Here is my journey so far with the Dukan Diet:
- I wrote an article on the Dukan diet: How the Dukan Diet works – The French diet that is supposed to end the obesity epidemic
- I started with a 5-day “attack phase”: Yesterday I finished a five-day “Attack Phase” on the Dukan Diet and lost 6.6 pounds – here’s a report on how it went (days 1 to 5)
- I have been in “cruise phase” now for 13 weeks. Here are reports on the first 12 weeks:
- Week 1 (days 6 to 10)
- Week 2 (days 11 to 16)
- Week 3 (Days 17 to 25)
- Week 4 (Days 25 to 32)
- Week 5 (Days 32 through 39)
- Week 6 (Days 39 though 46)
- Week 7 (Days 46 though 53)
- Week 8 (Days 53 through 60)
- Week 9 (Days 60 through 67)
- Week 10 (Days 67 through 74)
- Week 11 (Days 74 through 81)
- Week 12 (Days 81 through 88)
And today I am reporting on my thirteenth week (days 88 through 95) on the Dukan diet. This week was nearly perfect – I got my head on straight, stopped with the carb transgressions and lost 3.2 pounds in seven days. It is one of my best weeks ever while on the Dukan diet, and felt very good after gaining weight last week. Here’s how the week unfolded…
Day 88 –
– On the scale this morning I weigh 193.8.
– Today I ate a pound of Tilapia, 1.5 pounds of chicken, three eggs, 2 cups of cottage cheese and a serving of asparagus. A good, no-nonsense Dukan diet day food-wise.
– I didn’t really get any exercise today.
Day 89 –
– On the scale this morning I lost 0.4 pounds. I now weight 193.4.
– BP this morning is 124/84.
– At the beach last week I started to try doing pushups in the morning. This morning was the first day that this activity felt “comfortable”. I am able to do about 30 before I run out of gas. Pushups seem to be significantly easier to do after you have lost 34 pounds.
– Today’s food intake was weird because I had lunch with a long lost friend at a relatively nice restaurant. I had a big salad for lunch but have no idea how many calories (probably more than I would care to know) or how much salt (lots) it contained. Other than that, today I ate about a pound and a half of chicken, half a pound of salmon, three cups of cottage cheese, one taco, a fair amount (let’s call it half a pound) of lunch meat, 30 pretzel bites and a handful of walnuts. In other words, it was not a good day, and pretty salty. Why did I eat a taco? Because that’s what the kids had for dinner and they had a friend over and we were all eating together and it was an easy way to fit in. Why did I eat the pretzel bites? Because my loving wife accidentally left them on the counter and I lunged for them. The good news (from my perspective, being an addict) was that I stopped at only 30 (approximately 420 calories, 1,000 mg salt).
– I burned 300 calories on the exercise bike tonight and we took a family walk of about one mile.
Day 90 –
– On the scale this morning I gained 0.6 pounds. Yuck. I now weigh 194.0. I am pretty disgusted with myself.
– BP this morning is 121/87. I would say at this point that either sesame seeds are very slow to kick in, or you have to eat more that a tablespoon a day, or they are having no real effect on my BP.
– It is time to get back on track with this diet. No more transgressions, and no more pretzel bites! Today was a nearly perfect food day from a Dukan diet standpoint. I ate a pound of chicken, half a pound of salmon, half a pound of Tilapia, 2 cups of cottage cheese and a handful of walnuts. Not a single transgression. No hunger at all. It felt good.
– Plus, in the evening I walked with a friend. We met at a local lake which has trails. So I rode by bike to the lake (5 miles there, 5 miles back) and then walked 3 miles.
Day 91 –
– On the scale this morning I lost 0.6 pounds. I weigh 193.4. This is a little disappointing – I had thought I would dump more water than that.
– BP is 122/81.
– Today was another really good Dukan diet day. I ate three eggs, half a pound of chicken, half a pound of fish, two cups of cottage cheese, a handful of walnuts, a serving of asparagus and a restaurant salad. Another day of zero transgressions. That feels good.
– We took a family walk for about half an hour.
Day 92 –
– Today on the scale I lost 0.8 pounds and I weigh 192.6.
