Post Bernstein Diet and Hair Loss

Well it's been about what 2.5-3 months since I stopped the Bernstein diet and although I tried to stay on top of taking omega oils the hair loss has started. They say on the forums that if you take omega oils you won't get the hair loss as it's the low oils that weaken the scalp. Maybe I just wasn't taking enough... Now I have always been the person with a TON of hair. I've always called it a weed as it just grew like crazy. Well for this last month I've been shedding, a lot. It hasn't gotten to the point of seeing bald patches thank god, but it is much much thinner.

I found this quote on what's going on from the http://www.drbforums.com "Hair loss is common with low carb dieting such as Dr. B. The reason is because of the shock to your body. Your hair has 3 stages: growth, resting and shedding. Usually you have hair in each stage at the same time. The shock of dieting puts most of your hair into a resting stage while your body adjusts to the changes it is going through. Once you're back to normal, your hair goes back to normal. After resting comes shedding. Ta da! Lots of hair falling out. But it WILL stop and it DOES grow back. The dermatologist told me 2-6 months of shedding is normal."

Just another side effect of doing that diet... Hopefully I won't lose too much more hair and hey maybe if it gets hot this summer I will enjoy having the lighter hair...

This month is flying by!

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. Well I stalled. Yes it's true. I guess we all go through ebbs and as much as I said when I started this journey in January that I wasn't going to deviate at all from my path I did. Now that being said I have NOT gained any weight, I was just averaging 1450 calories a day instead of the 1270 I am aiming for. I wasn't going crazy but I was going out for drinks and letting loose a little. So I stalled. What I now see is that I need to up the exercise. The other day I went for my first bike ride in a year and we covered 30 kms or about 19 miles all around the seawall. It was fabulous I wish I could do it every day! Ok maybe not everyday I'd be a bit sore. But still it was great and I burned about 1800 calories doing it. But that's not something I can do everyday or even every week so I have to find other ways to kick off the pounds. One thing I am wanting to start is Wushu or Chinese martial arts for a number of reasons I think it is fabulous but that to would only be once a week with practicing at home of course. I think that that plus the hot yoga, pilates, and cycling I should be able to get myself back on track and get myself tones and fit. As it is I am down 1.4 pounds and feeling pretty fabulous. Except for the hair issue I've been having but I'm going to write about that in the next post.

Questions and Answers

So I have been getting a lot of people asking me why I would have done the Bernstein Diet. To those who know me it seems like the last sort of thing I would do. So I will explain. I felt trapped, exhausted. I didn't know how to start anymore. The combination of being in an accident, hitting my mid twenty's, and dealing with hypothyroidism left me desperate. I knew that I had lost weight before. The year I went vegan and ate only whole foods was the thinnest I had ever been but I also resented being so limited with what I ate and didn't want to feel that way again. So for the last few years I had been trying in different ways to get the weight off. I would try not changing what I was eating but working out all the time. I would try cutting back on my foods and working out but I wasn't really "calorie counting" I wasn't watching everything I ate and being 100% truthful about it so it didn't work. I got to the point where I needed to feel good about myself and after careful thought I joined the Bernstein Diet.

Now I would say that yes it helped me. It gave me that kick in the ass that I needed. But it was also completely unhealthy, I felt horrible the whole time I was on it. And I made it as healthy as possible not eating ANY of their protein bars or shakes and eating tons of great vegetables, fish and tofu. It really wasn't a bad diet in that regard. It's just that you are eating soo little around 700-800 calories a day that you literally feel like you are starving. Because you are! That's the whole premise of the diet you go into starvation mode and start burning the keytones and the weight comes off. But wow I can't imagine how people do it for 6 months or a year. I had a hard enough time staying in it for 2.5 months and my end result was low blood pressure. Luckily because I did my homework I took omega oils along with their vitamins and didn't have hair loss. Yes it got me on the healthy lifestyle train again. But I really wouldn't recommend it as something to do for longer then a month. As something to only give you a push and to show you that yes you can do this it can be a good tool, but one that must be used carefully. If I could go back to my past self I would have told her go find a holistic nutritionist that specialized in weight loss. Figure out how many pounds you want to lose and start counting those calories really counting them. It will take some time but really whats one or two years of your life in the grand scheme of things.

We all can do it we really truly can. If you are thinking about the Bernstein diet I would advise you to only sign up for one month. Afterwards take that cash and put it towards a nutritionist and a psychical trainer. Your body will thank you for it.