Second Doctor Appointment

Since today is Friday I went to the clinic for my usual weigh-in and injection, I also had the doctor appointment. I was mentioning to the doctor that physically I feel weak all the times and, although I'm very pleased with the results, I don't have my usual strengths to do things I use to do. I use to walk to go to the clinic in the morning, now I don't feel having enough energy so I take the streetcar. He told me that it shouldn't be like this and I should feel just fabulous from all points of view. Which it sounds really nice true. So he decided to change my Cal-K pills from 6 a day to K-Lite 2 a day – one divided between lunch and afternoon snack. This K-Lite is a fizzy tablet that becomes really carbonated in the water with a colour and resembling taste of orange, he said like a FANTA, but I wouldn't believe that.

I tried the tablet and I almost throw up for the disgusting taste and gas that this thing emanates. It might works in terms of giving me energy, but it tastes awful and I can't drink it without feeling sick. I could have 40 pills a day but don't let me drink poison or I won't take it.

So I'll skip this K-Lite for now and stick to my 6 daily pills of Cal-K, during Maintenance I'll be down to just 2 pills a day, since I won't be any more in ketosis.

Since yesterday I cut one of my apples out and got back to the strawberries delight, they have way less calories than apples and my scale this morning was confirming me this thing as well, I'm back on 56.2Kg, which is my minimum so far.

I feel hungry all the times, I drink almost 3L of water every day and tons of other liquids, nothing helps when you're hungry, I don't believe in the theory that water makes you feel full, well then my water is defective.

I decided to eat every time I feel starving, if my stomach growls then I'll try to have something to eat. Ok the starvation and ketosis but I can't stand the growling part during a meeting, it's terrible. Of course I won't go over the allowed portions for the strict Diet. Vegetables are the only friends in this Diet, the total daily serving is 460g, which for a leafy green vegetable is a lot so when you're dying for some food or snack it comes handy having few grams of anything you can eat. Proteins and Fruits go very fast and the quantity is very limited so it's hard to help the cravings with those 2 servings. I don't even mention the Bread substitute ones, since they are almost inexistent. 

Maintenance Consultation

Yesterday I went to the clinic for my Maintenance Consultation. The nurse was kind of bored to go through the information regarding the plan but hey I guess it's her job. She was basically reading the little booklet – which she gave me at the end – any question I was trying to ask her was answered with a: "it's explained in the booklet for you to read…", I guess they could save some time to these nurses and just give us the booklet!

Anyhow, the Maintenance Program re-introduces some new types of allowed food, slowly, week after week. I'll be down to one fruit serving though, but the Protein intake will go from 7oz to 8/10oz, possibly divided in 3 portions during the day with a 4 hours interval between each other. Positive thing of the maintenance Program is having unlimited vegetables, not any type of vegetables of course but lots that I like, even eggplants in the first week.

One smart thing mentioned in the booklet is that is better to separate all the meal in many small meals during the day, rather than 2/3 big ones. It makes sense, having a huge lunch or dinner will not help maintaining the weight, it makes more sense to eat every 2 hours or so or whenever I feel hungry, of course without exceeding the recommended portions.

I'm happy to know that I can still have my 250ml of Jell-O and a new addition will be a free 110g of Plain 0% Yogurt that I could have for breakfast with my warm apple and cinnamon. I can now enjoy a bit more the rest of the Protein serving through the day.

I'm not ready to go to maintenance yet though, I want to reach my goal first, for them is around 120 pounds but for me is 53 Kg which should be just a bit less of that.

One of my daily Menu

I went to the clinic this morning for my usual injection and their weigh-in showed a weight increase of 1 pound. Unbelievable or not, I gained 200g based on my scale. I think it was something that I drunk yesterday, maybe too many teas with Splenda made me retain some water. Hopefully it's not going to stay; today I'll try to drink tea as less as I can.

Another thing that happened today is my new food discovery, this time it was not a mistake but a purposely decided breakfast choice that resulted in a delicious meal! I brought with me in the office my food for the day and for breakfast I had half of my usual asparagus omelet and – as additional dish to eat – I had the Plain 0% Yogurt where I added a warm apple cut in small pieces. To be honest I never had yogurt with apple before, I always preferred berries but the taste of the warm apple in my cool yogurt was absolutely delicious. Tomorrow I'll have the full serving instead of half of it.

