The Doctors: Simeons & Atkins

It was inevitable.  I should have known the day would come when Dr. Atkins and Dr. Simeons would come together in my life.  I wouldn't be surprised to learn that those two, wonderful men are spending time together in the Afterlife, comparing notes on their life-changing approaches to weight loss.

 

Dr. Robert C. Atkins                    Dr. Albert T. W. Simeons

 

At first glance, one would think their methodologies are diametrically opposed.  They are, indeed, very different. 

Dr. Simeons's 6-week protocol severely restricts calories to 500 per day and allows no fat in the diet (Dr. Simeons even banned lotions and lipstick), while relying upon the hormone HCG to release the body's stores of fat  to be burned as energy, leading to weight loss.

Dr. Atkins's diet is meant to be a permanent lifestyle change, which generally has no caloric restrictions and encourages the consumption of healthy fats, allowing the restriction of carbohydrates to cause the body's fat stores to be released for energy, leading to weight loss.

 

See the similarity?  Both physicians recognized that the most efficient way to lose weight was to force the body to burn its own fat for energy, rather than burning the readily available carbohydrates so prevalent in the average American diet.  This overabundance of carbs, by the way, has led to skyrocketing levels of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease in this country.

While first doing the HCG diet 3 years ago, I also took note of the diet Dr. Simeons recommended to maintain your weight loss after completing 6 weeks on his protocol.  In essence, it was a low-carb diet he advised.  Proteins, fats, vegetables, and limited fruits, but no sugar and no starches.  No bread, rice, potatoes, corn, sweets, etc.  Yes, I think Drs. Atkins and Simeons would have been friends with much in common.

So how did these two great men suddenly intersect in my life?

 

I have mentioned in this blog how much I believe in the Atkins diet and how I lost a great deal of weight following its precepts a dozen years ago.  I've also discussed how I eventually regained all the weight I had lost (plus ten), only to find in 2009 that the Atkins diet seemed to no longer work for me.  That, in turn, led to my discovery of HCG.

Around the time that I was going through this battle, it seems that a number of prominent, long-term low-carb devotees were also struggling with reduced effectiveness of carb-counting to maintain their weight.  They did some research and ultimately rediscovered 3 pages in Dr. Atkins's book, New Diet Revolution, which we had all overlooked—largely because our metabolisms were younger and healthier then, so we didn't need those 3 pages!

Who would have thought that our aging bodies would become more insulin resistant with the passage of time?  Who could have dreamed that our metabolisms would become so adept at converting our beloved protein to carbohydrate (gasp!)? 

Thankfully, Dr. Atkins had already faced this scenario with a small percentage (less than 1%) of his patients and he had an answer, which he recorded on pages 272-274 in his book (2002 edition), under the subheading "The Fat Fast."

Exactly what is the Fat Fast?  That is a subject for a whole separate blog post.  For now, suffice it to say that I started the Fat Fast 8 days ago, on March 1st, and I've lost 9.8 lbs. in that time.  And I feel great.  It's working!

Two days before I began the Fat Fast, I also started taking the HCG drops again.  I would never have thought to use the HCG hormone with a high-fat diet, especially since Dr. Simeons was so adamant about controlling fat while following his protocol, but a few months ago I read an article by a woman who did just that and she reported good results.  So I decided to give it a try myself.

Based on my own past experience, the HCG did as Dr. Simeons promised: it released and redistributed my body's fat, helped my skin and muscles remain toned, gave me a feeling of well-being, and curbed my hunger.  Why wouldn't I want to add these advantages to those promised by Dr. Atkins?  Certainly it was worth a try.

And together, these two physicians have come through for me again.  In my next post, I'll share details about the Fat Fast: what it is, why it works, how to do it, and other fascinating facts.  Stay tuned!

A Word about HCG

The use of the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) as a weight loss aid was already controversial at the time I began using it in autumn 2009.  It has become even more so during the intervening 3 years, with the FDA declaring it to be “unproven, dangerous, and illegal” in December 2011.  In fact, it has become quite difficult to obtain HCG.

I am no doctor.  I am no scientist.  I am no researcher.  I am not employed by the FDA.  I can only share my own experience, which has been fully documented in this blog already.  If you decide to try the HCG diet for yourself, be sure to arm yourself with as much knowledge as you can and proceed with caution and common sense.  It’s your life and your health.  

The FDA, in its infinite wisdom, has determined that “there is no scientific evidence that HCG is effective in the treatment of obesity; it does not bring about weight-loss or fat-redistribution, nor does it reduce hunger or induce a feeling of well-being.”

