My Story…
As a Licensed Acupuncturist I am often asked about using acupuncture to lose weight. Up until I started the HCG Diet program, I weighed 207 lbs. When a patient asked about acupuncture to lose weight I would think to myself: ‘Would I look like this if I could get rid of the weight with acupuncture?’
Don’t get me wrong, acupuncture does and can help with weight loss, but it didn’t work for me – believe me I tried a variety of acupuncture/herb combinations.
I don’t want to discourage anyone from using acupuncture to lose weight. If it works for you, go for it! I do treat patients for weight loss the way they do in China. See my website for the acupuncture for weight loss article.
This article is about my story of how I lost weight.
Before starting to read my story I will have to admit that I am probably in the minority of people who tried standard diet and exercise without permanent or even successful results. For many people good old-fashioned portion control, and hard work will work just fine. I am not trying to encourage anyone not to try that method.
I am 54 years old, 5’4”. According to the standard Body Mass Index (BMI) chart the weight range for my height (female) should be in a range of 110-145. I am totally average built. Not petite or large framed.
Here goes..
When I was 18 years old I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. In ordinary language this is essentially an autoimmune disorder in which my body was attacking my thyroid like an allergen or foreign invader, trying to destroy it.
The treatment involved removing most of my thyroid gland. After careful monitoring, I was put on thyroid replacement hormone. My current diagnosis is hypothyroidism. I will be on thyroid replacement hormone the rest of my life.
At the time of my surgery (18yrs of age) my weight was 120. My weight would fluctuate now and then, but not more than 20-30lbs. I would do the usual portion control and exercise and the weight would come off.
But then….
The year I turned 40, my weight crept up from 135 to 207 pounds at a rate of 1 to 1.5lbs per week! This steady unexplained increase continued no matter how much I exercised or did portion control. I had always believed that overweight was, of course related to overeating. I wasn’t overeating and I was exercising, so what is causing this?
I am not a big believer in coincidences…
When I was about 42/43 years old I met a lady at a seminar. The lady I met has a daughter that is a chiropractor/clinical nutritionist. At a break in the seminar I was lamenting about this unexplained weight gain. She suggested going to her daughter’s clinic for a blood test to check for food allergies.
I had never heard of food allergies being a reason for weight gain! I had always thought a food allergy was related to signs and symptoms of asthma (my sister had this as a child), or rashes/sores in the mouth or other skin or digestive related signs and symptoms.
Through that blood test, it was determined that I was allergic/sensitive to: wheat (gluten), dairy (caseine), all potatoes, pineapples, bananas and oranges.
With my Advanced Allergy Therapeutics System (AAT), I have eliminated those allergies. But that technology was not available in the 90’s. Avoidance of those foods was the only viable option for me at that time.
Even though I didn’t avoid those foods completely, I did greatly minimize eating them over the years. I believe that if I did not minimize the use, I would have been over 300lbs and not known why. When I would mention wheat or dairy allergies and weight gain, the first response is: “I don’t eat that much bread.” I didn’t either! I only had 2 slices of toast in the morning!
Dr. Elson M. Haas M.D. has written a book about how food allergies/sensitivities cause weight gain. The book is titled: The False Fat Diet. He primarily discusses avoidance of those foods.
Years later..
After my masters degree in Oriental Medicine I attended a seminar for the Advanced Allergy Therapeutics System (AAT). With my and my family’s history of allergies, this system showed great promise to help a lot of people including myself. The info I received stated it helped with food allergies as well as environmental and pets.
At that seminar I met two ladies who spoke about their weight loss using something called the HCG Diet. I only listened half-heartedly thinking ‘another fad diet’, ho hum.
This seminar was a 4 day event. During the 4 days I was noticing that these two ladies (age 49 and 62) were ordering before and after dinner drinks, appetizers, a full meal and dessert! I had to ask, “Aren’t you afraid of gaining all that weight back eating this much food?”
They both replied that they will put on a few pounds eating like that over the next few days, but the weight will be gone in less than a week. I responded, “What???!!! How lucky can you get? Wow!”
They proceeded to explain to me that the HCG Diet was about resetting your hypothalamus gland and that once it’s function is normalized you can eat normally without regaining weight. This hormone eliminates only the abnormal or stored fat, and quickly (like a pound a day). A British doctor named Dr. Simeons developed the plan, back in the 70’s as a cure for obesity.
As mentioned above, these ladies were 49 & 62 – as we are talking about their weight loss, the 62 year old said she lost 85lbs, the 49 year old said she lost 65lbs!! I am looking at their skin, particularly the neck and noticed little to no skin sagging.
I had to ask “Did either of you get any ‘work done’ on your neck?” I mean really, any one particularly over the age of 40, losing that much weight is going to have skin sagging!!!! The 49 year old had absolutely zero skin sagging on her neck, the 62 year old had only the tiniest bit of a ‘waddle’ on her neck – no more than you would see on any other 62 year old – let alone one that lost 85lbs! I neglected to mention that neither of these two ladies were over 5’3”!
They emphatically stated that HCG hormone has a body sculpting effect, that’s a big difference between HCG ordinary diet plans. The hormone stimulates the production of collagen and elastin, greatly minimizing skin sagging!
I sat on this info for a few months and decided to give it a try. I am happy to say that I have lost 54lbs.!
As of this writing (Dec 1, 2009) I am on my 4th cycle of HCG injections. My last injection will be Dec 12th. According to the BMI chart I am in the 26% body fat group. My waistline measurement was 44” it is now 34”, hips were 46”, now 39”.
I started out at 207lbs wearing a size 18/20, I now weigh 153lbs and wear a size 6. I can’t tell you how many people do not even recognize me! Many patients have commented that I look 10years younger now than only a year ago! It’s really amazing!!
Continuing with the idea that there are no coincidences (my opinon only)
Since starting my own journey using HCG, I had found that there are other businesses in town that offer HCG under the tongue drops, that do not need a prescription from an MD! I approached a business about working with them and wasn’t really given much of a response. Meanwhile I am thinking ‘Do they know how much business I could send them?” Why am I getting such a cool response?
The answer came when I found out that under my license I could offer the HCG drops without a prescription. Meanwhile, the HCG business I was working under for my prescription sold my info on a mailing list to another pharmacist company that sells HCG, not only as an injection form, but also as a nasal spray!
I contacted that pharmacy to ask if you needed to be an MD in order to prescribe the nasal spray form. The answer was ‘yes’, an MD prescription was required for even the nasal spray version of HCG. The gentleman on the phone asked if I had any physicians that I could work with to prescribe HCG. My reply was ‘unfortunately, no’.
This is where the ‘no coincidences’ part comes in..
The conversation mentioned above occurred approximately 10AM. About 6 hours later a sales rep from Grove Pharmacy came into my waiting room and asked me if I would be interested in working with a local MD to prescribe HCG!! OMG yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He said he found my office on the web and thought he’d stop by to ask.
My question to him was “Why wouldn’t the patient’s go directly to the MD’s office instead of coming here?” His answer was that the MD’s core business is doing lab work for sports, and pre-employment blood tests etc and that he doesn’t want the HCG to overtake his core business.
The pharmacy rep stated that the MD is the doctor that the chiropractor in Branson is working with in prescribing HCG. To show how popular HCG is becoming, that chiropractor is filling several hundred HCG prescriptions per month. I can understand why the MD just wouldn’t have time to accommodate that influx in his office! Wow!
Can this help you?
As always consult with your physician before making any changes. This article was intended only to describe my experience only.