Dukan Dolly

I find that setting up an Excel spreadsheet document to record the progress in weight loss has been very motivational, as seeing the line going down on the chart inspires me to carry on! I must admit, I have been having ‘off days’ these last few weeks as work and uni has taken over my life, but I have thankfully stayed the same and my weight loss currently stands at 1 stone 1lb since starting Dukan, another half a stone fell off before starting by doing Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred - I cannot recommend this DVD enough! It’s hard work, but only involves less than 30 minutes per day of exercise, and the results show! I lost 9lbs previously by solely doing the DVD, no healthy eating or anything! I put 2lbs back on after I finished it but total weight loss now stands at 22lbs. 

The scales do seem to go up and down during the week, depending on what I have eaten, but choosing a set day to record the actual weight loss shows the actual loss, or the annoying ‘STS’ (stay the same!) days. 

This is what my weight loss chart is showing at the moment.

Even if the scales don’t show a drastic loss, the measuring tape is definitely my friend! Since starting, I have lost 3 inches around my bust, 2 around my waist, 2 off my hips and 2 from my thighs. 

Has anyone been inspired to do the Dukan Diet after seeing the progress of other Dukaners?

Fish and meat are major players in the Dukan Diet, but not being a big fish fan, all my meals involve chicken, turkey or beef!

These are examples of what I eat on a daily basis, it mainly consists of the same few meals.

For breakfast, I either have scrambled eggs, an omelette, or the oat bran (a Dukan essential) in porridge or muffin form.

For lunch, it tends to be just snacking on chicken, lean ham and cottage cheese.

For dinner, the following are what I always eat:

Roast chicken! So cheap and can last for a few days - meals can be cheap and easy with a full roasted chicken for just one person. 

Asparagus omelette. Eggs are full of protein, the main ingredient on Dukan, and asparagus, whilst still only allowed on PV days, are a diuretic, which keeps that dreaded water retention (hello looking-5-months-pregnant-overnight!) at bay. 

Sardines - one of the only fish I can eat, and even then it is in a spicy tomato sauce with added extra chilli powder. This isn’t actually allowed on Dukan, but many Dukaners ignore this as it is the only way they can eat the fish! 

Beef steak - I normally have this on its own as stuff I’d normally have it with aren’t allowed on Dukan! On PV days, you can bake butternut squash or swede ‘chips’ to go with it!

Diets are normally so restrictive, but there are so many different foods and meals to play with. So many more recipes here at MiniMins.com!

If you’re a ‘fan’ of dieting then you have probably heard of this soup before, better known as cabbage soup! It is not exactly the same but contains most of the same ingredients and is a very filling soup, great if you’re trying to lose weight – hence it being called ‘Miracle Soup’. This soup is actually so filling that I couldn’t even finish a bowl!

The official Dukan recipe is as follows:

4 cloves of garlic
6 large onions
1 large head of cabbage
6 carrots
2 green peppers
1 bunch of celery
1 can peeled tomatoes
3 low-sodium beef bouillon cubes
3 low-sodium chicken bouillon cubes

 

I changed this slightly, as bouillon isn’t that easy to find in the UK, and used Knorr vegetable stock instead. However, the amounts are ridiculous! If I made the above recipe, I could have fed myself on this soup alone for the next year. I tweaked it quite a lot and cooked 2 large pans full.

Here is the soup recipe that I used:

2 tbsp of Very Lazy garlic (I LOVE garlic)
1 medium sized onion
Half a head of cabbage
2 carrots
1 green pepper
2 stalks of celery
1 can peeled tomatoes
1 tbsp of Knorr vegetable stock
Water

This is such a quick and easy recipe to make. I just chopped all the vegetables up (after peeling, deseeding, etc) and bunged them in a pan, covered them with hot water from the kettle and stirred in the stock powder. After that it was just a waiting game for them to boil and cook. I didn’t do it for very long, approximately ten minutes, as I love crunchy vegetables but if you like them soft, leave it on a mid heat for around 20 minutes. 

You can find out more recipes in this article about the Dukan Diet on Daily Mail.

Has anyone made the soup? Let me know what you think of it! I personally think it’s really nice AND it’s healthy!

                             

(Image from Weight Losso)

‘Dukan’ is the popular new diet by French Doctor, Pierre Dukan. Loved by many; including Jennifer Lopez and Carole Middleton (Kate’s Mum!), its rising popularity has seen many successes around the world.

You’re probably thinking the usual; “it’s just another fad diet”, “it won’t last”, “you’ll gain all the weight back” but no, Dukan is different, it’s not just about the food and the weight loss, it’s a lifelong diet that changes your mindset towards food and there are many success stories to prove it.