 

On the other hand, the FDA gave its blessing to Lexapro for treating adolescents (ages 12-17) for depression despite studies showing suicidal side effects in children.  The FDA approved Seroquel to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, even though it’s been linked to diabetes, cholesterol and triglyceride abnormalities, sudden cardiac death, suicide, and several other deadly issues.  They okayed the anti-inflammatory Vioxx, which quadrupled the risk of heart attacks.  And let us not forget Fen Phen, the weight loss drug that caused potentially fatal pulmonary hypertension and heart valve problems.

Forgive me if I choose to do my own research and make my own decisions regarding my health rather than relying on the FDA, who often seems to give a “thumbs down” to any product that doesn’t make big money for pharmaceutical companies.  With far less documentation proving ill effects than those available on the drugs they do green light, I might add.

They say HCG does not bring about weight loss.  How, then, did I lose 77 lbs. in 6.5 months while using HCG, after years in which no other diet would budge the scale?  (In fact, I only used the HCG and followed the diet for 5 months during that time; for 7 weeks I took a break, maintaining the weight loss, but not losing, by doing Atkins.)

They say HCG does not redistribute fat.  I suppose that topic is very subjective.  For me, I was stunned at the changes in my body during the diet, even when I hit a plateau for a week.  How can a 55-year-old woman lose 77 lbs. in 5 months and not have flabby skin sagging all over her body?  Yet I didn’t.  Without any exercise, my skin stayed toned and tightened throughout the process of losing all that weight. 

They say HCG does not induce a feeling of well-being.  Again, this may be subjective, but my husband would strongly dispute this statement.  While I have thus far been unable to recreate my long-term success on HCG, that hasn't stopped me from trying, over and over again.  Each time I start taking the HCG drops, my husband expresses his amazement at how it improves my mood, giving me a sense of peace and health.  No other diet has ever made me feel like that right out of the gate, not even Atkins.  I call it a feeling of well-being.  Coincidence?  I think not.

They say HCG does not reduce hunger.  Hmmm.  Let me tell you what I know about the hunger reduction aspect of HCG:

My second child was born in 1991, about 8 years before I heard of Atkins.   More than a year after his birth, my weight had ballooned up to its highest point yet and I was desperate to get it off, but eating "healthy" in the traditional American way wasn't working.  The low-fat message was in its heyday, with everyone offering low-fat and no-fat products.  Figuring that the "experts" knew what they were talking about, I decided I just wasn't trying hard enough.  So I plunged right in.

 

I restricted myself to 800 calories per day and subsisted on fish and chicken breasts, while choking down dry bread, fat-free pasta, plain celery sticks, and cooked vegetables without butter.  It was a miserable diet and I was starving.  Despite the painful hunger pangs, like the Alien baby was clawing his way out of my belly, I was unwavering.  I lost the first 5 lbs. fairly quickly, but then the weight loss stopped.  And then, worse, the numbers on the scale started going back up.  On 800 calories per day, with no fat.  I lasted for about a month before I realized this simply was not going to work for me, and I resigned myself to being fat.  For 7 more years, until I found Atkins.

You see, I had discovered that the body really does go into "starvation mode" and hang on to the fat.  And that 800 calories make Mary a very cranky, hungry girl.

 

July 4, 1994: A family hike on the Mogollon Rim Trail. 

That's me on the far left, 2 months before my 40th birthday. 

Fat, fat, fat, and nothing I could do about it.  Or so I thought.

 

So, to the critics who say that you only lose weight on the HCG diet because "anyone will lose weight on only 500 calories per day," I say: Hogwash!  If I couldn't lose consistently on a strict daily intake of 800 calories—and even began to gain weight back—then clearly caloric intake isn't enough in and of itself.

To the critics who say there is no evidence that HCG suppresses hunger, I say: Have you never heard of empirical evidence?  I have many relatives and friends who have reported the same results.  Many thousands more report the same in their blogs and in chat rooms.  If I could barely withstand the hunger I experienced on an 800-calorie diet, how do you explain lasting as long as 7 weeks at a stretch on a mere 500 calories per day, with barely a tummy rumble?  If the results shared in these anecdotal reports are only "in our heads," an example of collective hallucination, so what?  It works!  

Let me also add that my blood pressure always drops below 120/80 within the first week of starting the drops.  My arrhythmia also responds well to the HCG, almost completely disappearing.  In fact, my cardiologist okayed the diet for his staff and brought in a nutritionist to oversee it, and that's how I was first introduced to HCG.  

Quite simply, HCG changed my life for the better.  Dispute that, FDA.