Can You Build Muscle on HCG?
Dr. Simeon’s original protocol didn’t recommend exercise, but on our advanced HCG diet, we’ve rewritten the rules. Check out this video to learn why you should exercise and how you can build muscle while burning fat, leaving you with the best body of your life!
This post if for the misinformed, who have been misled to believe that exercising on the HCG diet could be a costly mistake, as it was originally believed you couldn’t build muscle while on the calorically restrictive diet. Three reasons why some people believe that Dr. ATW Simeons’ original protocol prohibits exercise, and why they’re dead wrong.
In Dr. Simeons’ original manuscript, “Pounds and Inches”, Simeons clearly recommends running, walking, jogging, and playing golf; these are all good cardio activities that wouldn’t cause weight gain or stalls. However, what has been regurgitated online and in the media for years now is that you one cannot exercise at all while on the HCG protocol.
In this post, I will not only dispel this myth, but also let you know why exercise is not only doable, why it’s highly beneficial. Now granted, the facts are, that you do not have to exercise on the HCG Diet to lose weight. So those of you who break out in hives just at the thought of exercise; feel free to not exercise at all, because you don’t have to.Dr. Simeons doesn’t consider walking exercise.
The minimum requirement of this diet is that you walk one hour a day at least five to six days a week. So, some of you may consider that exercise and some of you that have not gotten off the couch in a long, may find walking to be more of an exercise. But you need to get mobile in order to mobilize your fat stores.
In other words getting up, moving around, getting your blood pumping, and drinking half your body weight in water your water will produce the best overall results. When you build muscle, even from walking, you ramp up your fat burning furnace and mobilize the calories you need.
The only way to lose fat is to get fat cells to exit your body through perspiration or your urinary tract. In order for you to get up and get those cells to let go and move into the urinary tract and moving to your sweat glands, you’ll have to do some form activity. As part of your complete HCG diet fat loss plan, you should schedule at minimum, walking 45 minutes to 60 minute a day and add in 10 to 30 minute HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) workouts.]Fatigue
You’re on a 550-calorie diet — that is considered a low-calorie diet and easily understandable why a regular person with this kind of calorie intake would experience fatigue.
However, most people do not realize the reasons why you’re able to sustain such a low caloric diet…Hunger:
Obviously, we know that working out burns calories by exerting more energy, which usually can trigger hunger. If you get too hungry, you may be tempted or forced, to eat something that’s outside of the protocol…If you’re using HCG for weight loss, then you’re receiving anywhere between 2000 to 5000 calories a day being released into the blood from your abnormal fat stores.
These calories provide the necessary nutrients your body needs in order to preserve lean muscle tissue and sustain daily activity, even help you build muscle.
This is why you rarely feel hungry, weak or fatigued.
This brilliant mechanism is forcing your body to use your stored fat as energy by burning those calories at a rapid pace.
When trying to build muscle, if fatigue does set in, or you begin to feel tired, your workout intensity may be too high.
Also, the protocol is not very forgiving when it comes to cheating. For this reason, if you eat the wrong things because you are hungrier than usual, it can cause weight gain or stalls. Many people experience post-workout water weight gain, which is a necessary healing and recovery process needed for the body to build lean muscle tissue. The muscles are surrounded by fluid to give them time to heal, causing a temporary increase in weight on the scale, so don’t be alarmed.]Use only a scale to determine your success because it can be misleading if you plan on exercising while on the protocol. The scale alone can either be used for the encouragement that you need but can also be a discouraging factor that can cause you to terminate the diet too soon.
For this reason, if you already exercise then don’t stop. If you’re someone that doesn’t exercise and need to build muscle to fire up your metabolism, then we recommend you start as soon as you decide you’re going to follow our advanced HCG diet plan; not when it shows up on your door. Believe it or not, after one week of doing certain exercises, your body will start to get used to the process of being in movement. As my personal trainer, Brian Nguyen always says, “Movement Melts Fat.” When you build muscle, it fires up your metabolism like a furnace, helping you burn even more calories than before.
This way you can continue you to exercise and build muscle without having any adverse side effect adding exercise to your HCG diet plan. Listen to your body, exercise within your means, follow the protocol, and you will have your best transformation ever in a few short weeks.