Dukan diet Cruise Phase (Phase 2) week 15 – I lost 2.8 pounds this week, 40.2 pounds since starting diet

by Marshall Brain

Here is my journey so far with the Dukan Diet:

And today I am reporting on my fifteenth week (days 102 through 109) on the Dukan diet. This week has been awesome. By doing an Attack Phase for four days this week, I was FINALLY able to break solidly into the 180s, and also break the 40 pound barrier. I lost 2.8 pounds this week and have now lost 40.2 pounds total since starting the Dukan diet. Here is how the week unfolded:

Day 102 –
– This morning I lost 0.2 pounds and I weigh 190.2.
– Today for breakfast and lunch I ate a pound of fish, a pound of chicken and 2 cups of cottage cheese. Perfect. Then for dinner we took the kids to a restaurant called Golden Corral. We have been putting this off for several weeks (we had promised them we would go while on vacation, and we ran out of time). Golden Corral is an all-you-can-eat buffet kind of restaurant that the kids LOVE. Obviously, if you are on a diet, and all-you-can-eat buffet is the opposite of the goal. But I went and stayed true to the Dukan plan, eating a bunch of salad, a bunch of vegetables and a bunch of meat. On the Dukan diet you can eat as much protein as you want, right? But an all-you-can-eat buffet really allows you to stretch that, plus everything you eat is loaded with salt. I had bourbon chicken, BBQ beef, sauteed fish fillets, steak, chicken fillets, etc. I ate no bread, no pasta, no rice, no potatoes, no fried foods, and nothing from the giant dessert and ice cream bar.
– No exercise to speak of today.

Day 103 –
– As you might expect, I gained weight today. 1.8 pounds to be exact. On the scale this morning I weigh 192.0. This really isn’t too bad when considering how much food and salt I ate last night.
– Which really makes me wonder, again, what happened on Day 95. If I was going to gain 3.0 pounds, today would be the day. But I gained only 1.8 pounds. That mystery will probably never be solved.
– Today I ate a pound and a half of chicken, 2 cups of cottage cheese, a cup of plain yogurt, 3 eggs and one hard boiled egg, and then the kids had a sleep-over last night and I fixed pancakes for everyone for breakfast. Let’s say that I ate 500 calories of pancakes with the kids.
– We took a family walk today to do some letter boxing.

Day 104 –
– This morning on the scale I lost 0.8 pounds and now weigh 191.2, even with the pancakes yesterday.
– In the comments to week 14, there was a kind suggestion from Simon T that I try a 3-day attack phase and see what happens. So I will be starting that today.
– And today was perfect in terms of food consumption. I ate a pound and a half of chicken cooked three different ways, half a pound of Tilapia, 3 eggs, 2 cups of cottage cheese and a cup of plain yogurt (along with oat bran and lots of water). Pure protein; No transgressions. Adding up the things I ate, I took in about 1,700 calories.
– I burned 420 calories on the exercise bike tonight. I am watching a movie called Timeline.
– I saw BP readings as low as 115/65 last night.

Day 105 –
– This morning I lost 0.6 pounds and now weigh 190.6.
– BP is 115/80.
– Two more days like yesterday and I should easily be in the 180s, right? I had about a 1,000 calorie deficit yesterday.
– Today was absolutely perfect from a food perspective. I ate a pound of chicken, half a pound of salmon, 2 cups of cottage cheese and a cup of plain yogurt. That’s it. No hunger pangs, no transgressions. Perfect. It is another day where calories out minus calories in is about 1,000.
– I walked 2 miles on my own and we also took a family walk doing some geocaching and letter boxing at a local park.

Day 106 –
– This morning on the scale I lost another 0.6 pounds and now weigh 190.0. Sooooo close! It’s like the scale is taunting me. One more day like yesterday and I should finally be in the 180s.
– BP is 120/80.
– Today was another perfect day. I ate a pound of chicken, half a pound of salmon, three eggs (scrambled, with a lot of oat bran mixed in) and 2 cups of cottage cheese.
– And it was also perfect on the exercise front. We had a family tennis game in the morning with the kids’ grandfather, went for a long family walk, and after writing this urban farming article decided that the Brain family needed a garden, so I started construction on two small raised beds. Therefore lots of digging and so on.
– The absolute best thing about the Dukan diet, when you can stay on the straight and narrow path, is that it is possible to do all that without feeling any hunger at all.

