How Many Calories Can I have on the HCG Diet?

Occasionally new customers of ours call and ask how many calories they get on the low-calorie phase of the HCG Diet. The answer is…you DO NOT count calories!

Dr. Simeons formulated the HCG Diet Protocol, and he instructed dieters to eat 2 meals per day. Each meal consists of 100 grams of protein from a list of allowable proteins, 1 vegetable from a list of allowable vegetables, 1 fruit from a very short list of allowable fruits, and 1 grissini breadstick.

It is true that if you choose an item from each of the four categories and total the caloric values, the average you’ll come up with is a total of about 500 calories. But that does not mean that eating 500 calories is the goal for each day and that you should focus on eating 500 calories. Some of the patients in Simeons’ time would eat less of one type of food so that they could eat more of another type. They thought that was okay as long as they didn’t have over 500 calories for the day. Dr. Simeons wrote the following about them,

“The most tiresome patients are those who start counting calories and then come up with all manner of ingenious variations which they compile from their little books. When one has spent years of weary research trying to make a diet as attractive as possible without jeopardizing the loss of weight, culinary geniuses who are out to improve their unhappy lot are hard to take.”

Additionally, research was done by Dr. Simeons using many different types of protein, fruit and vegetables. When he didn’t include the basic “diet vegetables” like broccoli, green beans etc., we have to believe that it wasn’t simply an oversight on his part.

Simeons wrote in his manuscript, Pounds and Inches, A New Approach to Obesity,

“The diet used in conjunction with HCG must not exceed 500 calories per day, and the way these calories are made up is of upmost importance. For instance, if a patient drops the apple and eats an extra breadstick instead, he will not be getting more calories, but he will not lose weight.  There are a number of foods, particularly fruits and vegetables, which have the same or even lower caloric values than those listed as permissible, and yet we find that they interfere with the regular loss of weight under HCG, presumably owing to the nature of their composition.”

According to Dr. Simeons, a dieter should not count calories. All he/she needs to do is to choose 1 allowable item from each of the 4 categories. This includes a protein, veggie, fruit and breadstick for each meal and eat 2 meals per day.