A Look at two very different diets: Macrobiotic & hCG

Macrobiotic
Photo from Local Milk

So today we return to the subject of the body. I want to say at once that, no matter how much you would like Miss World to run this blog instead of me, you’ll have to put up with fat and stupid Masha Lopatova until the editorial board fires me.

With all due respect to the audience, I’m afraid that all the Miss Worlds and Miss Universes with gorgeous bodies are too busy with global humanitarian activities, so you’ll have to listen to an average person, without a status, that has the average sports figure with no waist. And while Ksenia Sukhinova has not yet signed the contract for beauty and health blogging, I urge you to share your impressions in a civilized manner and without getting personal.

I would also like to stress once again that all of what I write here is mostly based not on my personal, but rather a collective experience. It is the experience of my friends and acquaintances, both famous and not, wealthy and not really. I tell the story in first person, but that does not mean that I tested all the beauty experiments myself. I just watch closely to what is happening in the world of beauty and write about it.

Indeed, we all have completely different ideas of what a ‘beautiful body’ means. For me a beautiful body is primarily a healthy body. As you’ve already understood, I am against the unhealthy thinness promoted in the media.

I am for healthy parameters. Not everyone should, and not everyone can be 90-60-90, even if they try very hard. Each person has a healthy personal weight. You probably already know how to define it using the body mass index formula. If your index is between 19-25, you have normal weight. Anything above is bad (today we are not going to talk about ‘below,’ but it’s also bad). So if your index is above 25, it’s high time for you to think about a nutrition plan.

Nutrition plans and diets

Let’s start with the most interesting and unusual nutrition plans and diets, which seems to be growing in popularity in the US, the Macrobiotic Diet. Today we’ll also talk in more detail about the hCG diet, and in the following posts— more about protein diets, including the Alkaline diet and the Atkins diet.

The Macrobiotic Diet

It all began with Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow who were the first celebrities to really promote a Macrobiotic Diet. So what is it? Macrobiotic aherents believe that our health (and inversely disease) depends on food, environment, climate, and even geography of habitat. In other words, you need to eat organic food that grows in your region. It also means that subsistence gardening, growing your own products and eating them, will ensure a harmonious and dynamic way of life to anyone willing to give up sausages.

Eating Macrobiotic
Gwyneth Paltrow for The Guardian

In other words, organic products grown in California are good as well as those grown in whatever local region you live in. Even in colder climates, where local products don’t grow year round, you can still come up with something. That’s because Macrobiotic nutrition is based on cereals, so buckwheat, lentils, oats, corn, beans and any whole grains. These are welcome not only because they are healthy, but because you can find them in any region of the world, year round.

In general, the Macrobiotic Diet is all about balance, so the products, which increase acidity should be excluded from the diet (i.e., tomatoes, citrus fruits, vinegar, eggplants.) It’s recommended to only use vegetable oils for cooking, for example corn oil, but an even better choice is sesame oil.

Speaking of sesame seeds, they are welcome too as are sunflower seeds, almonds , hazelnuts, and other nuts (except for peanuts.) Some of the vegetable in this diet that can be eaten in unlimited amounts include; cabbage, Broccoli, cauliflower, pumpkin, Chinese cabbage, onions, and radishes. The following foods are okay to eat, but in reduced quantities; cucumbers, celery, and lettuce leaves

Strange as it may seem, most Japanese dishes belong to Macrobiotics. The best start to the day is miso soup. It has a cleansing effect, as if washing away the toxins accumulated over the night and adjusting the body properly.

If possible, start each day with miso soup to ensure good digestion. This of course may soon be boring, but if you can, just try to drink miso soup in the morning for 10 days. All the Japanese start their day this way and continue it with seaweed and fresh fish. Maybe that’s why they are all so tiny and rarely get cancer?

Macrobiotic Plate
Macrobiotic Plate, welcometotheharvest.com.au

Michio Kushi, the pioneer of the macrobiotic movement, teaches macrobiotics since 1950. It was he who dispelled the myth of the necessity of eating meat and dairy products for professional male athletes by switching a Japanese baseball team to a Macrobiotic Diet. The team’s results improved— athletes were less tired, exercised more, and had better athletic endurance.

That’s why Macrobiotics is a great nutrition plan that leads to complete body balance. It will help to cope with overweight, boost immunity, and add energy. The Macrobiotic Diet is designed to help the body with immunity. While on the Macrobiotic diet, people rarely get sick, look fresher, and are usually optimistic. Macrobiotics may also serve as cancer prevention.

In my native Russia the Macrobiotic Diet is still not very popular, but thanks to Julia Bordovskikh awareness is growing. Julia says that Macrobiotics helped her lose the hateful 3-4 kilos, which were stubbornly refusing to budge after the birth of her second child. In Russia, it was she who started promoting Macrobiotics to the masses. For example, she took everyone to SHA … And now she promotes the diet by using a Macrobiotic menu at her restaurant, Bosco Cafe.