Here's my menu for tomorrow:

BREAKFAST

•         175g LIBERTE' Yogurt Plain 0%
•          1 tsp Vanilla Extract
•          1 Apple – cut in small piece and warmed up

LUNCH

•          5/8 oz Egg Whites
•          150g Asparagus
•          ½ slice Wonder Bread Light
•          80g Steamed/Boiled Broccoli
•          PAM spray

DINNER

•          4oz Shiritaki Noodle Fettuccine
•         230g Baby Bok Choy
•          PAM spray
•          18 Goldfish Whole Grain

SNACKS

•          2 Jell-O Kraft – 92g each
•         1 Apple
•         Herbal Teas with Splenda

At the moment I'm having 2 apples a day but I'm thinking to buy a cantaloupe to give some variety to my sugar intake, I feel apples can be heavier at the end of the day.

My Side Effects to Dr. B. Diet Plan

I decided to recap my side effects with my Dr. Bernstein Diet, just to give an idea on what to expect not only for the positives – which there are of course – but also about the negatives and having a better understanding on what this Diet Plan could cause.

Usually in the morning I'm always starving, but the Ketosis is basically this: making your body in a starvation mode so the ketones will send messages to the brain to use the stored fat to save the whole system.

Since I'm dehydrated in the morning, extremely hungry and weak, I can barely walk to go to work. I use to walk to go to the clinic the first week, after that I decided to take the streetcar, definitely too long walk for my weak strengths. So Weakness is one factor that it's constant in my Dr. B. Diet experience, I'm usually a super active woman, I have – outside this plan – the energy of a 5 years old. But not now with the little amount of Calories that I take every day. I go to sleep way earlier than normal; I'm slow in doing almost every physical activity, maybe due to the low sugar intake. For this reason but not only, having a regular workout is out of discussion.

If you're a woman expect to have your period messed up, most likely absence of ovulation. It is obviously normal; the human body is a perfect machine so there's no chance to prepare the system for a pregnancy when it's in starvation trying to survive!

Hair loss is another common factor of malnutrition, although is medically supervised this Diet allows an average intake of 500/600 Calories, it can be considered malnutrition so your hair may fall down quicker than usual, fish oil could help to prevent this, but it's just fish oil and not a miracle pill.

Less relevant - but still not a pleasant experience for me - are the bruises. Three times a week injections will causes you bruises here and there from time to time, especially when the body fat starts to be less.

Dizziness is another random side effect that I experienced during this Diet Plan, it is clear for my body, that it happens when I'm physically tired, hungry or I simply didn't have my supplement pills yet. I did not find a logic explanation for that, rather than the malnutrition.

I feel always cold, although it seems an unrelated symptom to the Diet, I noticed that lots of people following this Plan had the same issue. I'm not sure if it's the lack of body fat, lack of energy for the body to produce heat or something else.

Overall they're all bearable side effects; the only one that makes my life a bit different is my lack of energy and strengths. It prevents me to do many things I used to do and I enjoy; like hiking, running, going for long walks on the lake, and so on.

7 days left

I've 7 days left in my paid month with the Dr. Bernstein Diet Plan, I'm not sure yet if I'll be able to reach my goal in just a week, I'm planning to lose another 3 Kg and it doesn't sound realistic in only 7 days, but I'll have a better idea on what to do in the next days.

As backup plan I was thinking to buy another 2 weeks and after that going in my free month of maintenance. Some people avoid maintenance thinking that now is easy knowing the Diet Plan and the amount of calories necessary to keep the body in starvation. But I'm concerned about the injections of B6 and B12 that will not absorb fat from my body anymore if I stop doing it.

This morning I had only trace of Ketosis in my sample at home, I assume is normal – women have these up and down periods during the month. Everything is hormones for us and it sucks.

I'm down to 56.2Kg this morning on my scale, and I feel great about this value! I don't recall last time I was so skinny, nobody really noticed my weight loss yet. Here in the office I assume is hard since they see me every day, but I'll have a proof this coming Saturday at my niece's birthday party. Last time I've seen all of them was before starting my Dr. Bernstein Diet.

