The Toronto Diet
Stanley Bernstein has helped 450,000 patients lose a ton of fat by putting them on his merciless 850-calories-a-day diet and injecting them with his secret vitamin B cocktail. His critics say the diet is dangerous. His followers say they’ve never been happier By Robert Hough
Heavy hitter: Bernstein charges $600 a month for
his services. On a dollar-per-pound basis, he claims
it’s a bargain
Image credit: Lorne Bridgman
It’s 8:15 on a Wednesday morning, and I’m seated in the Dr. Bernstein Diet and Health Clinic at First Canadian Place. The office is large, brightly lit and cruelly located around the corner from a food court; at certain times of the day, patients have to run an aromatic gauntlet of warmed pizza slices, lamp-lit chicken balls and cinnamon buns. The clinic itself is bustling, the hours before work being a popular time for patient visits. Every minute or so, another client arrives and takes a seat in one of the chairs lining the clinic’s glass outer wall. As I wait, it occurs to me that most of the dozen patients I’ve seen in the past 10 minutes are women, and that none of them, oddly enough, look particularly fat.
After about five minutes, Stephanie arrives. Stephanie’s name, by the way, is not really Stephanie, and when I say that she grew up in a Greek household, where there was always way too much food on offer, I mean that she grew up in a household of a completely different ethnicity, albeit one that was also no stranger to palliative feasting. (While researching this article, most of the people I interviewed who had done or were doing the Bernstein diet asked that I not use their real names, something I attribute to the mild taint associated with consulting a celebrity diet doctor; it admits, I suppose, to a degree of desperation, along with a willingness to surrender your eating habits to a complete stranger.) After taking off her shoes and coat, Stephanie steps on a scale located next to the counter separating the clinic from the waiting area. “Two and a half pounds since Monday,” she exclaims when she comes back to fetch me. “You can’t complain about that.”
Stephanie is 33 years old and has an intelligent attractiveness about her. She’s married to a man whom she describes as supportive of her diet, if still prone to eating cheeseburgers in front of her. She works downtown at a mid-sized company whose name I’ve also pledged not to reveal. Six months earlier, her GP suggested that she try the Bernstein program. At that point, she weighed 253 pounds and was suffering from knee pain, high blood pressure and a weight-related hormonal imbalance called polycystic ovarian disease. During the first two weeks of the diet, she experienced hunger, irritability and a chronic, low-level wooziness. Yet as the weight began to fall off, her symptoms dwindled. “At first I felt really deprived,” she told me. “But I think my depression had to do with my feeling like the nurses were forcing me to do things I didn’t want to do. One day, it occurred to me that I was making this choice, that I was the one who decided to do this diet. That day, my discomfort seemed to vanish.”
Six months into the diet, she admits that she still has cravings for forbidden foods and often has dreams about food. “The other day, I dreamt I was eating butter tarts. The weird thing is, I don’t even like butter tarts.” She considers these small inconveniences, however. Since starting the diet, she has lost 81 pounds, the benefits of which she clearly finds elating. She has gotten used to hearing how good she looks, her co-workers have started to notice how skilled she is at her job, and she has stopped taking medication for her health problems.
After a few minutes, one of the nurses ushers us into a treatment room so tiny I have to hug the wall in order to stay out of the way. Once the door closes, Stephanie produces a small form on which she has written down everything she has eaten over the past two days, right down to the last low-cal cheese-flavoured mini-bite cracker. The nurse, a Filipina just slightly taller than my 10-year-old, at first looks mildly disapproving, her expression lightening when Stephanie tells her that she accidentally wrote down one entry twice. Stephanie then hands over a urine sample, which she’s been carrying in her purse. The nurse unscrews the lid and dunks a small paper strip into the vial. The strip promptly turns a coppery brown, which assures the nurse that Stephanie’s urine is testing positive for ketones, a substance that is produced by the body when it’s burning fat stores.
Satisfied, the nurse moves on to step three of Stephanie’s thrice-weekly visits: an injection of vitamin B complex, the exact makeup of which is a secret tightly held by the Bernstein organization. Stephanie lifts her sweater, and I notice that her midsection is spotted with greenish-grey bruises. As the tip of the syringe pricks her skin, she looks away and winces. “This,” she tells me, “is the part I don’t like.”
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Excellent work Robert! Thank you for an informative, detailed and well-researched article. I love food and life too much to survive on that horrendous diet. So, thank you again Robert-for inspiring me to be even more active.
March 10, 2010 | by Dee46I know the program sounds brutal, but I started it three weeks ago with 80 lb to lose (they said 100 lb, but that's thinner than I want) and have lost 18 lb already. I picked it after I discussed it with my doctor, who said it was not dangerous but keeping the weight off was the issue, so I plan to go to a dietician when I'm at the weight I want to be, in order to figure myself out. I wanted something that would show results quickly enough to keep me motivated, and that would make cheating almost impossible. Check, and check. I go to the Yorkale Mall location and the staff have been amazing. Far from pushing the protein substitute products on me, they discouraged me from several of them because they didn't think I'd be satisfied. Not sure how they'll act when I don't lose so fast, but so far, they really have been great. Oh, and I read with growing fear the restrictions when I joined (are you serious? two melba toasts count as my daily two bread-substitute servings?!?), but a few times, I have found myself at the end of the day with an unused bread or fruit serving, and without hunger. I had headaches the first two days, but since then, it has been easy and I am one of those who feels healthier and more energetic, probably because of the psychological high of feeling in control of my weight again. The cost is an incentive for me, because there's no way I'm going to waste $600/month and not make it work for me. I do daydream about specific foods I miss, but the hard rules of the program simply don't leave me room to cheat. The food scale runs my life, but the bathroom scale shows it's worth it, for now...
March 12, 2010 | by jacqdbGlad to hear the diet is working for you jacqdb. In my humble opinion, if I may, you will enjoy life more (including indulging in foods you love), sustained weight loss, look great, and save money too if you consider/reconsider joining a gym and working on portion control. I am a member of Goodlife and it costs me about $60.00 per month. I wish you only the best of luck.
March 12, 2010 | by Dee46The diet seems brutal because we believe that if something is forbidden the world is coming to an end. There is a lot of psychological aspects to the diet and to the strict requirements - if you have to plan what to eat, weigh it, write it down, you sure start paying attention to what goes into you. How many times did I eat without knowing what I am eating only to find out that the meal is finished and I have no recollection of how it tasted... how many times I bought something only because it looked too good... not that I was hungry or needed it.
June 4, 2010 | by VeverickaGood story. Just one comment: I think you mean "pernicious anemia" not "pernicious insomnia". Pernicious anemia is essentially low red blood cells due to one's diet (specifically, due to a lack in vitamin B12). I don't think the term "pernicious insomnia" exists.
I think the woman with whom you discussed this diet nailed it on the head when she said it is akin to anorexia. I have heard countless stories of people who were propelled into anorexia due to this diet. They constantly felt like failures in the eyes' of Bernstein's staff, and ended up resolving to stop eating altogether to avoid those feelings of shame. One woman told me about her daughter's scary descent to 78 lbs from which she has not yet recovered. I think this diet teaches people to have an unhealthy relationship with food. Perhaps some people can handle it mentally (nevermind physiologically and physically), but I really don't think others can.
If nothing else, at the very least I wish Dr. Bernstein would re-think the minimum age requirement for this diet.
January 27, 2012 | by jesthew