Another Benefit of the HCG Diet cleansing your palate
The HCG Diet Protocol is an effective weight loss method for those seeking to achieve rapid, substantial weight loss, (usually twenty to thirty pounds in about a month!) but maintaining the loss presents another challenge! This is especially true for those people who were overweight as the result of frequently eating commercially prepared and processed foods. These types of foods are laden with sugar and salt and, while they may be most pleasing to our taste buds, they’re normally high in calories, carbs and fat and not nearly as nutritious as whole, unprocessed foods.
Let’s talk about our taste buds for a minute since at times we feel like these little guys are running our lives! Our taste buds detect five distinct tastes: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami (o͞oˈmämē) which means “savory”. Our taste buds play an important role in the body; they are designed to keep us alive.
Across cultures, humans generally like sweet foods and dislike bitter foods. According to Dr. Linda Bartoshuk, PhD, “The taste system evolved to protect a baby who hasn’t learned anything about what is good and bad for himself yet.” She explains that this is because infants come into the world loving a sweet taste since they are accustomed to the natural sugar in mother’s milk. Natural sugar provides energy and fuel for the brain while a bitter taste signals the brain that there is a toxin present.
Sodium, salt, is a mineral that is essential to our skeletal and nervous system and so many peoples’ bodies naturally crave it. (Who doesn’t like salty snacks, right?)
Since most human beings have these natural tendencies to like sweet and salty foods, it is easy to get lured in to eating convenient, processed foods which tend to be unhealthy and lead to weight gain. Once we’ve lost weight, we have to figure out ways to keep these little troublemaking taste buds under control. In order to accomplish this, we first need to reset our palate, which the HCG Diet naturally does. Resetting the palate is another one of the great benefits of the HCG Diet Protocol. For 21-40 days, you choose from a list of unprocessed meat/seafood, fruits and vegetables which automatically eliminates sweet and salty foods and snacks. You are encouraged to flavor your food with pure spices since these are healthy and allowed on the protocol. You drink some tea and coffee and lots of water but eliminate diet drinks and soda which contain chemicals and artificial sweeteners.
Eating and drinking this way will help to reset your palate. Super sweet and salty foods that you liked before doing the HCG Diet Protocol won’t appeal to you as much anymore. This will aid you in maintaining your new, lower weight. After reaching maintenance and resetting your palate, it is also the perfect time to try vegetables and fruits that you thought you didn’t like. One of our customers went on and on raving about how good oranges were and how she didn’t realize it until she did the HCG Diet! So, go ahead, be brave and adventurous, you may be in for a healthy, tasty surprise!