A good Wednesday with my Dr. Bernstein Diet

It's a good Wednesday today, since the scale signed 57 Kg this morning! I went to the clinic for my usual abdomen injection and they reported a loss of 1.6 pounds, great result. I'm in ketosis almost every morning; today I had with me my evening urine sample and the nurse said that I'm burning even at night after 2/3 hours dinner, which is a positive thing since is the excess fat that I want to lose and keep it away from my body. I feel great I have to say it, very weak maybe but great in terms of motivation. Who knew that I would only need to end my tomatoes addiction?! Now I see results every morning, I'm enjoying food a bit more because I know it's good and won't let me hold on my weight loss. I'm following the Diet religiously, I'm definitely always starving when I go to bed, but it's a strict diet and I knew this. I stopped at Longos after my visit at the clinic and I bought a bottle of water of 1.5L, it's big but it fits my purpose, I don't have to go to the kitchen every half hour to fill up my small 500 ml bottle with the freezing water that we have here in the office; plus I can control better how much I'm drinking. I've already had my 2L of water and it's not even 1PM.

Today I did an incredible "discovery"! Well at least it is for me, I like to believe so.

By mistake at Longos this morning I bought a box of - what looked like to me - sliced cucumbers, to discover, when I was already in the office, that they were sliced zucchini, oh well I said, I'll have it anyway, I always loved zucchini at the end. So I did some researches online to see if it was ok eating raw zucchini, and apparently it's great and the skin contains good antioxidants. Since I don't have anything here for cooking I put 10 slices of zucchini into a small plastic container and microwaved for about 1.5 minutes. The zucchini came out deliciously tasty and with the right softness. I loved it! I'm planning to use it as healthy snack when I'm craving something in the office. My theory is that when you can eat only 500/600 Calories per day then well everything tastes good. But knowing myself, I usually get bored of everything after having it for too long. I guess it's normal for many people; variety is the key, fascinating to me that animals can eat the same exact thing over and over again. But for now, zucchini is my best discovery snack for craving moments! The good thing is that when I'll be on maintenance I can have unlimited vegetables! Forget potatoes – it's not a miracle maintenance program…alas.

Another week with Dr. Bernstein Diet

Today starts another week with my Dr. Bernstein Diet. I was happy this morning to see that I went a bit down my 58 Kg's plateau finally! I see things more positively now, this Diet really puts you in a starvation stress and the only thing you can think about is food and weight loss.

So I went to the clinic this morning for another abdomen injection and the nurse told me that, since I reached the goal they set for me, I'm now eligible to a 4 weeks Maintenance program for free.  It is great to know that I can continue without paying for Maintenance, but I'm not done yet with my weight loss so I'll continue till my month expires and I've lost all I need to lose.

I had few days last week, where I was not losing anything, I actually gained 1 Kg one day, and there's nothing more un-motivating - in this such strict Diet - than gaining weight while following the Plan exactly as required.

For me the solution was avoiding tomatoes, or at least this is what I changed in my Diet so far. I added asparagus, never been one of my favourite vegetables so I never actually had it in the past. I guess my body reacted to this unknown vegetable. Who knows? But in any case the nurse told me that usually asparagus, cabbage and celery are the vegetables that do the trick.

It's been 3 days in a row now that I'm checking my Ketones in the morning and the Ketostix is showing a moderate to high trace of it in my sample. It was confirmed by the nurse this morning as well, she told me it was the darker ketostix she had today so far.  I noticed that it's good in the morning, till after breakfast and then there's no trace of it in my urine samples. It could be due to the water intake that dilutes the ketones or the food, not sure really.

My lunch today was a bit different than usual, I'm becoming really good in preparing omelets so I decided to bring one in the office. Since the day-before-omelet is not really appealing to me, I cooked it this morning. I had the asparagus ready, cleaned and cut in a little bowl and all I needed to add was the egg whites, so I did it. This morning I mixed all the ingredients together with some garlic powder, salt and pepper on a PAM sprayed pan and cooked. It was a nice lunch, warm and healthy. I'm thinking to do a similar one for breakfast, like with zucchini e for dinner I can just have my delicious Shiritaki noodles with some vegetables. I found better results if I don't have my proteins at night.

Gaining weight

So this morning I weighted myself home and – believe it or not – I gained 400g! I know it's nothing and it could be just small water retention but still. I'm having less than 600 Calories per day, I'm not losing any weight, and I even gain pounds! WTH is happening I don't know.

