I
decided to create this blog to share my experience approaching Dr Bernstein diet and my progress with
it.
Most
probably one of the most common things in a woman's life is that issue….losing
some pounds, so hard to deal with.
I
must to say, before immigrating to Canada I never had big problems with my
weight. Sure I was still seeing myself a bit overweight, but really? No, I
wasn't.
Obviously
– as my family doctor was trying to make me understand – changing country with
different weather and type of food can have negative effects on our bodies….why
never positives?!
Anyhow,
as Italian I've a past diet of a daily basis of pasta, pizza, bread and cheese
but never gained so much I did in the first 6 months here in Toronto. It must be the water someone once told
me. So I stopped eating pasta, cut down the pizza – mostly because so hard to
find a good one, but my weight did not stop to increase! WTH!
I
decided to ask for help my GP, she introduced me to a dietician – a very
young-slightly-overweight girl, most likely just graduated, that gave me a nutrition
lesson using little toys representing 1 cup of different type of foods…I felt
like an idiot without any concept of what is a cup of rice. Not that I need a
dietician to feel like that…
But
although the useless hour spent in her office I gave it a try and took
a look at the Ontario Food Guide closely….I managed to lose half pound in 2.5
weeks, I know pretty impressive right?
Despite
the half pound lost I was somehow
still not satisfied with my weight so I decided to go to a nutritionist. This
guy was suggested me by one of my friends whom lost lots of weight eating very
healthy. So good stuff I thought. The
fact that my friend gained back everything was irrelevant at the time obviously;
you look for the light ignoring any signal of danger to go to it.
The
nutritionist gave me a specific list of things to eat every 2 weeks – including
breakfast, lunch, dinner and 2 snacks, and every 2 weeks I'd go there for the
weigh-in and to pay the bi-weekly fee.
I
did manage to lose some weight, I believe it was around 4-5 pounds, I was
satisfied though. I was cooking basically every single time I was in my
apartment, but enjoying it and learning new flavours, changing different types
of food.
Eventually
I quit though, he kept on giving me list of foods that were including meats and
- as vegetarian - I felt he was not really giving any thoughts on my tailored
diet while just randomly including items in a diet plan.
Fighting
my weight was still a problem, having a sedentary job where I sit for 8 hours
for sure did not help, so I found a second job that kept me busy quite a lot. I
even lost like 6 pounds in the first 2 months. I felt great! It didn't last too
long though…I guess my body adjusted to that pace and started to save again. WTH! If I could just say to
it: don't save anything! I promise I will eat every day!
I
tried it doesn't work…
One
day one lady that was working in my office, wanted to share her experience and
how she lost so much weight. The room let me tell you, was full! I didn't even
know we had so many women on my floor.
She
was using the Herbalife meal
replacements so me too I decided – impressed by her results – to give it a try.
As right now, that was my most successful diet ever! I managed to lose almost
40% of my extra-weight, I felt healthy.
I
believe I did it for almost 6 months, breakfast and dinner shakes, and I was
eating whatever I liked during lunch.
But
after 6 months of shakes and washing my blender twice a day I got sick of it.
For me it's not a long term diet, you cannot survive with 2 shakes per day for
the rest of your life. I needed something more realistic, so I quit.
Slowly
I started to gain all my weight back, so I quit my second job and I started to
go to the gym. I never liked running but somehow I got addicted to the
tread-mill and committed to my hour of jogging almost every day.
But – as often
happen to someone that never had such running habits – one of my knees got
injured so I had to slow down my jogging addiction.
In the mean time I decided
to start again a second job so really no chances to go to the gym anymore.
Having
a second job can keep you away from junk food, that's true but it also cut
drastically your social life and your sleep-hours so after roughly 6 months I
went back to mono-job days and gain-weight scenarios.
Few
weeks ago - thinking ahead to my summer-beach-vacation, I was depressed looking at
my mirror even more going shopping for bathing suits. So one of my friends at work
was telling me about Dr. Bernstein diet and how well it worked for him and his
wife.
He did lost lot of weight I could tell but I really didn't know how the
whole diet was structured.
So I asked him tons of questions and did lots of
researches online, not that many blogs out there though, but I managed to
collect all the information I needed so I decided to join the program.
Dr.
Bernstein office is very close from where I work, in the downtown core so
logistically convenient for me.
I'm psychologically preparing myself
to this life change and to realize how much is needed for my body and my health in general.
