Oh Baby: OB GYN offers up weight loss secret
By Bruce Miller Journal staff writer | Posted: Tuesday, December 02, 2008
If someone said you could lose two pounds a day without exercising you'd be curious, right?
You'd also think the plan was too good to be true.
"You'd think it was a cheater's way of losing weight," says Dr. Ed Hagen, a Sioux City obstetrician.
But Hagen had heard about just such a diet while he was in California at a medical seminar and decided to investigate.
For himself.
"I was 47 years old. I weighed 240 pounds and I couldn't get the weight off," he says. "I tried running and swimming. But as we get older our metabolism actually slows down. I could look at food and put on weight."
The diet -- which has been around for more than 40 years -- lasts at least 21 days and requires the use of HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin), a hormone found in higher levels in pregnant women. "It's the hormone that mobilizes fat," Hagen says. "So when a woman is pregnant, she doesn't feed her baby breakfast, lunch and dinner. She feeds the baby 24/7."
The rub? Along with that hormone, dieters eat only 500 calories a day. Those 500 calories can't come from a candy bar and a soda, either. They've got to be chosen from a select menu, spread over the course of a day.
"If you do a starvation diet without the hormone, your body will go into defense mode and hold on to things," Hagen says. "If we just gave you the hormone, you wouldn't lose weight, either. It's the combination of the two that makes it work."
Before sharing the diet with a patient, Hagen decided to try it himself.
He took the hormone twice a day, drank 10 glasses of water and ate things like steak, lettuce and apples for 21 days.
"I had two bad days," he says. "Days Four and Five of the diet, I just wanted to jump. But you fight through it, you get up and weigh yourself and you've lost three pounds. That's an automatic reward."
Today, he's nearly 40 pounds lighter. He's not restricted to 500 calories a day and he's determined to get down to 190 pounds. His waistline? It's four inches smaller.
Better yet? "I'm off two blood pressure medicines and I've got a lot of energy."
Too good to be true?
That's what Rhonda Wittkop thought when she heard about Hagen's diet.
A nurse in Storm Lake, Iowa, she was convinced it was crazy. Still, "I tried Weight Watchers, the soup diet, starvation, TOPS -- you name it," she says. "It has been a lifelong struggle."
Aug. 14, Wittkop saw pictures of herself on a Harley and said, "That's it. I've got to do something."
She went to Hagen and asked all the questions most have -- Is it safe? How does it work? Am I just going to gain the weight back? How do I stick with it? Plus she did research on the Internet.
"I wanted to make sure I wasn't spending my money on something crazy."
At $600 (for the hormone and diet counseling), the "miracle" wasn't cheap. "But I had turned 50 and wanted to get started on a new way of life. Spending the money was an incentive to keep me on it."
Like Hagen, Wittkop knew there were landmines in the diet landscape. Cheat -- even a little -- and weight loss wouldn't happen. Try to cook daily "and you're probably going to fail."
The secret: Make your meals ahead of time, pack a lunch and stick with it.
In the morning, Wittkop says, she'd take the hormone (it's now in liquid form and it's placed under the tongue for a minute), get ready for work and, yup, skip breakfast -- that's one of the quirks. Then, midmorning, she'd have a snack (apples or strawberries are fine). For lunch she'd have 100 grams of meat and 3 1/2 ounces of fresh vegetables. In the afternoon, she'd get another snack and at night, she'd have another dose of the hormone, another 100 grams of meat and another 3 1/2 ounces of vegetables. Each day, she'd drink at least two liters of water.
"You urinate a lot," Hagen says. "But you don't poop because you're burning stored fat."
Strangely, patients have lots of energy.
Wittkop realized she was a "mindless eater" -- someone who grazed just to keep her occupied. When she went on the diet, she put the energy into art. She makes fused glass jewelry and "stayed busy. I had that outlet...and you need that."
She wasn't tired, either, and she didn't feel hungry.
Like Hagen, she weighed herself daily. She saw the pounds drop and noticed she wasn't snoring as much at night. "I felt better. I went shopping and I realized I was standing a little taller because I felt good about myself."
She was on the diet for 30 days, then went on a three-day transition course (no HCG, but still a 500-calorie diet). "Then, you go on to watch your carbohydrates."
Like Hagen -- she charted impressive results. She lost 47 pounds and went from a size 18 to a size 10.
Gradually, she went back to a "regular" diet but realized something else had changed -- her mindset. "It becomes a case of mind over matter," she says. "You don't have the cravings you used to. Before, I could sit down and eat a whole cheesecake. I could eat nachos and chips -- I was just fueling that depression. But once you lose the weight, you want to keep it off. I've had some nacho chips (since the diet) and realized they're too salty. I don't need all those."
Better yet, Wittkop has resolved to exercise and lose even more weight. She eats cheesecake now -- "but two bites. I know I don't need the whole thing."
Likewise, Hagen. He used to eat eight slices of pizza at one meal. Now, he feels full after two.
In his "heavy" days, he wore scrubs because they were comfortable and forgiving. Now, he wears 36-inch pants and doesn't have to hold his breath just to put them on. "I didn't have to buy new clothes. I had a whole closet full that finally fit me."
Side effects? There are none, the two say, even though it sounds odd to be taking hormones.
Difficult? It can be if you don't want to play by the rules.
Rewarding? You bet.
"It can be a huge jump start," Hagen says. "Before I went on this, I couldn't run. My feet and my knees hurt because I was so heavy. Now, I feel great."