I'm hungry often during the day; if anyone tells you that you don't feel hungry with Dr. Bernstein Diet, it's not true. Yes you could feel that a meal is a lot after a while, but I'm not happy about that, I mean this could be just because my metabolism is slowing down. My body is protecting itself trying to store everything it can.

The nurse this morning suggested me to change something in my food list, like eating asparagus, never been a fan of it but I guess I will try, for the cause. I'm having broccoli today and I'll try to avoid anything that is processed for this coming weekend. If I'm not losing weight by Monday I'll be in serious depression!

I had another abdomen injection today; she was telling me that it's better to stick for a month on the same spot for the injections, to see results. I personally would like to end the Diet within a month and then go on maintenance. Obviously I planned all that when I thought I would have done with the losing weight part by then. Let's see how things will proceed in the next days. I should not evaluate my weight loss based on a single day. I'll try to recap the overall Diet by the end of the week.

I'm thinking of joining a gym soon, possibly close to where I live so I will not find excuses when I have to go and exercise. Considering that I've the gym in my building and I never go, it's a sign on how much disciplined I am in this matter. But I'm always worried about my knee injury to be honest; joining a gym could give me the chance to exercise in classes where the impact on my knee is different compared running.  The only annoying part is the until-you-die-membership type of thing that they have here in Canada. Only for that I avoided the gyms in the past years, don't you think they lost money for that? I think so. I would be willing to pay month by month, maybe a bit more but I'd prefer it, rather than a long year of membership that you cannot withdrawal unless you pay an unfair fee.  Oh well, I'll give it a try and evaluate the pros and cons.

2 weeks with Dr. Bernstein Diet Plan

It's been almost 2 weeks that I'm officially under Dr. Bernstein Diet Program Plan; so far I lost 6 pounds based on their chart. Although I'm following strictly their Diet plan, losing weight never been so difficult for me, I'm starving myself every day with only 500/600 Calories and still nothing that I'd define as remarkable results. But I don't give up and I'll continue to follow the Program until I reach my weight goal.

Yesterday I had my first appointment with a Dr. Bernstein's doctor, it was just a 10 minutes visit to see if I had any question or concerns regarding my Diet; I really did not have anything to ask or say to the doctor, apart for my discouraging slow weight loss. He suggested me to remove tomatoes from my diet for at least 2 weeks and see how it goes. It is unbelievable to me how 230g per day of such a light fruit plant can stop me to lose weight. Also removing tomatoes from my diet leave me basically with very little choice of vegetables that I do like or enjoy eating. Hey but when you're in this plan you would do anything to reach your goal weight!

Last night I had a rough night, I believe my spinach were not cooked properly and my stomach did not like it at all so I spent all night in pain and I'm still very dizzy and weak. With this Diet the amount of daily energy is very limited, can happen anything to put you down immediately, well at least that is what happens to me and my tiny body, but I'm not sure is based on the size of the body though. I mentioned the issue to the nurse this morning, when I went to the clinic for my usual weigh in and injection. She suggested me to have 2 servings of apple today as fruit, but I have only 1 apple with me today and ¼ of a cantaloupe, but I'll try to have a soup tonight for dinner, to help my stomach feeling better.

My today's weigh in was disappointing, 3 times in a row that I'm on stable 131 pounds, WTH! To be honest I don't care that much how much their scale displays, I see it at home, and I see it with my clothes. I still have fat to lose and it seems harder and harder when you arrive close to your goal.

Yesterday I tried on one of my old pants, hoping to realize that at the end it fits! Well no, it did not fit; I could not even close the zip or the buttons. That's ok; it's been only 2 weeks with a slow pace weight loss so I couldn't expect the miracle pants.

With the Ketostix that I bought the other day at the pharmacy I'm checking often my ketones, I've constantly only trace of it, which is the first coloured mark, very bright. I guess it is correlated to the fact that at the end my weight is not changing anyway so there is not that much to show on the Ketostix. Hopefully I'm out of my plateau and I will continue to lose a bit more in the next days.  

Monday - weigh in Day

With an average of 500 Calories per day I am still not able to lose a single pound! I can't explain myself what could be. The nurse this morning was telling me that it could be normal, due to water retention…well nothing else, she actually did not give me any other logical explanation to that.

Their scale said I lost some weight from Friday; but I don't find it relevant for the daily food intake that I'm having. Tomorrow I've my first visit with a doctor at the Dr Bernstein clinic, I will mention to him this thing as well, and I'd like to see his suggestions too.

