The holiday season is over. We hope that you took the time during the holiday season to enjoy time with your family and friends eating lots and lots of happy, yummy foods without worrying too much about the carbs, calories, and fat. Though it’s not smart to stuff yourself during the holiday festivities, enjoying good foods with friends and family is something to cherish.

Since holiday festivities are over, you might want to kick back into a healthy routine. Luckily, January provides a turning point for everyone to make changes more easily than at other times of the year.

Why choose the HCG Diet?

The HCG Diet is great for those who want to change their trajectory in terms of weight gain during the holidays. Whether you have heard about it before or not, the HCG Diet is simple and effective, unlike other popular diets. With the HCG diet, you’ll be able to lose weight faster, around a pound or two each day. It is suited not only to those who want to lose over 30 pounds but also to those whose goal is to lose 10 to 15 pounds. It is safe for both men and women.

Aside from weight loss, another benefit of the HCG Diet is that it keeps you from losing muscle while you diet. The HCG hormone promotes muscle building while you lose fats. This set this diet apart from other weight loss programs. Typically, when you restrict your calorie intake you lose a high amount of muscle mass. Your metabolism slows down so much that you are at risk of gaining the weight back so quickly. With the HCG hormone present in your system, you prevent this from happening.

How does the HCG Diet work?

HCG, which stands for human chorionic gonadotrophin, is a pro-hormone that your body can produce naturally. HCG is produced by the placenta of pregnant women. It’s the hormone that keeps the progesterone high vital for a safe and successful pregnancy. It may come as a surprise for a natural hormone that the body makes during pregnancy to be injected for weight loss. But that’s exactly what the HCG Diet is about.

The HCG diet combines the use of HCG hormone and low-calorie restrictions to reset your metabolism. These combinations will allow you to lose around 1 pound or two each day. During the diet, you are allowed to have only lunch and dinner with a protein, a serving of vegetables, a piece of fruit, and a slice of carb (Melba toast or Grissini stick) per meal.

HCG is available in oral drops, pellet, pill, and injection but I suggest that you use the injection form as it is more effective than drops or pellet. If you are worried about the needles, well, the needles are so small and the injected amount is so minuscule.

HCG is effective in suppressing the appetite. More research in this area is needed, but anecdotal reports suggest HCG could get you through your low-calorie diet without making you feel weak, hungry, and irritable all day.

When you think of good-for-you beverages on the HCG Diet, obviously, water is the best choice but there are other drinks worth adding in your diet with HCG. These drinks are not only beneficial to your overall health, but they’re also packed with fat-burning compounds for additional weight loss. Below are some drinks that won’t break your diet:

1. Coffee:

In addition to the HCG hormone, the caffeine in the coffee can help you lose weight. Caffeine increases the number of calories and the amount of fat you burn by mobilizing the fat from the fat tissue and by speeding up your metabolism. It stimulates the nervous system which then sends a direct signal to your fat cells, telling them to break down fat.

Aside from the caffeine, coffee also contains several other stimulants that can affect metabolism.

• Chlorogenic acid: Helps in lowering the blood sugar levels, boost fat metabolism, reduce insulin spikes by slowing down the absorption of carbohydrates, and lowering the bad cholesterol level. The overall results, improve obesity-related hormone levels.
• Theophylline and theobromine: These are stimulants found in both coffee and tea. They stimulate the body in several ways.

Coffee contains very little calories. A cup of coffee contains 2 calories only so you can have them as much as you want. Coffee is one of the HCG drinks that you can have in an unlimited number. However, you must be careful in drinking excessive coffee. As the saying goes, too much of the good stuff is never good, so better consume coffee moderately. Coffee is an appetite suppressant too. It helps reduce your hunger level and your desire to eat for a brief time during the HCG weight.

• Green tea:

Green tea has long been regarded as a natural health booster. From reducing bad cholesterol to decreasing stress, green tea also has a positive effect on weight loss. It has been shown to boost metabolism and affects how your body burns fat making it a perfect drink during the HCG Diet. The boost in your metabolism is due to the rapid breakdown of fat.

A cup of tea can undeniably curve down your hunger and craving attack. It’s free from cholesterol and saturated fat. It’s rich in flavonoids and potent antioxidant compounds known as catechin thought to suppress fat absorption.  The synergistic effects of all the antioxidants found in green tea increase the hormones that break down fat by 3% to 4% each day.

• Water:

Water is undeniably the most important among all the approved HCG Diet beverages. Drinking the right amount of water on the HCG Diet is essential for a lot of reasons:

• Water keeps your body hydrated when on the HCG Diet. Without enough water, you feel hungrier when, in fact, you are only thirsty.
• Water keeps your cells hydrated allowing toxins from your liver to excrete out from your body easily. Without enough water, your liver won’t be able to its job properly.
• Lemon water:

Lemon water has been used for cleansing during weight loss for decades. It’s a good source of vitamin C, B, and minerals like magnesium, and phosphorus. There are so many benefits that come when you include lemon water in your diet.

• Lemon water can kick start your metabolism. Having a glass of lemon water in the morning can boost your energy.
• Lemon water can make you feel fuller when you drink them before a meal. It can cut your calories by 13%.
• It is low in calories compared with apple or orange juice.

Choosing the wrong drinks on the HCG Diet can spell havoc on your weight loss. Below are unhealthy drinks that you must avoid at all costs during the HCG diet.

1. Diet soda: Diet soda is associated with weight gain. Even if it’s labeled as “sugar-free”, it should be avoided at all cost.
   1. The artificial sweetener aspartame is sweeter than the regular sugar.
   1. It allows your body to produce more insulin. When the taste of the artificial sweetener hits your brain, it signals your pancreas to produce more insulin.
   1. Though it has zero calories, it has zero nutrition too.
2. Fruit juice: Although not all juices are packed with sugar and calories, most of them are. A 6 ounce serving of fruit juices contains 15 to 30 grams of sugar and 60 to 120 calories. Regular consumption of fruit juices can contribute to excess calorie consumption and may lead to weight gain.
3. Sweetened coffee drinks: Coffee is low in calories but sweetened coffee isn’t. When you try to lose weight, avoid sweetened coffee. Things like caramel macchiato or vanilla latte are the furthest thing from coffee. The sweeteners and syrup that gives coffee the flavor contains more sugar and calories than desserts.
4. Sports drink: Sports drink for the non-sporty causes weight gain. Cut back on this if you want to lose weight. Some sports drinks are pack with at least 50 grams of sugar per bottle. The sugar on the sports drink replenishes the depleted energy in the muscle loss during vigorous exercise. Sports drinks are developed for people engaging in at least 60 minutes of continuous exercise. So, if you are the non-sporty type of person and if you are on diet, this drink is definitely not for you.
5. Hard liquor: No matter what diet plan you choose to follow in the hopes of losing weight, cutting down on alcohol is a universal law that you must follow. Alcohol causes weight gain by:
6. Promoting appetite
7. Giving you a surplus of calories
8. Redistributing fat
9. Increasing impulsivity

There are ways to add ingredients to your usual drinks like you’re allowed 1 tablespoon of milk once a day. You can also sweeten your beverages using Stevia. You can have lemon throughout the day to make your drinks taste amazing. Below are some popular drinks flavored with lemon or sweetened with Stevia.

• Lemonade
• Iced Cappuccino
• Hot Apple Cider drinks
• Creamy Café Coffee