The HCG Diet

Since I am currently unemployed, I often find time to watch shows I have been previously unable to. One of those includes Dr. Oz, who often straddles the line between irritating and brilliant. Yesterday, was one of the days when he was irritating.

The first half of the show was about a new diet crazed called the HCG diet. I immediately gave him the side eye because as a doctor, he should not be promoting such things. But let's talk about this "diet." The HCG diet isn't really a diet, I don't know what it is. This plan includes patients, male and female, giving themselves small doses of the pregnancy hormone, human chorionic gonadotrophin, which they claim causes a decrease in appetite and thus they ate less. Aren't you supposed to have an appetite? Aren't we supposed to eat? Anyway, the supporters of the plan claims that it causes them to lose a pound a day and they eat about 500 calories. That's crazy in itself because safe weight loss is 2-3 pounds a week for a normal sized person. We're not going to get into the 500 calories a day. The opposers of the plan claim their period stopped, they lost their hair, they were cranky, and some even claimed to faint.

The HCG needs to be prescribed by a doctor but it is available online. I'm convinced, we're all gonna be dead in twenty years. Who in their right mind would inject themselves with the pregnancy hormone willingly? Any doctor who prescribes this hormone should lose their license. Yes, I said it. If you give someone this to lose weight you obviously don't have their best interest at heart and you should lose your license.

Before I forget, Dr. Oz doesn't agree with the diet but I'm still disappointed in him. Why is he promoting this diet knowing that millions of people watch his show?