 Yesterday I skipped 1 serving of fruit and 1 serving of vegetables, I was starving when I went to bed, I even had 3L of water and I was working all day around the house as well as shopping here and there, however this morning my scale displayed the exact amount as yesterday. I regretted not eating all my servings though, this will slow down my metabolism and a slow metabolism is not good, ever!

One thing that I decided to buy is the Ketone sticks (Ketostix), I did a research online and they are available in any pharmacy for few bucks and no prescription required, I'll try monitoring my ketones during the days that I don't go to the clinic and between evening and morning to see if I'm burning fat or not.

Today I also decided to take a different approach with my food, spreading all that I eat during the day, even if I'm still enjoying what I'm eating and I'm not full at all, I'll stop and save something for later, I'll try to plan to eat every 2 hours or so if I can, like with a piece of fruit, a raw vegetable or simply some of the Goldfish that I like so much. Maybe pushing my metabolism higher is the key!

I had another abdominal injection this morning and strangely – well at least for me – the nurse asked me if I had already started to do some exercises to improve my abdominal muscles. Although it made perfect sense for me this question, I was surprised, definitely I felt ashamed of my lack of exercise but eager to have a different answer next time someone will ask me this same question.

I've to say that they do not suggest doing any weight lifting, only simple exercises and low-cardio workout, I did went to a Yoga class on Saturday!

Injections in the abdomen hurt like hell, why deny it, but I'm hoping to lose my stubborn fat in that area, so far I had 3 injections on my belly and, apart from the first time, I did not see any improvement, most probably I'll go back on doing injections in my butt; they're definitely less painful and I've lots to lose there too.

One thing that I'm noticing with this Dr. Bernstein Diet is that really the food becomes an obsession, only I can think now is cooking, Dieting, extra kilos on my body and injections. I'm not going crazy, or at least is not Diet's fault if I am, but the privation of such an innate pleasure really gives you internal frustration. I would go all day without eating if I was working hard and not even noticing, even more if I was out shopping. But with this diet you look at food differently, you're tempted by EVERYTHING. Lately one of my cravings is nachos with guacamole, who could ever tell?! Me, a chocaholic that is craving for chips? I never liked chips but now, every time I see a commercial or a sign showing nachos I think about my avocados and how I'd love to dip into a big bowl of guacamole! Crazy yes.

My weight sorrow

So today's Friday and I went for my weigh-in and injection to the Dr Bernstein clinic this morning as usual. I wasn't really happy when I woke up and I saw my weight exactly as yesterday. You'd think with such small amount of calories intake, exercise and all the water that I drink, I would see myself at least half pound skinnier, at the minimum. Well it doesn't actually work like that apparently. Your body can get lazy and stop to lose weight if you eat the same things every day! WTH….now what else?! Should I just drink water for the rest of my life and avoid all the food that I like? It doesn't seem fair to me.

Anyhow, based on Dr. Bernstein result I lost 1.2 pounds since Wednesday – so for their point of view I'm just fine. Definitely not from mine though, this diet is tough, you want to see results every day.

But the most annoying thing that happened to me today was not my stale amount of pounds, but their "Goal Weight" estimation. When I first started the program they asked me what would be my ideal weight, what I'm looking for to achieve from this Diet, so I said: 52Kg, considering that most likely I'd gain back a couple of Kilos during maintenance, seemed a reasonable target for me. The fact that none of the nurses had any idea of how much 52 Kg are in pounds was just annoying to me. I live in Canada BTW, and as far as I know Canada does NOT follow US in its measurements system, but not sure why still those pounds are around.

They do their own estimation of course and they write down on the Diary sheet a range (in pounds) on how much my weight should be…approximately. Well the range is within 10 pounds! My personal goal range is between 120 and 130 pounds, which on my tiny body 10 pounds are really a lot.

With my weight I'm almost close to 130 lb, not there yet for sure but close, it might take up to 4/5 days to lose the rest I guess. But to be honest this is not my target weight. I joined the Dr Bernstein Diet when I was 137 lb, do they think I'd pay $1000 to lose only 7 lb??! That is just ridiculous.

I want my target weight and if it's not possible for me, well they have to give me a Medical reason why, not just a stupid algorithm that says based on height, how much I'm supposed to lose. For the same amount of Kilos, the same person could be overweight full of fat or incredibly muscular. A Diet, and especially one that pretend to be highly medically supervised, should be tailored by the individual, case by case – not by the chart on a book.

