Unfortunately, nearly every person undergoing treatment with HCG and a low-calorie diet will experience a stall at some point, lasting anywhere from a few days to 10 days or more. Patients become so accustomed to losing regularly that it’s easy to get anxious or frustrated rather than keep things in perspective.
Simeons’ discusses this in his manuscript, Pounds and Inches, but it is worth reviewing here. Many of you may be familiar with the term muscle memory, but apparently for better or worse, fat has a memory as well. This occurs when for a number of months or years the body has maintained roughly the same weight.
Let’s review some tools to handle this. First, don’t panic. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing anything wrong or that you should do anything differently. However, if nothing appears amiss after looking at diet, medications, skin products, your exercise program and sleep, then it may prove worthwhile to consider an apple day. It is worth quoting Simeons here at length regarding a plateau:
“No amount of explanation convinces them that a plateau does not mean that they are no longer responding normally to treatment. In such cases we consider it permissible, for purely psychological reasons, to break up the plateau. This can be done in two ways. One is a so-called ‘apple day.’ An apple day begins at lunch and continues until just before lunch of the following day. The patients are given six large apples and are told to eat one whenever they feel the desire, though six apples is the maximum allowed. During an apple day no other food or liquids except plain water are allowed, and of water they may only drink just enough to quench an uncomfortable thirst if eating an apple still leaves them thirsty. Most patients feel no need for water and are quite happy with their six apples. An apple day may never be given on the day on which there is no injection. The apple day produces a gratifying loss of weight on the following day, chiefly due to the elimination of water. This water is not regained when the patients resume their normal 500-calorie diet at lunch, and on the following days they continue to lose weight satisfactorily.”
If this fails to yield the results we are looking for or another stall occurs before long, then other measures can be successfully implemented. I discuss some of these in the Patient Lounge section of this site.
To your good health,
Forrest Beck, ND