The Dukan diet, or how I wiped 14 kg in three months

It was late October 2011. I was still a married man but contemplating the option of asking for divorce. I just had a date with miss G and it was going to the wall. And I had just reached a new summit in my history of overweight, at 92 kilograms. Life sucked, and I was feeling like sh*t! This was about the time I glanced a comment from a former colleague on Facebook, regarding a diet he tried. The idea of being on a diet had never been on my mind! But it was also about that time I started getting aware of my serious overweight problem. So I researched that diet on the Internet, downloaded all I could read on it, immediately became convinced it was just what I needed… and started the next day!

This will be a two parts post about the Dukan diet. Let us get started today with a description of the diet.

The Dukan diet

If you look up this diet on Internet these days, you will find it has somehow attracted a bad press. Why exactly is that? I’m not sure. It is, after all, just another one of these low carbohydrate diets that are attracting so much attention these days…

Here is my perspective. This diet took me from 92 kilograms, to 78 kilos in a matter of three months. Later on I even went as far down as 74 kilograms.

It is no small feat!

Whatever the “failings” that these wise gentlemen attribute to this diet, I personally call it a pretty successful diet!

I am not sure what alternative they would suggest instead, but as far as I am concerned, following the Dukan diet was one of the best decisions I ever made. And I am glad that I didn’t read these negative comments back then, that would have made me think twice – and most probably I would still be at 92 kilos today, if not more.

You are better off following a so-called “bad diet” that works, for three months, and shed 14 kilograms, than not following it and staying obese for years.

It is a no-brainer!

So what is the Dukan diet?

At the core, the Dukan diet is a low carb, low fat, high protein diet. After an initial “Attack” phase where you set the tone to your body, you go into a “Cruise” phase where you typically can expect 3 to 5 kilograms of weight loss per month. The fatter you are, the more efficient the weight loss will be.

The Dukan diet is very realistic and pragmatic, in many respects:

It recognizes that you won’t be able to sustain a diet for a long time if it is based on deprivation. Therefore, it does not impose any restriction on the quantity (or amount of calories) you can eat – except for the basic evidence: don’t continue to eat when you are no longer hungry. Well, I can do that!
It also recognizes that you can’t just jump out of the diet overnight – or else suffer from a sudden weight bounce. So as part of the prescription, it incorporates a “Consolidation” phase where you progressively restore some of the “forbidden” food.
But it is also realistic in recognizing that, if you eventually revert to the same dietary habits you had before, you will return just where you started in no time. So what the diet aims to do in fact, is to ultimately change a set of bad habits (most likely: way too much carbs!) for better ones. That’s what the last phase (the “Permanent” phase, for the rest of your life) is for.

Exercise is for body conditioning and diet is for weight loss

Finally, there is no real exercise prescription during the diet, except for having a regular walk, and taking the stairs rather than elevator when you can. No need to run on the treadmill for hours. In fact, you shouldn’t be doing any hard exercise during the “Cruise” phase of the diet. Because being on a very low carbohydrate diet, your body just won’t allow you to!

And this matches my own experience very consistently. In 2011 when I was at my highest weight ever, I had in fact been doing physical exercise on a weekly basis, for about ten years. That didn’t prevent me from reaching my peak. Yet, when I started this diet, I lost all that overweight in three months without any exercise! And hence my counter-intuitive conclusions:

Your overweight is the result of poor eating habits, rather than “lack of physical exercise”.
Physical exercise helps with conditioning your body, not with weight loss.
Changing bad dietary habits for better ones will do more for your waist line, than all cardio training in the world!

The Dukan diet acknowledges this reality.

But the Dukan diet is still a diet!

There is no magic wand. You won’t be hungry nor run for hours on a treadmill. But yet you can’t expect to be losing kilograms after kilograms of body fat, without some sort of sacrifice. So now for the bad news…

The bad and the ugly…

In the Dukan diet, you will absolutely need to give up anything sweet, or grain based, or any sauce or junk food, for the duration of the “cruise” phase. This is it.

As far as vegetables are concerned, you are allowed any vegetable which grows above the ground: tomatoes, cucumbers, …, but forget about those who grow below the ground: potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, …, as well as all kinds of starchy vegetables.

Grains and cereals are completely forbidden. That includes rice, corn flakes, wheat, and anything that contains wheat, such as bread or cakes or pastries, or pasta, or pizza… The only (small) exception to the rule (which otherwise holds firm) is, a tea spoon of oats bran is allowed once a day – for its fiber content!

Anything sweet is no longer allowed. Forget about chocolates, or cakes, or even “diet sodas”. And the same goes for fruits – they are sweet, after all!

No more dressing nor oil: you will learn to eat your food without dressing. No oil allowed!

