Are you moving into phase 3 HCG and want to know whether you can start to exercise?
Well, you probably need to read this article.
Like most diets, HCG requires you to be careful in transitioning your body through your new rhythm of eating, drinking, sleeping, and exercise. It’s important that you are careful because your body needs careful guidance so that it doesn’t start to get confused and act abnormally.
If you don’t take care, you may start to experience significant symptoms like fatigue, nausea, aches and pains, and an upset digestive system. Everybody is different, and some people may be much more prone to such symptoms as they transition through a diet.
So, in this article, we will answer an essential question to help you through your transition: Can I exercise in the HCG diet phase 3?
What Is Phase 3 HCG?
First of all, let’s get clear on what phase 3 of the HCG diet is all about. Here are the key elements of the phase.
What Is the Purpose of Phase 3?
The purpose of phase three is to maintain the progress you have made in phases 1 and 2. So, you’re not doing too much radical change during this time.
This is the very last phase of the HCG diet, so your main focus is to monitor your weight, control your food consumption, and maintain the weight you have arrived at after stage 2.
How Long Does Phase 3 Last For?
Phase 3 should last for around three weeks. However, if you wish to, you can maintain it for longer.
The reason phase 3 takes 3 weeks is that this is approximately the time it takes for your metabolism to stabilize from the changes you have already made. During this period, your metabolism is liable to fluctuate.
This is why you need to carefully monitor your food consumption.
HCG Phase 3 Foods
The HCG phase 3 food list should include absolutely minimal starches and sugars.
Starch foods are high in carbohydrates and will include:
- Bread
- Potatoes
- Rice
- Cereals
- Pasta
- Oats
- Rye
- Barley
Sugars obviously include all of those foods that have refined sugars within them: soda, chocolate, candy, and so forth.
But sugars are also found in high quantities in many natural foods, particularly fruits.
Other than avoiding sugars, you should be trying to consume fresh, healthy food. An HCG phase sample menu might consist of:
- Breakfast: low-fat yogurt, tea, and half an avocado with olive oil
- Lunch: Steak with vegetables
- Dinner: Salad with greens, sweet potato, and pine nuts
If you are struggling to come up with ideas for what to eat during this period, you can find a lot of HCG phase 3 recipes online to help you out.
Phase 3 HCG Calories
During the HCG diet phase 3, you need to be trying to get your calorie count up above 1500 per day. This is essential if you want to reset your metabolism.
However, don’t exceed the calorie count by more than a couple of hundred calories.
During this period, you are trying to maintain the weight you have arrived at after phases 1 and 2. So, weigh yourself each day and adjust your calories as necessary to stay within range of that weight (give or take 3 pounds).
The Big Question: Can You Exercise on Phase 3 HCG?
The short answer: Yes, you can exercise on phase 3 HCG.
The main shock that your body has experienced during phases 1 and 2 of the HCG diet is now over. So, your body should be more or less properly moderating your energy reserves.
This means that it is now reasonable to start reintroducing exercise into your daily schedule. In fact, you should definitely be trying to reintroduce exercise at this point, even if it was not a big part of your weekly habits prior to starting the HCG diet.
How to Reintroduce Exercise
During Phase 3 HCG, it’s absolutely essential that you reintroduce exercise gradually.
Whether you have just come off a diet or not, you should always build up to an exercise routine. Your body is not used to a heavy load. So, if you just jump right into running long miles or lifting heavy weights, you can do serious damage to your muscles and your general wellbeing.
The goal, then, is to increase your exercise load each day and to always stop exercising at a point at which you feel you could keep going for a little bit longer. Also, make sure you incorporate rest days into your routine. For the first week, take a rest day in between every workout day.
Then, in the second week, incorporate one back-to-back set of workout days. Lastly, in the third week, you can get back to a healthy routine of 4 to 5 workout sessions in a week.
A further piece of advice is, to begin with cardio before you start lifting any weights. Your cardio system is, literally, the ‘heart’ of your body’s exercise capacity.
So, building cardio health before jumping into weights will allow you to recover more easily from your weight sessions and, also, achieve more as you do them.
The very last thing to remember is that you should be stretching before and after every exercise session. Your muscles are not accustomed to exercise, so you have to treat them kindly!
Phase 3 Is the Make or Break Phase of the HCG Diet
You should now have a good idea of how to introduce exercise during the phase 3 HCG diet.
A very last piece of parting advice, however, is to remember that this is the phase that will really make or break the diet. Many people become complacent after doing the hard yards of phases 1 or 2.
During phase 3, they can often get slack and not watch their foods, calories, and weight.
So, make sure you are absolutely vigilant during this period to ensure that your body stabilizes itself and continues to keep you at an optimal weight for the long term.
If you’ve found this information useful, why not check out some of our other great articles on health topics?