hCG diet with hot yoga

One of my co-workers and her husband tried that – it didn’t exactly work very well. Not many people have the self discipline to stay on a 500 calorie diet. Heh, and if they did, they probably wouldn’t need such drastic measures for weight loss anyway, right?

And I can’t even fathom the idea of having the energy for hot yoga (or any other exercise) on such a crazy restricted calorie diet. Ugh. Not for me, thanks.

I’m not convinced there IS an easy way to lose weight. You’ll either have to radically decrease your intake and/or radically adjust your exercise. But that’s just been my personal experience (80 lbs lost and maintained for 18 months now)…
As for HCG diet?
SNORT
You will lose weight on ANY very low calorie diet. The key is the 500 calories a day, NOT the HCG. Its all in the calories, baby. You can do any VLCD and have virtually the same results. One small caveat: it seems that a higher protein/lower carb *NOT NO CARB* diet has less negative effect on one’s Basal Metabolic Rate than a higher carb/lower protein diet. You need to be aware that with any calorie restriction, your body WILL metabolically adapt and do more with the fewer calories that you take in. HCG or any other metabolic stimulant will not affect this. And by that, I mean legal stimulants, not ephedrine/ma huang or others. This isn’t usually a permanent side effect and is usually measurable 3 months into a VLCD, but it is important to note that a higher protein VLCD will preserve your original BMR to a greater extent than other diets. However, the proof is what happens AFTER the diet, and usually the weight loss isn’t sustainable and as a result, the overall long term weight loss and maintenance after one year is virtually the same REGARDLESS of the diet chosen (VCLD, Atkins, Weight Watchers, the Zone, Jenny Craig, whatever). Maintenance is the key. And compliance to whatever diet you choose is the key to losing weight, as opposed to the fancy gimmicks offered by SO many companies out there.

As for Bikram’s Yoga in the mix? Any exercise will result in burned calories and greater weight loss than if you diet alone. The thing is, you want to make sure you are maintaining an adequate and varied dietary intake to replenish your electrolytes, minerals and vitamins. If you don’t, or if you go to class with low blood sugar as a result of not eating before class within a reasonable timeframe, you will find your practice very, very difficult. Be prepared to bonk!

My biggest concern is the addition of freaky gimmicky supplements to a weight loss regime. If they really, TRULY worked on their own, they’d quickly become the purvue of the medical establishment because, after all, that is where the real money is with prescriptions and all. The problem is that these supplements aren’t regulated by any medical or quality control overseer as they are considered supplements and not medications. As a result, you really have no idea exactly what compounds in what concentrations you are dumping into your body. And in the case of negative side effects of ANY weight loss supplement, non prescription (see bitter orange, ma huang for example) or prescription (see phenterimine), you may very well be left to deal with life threatening serious complications. I don’t know if its worth that kind of risk. Why not just do it the old fashioned, responsible and sustainable way? I know I did, and I have no regrets whatsoever (and yes, I was actually prescribed the phen/fen combo that led to irreversible heart valve damage in a number of patients, but never took the medication…just didn’t “trust” it.)
JMHO

Hello Everyone,
First off I am hooked on hot yoga in Winnipeg MB Canada. Love it…
but I cannot lose any weight, I just turned 45 and have weighted the same for 5 years. I admit I eat great during the week and then weekend not so bad. I over portion, I know it..

But the amount of yoga and dancing I do you would think I can lose.. My metabolism is shot.. LOL..
I need help to get it going, no caffeine products for me.

Any ideas would be helpful..
I have tried every program out there… WW, U weight loss. blah blah.. My hormones are not the same as i was in my 20s that is for sure.
Thanks Everyone and keep smiling!

I’m sure there are exceptions, but most anorexics that I’ve read about are not only severely restricting calories but are doing it in combination with obsessive amounts of cardiovascular exercise. Though quite obviously, people can starve to death – but our bodies are pretty good at adapting to avoid doing so. But the point is that without exercise, just restricting calories is making it extremely difficult to lose weight.

But I agree that the metabolism shouldn’t be permanently damaged from VLCD – it just takes a careful process to bring it back to life.

I’m pretty sure we are basically agreeing here.

