The Dukan Diet

The summer holidays were brilliant for us (despite the weather). Lots of time spent together as a family, trips to the zoo, beach, etc and lots and lots of socialising. Happily we have great friends who enjoy doing it with us, so like many, lots of fun equals copious amounts to eat and drink. I, like the majority of the people I know ended the summer needing a full detox, weight reduction, exercise programme to commence ASAP, (as soon as the bank holiday weekend finished though).I had read about the Dukan Diet and liked the sound of it. I hate diets. I hate calorie counting, points, red & green days yadder yadder. I hate people who talk about weight, losing weight, gaining weight. Boring. However I found the Dukan Diet interesting. More because there were scientific explanations as to the effects of the diet on the body. As you have to include oat bran daily. There are also new recipes to try, the 'Dukan pancake' or 'galette' for exmple and no limits on how much you eat, just what you eat. Heavy on protein, and being a fan of meat and fish in pretty much any variety, it looked like a good option.
I commenced my diet on the Tuesday immediately after the bank holiday weekend. I had my mind ready for it. My research was complete, and my fridge was full of Dukan friendly foods. Similar to smoking, I was ready to quite my unDukan friendly foods.
The Dukan Diet begins with an Attack phase. You can stay in this phase for up to 10 days. This is where you see an initial dramatic weightloss. I decided I would do 5 days. During this time you eat low fat protein only, adding 1 and a half spoons of oatbran to a yoghurt or pancake, walk for 20 minutes a day and drink at least 1 and a half litres of water. At first it is quite bizarre to just eat protein at a meal. It is something, like most things though, that we do out of habit. A meat and 2 veg attitude. Sandwiches for lunch. Bread to dip in soup. Potatoes or rice or pasta as part of nearly every meal. To actually sit and just eat piri-piri chicken with yoghurt or burgers with chilli and cottage cheese, sounded weird but was actually delicious. Weirdly I found that afterwards, I honestly wasn't hungry. What was even more strange was that after a couple of days my appetite became really low. My understanding is that this is a part ketosis. Ketosis happens when your body is not getting enough carbohydrates for fuel so it turns on its deposits of fat, for energy. What also happened at this stage (about day 3) was that I had terrible headaches and felt quite lethargic. Exercise, a snack, and lots of water helped here and these nasty side affects also happily disappeared.
I reached the end of the Attack phase and excitedly began the Cruise phase. I'd lost 8 pounds during this first 5 days so was spurred on to achieve more.
It was brilliant to include vegetables every other day now. Celery really does becoming exciting if you've not been allowed it! In the 3 weeks following I have lost a further 7 pounds. You are warned that the weight loss slows down in the Cruise phase. However its still happening so all is well.

I'll post some recipes later, but my favourite meals have been things we would normally eat, with a tweak. Tonight we are looking forward to theses lovely steaks, with mushrooms, garlic and spinach. Just missing the red wine to wash it down with...

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