Day 107 –
– And this morning it finally paid off. I lost 0.8 pounds and now weigh 189.2. How long has this particular milestone taken? Weeks… but it is finally done. My goal today will be to have another perfect day so that, by tomorrow, I am solidly in the 180s.
– BP is 120/80 this morning.
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– Today we went to a baseball game. In Durham there is a minor league team called the Durham Bulls, and the kids had free tickets that they got at school. So for $16 we took six people to a baseball game. Right across the street from the stadium is a pizza place called The Mellow Mushroom which we’ve always liked, so we stopped there for dinner before the game. With a coupon (and when I’m drinking water and not partaking, which is the case tonight), you can feed a family of 6 for $14. And then we walked into the stadium. I have not been to a baseball game for a long time. The thing you immediately see is that the concessions at a baseball game are unbelievable. Literally everywhere you turn there are hot dogs, french fries, ice creams, snow cones, cotton candy, popcorn, fried dough, peanuts, milk shakes, sodas, pizzas, fresh squeezed lemonades, beers, subs, hamburgers, cheese steak sandwiches, lollipops, more ice creams, nachos, pasta dishes…. It is amazing. Overwhelming. Everyone sitting around you is chowing down; there are food vendors walking past your seat every 2 minutes; when you walk anywhere the concession stands line every walkway. But fortunately the prices are also shocking (e.g. $4 for a snow cone), and you combine that with a “carbs are banned” mentality from the Dukan diet, and you can walk past all of it. Since we ate dinner right before the game, the kids were OK too and we managed to go to a ball game without spending any money inside the stadium. Bottom line for me: No calories consumed, no carbs consumed. Bottom line for the family: A baseball game and dinner for 6 people for $30.
– Today I ate half a pound of chicken, half a pound of Tilapia, a pound of salmon, 2 cups of cottage cheese, a cup of plain yogurt and 3 eggs. A perfect Dukan diet day.
– On the exercise front: Parking for the game was free if you parked well away from the stadium and walked – that was our family walk for the day. There was also some gardening in the morning. And then tonight I really wanted to watch the other half of the movie Timeline, and that was enough of an incentive to get me to ride the exercise bike for 400 calories.

Day 108 –
– This morning on the scale was a very pleasant surprise. I lost 1.6 pounds and weigh 187.6 today. I am now irrevocably in the 180s. And since I started this whole Dukan diet process weighing 227.6, I have officially lost 40 pounds since starting this diet. Yay!
– Clearly the 3-day attack phase worked. Thanks Simon! I am going to extend it for at least one more day and see what happens.
– Today I ate a pound of Tilapia, a pound of sauteed chicken, three eggs and 3 cups of cottage cheese.
– Exercise today was a family walk of about 2 miles.

Day 109 –
– On the scale this morning I lost 0.2 pounds. I now weigh 187.4. I lost 2.8 pounds this week, for a total of 40.2 pounds lost since starting the Dukan diet.

So what did I learn this week? First I learned that, even if you go to an all-you-can-eat buffet, it does not have to be a disaster if you focus strictly on protein and vegetables. Yes, I gained weight after going to Golden Corral with the kids, but it seems like that was water weight and it came back off quickly. By skipping all the bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, fried foods, and the giant dessert and ice cream bar, I stayed relatively safe and remained carb-free.

Second I learned that by trying a strict Attack Phase in the middle of the Dukan diet, it seemed to unblock a plateau I had reached. It is now very easy to do an Attack Phase because: A) I have a lot of practice eating right, and B) It is much, much easier to say NO to carbs than it was 15 weeks ago. My eating habits have been completely modified by this diet.

According to the Dukan diet web site, 185 pounds is my target weight. There is some chance that I will hit that target next week. Yay! Although I am planning to stay on the program a few more weeks and get solidly into the 170s to be officially “normal” on the BMI scale. Onward!

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