And for drinks, you will have to give up alcohol, sodas, and juices for a while. Water is your friend now.

…and the good

So what is left, then? Essentially high protein, low fat foods. The steak is now your best friend. Meat and fish will become the lion share of your daily food, as long as they are not too fatty. You are allowed lean red meat, and skinless white meat. Eggs are fine too, as well as non fat dairy products. Lamb is not allowed. A fatty rib-eye steak is not allowed. Only the leanest part of beef is OK. And of course you will cook without oil 🙂

Within these restrictions, however, like I said before, you can eat as much as you want, anytime you want!

That what makes this diet a pragmatic, easy to follow, and successful one. You’re losing weight without being hungry!

The four phases of the Dukan diet

The Dukan diet prescribes four distinct phases.

the “Attack” phase

In the “Attack” phase, which lasts typically a week, you set the tone of the diet, by going into a strict “protein only” nutrition. Yes! Only protein based food allowed. No veggies. Get ready to eat a lot of meat!

Believe me, your body will be in shock. It is not used to this!

You can easily lose about two kilograms in the first week. That will keep you motivated!

the “Cruise” main weight loss phase

After this “protein attack” week, you are getting into the main weight loss phase of the diet. This will consist in a strict alternation of:

a mixed diet, protein plus vegetables, for 5 days
then a protein only diet, for 5 days

The restrictions of what is allowed as “proteins” and “vegetables”, described above, apply.

By keeping a strict alternation, you prevent your body from getting used to the diet and adapting itself. You keep your body in shock the whole time! And you still get the vitamins, minerals and good stuff from the vegetables.

In the first month of this treatment, you can probably lose about 5 kilograms. Your melting is almost visible by the naked eye! In the subsequent months, the weight loss decreases, but remains significant (such as 3 to 4 kg a month).

The “Consolidation” phase

This starts when you have reached your target, desired weight. It lasts 5 days for each pound of body weight lost. So if you lost 12 kilograms like I did (or 26 pounds), this phase will last about 19 weeks!

It consists of progressively restoring carbohydrates and other “good things” into your diet – although in a controlled manner:

You are now allowed fruits (up to one serving per day)
You can have rice or pasta (a couple of servings per week)
A slice of brown bread per day is OK
And you can have a portion of cheese per day
etc…

And the new thing: Once in a week, you are allowed a “celebration meal”, where you can eat whatever you want. That piece of cake you badly missed? Now’s your chance! But it’s just for the course of one meal, not a full “cheat day”. Again, not to the point of binge eating though. You stop when you’re satiated! And more good news, later on, that becomes twice a week.

Initially, after a few months of the previous diet, you will feel almost guilty to allow yourself some of these treats… But even though, you’re likely to notice a couple more kilograms loss during this phase – I did lose two more kilos myself, bringing the total weight loss to 14.

This phase is in my opinion one of the very good things of this diet. Instead of jumping out of the diet once you reached your goal, and going back into the former bad old habits, it prompts you to go in a transition period, where you restore the good things progressively.

It keeps you from bouncing your weight back to where it was in no time!

That’s another proof that this Dukan diet is solidly based on reality. That’s why it’s actually effective and works.

The “Permanent” phase

This is for the rest of your whole life, the steady state that you will eventually adopt. The premise is simple: your body absolutely wants to go back to its “former glory”, and it will do so at the first chance, and in no time.

If you have been very overweight before, you now absolutely need to watch yourself for the rest of your life.

Yes! You may have lost your overweight, but the minute you stop paying attention, you will be back where you were. And I guarantee you that I have experienced that myself, and learned it the hard way!

Sorry, that’s the reality. It would have been much better NEVER to be overweight in the first place. That can never really be undone.

The Permanent phase acknowledges this reality, once again the proof that the Dukan diet is based on solid experience of the real world.

Some guiding principles

There is no strict rule here, except from a few principles:

You adopt the foods you were having in your Consolidation phase, as the main ground for your new diet ever after
You commit to have a weekly “Protein Thursday”, a whole day once a week where you will be on a protein only diet – that will keep your body “under control”
And you commit to a minimum of daily exercise, like 30 minutes of walk or climbing the stairs

Towards better dietary habits

And this is where the Dukan diet proves, again, to be realistic. What it eventually aims to, is to replace a set of bad dietary habits (the one that initially took you on the overweight territory), and replace them by much better ones:

much less carbohydrates
much less starches and fats
more proteins.

In fact, you can think of excessive carbohydrates consumption, as the main cause of the obesity pandemics.

And that concludes the first part of my post. I hope you have enjoyed it! In the next part, I will explain why I think this diet is easy to implement, and why it works so well.

Yours,