Dr. Richard Cheng, Cheng Integrative Health Center

Objectives of 2 weeks on protein bars

• To show you that you can lose lots of weight, when you are put on an appropriate diet;
• To boost your confidence that you can lost weight on this diet;
• To establish a baseline weight loss amount.  We’ll use this baseline amount to measure future success.

First Week on hCG Diet

At the 1st day of your 1st week, weigh yourself and enter the weight into your account online (It’s ok if you weighed differently on your scale than on ours.  What we are looking for is the rate of weight loss.  Weigh in online again in the middle and the end of the 1st week.

• Breakfast (~6-8 AM) : make sure you start your day with a breakfast.  Your breakfast should consist of a protein bar (ours only), a glass of water, or a cup of coffee or green tea.  Do not eat anything else.  Definitely do not eat (or drink) any bread, donuts, eggs, milk or dairy products, bacon, not even fruit.  Just one protein bar and lots of water.  You eat a protein bar not as food, but as medicine to prevent muscle loss.
• Lunch: eat another protein bar, a green salad consisting of only green leafy vegetables (cabbage, lettuce, celery or spinach etc).  You may use vinegar, lemon juice or vinaigrette as salad dressing.  Do not put any croutons, bacon, cheese, eggs meats on salad.  Do not eat any rice, bread or pasta.  Drink lots of water, or green tea.  No more coffee. Other than water, you should be having anything else.  You shouldn’t be hungry.   If you really want to have some snack, you may snack on carrots, cucumber, or celery sticks (you may dip into soy sauce, but not rich creamy sauce such as Thousand Island or Ranch).
• Dinner (supper): the same as for lunch.  Other than water, you should be having anything else.  You shouldn’t be hungry.  If you are hungry, report to us.  If you really want to have some snack, you may snack on carrots, cucumber, or celery sticks (you may dip into soy sauce, but not rich creamy sauce such as Thousand Island or Ranch).
• Exercise: we encourage you to do exercise.  Any form of exercise is fine.  Do not push yourself when exercising.  If you feel a tired or uncomfortable, take a break.  During the first few days to a week after starting the program, your body is adjusting  to the new condition.  You may feel a bit easy to get tired, easy to get short of breath, esp. when climbing stairs.  That’s normal.  Take a break when that happens.
• Do not smoke cigarettes.  This is actually the best time to quit smoking.  Our medications help to reduce your body’s reaction to dieting (to smoking too).  If you quit smoking now, you won’t feel as bad.  Talk to us about this.  We’ll add other cigarette quitting aids to your plan.
• Do not drink any alcohol (beer, wine or liquor).
• How to take medications:
• • Take 2 capsules of Green Coffee Extract twice daily (30 minutes before lunch and before supper).
  • Take 2 capsules of Garcinia twice daily.
  • Inject under the belly skin 1 ml of B12, once a week.
  • Inject under the belly skin 0.1 ml of hCG.  This can be done any time of the day.  Choose a convenient time for you.  It’s a good idea to stick to the same time, say, evening hours.
  • Take Herbal Diuretic or maxzide in the morning (we usually start with Herbal Diuretic, as Maxzide is stronger and may cause some side effects).  You should expect more urine output than usual.  If not, we need to switch to a stronger water pill;
  • Take Thyroid pills in the morning,
  • Take Trazadone 30 minutes before bed time, as this will make you sleepy; If we give you Fluoxetine, take it before bed time as well.
  • Take 2 capsules of 3 Ballerina before bed time.  Do not take 3 Ballerina in the morning.
  • Take  T-Gran or M-Vite multi-vitamin tablets at dinner (supper) time.  do not take it in the morning, as it tends to cause nausea.
• Expected weight loss: average 7-15 lbs (with more weight loss for bigger people).  Your first week’s weight loss is greater than usual, as you may have known, due to water loss, and colon cleansing.

Objectives of 2 weeks on protein bars

• To show you that you can lose lots of weight, when you are put on an appropriate diet;
• To boost your confidence that you can lost weight on this diet;
• To establish a baseline weight loss amount.  We’ll use this baseline amount to measure future success.

2nd Week on hCG Diet

At the 1st day of your 2nd week, weigh yourself and enter the weight into your account online.  Weigh in online again in the middle and the end of the 2nd week.

