Today marks day 32 of the HCG Diet Program I am on.

Things have been progressing quite nicely.

Since my last update on August 4th, when I weighed in at 218.8lbs I have lost an additional 4.6 lbs of fat.

I am now at 214.2lbs, with a total weight loss of 13.0 lbs since I started the HCG diet 32 days ago.

My HCG Diet Plan Weight Loss Chart

As you can see from my graph, I had a spectacular drop in weight from August 4th – when I was 218.8lbs to August 11th – when I was 212.4 lbs.

During that one week period I dropped by 6.4 lbs in 7 days.

There are a couple of reasons for this.  Firstly, during this period of time I was very strict with my diet while at the same time adding in daily exercise into the equation.

I either walked, or jogged for at least 3-5km every day in addition to my dietary changes and on August 11th I did a 15km walk prior to weighing in.

All of that exercise, combined with the HCG diet I’m on, definitely helped to produce such amazing results so quickly.

Cheating on the HCG Diet

I have to admit that with summer here and the BBQ and birthday party I attended during the last week I did cheat on my diet and consumed a lot more than the 900 calories I should be eating.

On the days that I cheated, I actually still ate much less than the 2,000 calories per day my body needs to maintain weight, but I’m pretty sure I gained weight in the days following that because of the white flour and processed sugar content of the foods that I was eating.

I previously wrote about the way that the body stores glycogen in the liver and how glycogen is basically one part sugar and four parts water, so when a person starts eating refined sugars after not eating them for an extended period of time, the liver stores that sugar but also stores about 4 times the weight of that glycogen in water weight.

So for example if you look at my weight on August 11th – which was 212.4lbs and compare it to my weight on Aug 13th – which was 216.2lbs, that is a difference of almost 4lbs of weight in 2 days.

There’s NO WAY that I gained that much weight in FAT during two days.  When I say I “cheated”, I’m talking about having ONE hotdog and ONE can of Coke during a BBQ instead of having a salad for example.

The reason my weight jumped so much in 2 days is because the glycogen levels and water weight in my liver must have gone up after consuming the white bread and refined sugars in the meals I ate.

I learned about this glycogen storage concept from a doctor while I was on the Bernstein Diet last year, and it really helped me to understand how the human body works.

This is also one of the ways that most fad diets can produce very quick results in the first few days of depriving the body of sugar.

If you deprive the body of sugar for just a few days, the glycogen levels in the liver go down, and the body not only sheds the weight of that glycogen quickly, but it also sheds four times it’s weight in water!

Of course, on the flip side, when you resume eating sugar again, your glycogen levels in the liver go up, and you gain the water weight back.

This is why it is important to have a long term outlook on weight loss and not to freak out if you gain a few pounds of weight the day after eating some sugar.  It’s not FAT you gained, it’s mostly just water weight.

Of course that doesn’t mean you can keep eating sugar non-stop, as once the glycogen levels in the liver are replenished any excess sugars you eat WILL turn to fat and you don’t want that.

The HCG Diet Itself

One other thing I will add is that I am NOT following Dr. Dale’s dietary recommendations verbatim.  Her diet is based on 900 calories.  Most HCG diets are based on a 500 calorie diet.  I have been eating probably around 1,200 – 1,500 calories per day, but I’ve been supplementing my diet with regular exercise in the form of walking or jogging.

I find this to be more manageable and more long-term friendly than trying to only eat 900 calories on a VERY restricted diet of VERY specific foods.

I eat a lot of salads, and veggies, but I don’t follow the dietary recommendations verbatim.  For example, I might have a chicken breast and a salad with various vegetables, with a little bit of salad dressing whereas Dr. Dale’s diet doesn’t recommend eating chicken or having more than one vegetable with each meal, and no salad dressing.

I’ve modified the diet to make it easier for me to stick to it long term and I’m happy with the results.

In 32 days I have lost 13lbs, and I have NOT been feeling starved or hungry or unable to do exercise due to being tired.

In fact I actually feel like I have WAY more energy right now while dieting and taking my HCG drops than I did when I was consuming 2-3x as much calories of junk food.