I finished my fourth week in the Dukan Diet Cruise Phase and lost another 2.4 pounds – plus I saw an amazingly good blood pressure reading and survived a pot luck dinner

by Marshall Brain

Here is my journey on the Dukan Diet so far:

And today I am reporting on my fourth week (days 26 through 32). I lost 2.4 pounds this week, for a total of 19.8 pounds since starting the Dukan Diet. Day-by-day this is what the week looked like:

Day 25 –
– Today I lost 0.6 pounds. So I lost a total of 2.6 pounds over the last 7 days. Since starting on the Dukan diet I have lost a total of 17.4 pounds.
– Today was another nothing-but-protein (plus oat bran) day for me. I had fish for breakfast, fish and london broil for lunch, chicken for dinner.

Day 26 –
– Today my weight was down 0.2 pounds.
– I ate fish, chicken, finished the LB and had chicken+veggies for dinner.

Day 27 –
– Today I gained 0.8 pounds. I don’t see any particular reason why this happened because I didn’t really eat any more yesterday than normal, or any differently. So I assume it is a water fluctuation. Maybe I should try asparagus. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.
– Today I ate fish, chicken and stir fry vegetables.
– Tonight, because of the way the schedules aligned, the easiest thing to do was for me and the twins to ride our bikes to soccer practice, and then from there ride to their cub scout meeting, and from there ride home. Their cub scout meeting was at Cold Stone Creamery (an ice cream parlor) because their den had won a contest and got free ice cream. It was a beautiful summer evening, so everyone got their ice cream and was eating outside. I did a quick mental survey. Half of the parents were fat like me, and I assume (based on my own personal experience) were tired of being fat so none of them ordered any ice cream. The other half were rail thin, and I would guess they didn’t want to become fat, so none of them ordered any ice cream either. And the kids, who were all thin, ate ice cream with abandon. I haven’t been to an ice cream store in a long time – when did ice cream cones become $5 items?

Day 28 –
– This morning on the scale I lost 1.2 pounds.
– Today I ate eggs, chicken+veggies, lunch meat and 2 turkey burger patties.
– I also ate a handful of cashews today. There was a can of cashews sitting on the counter. They looked soooo good, and the menu is getting pretty boring, so I had a handful. This is my first “transgression” while being on this diet. Technically I am not supposed to be eating nuts yet.
– The good news is that we went on a long family walk tonight around a local lake.
– After the walk we stopped at Wal-Mart. They have a blood pressure machine in the Pharmacy area. A couple weeks ago someone asked how my BP was doing. So I used the machine and the reading was 110/65. I don’t know if I have ever seen a reading that low. Granted we had just taken a long walk, but that number is still incredibly good for me. To make sure the machine wasn’t messed up, Leigh took her BP and it was normal – hers has been the same for years. I have read before that a Low-Carb Diet Lowers Blood Pressure, and this reading would seem to confirm that. I am amazed.
– I wonder if this diet is having any effect on cholesterol? I’ll have to get that checked too.

Day 29 –
– This morning I lost 0.4 pounds.
– I ate the usual stuff – chicken, eggs, stir fry vegetables, lunch meat. For dinner I went to a big Saturday night cookout. I ate hamburger patties with slices of tomato.

Day 30 –
– I lost 1.2 pounds when I got on the scale this morning. I don’t recall doing anything special or different yesterday to cause a big drop like that. Again, I imagine it is a water fluctuation.
– Today we were on the road as a family and I needed to eat something. The kids want to go to a fast food place, and that tends to not work very well for me. So I stopped at a grocery store and bought a 16-ounce container of low-fat cottage cheese. That is the first time I have had cottage cheese while on the Dukan Diet. I also ate eggs, chicken, stir-fry vegetables and hamburger patties again (we had hamburgers for dinner). I feel like I ate too much today, and I feel like I am eating too many hamburgers. The weigh in should be interesting tomorrow morning.

Day 31 –
– I lost 0.2 pounds today.
– I went to a pot luck dinner with the boys tonight (Leigh stayed home because Irena was at soccer). This is my first pot luck dinner since starting the Dukan diet. There were about 100 people there and it was completely typical for a pot luck dinner in America. Two months ago I would have gone and, ultimately, consumed 2,000 calories or so because it is all comfort food: Noodly stuff like lasagna, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese; Fried chicken people get at KFC and Bojangles; Casseroles; Potato salad, pasta salad, chips, etc. Drinks are soda, lemonade and sweet tea. And then a huge dessert table filled with cookies, cakes, brownies, cupcakes, etc. The boys were in heaven. I found myself looking over this whole massive spread, helping the boys get their food, and deciding not to eat anything. It simply was easier to not eat anything than to risk getting started and then getting out of control. If I had wanted to eat, however, it would have been possible. Someone had brought ham. Or a piece of fried chicken breast minus the skin would do in a pinch. And there were a couple of normal leafy salads that people brought with dressing on the side.
– During the rest of the day I ate a little cottage cheese, chicken, stir fried vegetables, and a couple of turkey burger patties. I really need to go to the store and replenish the protein variety, but the weekend was really busy and there was no time today.

Day 32 –
– I neither lost nor gained weight today. I lost 0.0 pounds. Which is a little disappointing because I had hoped to lose at least 0.2 pounds, so I could report that I have lost 20+ pounds since starting the Dukan diet. But I can’t say that. Instead, I lost 2.4 pounds this week, for a total of 19.8 pounds since starting the Dukan diet. Like last week, this seems like a solid, typical week on the Dukan Diet. Onward!

[[Click here to find out what happened next…]]

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