By 2nd week, you are most likely adjusted to the new lifestyle.  You shouldn’t have any more side effects or difficulties.  The food intake is the same as the first week.  There is some minor change to medications.

• Breakfast (~6-8 AM) : make sure you start your day with a breakfast.  Your breakfast should consist of a protein bar (ours only), a glass of water, or a cup of coffee or green tea.  Do not eat anything else.  Definitely do not eat (or drink) any bread, donuts, eggs, milk or dairy products, bacon, not even fruit.  Just one protein bar and lots of water.  You eat a protein bar not as food, but as medicine to prevent muscle loss.
• Lunch: eat another protein bar, a green salad consisting of only green leafy vegetables (cabbage, lettuce, celery or spinach etc).  You may use vinegar, lemon juice or vinaigrette as salad dressing.  Do not put any croutons, bacon, cheese, eggs meats on salad.  Do not eat any rice, bread or pasta.  Drink lots of water, or green tea.  No more coffee. Other than water, you should be having anything else.  You shouldn’t be hungry.   If you really want to have some snack, you may snack on carrots, cucumber, or celery sticks (you may dip into soy sauce, but not rich creamy sauce such as Thousand Island or Ranch).
• Dinner (supper): the same as for lunch.  Other than water, you should be having anything else.  You shouldn’t be hungry.  If you are hungry, report to us.  If you really want to have some snack, you may snack on carrots, cucumber, or celery sticks (you may dip into soy sauce, but not rich creamy sauce such as Thousand Island or Ranch).
• Exercise: we encourage you to do exercise.  Any form of exercise is fine.  Do not push yourself when exercising.  If you feel a tired or uncomfortable, take a break.  During the first few days to a week after starting the program, your body is adjusting  to the new condition.  You may feel a bit easy to get tired, easy to get short of breath, esp. when climbing stairs.  That’s normal.  Take a break when that happens.
• Do not smoke cigarettes.  This is actually the best time to quit smoking.  Our medications help to reduce your body’s reaction to dieting (to smoking too).  If you quit smoking now, you won’t feel as bad.  Talk to us about this.  We’ll add other cigarette quitting aids to your plan.
• Do not drink any alcohol (beer, wine or liquor).
• Medications. Take all medications the same as the 1st week.
• Expected weight loss: average 4-7 lbs.  The easy weight is already lost.  This 4-7 lbs weight loss is your net weight loss (mostly should be excess fat and sugar which is stored in the muscles and the liver).  This amount of weight loss is your baseline weight loss.  We’ll use this amount of weight loss to gauge your future success.  In other words, in the future, if you achieve this amount of weight loss, we need to figure out why and how to improve.

The 3rd week is the transition week to your regular food.  Breakfast and lunch remain the same.  Dinner will be different.

At the 1st day of your third week, weigh yourself and enter the weight into your account online.  Weigh in online again in the middle and the end of the 3rd week.

• Breakfast (~6-8 AM) : make sure you start your day with a breakfast.  Your breakfast should consist of a protein bar (ours only), a glass of water, or a cup of coffee or green tea.  Do not eat anything else.  Definitely do not eat (or drink) any bread, donuts, eggs, milk or dairy products, bacon, not even fruit.  Just one protein bar and lots of water.  You eat a protein bar not as food, but as medicine to prevent muscle loss.
• Lunch: eat another protein bar, a green salad consisting of only green leafy vegetables (cabbage, lettuce, celery or spinach etc).  You may use vinegar, lemon juice or vinaigrette as salad dressing.  Do not put any croutons, bacon, cheese, eggs meats on salad.  Do not eat any rice, bread or pasta.  Drink lots of water, or green tea.  No more coffee. Other than water, you should be having anything else.  You shouldn’t be hungry.   If you really want to have some snack, you may snack on carrots, cucumber, or celery sticks (you may dip into soy sauce, but not rich creamy sauce such as Thousand Island or Ranch).
• Dinner: do not eat protein bar.  Eat 4-5 oz (raw weight) of high protein food.  High protein food includes fish (including shell fish and shrimp), chicken or turkey breasts or drumsticks with skin and fat removed, pork chop with skin and fat removed.  Do not eat beef, bacon, sausage, etc.  You may steam, grill, bake, barbecue them.  Do not use oil (no olive oil either), butter or margarine, honey, sugar etc in cooking.  You don’t want to introduce any unnecessary (bad) calories to your diet.  What you need is protein, but carb or fat.  You should also eat a green salad (the same as before).
• Expected result: you should see lose similar amount of weight during the 3rd week compared to the 2nd week, or >4 lbs/week.
  • If you lost similar amount of weight in the 2nd and 3rd week or great than 4 bls/week, then you may continue to read Dietary Instructions for Weeks Beyond 3rd Week.
  • If your weight loss is significantly less than the 2nd week (or less than 4 lbs), you probably didn’t follow our dietary instructions or you may have other issues (for more info click here).