The trick? "You've got to change your lifestyle," he says. "Once you lose the weight, you realize you don't want to go back there. More than anything, it changes your thinking."
You'd also think the plan was too good to be true.
"You'd think it was a cheater's way of losing weight," says Dr. Ed Hagen, a Sioux City obstetrician.
But Hagen had heard about just such a diet while he was in California at a medical seminar and decided to investigate.
For himself.
"I was 47 years old. I weighed 240 pounds and I couldn't get the weight off," he says. "I tried running and swimming. But as we get older our metabolism actually slows down. I could look at food and put on weight."
The diet -- which has been around for more than 40 years -- lasts at least 21 days and requires the use of HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin), a hormone found in higher levels in pregnant women. "It's the hormone that mobilizes fat," Hagen says. "So when a woman is pregnant, she doesn't feed her baby breakfast, lunch and dinner. She feeds the baby 24/7."
The rub? Along with that hormone, dieters eat only 500 calories a day. Those 500 calories can't come from a candy bar and a soda, either. They've got to be chosen from a select menu, spread over the course of a day.
"If you do a starvation diet without the hormone, your body will go into defense mode and hold on to things," Hagen says. "If we just gave you the hormone, you wouldn't lose weight, either. It's the combination of the two that makes it work."
Before sharing the diet with a patient, Hagen decided to try it himself.
He took the hormone twice a day, drank 10 glasses of water and ate things like steak, lettuce and apples for 21 days.
"I had two bad days," he says. "Days Four and Five of the diet, I just wanted to jump. But you fight through it, you get up and weigh yourself and you've lost three pounds. That's an automatic reward."
Today, he's nearly 40 pounds lighter. He's not restricted to 500 calories a day and he's determined to get down to 190 pounds. His waistline? It's four inches smaller.
Better yet? "I'm off two blood pressure medicines and I've got a lot of energy."
Too good to be true?
That's what Rhonda Wittkop thought when she heard about Hagen's diet.
A nurse in Storm Lake, Iowa, she was convinced it was crazy. Still, "I tried Weight Watchers, the soup diet, starvation, TOPS -- you name it," she says. "It has been a lifelong struggle."
Aug. 14, Wittkop saw pictures of herself on a Harley and said, "That's it. I've got to do something."
She went to Hagen and asked all the questions most have -- Is it safe? How does it work? Am I just going to gain the weight back? How do I stick with it? Plus she did research on the Internet.
"I wanted to make sure I wasn't spending my money on something crazy."
At $600 (for the hormone and diet counseling), the "miracle" wasn't cheap. "But I had turned 50 and wanted to get started on a new way of life. Spending the money was an incentive to keep me on it."
Like Hagen, Wittkop knew there were landmines in the diet landscape. Cheat -- even a little -- and weight loss wouldn't happen. Try to cook daily "and you're probably going to fail."
The secret: Make your meals ahead of time, pack a lunch and stick with it.
In the morning, Wittkop says, she'd take the hormone (it's now in liquid form and it's placed under the tongue for a minute), get ready for work and, yup, skip breakfast -- that's one of the quirks. Then, midmorning, she'd have a snack (apples or strawberries are fine). For lunch she'd have 100 grams of meat and 3 1/2 ounces of fresh vegetables. In the afternoon, she'd get another snack and at night, she'd have another dose of the hormone, another 100 grams of meat and another 3 1/2 ounces of vegetables. Each day, she'd drink at least two liters of water.
"You urinate a lot," Hagen says. "But you don't poop because you're burning stored fat."
Strangely, patients have lots of energy.
Wittkop realized she was a "mindless eater" -- someone who grazed just to keep her occupied. When she went on the diet, she put the energy into art. She makes fused glass jewelry and "stayed busy. I had that outlet...and you need that."
She wasn't tired, either, and she didn't feel hungry.
Like Hagen, she weighed herself daily. She saw the pounds drop and noticed she wasn't snoring as much at night. "I felt better. I went shopping and I realized I was standing a little taller because I felt good about myself."
She was on the diet for 30 days, then went on a three-day transition course (no HCG, but still a 500-calorie diet). "Then, you go on to watch your carbohydrates."
Like Hagen -- she charted impressive results. She lost 47 pounds and went from a size 18 to a size 10.
Gradually, she went back to a "regular" diet but realized something else had changed -- her mindset. "It becomes a case of mind over matter," she says. "You don't have the cravings you used to. Before, I could sit down and eat a whole cheesecake. I could eat nachos and chips -- I was just fueling that depression. But once you lose the weight, you want to keep it off. I've had some nacho chips (since the diet) and realized they're too salty. I don't need all those."
Better yet, Wittkop has resolved to exercise and lose even more weight. She eats cheesecake now -- "but two bites. I know I don't need the whole thing."
Likewise, Hagen. He used to eat eight slices of pizza at one meal. Now, he feels full after two.
In his "heavy" days, he wore scrubs because they were comfortable and forgiving. Now, he wears 36-inch pants and doesn't have to hold his breath just to put them on. "I didn't have to buy new clothes. I had a whole closet full that finally fit me."
Side effects? There are none, the two say, even though it sounds odd to be taking hormones.
Difficult? It can be if you don't want to play by the rules.
Rewarding? You bet.
"It can be a huge jump start," Hagen says. "Before I went on this, I couldn't run. My feet and my knees hurt because I was so heavy. Now, I feel great."
The trick? "You've got to change your lifestyle," he says. "Once you lose the weight, you realize you don't want to go back there. More than anything, it changes your thinking."