– This is a new low weight for me (previous low weight was 192.8 set on Day 81). Yay! I feel like I am now “back on track”. Looking over on the last 11 days, and really across the last several weeks, I would say that “transgressions became kind of a norm rather than an exception.” Now that transgressions seem to be under control, weight loss becomes consistent again. This says a lot about the Dukan diet – it actually works, and works well, when you do it properly. And there are no hunger pangs driving the transgressions. I simply got off the “hey, this diet is about zero carbs” mindset and started taking in carbs (like tacos, pretzel bites, Doritos, etc.) when I should not be doing so. Now that I see that and stop the transgressions, I am back in the groove. If you are on the Dukan diet and it is “not working”, perhaps the thing to do is keep a daily food diary and see if transgressions are an issue. If they are, eliminate them.
– BP is 119/85
– Today was another solid Dukan day with zero transgressions. Breakfast was half a pound of chicken and a cup of cottage cheese, followed by a 20 mile bike ride with David and his grandfather. Lunch was a pound of teriyaki salmon and three eggs. For dinner we went to a picnic with a hundred temptations, and what I ate was a pound of jalapeno burgers that were utterly fantastic and some watermelon. The hamburger had been somehow mixed with jalapeno peppers, salt, maybe even a little cheese before grilling (maybe something like this or this (without the cheese on top)?). We did a lot of swimming. I completely avoided all the Doritos, Ruffles, bread, nuts, soft drinks, desserts, etc…
Day 93 –
– … And this morning on the scale I was rewarded – I lost 1.0 pounds. I now weigh 191.6.
– BP is 115/80
– Today was another good Dukan diet day of zero transgressions. I ate about two pounds of chicken cooked in various ways, half a pound of Talapia, 2 cups of cottage cheese, some watermelon, a cup of plain yogurt, a handful of walnuts and a serving of asparagus.
– The dog and I walked about 3 miles early this morning. It has been really hot this weekend, like 103 today with high humidity.
– This weekend I dug out some old 25 pound barbells and developed a pattern where in the morning I do some push-ups, some curls with the barbells and some leg lifts. Leigh helpfully comments, “if you convert fat into muscle, won’t that slow down weight loss?”. This kind of falls into the same “if you lose so much weight, won’t you have loose saggy skin?” category, where it is a problem that I would love to have. Compared to being fat and dying of diabetes or a heart attack, loose skin seems like a great alternative (no, it has not been a problem – see this page for details). I really doubt that some push-ups and leg lifts are going to manifest themselves as any sort of weight gain problem (see this page for a discussion).
Day 94 –
– This morning on the scale I lost 0.6 pounds and weigh 191.0.
– BP is 122/82
– Another perfect Dukan day with no carb transgressions. I ate about a pound and a half of chicken, half a pound of fish, three eggs, 2 cups of cottage cheese, a little lunch meat, a handful of walnuts, a little watermelon and a serving of asparagus.
– Irena’s soccer practice was at a new field tonight. This is a gorgeous Town of Cary athletic park that includes baseball diamonds, soccer fields, a huge 18-hole Frisbee golf course, etc. There are multiple walking trails, including a ~quarter-mile path around two soccer fields. I was able to jog one quarter mile and walk about 2 miles.
Day 95 –
– This morning on the scale I was rewarded again by losing 0.4 pounds. I now weigh 190.6. I have lost 3.2 pounds in the last week and 37.0 pounds since starting the Dukan diet.
This week felt really, really good, after feeling pretty bad through a week of vacation in Week 12. While on vacation I felt like I “lost control” to some extent. As mentioned above (Day 92), once I got my head on straight and stopped the carb transgressions that had become a real problem on vacation, the Dukan diet went back to working exactly like it is supposed to work. This was one of my best weeks ever in terms of weight loss. If I had to guess, I would say that my body had taken on a certain amount of water while on vacation and I lost that water weight this week, in addition to losing fat.
The other thing that feels good is that I am now just two or three days away (assuming no transgressions) from reaching the 180s. For me that is a big deal, because 185 is my target weight according to the Dukan diet web site. That will be a real milestone, and get me within striking range of 175 pounds, which is my BMI target weight.
I also made it through my 90-day anniversary on the Dukan diet this week. In three months I have lost a significant, noticeable amount of weight on this diet without ever really feeling hungry. I feel much better about myself having lost this weight, and I feel much better internally. If you have been thinking about losing weight, I would recommend this diet, since it has worked for me. If you want to get started, begin with the first article and see what happens. You might be pleasantly surprised.