Dukan do it!

I’m probably more surprised than anyone about this, but I (and Steve) are on a diet. We’ve both been living so high on the hog and revelling in our Epicurean lifestyle to such an extent that we’ve each put on a few extra pounds. Neither of us had gotten to the point where we can’t fit into our clothes, but I know that I’ve put some extra padding on and that I feel better when I’m about 10 lbs. lighter.

I did a lot of soul searching before I decided to go on a diet. I had a semi-serious eating disorder for about 8 years in my teens and into my early 20’s. Partly due to buying into society’s warped body images and it was how I coped after my Mom died when I was 16. I stumbled upon two really important books in 1986 – Fat is a Feminist Issue by Susie Orbach and Breaking Free From Compulsive Eating by Geneen Roth. Since then, I’ve never dieted or even kept track of my weight. I’ve always been quite slender, genuinely like to exercise and realise that my weight fluctuates up and down several pounds over the course of a year. Still, I’d gotten to a place where I want to lose these extra pounds that have come to stay.

We chose the Dukan diet for a number of reasons:

Meat! My husband loves meat more than any two-legged critter I know. I’m a grazer and sometines when I’m out of the house and need ‘something to eat right now!’ I usually go for a piece of chicken, fish or a burger so I figured that I can cope quite nicely with a high protein diet.
It’s French and the recipes are for the most part very good. I love French cooking and have been adapting some of my favourite recipes to the Dukan diet.
Although there is a lot of food which can’t be eaten, the ones that are OK can be eaten with no restrictions on quantity. So I haven’t been feeling deprived.
I’ve read up on it and it seems pretty sound. I like that after the desired weight is reached, there is a long Consolidation Phase which leads back to regular eating habits, but in a way that doesn’t cause the lost weight to come right back on.

Before we committed to it, we tried out some of the recipes, especially the ones that incorporate oat bran into our daily fodder. They were good. We were invited to Sunday lunch on the 5th of February so decided to start Dukanning on Monday the 6th. We didn’t want to go to someone’s house for the first time with a list of dietary restrictions! Funnily enough, we were asked to dinner last Saturday by a friend who knew about our commitment to this diet. She asked a few questions and cooked a great meal of braised beef brisket, ratatouille and steamed vegetables. The only things we couldn’t eat were the mashed potatoes and dessert. Neither of us has a sweet tooth, so no problem there. This is an alcohol free diet and we’ve been quite happy with water and sugar free soft drinks. In fact, one of the dinner guests joined us in our bottle of diet ginger ale. I’ll miss fat the most and Steve’ll miss bread.

Anyhow, so far so good. I’ve lost 4 kilos since last Monday. I only have 5 more lbs. to go, then I’ll start on the 3rd phase which incorporates other foods. BTW, I am not going to turn this into a Dukan Blog. Just google Dukan Diet and you can learn all about it in 15 minutes. I’ve bookmarked these two sites – The Dukan Diet Site and My Dukan Diary for their recipes and tips. I will however, share many of the recipes we’ve been cooking and enjoying together. In fact this is probably the clincher for us – we’re still sourcing and cooking great food, it’s just a bit lighter.

Here’s Poisson en Papilote which I blogged about 3 years ago. We had this the weekend before starting the diet in earnest.