Every time I say to anyone: I'm on Dr. Bernstein Diet – I've the same reaction: you look great; why are you on this Diet?! I'm so tired of this reaction. I'm definitely not losing weight so people will look at me and say: oh you look great!, I want to lose weight because I'm not fitting anymore in half on my dresses and I don't use a pair of jeans since 10 years now. Sure, I'm pretty good on hiding that fat on my belly or my huge ass, but that does not mean that at the end of the day I'm happy for that. I hate how I became since the past few years, my knees do not cooperate with my exercise routine and I'm struggling to lose half pound in a day having only 500 calories in food! WTH!

I don't blame people that never seen me in bikini…ok, but the nurses that do the injections every other day should have an idea what do I have to lose, DO NOT LOOK AT THE CHART DAMN IT!! I'm here! Look at me! Did you see my belly fat coming out of my skirt this morning? Well that is not nice if it stays there.

Too much food

Yesterday, for the first time since I started my Dr. Bernstein Diet, the food that I prepared for dinner felt too much. I had an omelet with mushrooms with no bread or anything else but I barely made it to the end of it, and after that I regretted. Yes, because one of the suggestions that the nurse gave us during the consultation session, was not to eat if we were not feeling hungry. Which makes sense to me, don't force yourself, if your food intake is going down is better your hunger goes down too.   

Since I basically lost 0 pounds in the past 24 hours I decided to use a different approach, so today I'll have my protein servings between breakfast and lunch. A yogurt with berries for my breakfast and a veggie burger with tomatoes for lunch, in this way my dinner will be lighter and maybe I'll have few pounds less tomorrow for my weigh in.

Another thing that I'm really happy about, it is the results on my belly – after the abdomen injection. It seems smaller, just a tiny smaller ok but I see an improvement. It might be due to the weight loss, I'm not sure but I'm definitely having another painful injection on my belly tomorrow!

My first week on Dr Bernstein Diet

Tomorrow will be one week since I started Dr Bernstein Diet, so far I lost roughly 2 Kg, but it's been a good experience overall.

Friday I felt very weak the whole day, with a strong pain in my neck and back, Saturday morning I woke up a bit later than usual, shaking. I guess my body was still not adjusted to the sugar withdrawal or simply craving food. I could tell when the supplements kicked in, my energy level drastically increased.

I've to say from Sunday I feel much better, maybe it's true what they say: the first 3 days in the Diet are the worse, after that it gets easier. At least for me it was like that. Now I prepare my meals, I eat, I don't feel hungry, I'm learning how to drink water in the first part of the day, rather than the evening so I don't need to wake up in the middle of the night to use the washroom.

Today I went in for my usual double-injections and the weigh-in, I got for the first time the injection on my abdomen (it hurts no question about it); after I left the clinic – basically 3 minutes after the injections – I could feel the injection going through my body and it made me feel dizzy, I got a bit scared at the begin, I didn't know what could be the effect of such type of injection in my belly. But nothing happened, I felt ok few minutes later, walking to go to my office.

I see lots of people coming in the clinic as me and they all try to remove every item they can to weigh less. I personally remove only my shoes, but just because they ask me for and the girl that reads my weight on the scale, she asks me every time if I want to remove my sweater. Honestly my necklace and my watch are way heavier than my little sweater - so I don't. I wear a little sweater every day, as well as jewelry and my watch, it won't change anything.

I find that for some people this accountability is extremely crucial in the weight loss program, which I understand, but everything should start from inside first. There's no cheating here, if you do you're cheating to yourself, I think it's not a wise idea basing our weight loss Diet on the accountability factor, anyone will gain back all the lost pounds as soon as the Diet ends and the trips to the clinic stop.

It must to be a personal decision. I don't see any accountability factor in my Diet, I see ONLY a medically supervised program, I need 3 days a week of visits to take under control my ketosis not an angry nurse that is preaching me why I didn't lose any pound in the past 2 days, I'm doing it for myself and nobody else.

Just to clarify something that I often read on other blogs about Dr. Bernstein Diet, the nurses in my clinic are extremely kind and sweet; I never had any issue with them so I have to say that it's not always true, everyone has different experience I guess, mine has been positive so far.