If you have done well in the first 3 weeks of hCG plan, you should have lost at least 15 lbs by now.

Again, weigh in at the beginning, the middle and the end of the week (basically weigh in twice a week).

If you did well in the 3rd week, that means you read and followed the dietary instruction on how to eat your foods.  Congratulations!  Now you don’t have to eat protein bars all the day.  You can eat your own food now.  Most people, however, still eat a protein bar for breakfast and a protein bar for lunch.  They cost ~1$/meal only.   Where can you find a 1$/meal these days?

• Breakfast: you may choose any one (but only one) of the follow selections.
  • A protein bar (ours are recommended), or
  • 3 boiled egg whites, or
  • 4 oz of lunch meats (chicken or turkey),
  • a serving of Greek Chobani yogurt.
  • Do not eat: bread, cereal, bacon, sausage,  whole eggs, muffin or donuts.
  • Drink a glass of water, or green tea, or a cup of coffee.  Do not add sugar to your drinks.  In general, we recommend NOT to use sweetener. Because we are trying to wean you off of the sweet cravings.
• Lunch: you may choose any one (but only one) of the follow selections.
  • A protein bar (ours are recommended), or
  • 3 boiled egg whites, or
  • 4 oz of lunch meats (chicken or turkey), a serving of Greek Chobani yogurt, or
  • 4 oz (raw) of pork chop, chicken/turkey breast, white fish (or other sea food).  Do not add oil or anything that has calories.  You may add spice, herbs in cooking.
  • A green salad: same as before, with lemon juice or vinegar or at most vinaigrette as salad dressing.
  • Do not eat: bread, cereal, bacon, sausage,  whole eggs, muffin or donuts.
  • Drink a glass of water, or green tea, or a cup of coffee.  Do not add sugar to your drinks.  In general, we recommend NOT to use sweetener, because we are trying to wean you off of the sweet cravings.
• Dinner: you may choose any one (but only one) of the follow selections.
  • A protein bar (ours are recommended), or
  • 3 boiled egg whites, or
  • 4 oz of lunch meats (chicken or turkey), a serving of Greek Chobani yogurt, or
  • 4 oz (raw) of pork chop, chicken/turkey breast, white fish (or other sea food).  Do not add oil or anything that has calories.  You may add spice, herbs in cooking.
  • A green salad: same as before, with lemon juice or vinegar or at most vinaigrette as salad dressing.
  • Do not eat: bread, cereal, bacon, sausage,  whole eggs, muffin or donuts.Drink a glass of water, or green tea, or a cup of coffee.  Do not add sugar to your drinks.
  • Do not drink any alcohol beverages.  Alcohols are carbs.
• Expected result: you should be able to expect similar weight (>4 lbs) as of your 2nd or 3rd week.  If you didn’t lose that much weight, here is your guideline.

The 1:10/500/5 Rule of Dr. Cheng’s Diet

1. The 1:10 Rule: Anything you put in your mouth should meet this 1:10 Rule. The 1:10 Rule is: for every gram of protein, the total calorie amount should be 10 or less. Most of food packages come with nutrition label. For example, Chobani yogurt label reads the total protein is 14 grams and the total calorie is 140 calories per container.  The protein: calorie is 14 : 140 = 1:10. So this is a good food to eat.  This 1:10 rule implies that for every 100 calories, 4o calories are from protein.  The remaining 6o calories are from carb and fat.
2. The 500 Rule: the total daily calorie allowed is 500.
3. The 5 lb/wk Rule: You should expect to lose ~5 pounds per week. If you didn’t lose 5 lbs or more, you didn’t follow Rules 1 and 2. You need to ask yourself why you couldn’t follow.
4. But it may also be that you are hungry or you are craving or you have side effects. If you didn’t follow the Rules 1 and 2, then stick to these rules.