In 2008 I got on the scales …. I knew I was putting on weight, but I’d been in total denial. I’d never ever had issues with my weight – I could eat what I wanted, exercise if I wanted to or not, and I never put weight on … those scales never moved an inch!

I finally summoned the courage to climb aboard … 86 kgs? That’s 20 kilos over my normal weight! I was gutted, more so because I didn’t know what I needed to do to get the weight off quickly and keep it off … for good. I’d lived my entire life around people who yoyo dieted, so I knew none of the traditional diets out there really worked … not one of them. I didn’t want to be like that … I didn’t want to yoyo.

I’ve always had a holistic and slightly alternative approach to life, figuring that there’s always a natural solution to fixing whatever needs fixing. So I was sure nature must have a solution to weight loss, I just had to find it. So I went on the hunt …. But this was in the early days of Google so there wasn’t much on the internet other than mainstream diets which I knew wouldn’t work.

While browsing I stumbled across a manuscript written by Albert T.W. Simeons M.D. called “Pounds & Inches, A New Approach to Obesity”. Dr Simeon’s weight loss program was based on Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG), the pregnancy hormone.

The only problem was he died in 1970, and his studies had been conducted in the 50’s. I doubted what I had found could mean much … if his studies were confirmed then hCG would be more widely known … maybe they were discredited as being untrue?

The plot thickens! What I then discovered was a continuing campaign to discredit Dr Simeon’s findings. It turns out you can’t patent a naturally occurring human hormone, which is what hCG is. And with a diet industry worth billions of dollars every year, it seemed that someone didn’t want hCG out in the public domain. So it went underground, limited to the rich and famous and those in the know.

But my curiosity prevailed. Dr Simeon’s manuscript was as vague as it was it was exciting. And if what he said was true, and his studies appeared to back it up, then perhaps I had found something akin to the ‘cure’ for weight loss and obesity?

I continued to study everything I could find … and everything I studied continued to add up to a “oh, heck yes!” So I went looking for a source for this ‘miracle’ hormone. First I went to my doctor to request a prescription – she looked at me like I’d grown horns. The I rang all the Compound Pharmacies to ask if they made hCG and which doctors in Australia prescribed it. I finally found the one and only doctor in Melbourne who would. I made an appointment and got my bottle of miracle drops. Finally I could start my journey on the hCG weight loss program – let’s see if this really works.

I couldn’t believe it – the weight was dropping off me! After 38 days I’d dropped 10 kgs – without feeling hungry or needing to exercise. It worked! But it was also the hardest and most restrictive diet I’d ever done … all I had was Dr. Simeon’s 1954 manuscript to follow, and it was pretty limited.

But my journey didn’t stop there … I decided the hCG protocol shouldn’t be this hard. In the next instalment I’ll tell you about how I updated Dr. Simeon’s protocol and how my unique version of the program was born.