Dr. Bernstein injections and nurses

Dr. Bernstein Diet is a strict weight loss program, it works – but it needs to be followed religiously, or it can be an unpleasant experience (due to the extreme food restriction) and costly as well.

For me switching to self-shots option is mostly due to the expenses that I cannot possibly afford anymore, and also is becoming annoying going to the clinic 3 times a week. Some of the nurses there are really dumb, so if they can do an injection: anyone can do it!

Once I was concerning to one of the nurses on my slow weight loss, and the fact that I've hard time to give up my coffee. She explained that coffee is bad for dieting since…."…it expands cells fat in the body"!!  I'm not kidding, that was her answer! So this should give you an idea on how the personnel are trained in those clinics.

Nurses in the Dr. Bernstein clinics are not highly skilled, not even regarding the Strict Diet itself, most of the questions I asked in the past months, were redirected to the doctor…or answered with no clue on what they were saying.

Today I was trying to get as much information as I could regard the injections. I asked the nurse if the B6/B12 ratio in the double injections is the same, she didn't know, she told me that they receive the B-comp like that, so not sure exactly how much of each is in it. However based on my researches, it should be 50/50, no reason not to be that way really.

I also asked the amount of Vitamins I was injected during the Strict Diet (on each double shot taken), she told me – for privacy reason – she was not allowed to tell me how many cc/ml it was, but I can obviously see the syringe and I saw that was at 1ml of dosage.

The needle used is the Insulin short one - I believe is the Needle Insulin Syringe, 3/10mL Syringe -30G x 12.7mm (1/2") – that is what I bought also yesterday, I thought it would be easy for me to use, once I do my first self-injection on Friday. I'm a bit scared of the idea of taking the shots myself, but then again I think on how much money I'm spending, that without the B6/B12 injections I cannot possibly continue this strict Diet (without compromising my health as well as my metabolism), so I must to learn on how to do it, at the end Vitamins B6-12 don't get stored in the body and drinking lots of water helps to get rid of them.

Today I also bought another bottle of Cal-K pills at the clinic ($16), although I'm not going next Friday I needed to have an extra bottle to continue the treatment by myself. Apparently it works in conjunction with the B-shots to boost metabolism and reduce the amount of stored fat.

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.