Dr. Clair recognized expert on health and vitality, and the creator of Vibrance Rejuvenation Centers talks about HCG therapy, weight loss, and what everyone needs to know on how to reach their ideal weight.
Tom: Doctor, right now it seems that there’s never been more diets, programs, systems, and supplements on the market. Many people have heard about HCG Diet, but what makes HCG Therapy different from the others?
Dr. Clair: In short, it’s all about the fats. Most other diets, particularly those where you lose a fair amount of weight quickly, generally are based on people losing muscle, because that is the body’s natural response to low caloric intake. But the beautiful thing about the HCG Diet is that you lose body fat, and that’s what we all want to lose.
Tom: Now a lot of people think by going on a 500 calorie diet, you’d lose weight anyway, what are your thoughts on this perception?
Dr. Clair: Well, that’s exactly what I’m getting at Tom. The thing is, yes, if you restrict your calories, whether it’s 500 or 700 or 1000, you are going to lose some weight, but not the kind of weight you want to lose, see, because the body’s natural response to low calories is, number one, to turn down the thermostat. Turn down the thermostat, in other words, reduce your metabolism. So yes, you do lose some weight because the body’s first response is to slow down the metabolism, and it does that by breaking down muscle. That’s a very actually ingenious solution, because when you think about it, muscles burn a lot of calories. So if you have less muscle, you need less calories. So the difference that’s going to show up on your scale in the morning is the weight that you’ve lost due to the breakdown of muscle. The problem with that is that as soon as you stop the diet, start eating more, your body rebuilds the muscle, so the weight goes right back on. The difference with the HCG is that, due to the fact that you only lose fat, the weight stays off because the body does not rebuild fat.
Tom: Very interesting. But can you explain how someone can just consume 500 calories, but still maintain muscle mass. How does that work?
Dr. Clair: Yeah, well, that’s the beauty of the HCG. HCG is human chorionic gonadotropin. It’s the hormone of pregnancy. Women make it when they’re pregnant, otherwise they don’t make it, and men don’t make it at all. But it does have the effect of, in the face of very low calories, it turns on the fat breakdown to provide extra calories. It’s probably an evolutionary tool, whereby famine used to occur before supermarkets. So in order to protect the developing baby, this was one of nature’s tools so that the baby and the mother lived off the mother’s fat stores.
Tom: I never really thought of it that way. Now, you hear of some dramatic weight loss on programs like this. Is it really possible for someone to lose up to 30 pounds in 30 days on an HCG Diet?
Dr. Clair: It is. I’ve seen it time and time again. You know, more typical is let’s say 22 to 25, but I have on many occasions seen people lose 30 pounds of fat, and that’s the key. You wouldn’t want to lose 30 pounds of muscle in 30 days. That would not be healthy. But there’s nothing healthy about excess fat. So the sooner you can get rid of it, the healthier you’re going to be.
Tom: Tell me Doctor, what sort of mindset would someone need to go on a diet like this? Do they need to be in a special place, or what’s your thoughts on that?
Dr. Clair: Basically, Tom, you have to be committed to wanting to get healthy and to lose weight, but that’s really about it. There are going to be times when you’re out at a birthday party or something and you’re tempted to eat some birthday cake or whatnot, and you’re going to want to try to not succumb to the pressure, but the key is that’s about it. You don’t really have to brace yourself in the expectation that you’re going to be starving for 30 days or whatever, because you’re not. Due to the fact that the HCG directs your body to break down extra fat, you can get as many as 3,000 calories a day from your fat stores. So in fact, you’re living on 3,500 calories a day — 500 eaten and 3,000 from your fat stores. As a result, you’re not hungry. You’re not tired. You can continue to exercise because you are getting plenty of calories. You’re just not eating them.
Tom: When you put it that way it makes a lot of sense. Now what are some other things that people feel they can do on this diet, but might actually hurt their chances of success?
Dr. Clair: Well, one thing is people think, “Well, I don’t really have to do 500 calories. I can do 700 or 800 calories. It’s still very few calories.” But the problem is that often backfires, because although 700 or 800 calories is definitively low caloric intake, it’s not low enough to cause the HCG to direct the body to break down fat. Now on 700 calories, you are hungry, and you are tired, and you are breaking down muscle because you’re not getting that 3,000 calorie bonus.
Tom: I see. As we get close to the end here, what would you say the most popular misconception about HCG Therapy and diets are?