That is why we refer to people who come to the Aidlin Institute as “colleagues” – people who have knowledge and understanding in the field of health. We are all teachers. We all can advise, collaborate and respect each other like professional colleagues.
We love to acknowledge those people in the program that stand out – the Aidlin Colleagues of Excellence (ACEs).
Here are a few of their stories.
Tatyana Kushnitskaya
Meet Tatyana. If you saw her in person, you’d be taken by her vigor, by the energy she projects. She swims every other day, and makes time while working from her home office for four or five long walks with her dog. In the evenings, she goes out with friends. She is a fit and strong 5’ 9” at her ideal weight of 160 lbs. You wouldn’t guess that less than a year ago Tatyana was almost seventy pounds overweight and that she was rarely active.
“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. For me, getting older just meant getting bigger. It got to the point where 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. 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 told me 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.
Tali Attar AGE: 29
My name is Tali, I am 29 and am happy that I can share the great experience I had with Dr. Aidlin.
Many kilograms have “disappeared” from me and it is not really important how many. The most important thing (and the most fun) is that many restraints have disappeared from my life which prevented me from functioning as a normal young woman.
I came to Dr. Aidlin with the aim of dealing with a medical problem that had bothered me a lot in my daily functioning and through the lessons and lectures (which were a fascinating experience) I learned to handle and look after my body, my health and mainly my soul.
The process itself is quick, enjoyable, very enriching and gave me a lot of motivation to continue! I am very pleased with the changes that I undergo every day and recommend to anyone who wants to feel wonderful in his life (because we only live once!!) to begin to take care of himself and to receive help from (the great) Dr. Aidlin for maximum, long lasting results.
Julia L
It’s an accomplishment to take weight off; it’s an even greater accomplishment to take off a lot of weight. But the real accomplishment is maintaining one’s weight loss. That’s why Julia is so happy with Dr. Aidlin’s program.
“I had always been heavy. Even as a child I was overweight. Although I had friends and I was social, I knew that physically I wasn’t as good as I could be. I wasn’t as good as I wanted to be. But even though I struggled, and my mother was constantly taking me to different doctors who had different ‘miracle cures,’ I kept gaining weight.
“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.”
Nadezhda L.
What do you do when you find something that really works? You want to share it, of course. That’s what Nadezhda L. did, after she took Dr. Aidlin’s course. In fact, that’s how Nadezhda got to Dr. Aidlin in the first place. “A friend of mine told me about him. She knew that I had a weight problem: I’m 5’2” and weighed 190 pounds, and I’ve tried just about every diet there is. Anyway, my friend had run into this woman who used to be very, very overweight after not seeing her for six months. And she looked fantastic! She’d lost so much weight that my friend didn’t recognize her at first.
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 shopping now, and I still can’t believe what I see in the mirror. It’s so satisfying, knowing that I look the way I always wanted to look.”
Dvorah Brochstein
“I have been working with the Aidlin Institute for a year and a half. Apart from the 14 kg that I have managed to lose, I have acquired so much knowledge and so many tools in a range of topics. I also have a lot of motivation to continue and tips for a happy and fulfilling life over and above food. Dr. Aidlin’s theory allows me to live a routine life relatively easily without many rigid rules and also teaches me to enjoy good food in the correct quantities.”