Speaking about SHA

The half clinic–half spa located in the suburbs of Alicante (Spain), looks like a full-fledged 5 star hotel. SHA advocates healthy food and does not approve of using medicines for recovery. At least in one week there you can improve the function of your digestive system, cleanse intestines, and lose up to five kilograms. However, this does not come cheap, a week at SHA costs about 3,000 Euros, with accommodations, activities, and a basic package of body treatments (massage, drainage, facial treatments, reflexology.) And, for a fee, you can add almost any other procedure (i.e., deep colon cleansing or Botox.)

SHA Wellness Center
SHA Wellness Center

A day at SHA looks something like this… Your morning will start at 8 AM with walking. For an hour you’ll be doing Nordic walking (with poles) briskly. The Macrobiotic discipline does not welcome running. According to macrobiotic advocates, running shakes internal organs, disrupting their balance. You can walk without poles, not fast, but a long distance. It’s a good thing the road is picturesque. This can be a walk through the hills to the lighthouse or along the sea.

Then you eat breakfast. The core of nutrition at SHA is macrobiotic, so there are NO dairy products, caffeine, meat, fizzy drinks, sugar, alcohol, or technologically processed food. After breakfast look forward to having one of the various body care procedures offered at SHA.

In the afternoon there is lunch and leisure time. You can swim and sunbathe or go on a guided tour (although a guided tour can be dangerous business because you may be tempted to eat something forbidden and fail the diet.) Then comes Dinner. Yes! There is dinner, and that’s a good thing. In many slimming institutions dinner is prohibited. In my opinion, I think this only makes patients unhappy.

The program also includes macrobiotic cooking classes so you can begin eating macrobiotic when you return home. Here is what a sample Macrobiotic Meal Plan Looks like:


Macrobiotic

 Breakfast:

Miso soup

Rice crackers

Oats water porridge with agave syrup

 


 

 MacrobioticLunch:

Broccoli cream soup

Quinoa with raisins and pine nuts

 


 

MacrobioticDinner:

Salmon w/ red cabbage

Cooked green beans

 


 

hCG diet (hCG – human chorionic gonadotropin)

This diet is based on human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), a hormone produced by placenta during pregnancy. This hormone reduces hunger and accelerates fat mobilization using it as a source of energy. The hormone can be taken in drops, injections and even rubbed into the skin in the form of cream. This diet is now very popular in Hollywood. However, it is not approved by the Ministry of Health and its consequences are unknown.

This is how it works:

The diet lasts from three weeks on, depending on how many kilograms you plan to lose. Normally in three weeks you can lose at least five kilograms.

In the first days of dieting you can lose up to one kilogram a day. By the way, nutritionists do not recommend diets with a daily weight loss of more than one kilogram. Later you will lose no more than 300-500 grams a day.

The diet allows to have only 500 calories a day. It’s very little!! And you probably wonder — is it possible to eat anything at all on 500 calories? Here’s a sample meal plan to give you an idea of what this diet entails.


hCG DietBreakfast:

Coffee or Tea (Unlimited)

sub milk & sugar with stevia

 

 


LhCG Dietunch:

100 grams of any lean protein including veal, chicken breast, white fish, lobster, crab, and shrimp. Plus any  vegetable

A small loaf of bread (preferably rye or whole grain)  & A piece of fruit.


hCG Diet

 Dinner:

A variation of lunch.

 

 


 

Any oils and fats, whether of animal or vegetable origin, should be excluded. Salt, pepper, vinegar, mustard (powder), garlic, basil, parsley and cilantro are allowed.

During the diet fatty creams should not be applied on the body and you should not have massage. As doctors explained it to me, after three weeks of this nutrition plan combined with hCG influence on the brain, namely hypothalamus, metabolic processes of your body start working as if from scratch. Roughly speaking, we deceive the brain by programming it to use less calories. By the way, the number of calories can be increased to 900 after the first week and to 1100 after the second.

Of course, anyone would say that if you eat so little calories, you’ll have effect in any case, BUT the main idea of ​​this diet is not to regain weight after completing it. This is due to hCG, which rearranges all metabolic processes in the desired way. If a person is a hero and survived at least three weeks on hCG diet, there’s nothing left to fear! Somehow magically people switch from sweets and buns to 2000 calories of healthy food a day, and no sauces and gravies, casseroles and brawn.

Besides, the only pleasant thing in this diet is that within the first two days, while taking the first doses of hCG, it is required to eat as much fatty food as possible. So the body mobilizes, readjusts to the diet and therefore prevents hunger.

These are two radically different diets and probably each one is not for everyone. At least now you can continue your research and talk to your health practitioner if one interests you at all. Wishing everyone greater health and happiness!

Story by Masha Lopatova © Fashion IQ 2015

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