Maria likes to learn. She started out wanting to be a doctor and studied science in college, but then went on to law school, and even now, as a mother of three young children, she’ll make time for an evening lecture if it sounds interesting. And so when an old friend called her and said, “Maria, I haven’t seen you in a long time. I’ve lost so much weight – you have to see me!” she was intrigued. And when she actually saw the change in her friend, she was interested enough to go to one of Dr. Aidlin’s free lectures. It wasn’t just curiosity. “I started gaining weight in my teens, twenty years ago.

First I was just a little chubby, but I just kept getting heavier and heavier. I tried all kinds of different diets, I even tried pills for a little while, but couldn’t lose weight. I went to the gym regularly, working with a trainer for a year. I was in much better shape, but I still was overweight, because the more I worked out, the more I ate.” But Maria also does her homework, and if she’s interested in something she’ll research it as though she was writing a paper for school. That can make her a tough customer. “I’m the ultimate highly-educated consumer,” she says. She doesn’t take things on faith, especially not if their about her health. “I paid attention to everything Dr. Aidlin said. Some things I knew a little about, because of my background. But other things were new, and I started checking them out. I’d research them, I’d read about them, and they all checked out. The more I read, the more confidence I had in what Dr. Aidlin was doing.”

Was that it, that Dr. Aidlin knew what he was talking about? “He’s very good at putting things together, at helping you understand how your eating habits affect more than your weight, more than your health, even – they affect your whole life. He’s a genius at finding just the right way to explain things so that you really start to think about them, no matter what your background. And his directions are very clear and easy to follow.”

Any surprises in the course? “Well, I was surprised with how easy it was once he helped me to start being smarter about my eating. He helped me see that I don’t need to eat nearly as much as I thought I did, without going around feeling hungry. And I was surprised with how quickly it worked. I started out losing a few pounds each week, and then it started to go faster and faster, and I started noticing the change in the way people were responding to me as things sped up.”

Maria is still “a work in progress,” she says. “I only took the class 4 months ago. I’ve lost 43 pounds, but I still have 20 more to go. But already I can see how it’s changed my whole life: the way I feed my kids, the way I use my spare time, the way I spend time with my husband – I’m a completely different person. And the most important thing? I’m happy. I’m so very, very happy.”

I couldn’t walk any more.  My doctor told me that my blood pressure was getting high, and that I was at an increased risk for diabetes.  I knew something had to change.” Aleksandra tried any number of diets.  “They’d work for a little while, but as soon as I left the program I would gain back all the weight I’d lost and then some.  And being on those diets – they were so restrictive! I felt like I was a prisoner.  But one day I ran into an acquaintance in the neighborhood.  I’d seen her several months before and she had been very heavy, and very unhappy.  But now she looked great – she must have lost fifty pounds.  And she looked so happy!  I asked her what she had done, and she gave me Dr. Aidlin’s phone number. I called him as soon as I got home.” 

What made Dr. Aidlin’s course different from all the diet programs? “A diet just works on your body,” says Alexandra, “But Dr. Aidlin works on your brain.  When he explains something, he’s somehow able to help you understand at a very deep level.  I had always known that certain foods were bad for me, but I still wanted them.  After Dr. Aidlin’s class, I found that I wasn’t really interested in them any more.” 

Dr. Aidlin’s class didn’t just help Alexandra with food.  “I always knew that I should exercise, but I had such a hard time getting myself moving – it would take me an hour in the morning just to feel like I was awake.  But within a week or two after starting with Dr. Aidlin, I felt like a different person.  I’d wake up feeling light and energetic.  I’ve started exercising, and I play tennis several times a week.  Before, I used to hate the idea of being seen in a bathing suit; now I go swimming every week.” 

“The change has been enormous.  I’ve lost almost 90 pounds, and I’ve gone from a size 18 to a size 10.  I go to parties, I dance, I can wear beautiful clothes.  Instead of being exhausted by a 30 minute walk, my husband and I go to the park on the weekends and we’ll spend 5 or 6 hours there.  I’m so happy!”

“How long was I overweight? Almost all my life,” Tatyana says.  “And you know, it didn’t just make me unhappy, it made me sick.  When I was 10 I hurt my back, and all that extra weight just made it hurt more to move around.  And of course the less I moved around the more weight I gained.  Getting older just meant getting bigger - it got to the point where just being on a long airplane trip gave me blood clots.  Parties? Nice clothes? Forget it.  I was working out of my home as a computer programmer, and I almost never got out of my chair.”

Tatyana knew that she needed to change her life, she just didn’t know how.  “I tried every diet there was.  And it was always the same thing: there would be a strict set of rules, and I’d lose some weight, but I was living the same way I always lived, so as soon as the program was over I’d put them right back on.  And probably a little more, too.”