Obviously, there is a catch. Dukan is a high protein and low carb diet, similar to the Atkins diet that was all the rage a few years ago, but with more choice of what you can eat. There are four stages of the diet; Attack, Cruise, Consolidation and Stabilisation. Dieters follow the initial Attack phase for 2-10 days (it’s tailored towards your personal needs, you need to fill in the online questionnaire ‘Calculate Your True Weight’ at http://www.dukandiet.co.uk/) where the dieter can eat nothing but protein like fish, meats and dairy. It sounds boring but you do get used to it, and with such a wide range of allowed foods you can experiment with different meals each day.

Initially, you lose a lot of weight to get you kick started and to give you the motivation to carry on. I lost 7lbs in 5 days in my Attack phase, and I’m now into Cruise one and a half stone lighter.  Cruise is a variation of days like the Attack phase, called ‘Pure Protein’ (PP) and ‘Protein and Vegetable’ (PV) days, you alternate between the two for however long it takes to reach your goal weight.  After that comes Consolidation, or Conso as it is known among Dukaners where you can finally start adding things like bread, fruit, pasta and cheese back into your diet. You can also have a celebration meal each week, just one though!  Once completed, you reach your ‘stable weight’ and continue in Stabilisation for the rest of your life. Don’t worry, once you hit this stage you can eat what you want again with what is known as ‘Dukan Thursdays’, which you keep as your PP day one day a week to help keep the weight off. By the time you reach Stabilisation, you should think differently about food and know what is good for you and what isn’t.

Here is the official Dukan website which explains how the diet works!

I have to admit, I haven’t followed the diet to the book, having a few ‘cheat’ days (not allowed!) but a stone and a half in 10 weeks is a big achievement for me as I love my food. Cheat days do have their drawbacks though. I ate a McDonalds one day with the thought of ‘oh it’s only once’ and woke up the next morning 6lbs heavier! Getting back to the plan helped a lot though, and I lost the extra lbs in less than a week.

Dukan is the easiest diet I have tried so far, and stuck to for longer than a week. The results are showing too. The scales only show a 21lb loss (it could have been a lot more if I stuck to the diet religiously), but the measuring tape is disappearing by inches.

              

Has anyone else tried, or is currently on the Dukan Diet? How was it for you? Let me know! I’d be interested to hear your stories.

I’m actually called Katie, or Kate, either will do. I’ve always been a chubby kid, looking back at a photo of me and my cousin at a Steps concert way back in 1998 looking like the Michelin man makes me wonder what on earth my mum used to feed me?? Obviously I’m not blaming my mum; I actually blame ‘the sweetie tin’ at my Nan’s house that I used to raid every weekend when I stayed over.

As I got older, I did lose the puppy fat and fluttered between 11 and 12 stone throughout secondary school. It’s still too big for my height (5ft6) but I was comfortable in my body. When I was unemployed after college, I’d spend my days at home bored, and when I’m bored; I eat – NOT a good combination! In the 6 months it took me to get a job, I put on a stone and ended up at 13 stone. I’ve always had a bad relationship with food, bad in the way that I LOVE it. I used to be one of those people who never knew when to stop eating. I was still a comfortable 12/14 and could get clothes from the ‘normal’ section in clothing stores. I was happy with that so carried on eating the way I was, which was a bad idea as I ended up just piling more weight on.

Come September 2009, it was time to move away to university. At 20 years old it was time that I grew up and flew the nest, having always relied on my mum to do everything for me, especially the cooking. My mum is pretty healthy so always cooked great meals at home, my problem was the biscuits, crisps and sandwiches that I used to snack on at college and when I got home, before mum finished work. Once I’d moved into halls, I piled on more and more weight as I had no idea what to cook without mum in the kitchen! I remember my first night in halls sat eating a packet of Tuc crackers.

Then came another change in my life – a new relationship. The longer I was with him, the more comfortable I got, and the more comfortable I got, the inevitable weight gain came with it. I ballooned up to 15 stone after moving in with him.

2 years later and it’s time I need to do something about it. I’d tried my own low carb diet but still ate biscuits and other rubbish so gave up and went back to eating what I wanted. It wasn’t until the summer of 2011 that my best friend told me about a new diet called The Dukan Diet that seemed to be showing brilliant results for all who had tried it. I got the book for my birthday (don’t worry, I asked for it!) and after reading it cover to cover in less than an hour (quickest I’ve ever read a book) I decided that I was definitely going to try it.

I’m currently standing at 13 and a half stone and I’m into my 8^th week of Dukan now, so will use this blog to document my future experiences.