What happens if you exercise and eat healthy and lose weight after Phase 4? Is this discouraged or will the wait come back easily and plateau back to the weight at end of P2?
Phase 4 is technically the rest of your life. No one said you can't lose weight on it....but in terms of resetting your hypothalamus, that only happens with the hcg. 80% or more of folks who lose weight by any method regain it. Simeon's stats say that 70% of his pts do NOT regain the weight. In my opinion, having done the hcg diet does nothing to help/hurt your efforts to lose weight in p4 and keep it off. I guess if you try and it doesn't work, you can always do another round of hcg :))
didn't somewhere in p&i it say that patients aren't encouraged to gain more than 2 pounds after treatment but also not encouraged to lose more than 2 pounds either? I'm thinking after p4 unless you do another round it might be hard to lose more weight and keep it off. I would imagine that you'd return to the weight your hypothalamus is set at eventually. I think Simeons intended for his patients to lose all their abnormally stored fat. After that they wouldn't be able to stay healthy and lose more. He said once abnormally stored fat is all released you'll start losing the normal fat and would feel starving anyway. I think I'll just stick with it til all the abnormal stuff is gone and then stay that way the rest of my life.
It depends on what you mean by "healthy". My last P4, I ate what I considered to be "healthy" which was low-calorie/low-fat foods. My weight went up and up and up. I finally realized that I was pumping my body full of unnecessary sugars, carbs and preservitives. This diet has taught me that we need to be eating enough protein, good fats, veggies and fruits. All of the low-fat cheeses, yogurts, ice creams that I was eating on P4 were making me gain because those chemicals aren't good for your body.
I am now in P3 and KNOW that this round of P4 I'll be living a very low-sugar/low-carb lifestyle. Sure, I'll have a cookie here and there, but I'm going to stick to eating untouched/unprocessed foods. They're just better for us!
I have never been a fan of low fat stuff. I've always just ate the REAL butter, or REAL sugar or REAL everything. I have always liked to make home made things FRESH. but I know in p4 I will avoid fast food joints. that was my downfall before starting this program. If I'm going to eat starch or sweets in p4 I'm going to make it from home made goodness. or at least good quality organics.