It was almost out of a sense of desperation that Tatyana accepted a friend’s invitation to try Dr. Aidlin’s class.  “I didn’t come expecting a lot, and I told him that.  I warned him that I was very skeptical, and wouldn’t believe things just because some ‘expert’ said so.  And he said not to worry – he wasn’t going to ask me to take anything on faith.  All he asked was that I try things, and see if they worked out.”

And they did.  “After the first week I’d already lost some weight. He was so inspiring, and made so much sense, that it was much easier than any diet I’d ever been on. Within a month I was moving more easily. And by the time the seven-week program was over, I’d lost forty pounds.  But the most exciting result is that in the seven months since I finished the program I didn’t gain anything back.  The opposite – I’ve lost another 28 pounds.  For the first time in my life I’m at my ideal weight.  And I know I’m going to stay there!”

What made the difference?  “Dr. Aidlin wasn’t giving us rules,” she says, “he was helping us understand.  And it wasn’t just about eating, either.  Dr. Aidlin was teaching us how to live.”  Tatyana learned well.  She’s active, attractive, healthy and happy.  She’s living the life she always hoped she could – thanks to Dr. Aidlin.

“It’s true, with some of the diets I did lose some weight for a while, but not very much and not for very long.  And there was one famous diet I tried – well, I got a little lighter, but it was ‘Eat this; don’t eat that.’  They tell you what to eat, but it doesn’t change the way you think.  And when I went for a checkup and the doctor did some lab tests, she wasn’t happy at all with the results.” 

It was almost by chance that Julia came to Dr. Aidlin’s course.  “I was heavy enough before, but after my second child was born, and I wasn’t able to lose any of the weight I’d gained, I knew I had to do something.  My mother saw an ad for his course in the paper, and his program was right near my house.  I thought, ‘What do I have to lose?’” 

Julia didn’t know what to expect from the classes, but even so it was a surprise.  “The sessions were amazing.  He would explain about food and our bodies in a way that made it all make sense.  More than that – it was exciting.  I’d be thinking about his classes all day long, and when I started following his advice I was surprised by how easy it was and how quickly I began to lose weight.  I felt energized, motivated, happy.  It didn’t feel like the process was something I had to tolerate – it was almost painless.” 

In fact, Julia lost close to 100 pounds, and is in better health than she has ever been.  What is more, keeping in touch with Dr. Aidlin through occasional post-course support groups, she has kept the weight off for over two years.  “I don’t have cravings, and I don’t binge.  I give myself ‘holidays’ if I want to try something, but I know how to manage myself.  And I want to keep on with this new life.  I wear different clothes, I shop in different stores, I get compliments I never got before.  It’s a new way to live, and thanks to Dr. Aidlin, I know I can do it.”

And she looked fantastic! She’d lost so much weight that my friend didn’t recognize her at first. And she was so excited about Dr. Aidlin that my friend called me right away and said, ‘Nadezhda, you have to see this guy!’”

Nadezhda was skeptical at first, especially because, living in New Jersey, it was no small matter to get to Dr. Aidlin’s office. “It’s an hour and a half each way from my home; an hour’s drive if I go straight from work. But not even halfway into the first session I knew I could trust him. When you’ve been to as many diet workshops and weight loss programs as I have, you start to learn what’s real and what isn’t, and I could tell that he knew what he was talking about.”

“But it wasn’t just that. He wasn’t only talking about weight, he was talking about overall well-being. I felt happier just listening to him, because he helped me feel like a better person; I came to believe in myself more. By the end of the seven sessions, I’d lost 27 pounds, and kept on losing.”

Nadezhda’s 18 year old daughter did not have a weight problem, but as Nadezhda says, “I wanted her to learn this, too, as a preventative. I wanted her to learn how to have a healthy attitude towards food. Because the big change isn’t losing weight, it’s about attitude: learning not to let food control you. Now I can eat a little bit of cake; I don’t have to have the whole thing. And if I don’t have cake at all, it’s no longer a big deal. I wanted her to learn that attitude, too.” So Nadezhda began another set of drives to Brooklyn, this time with her daughter.

In the seven months since Nadezhda first came to Dr. Aidlin’s office she has lost over 60 pounds. “When you go from a size 16 to a size 6 that’s quite something. It’s so much fun going to a store now, and I still can’t quite believe what I see in the mirror. But it’s so satisfying, knowing that I look the way I always wanted to look.”

