Dukan Dolly

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!

                             

(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.