and keeps it off.
Our intention while writing the report was to show that the HCG shots have not been scientifically proven to do anything! So, the people who follow the HCG plan and get results do it all by themselves, with no help from any HCG shot. Good for them!
We would like to warn anyone who is thinking of trying the HCG plan that the shots will be NO HELP and that they’ll be wasting their money on a placebo. This is our reason for writing the HCG report. We don’t like to see people get duped into a technique or supplement that has no proof behind it what-so-ever. We like proof and when we find it, we’ll pass it on to you.
Matt
Read our HCG REPORT
Filed under: Research, diet, fat loss, weight loss — Tags: fat loss, HCG, weight loss — admin @ 11:16 am
S.P.E.E.D. Special Report – HCG & Weight Loss: Enough Already!
HCG & Weight Loss:
Enough Already!
This special report revealing why HCG for weight loss is NOT an effective option is posted at www.SPEEDweightlossbook.com. Just click on HCG Special Report in the navigation section at the bottom of our home page and you’ll be there!
Please share with as many of your friends and family as you’d like.
In Health,
Matt
Filed under: Research, diet, fat loss, nutrition, weight loss — Tags: fat loss, HCG, human chorionic gonadotropin, Research, science, weight loss — Matt Schoeneberger M.S. @ 7:29 am