What happens when a healthcare professional needs to lose weight?  Sarra is 68, and she has had a weight problem for most of her life.  “I tried a lot of diets, but I’d never been able to lose more than 25 pounds.  I’d gain it back quickly, sometimes as much as 40 pounds.  But I didn’t want to take any diet pills – I’m a pharmacist, and I know what’s in them, and why you shouldn’t rely on them.” 

Sarra needed to do something, though.  She didn’t look her best, she had no energy and could barely walk a block without feeling tired.  “My blood sugar level was at 274.  Now  it’s between 67 and 105 – most days its 85.”  

What changed? “One day a friend just said to me, ‘Sarra, take this.  You have to call this number, and you have to be at this address tomorrow.’  So I thought, what do I have to lose?” 

As someone who uses her knowledge of human biology every day, and as someone with a lot of experience with diets, Sarra wouldn’t have been an easy audience under the best of circumstances, but attending a lecture that first evening was especially challenging.  “I had been upstate, and had driven down especially for this.  So I was exhausted by the time the lecture began.  When Dr. Aidlin started, I could barely keep my eyes open, but Dr. Aidlin saw me falling asleep and put me right in the first row.”  

Sarra must have woken up to something new, because as she says, “I can’t explain what happened, but I started to listen to him, and in that first session, something clicked.  By the next day I felt like my life had changed.  I ate what he suggested, and I didn’t have cravings – I myself was surprised at how quickly the change took hold.” 

And, in not too much time, that change became noticeable.  “First, my friends saw how much I enjoyed the program.  They knew that on Wednesday evenings the store would close early, because I just had to be at Dr. Aidlin’s 7 o’clock lecture.  And then they saw what the program did.  I started the program a little over three months ago, and since then I’ve lost almost forty pounds.”  Because you’ve changed the way you eat?  “Because I’ve changed the way I feel about eating.  My friends eat at work – sweets, snacks, all kinds of things – but it doesn’t bother me.  I don’t feel hungry, and I don’t feel cravings.  It used to be that I couldn’t start the day without coffee, but I haven’t had coffee in 3 months.” 

“And one more thing.  After my husband's death I developed a cough, which I had for few years and couldn't get rid of. Doctors didn't find anything wrong with me, and couldn't figure out what was causing it. I think it was probably psychological. But whatever it was, now the cough is gone. Completely.” 

Sarra feels the change is just beginning.  “I was on vacation and went out in a bathing suit I hadn’t been able to wear since I bought it 16 years ago.  I can walk all day without feeling worn out.  Most days my blood sugar level is less than a third of what it used to be.  But the biggest change is that I feel completely different.  This helped me a lot.”  One friend noticed the change, saying to Sarra she couldn’t believe the difference.  “I have more energy now, but it’s not just about the weight change. It’s about how much happier I feel these days.  I’ve never achieved so much in as short a time as I have now.”

Marina was a pretty demanding student, though.  “I like good food.  I always have, and though I never was skinny, for most of my life I wasn’t seriously overweight, so I’m used to being able to eat food I like.  But when I had my first child ten years ago, I put on 80 pounds, and I had put on even more since then.” 

During that time, Marina had tried all kinds of different diets, including some very expensive ones. “I went on programs where you have special foods.  I went on programs where chefs prepare daily meals for you.  But I couldn’t see living my life that way.  Because you know, if I’m going to eat something it has to be delicious.  And the food they wanted me to eat just wasn’t that good.” 

Under Dr. Aidlin’s teaching, she hasn’t stopped liking good food, but something has changed.  “I’ve started to think about food differently.  Before, I used to be hungry all the time, and if I didn’t eat I’d just obsess about it.”  For Marina, as with many people, putting off eating for even a little while would make her anxious, and all she would think about would be how deprived she felt. “Now it doesn’t bother me as much.  I still enjoy food, but it’s no longer my first priority.  And because of that, my whole lifestyle is different.” 

How was it that Dr. Aidlin’s class worked where the diets hadn’t?  “His way of explaining things, of putting them together, it’s like nothing I’d ever heard before.  I guess I knew some of what he said before, but not in a deep way, and I’d never connected all the pieces before.  But even though I’d heard about Dr. Aidlin from my sister and from my mother and from my aunt, I found myself so impressed by his presentation.  He was the first person who was ever able to speak to me about food and health in a way that really made a difference.  It’s not just that his suggestions were easy to follow; I was actually eager to try them.”   

It almost sounds like magic, and even Marina laughs when she thinks about it.  “Oh, no, I don’t want to say that he ‘brainwashed’ me, and the it’s true that the first week wasn’t easy for me, but once I saw how well the system was working, it all became easy for me.  I’m eating differently, dressing differently, living differently.  That’s what’s different about Dr. Aidlin: he doesn’t teach you how to eat, he teaches you how to live.”