The “theory” from the study was just that restricting calories alone was unsuccessful in creating weight loss. Add in some exercise and it was successful. NOT starvation diets, certainly not the total absence of food as you would find in a hunger strike. That would certainly lead to weight loss, as well as other undesired side effects, up to and including death. The splitting hairs is just over how much restriction of calories is involved.

Severely restricting calories (starving) would work, with or without exercise, but it’s not healthy. Restricting calories a reasonable amount and exercising a reasonable amount allows weight loss without shutting down your metabolism or damaging your body in the process. But obviously it gets harder and harder as you are closer to your body’s set point/ideal weight.

Yup, we do totally agree in alot of ways! Except with the calorie restriction not equalling weight loss, sorry. And that’s only because my experience is that I lost my first 50 (FIFTY) lbs soley through calorie restriction (not starvation). However, at my current weight, exercise IS important and I’m much happier with a balanced diet and exercise, in particular Hot Yoga.
Hot Yoga has seriously changed my life and my body, but its been a long term journey with serious committment to both the diet and the exercise….

I do HY daily now, and I mean DAILY and have found that the help on this site has been invaluable. Its all about precision…I remember reading a post that Gabrielle wrote about her Teacher Training experience where she credited being stronger after training with her dedication to precision and alignment. This really struck a chord with me. I practice now with as much precision and alignment as my relatively newbie practice permits. I do this with diet, as well. I weigh and measure EVERYTHING. I have to! There is NO quuick and easy way to do this, unfortunately. Any quick weight loss plan inevitably involves a VLCD and severe restriction either with respect to calories or food type. As Connie points out correctly, this is absolutely not healthy. Any moderate balanced plan takes time and you need to accept a 1/2 to 2 lb a week loss in weight.

Trust me, if there WAS a quick and easy way to jumpstart a program and lose weight I’d have found it. And so would millions of others. My only advice is to find a plan you can sustain over the long term and can live with. And accept the fact that it won’t be easy. AND accept the fact that doing exercise/Hot Yoga doesn’t compensate for dietary lapses (and I think this is where alot of people have difficulty — I did HY today so I SHOULD be able to eat x, y, or z…and the reality is that it just doesn’t work like that, in my experience). AND accept the fact that unless you are ruthlessly honest about EVERYTHING you eat, write it down faithfully and weigh and measure EVERYTHING ACCURATELY, I’ll bet you dollars to donuts (ha! donuts!) that you are eating way more than you believe you do. I know that sounds harsh but this really IS the harsh reality…one serving of chili can be anything, but 200g of chili is pretty specific, and 80g ground beef, 20 g kidney beans, 100 g tomatoes is most specific, and that’s the kind of precision I have with my diet.

Other than that, I don’t have any answers for you because at the end of the day, you’ll only do a plan that you personally choose. In my experience, any “directed” plan that you aren’t on board with won’t work for you. Having said that, you might want to look at Gabrielle’s Weight Loss with Hot Yoga plan as she details above. It makes sense to have a comprehensive look at diet and exercise together that actually includes the exercise that you love. Other than that, finding a plan is something that you are going to need to do yourself. It can be done though– I did it starting at 243lbs and well over 40 years of age…

🙂

Hi Robert, Robert here (!) – a long time ago, I used to fast once per week, which was also the day I did yoga (not hot yoga).

Since Hot Yoga, I’ve not found the desire to fast – the yoga itself seems to have that cleansing effect anyway.

I’m also not sure that ups and downs are a great way to train the body – but with body-toning & shape change it really does come down to “whatever works for you that is safely sustainable” (or at least in the land of natural methods).

The design of Gabrielle’s program is very thorough and takes into account all sorts of contexts – and aims to work with “the low hanging fruit” – for each person the breakthrough is different – for some it will be “fat burning enzymes”, for others correct interval training and for others still it could be that a shift in eating patterns (and an intake of raw food & juice) will create almost instant gains.

What is key to any “program” is that it quickly stops being a “program” and becomes your lifestyle!

@donkeythomas – being “allowed” coffee with sugar in it misses the point. You may well be expending more calories than you take in if you practice hot yoga 5 times per week, but calories aren’t the measurement of success here, your shape and eating patterns are. Coffee with sugar is only going to help you sustain your current habits (and your body systems’ peaks & troughs).

🙂