The Dukan Diet (11 page)

We also need to clear up the ambiguity concerning olive oil. Even though this symbol of the Mediterranean lifestyle is recognized as protecting us against cardiovascular disease, it is no less rich in calories than any other oil on the market.

For these reasons, during the first two actual weight loss phases, the Attack and Cruise phases, it is crucial that you avoid preparing green vegetables, cooked or raw, with a sauce or dressing that contains more than 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil.

Variation:

Vinegar is a condiment that can play a major role in any diet. An interesting paradox has recently been discovered: that humans can distinguish four universal flavors—sweet, salty, bitter, and sour—yet vinegar is the only substance in the human food list to provide that precious and rare sour taste.

What is more, recent studies have also demonstrated the impact that oral sensation—the quantity and the variety of flavors—has on producing the feeling of satisfaction and fullness. For example, we know today that the taste of certain spices, such as cloves, ginger, turmeric, star anise, and cardamom, work on the hypothalamus, the area in our brain that
measures these sensations until the feeling of satiety is triggered. So it is very important to use as wide a range of spices as possible, and as much as possible, preferably at the start of a meal, and, if you are not already a great fan, to try to get used to them.

Now is your chance to use green beans, spinach, leeks, cabbages of all varieties, mushrooms, braised greens, fennel, and celery. These vegetables can be cooked in water, boiled, or, even better, steamed to retain the maximum amount of vitamins. You can also bake them in the oven in the juice from your meat or fish.

Finally, cooking
en papillote
(literally, “in parchment paper,” but aluminum foil can also be used) combines all the advantages as far as nutrition and taste are concerned; it is particularly suitable for preparing fish, in particular salmon, which remains tender when cooked on a bed of leeks or eggplant.

Introducing vegetables after the pure protein phase brings freshness and variety to the initial Attack diet. Things are easier, even comfortable. Now it is practical to start a meal off with a salad, well seasoned and rich in color and flavor; or, in winter, with a soup, followed by a meat or fish dish gently stewed with flavorful and fragrant vegetables.

In principle, quantity is not limited. But it is wise not to go beyond common sense simply to take advantage of the fact that you are not restricted. I know patients who eat huge mixed salads without even feeling hungry, chomping through their meal as if they had a mouth full of chewing gum. Eat until you no longer feel hungry, but do not keep going. This does not alter the rule that quantities are unrestricted, which is at the heart of my program.

Whatever quantity you eat, you will still lose weight, but at a slower and less encouraging rate.

I want to tell you about a frequent reaction to the changeover from the strictly protein Attack diet to the diet now enhanced by the introduction of vegetables.

Very often, weight loss is spectacular during the first phase and then, when vegetables are introduced, the scales seem to get stuck and do not go down, or may even show a slight increase in pounds. Do not worry—you are not slipping backward. So what is happening?

During the Attack phase, eating only proteins has a powerful diuretic effect. Reserve fat is lost, as well as a large quantity of water that had been stagnating in the body for a long time. This combination of eliminated water and fat explains why your scales show an impressive loss.

But when vegetables are added to proteins, water is retained once more, which explains the weight plateau. The real weight loss continues, but it is being camouflaged by the return of water. Be patient, and as soon as the pure protein days return, the loss of water weight will start again, and you will see how many pounds you have really lost.

You must realize, however, that this is going to be your way of life during this period of alternating diets until you reach your target weight. It is always going to be the pure protein days that get the machine moving and that are responsible for the diet’s overall effectiveness. So do not be surprised to see your weight go down at regular intervals. The weight loss levels out during the vegetable days and then drops down to another level during the pure protein days, and so on.

The diet of alternating proteins, building on the momentum and speed generated by the pure protein Attack diet, is now responsible for guiding you to your chosen goal. This phase will occupy the largest part of the strictly weight loss period of the Dukan Diet.

The rhythmical addition of vegetables greatly reduces the pure proteins’ impact and gives this entire second phase in the diet a kind of syncopated pace, both for organizing your meals and for the results obtained. Thus there will be pauses interrupted by accelerations, a series of conquests followed by resting periods, all leading in alternate sequence, nevertheless, to your end goal.

What rhythm should this diet take? I will sum it up briefly:

• In the short term, the most effective rhythm is 5/5:
  5 days of pure proteins followed by 5 days of proteins + vegetables. This is not the easiest rhythm: it does start off spectacularly, but it slows down and may become burdensome.
  
• The other solution is the 1/1 rhythm:
  1 day of pure proteins followed by 1 day of vegetables + proteins. This alternating rhythm takes longer to get going, but in 20 days it will have caught up, and over the long term it is easier to follow and generates less frustration.
  
• There is a third way, which is suitable if you only have a little weight to lose, the 2/7 rhythm:
  2 days of pure proteins on Mondays and Thursdays and 5 days of proteins + vegetables during the rest of the week.
  
• Finally, there is a variation on the 2/7 rhythm—the 2/0 rhythm:
  2 days of pure proteins per week, on Mondays and Thursdays, followed by 5 days of no particular diet but avoiding any extremes. This is the diet that best suits some women with cellulite, who are slim on top but heavy around the hips and the thighs especially.
  

During the Cruise phase, the amount of oat bran you should eat is increased from the 1½ tablespoons per day of the Attack phase to 2 tablespoons per day, prepared in the same way as for the Attack phase.

Similarly, the recommended exercise is increased from the 20-minute walk of the Attack phase to a 30-minute walk in the Cruise phase. If you are on a stagnation plateau, increase this to a 60-minute walk for 4 days, just until you break through this plateau.

If you are significantly overweight, by 40 pounds or more, the loss is difficult to predict week by week, but experience has shown that one can expect to lose around 2 pounds a week.

During the first half of the Cruise phase, when you can expect a weight loss of 3 to 4 pounds per week, you can potentially lose the first 20 pounds in approximately 2 months.

Beyond the first 2 months, the curve decreases progressively because of a metabolic defense mechanism that I will explain in further detail when we come to the Consolidation phase, the third stage of the program. The curve then flattens at just over 2 pounds per week before dipping below 2 pounds a week, with odd periods of stagnation for women with premenstrual syndrome or if there is any bingeing.

On this subject, you need to know that the body puts up little resistance to the loss of the first few pounds. It has a greater reaction when the plundering of its fat reserves becomes more threatening. In theory,
this would be just the moment to step up your diet. But in practice, the very opposite often occurs. The strongest willpower sometimes weakens in the face of long-suppressed temptations, and invitations to eat out that were once declined are now accepted.

But the real threat comes from elsewhere. The loss of the first 20 pounds brings general visible improvement: shape and suppleness return, breathlessness disappears, compliments come by the dozen, and you have the satisfaction of getting back into clothes that did not fit before. Add to all this the classic excuse of “just this once,” and your wonderful strong determination from the early days suddenly makes way for bingeing followed by a return to drastic dieting, creating a chaotic, yo-yoing situation that soon becomes dangerous.

It is in such circumstances that—victorious up until now—you risk resting on your laurels and ending, up abandoning your goal. You have to realize that in the middle of the race, crossing the dangerous territory of weariness and self-satisfaction that is part of any prolonged diet, half of all dieters fall into this trap and let everything slip away.

In this event, there are three ways to react:

1. You can abandon the diet, sink into complacency and succumb to compulsive behavior patterns, but with a deep sense of failure that leads to your quickly putting the pounds back on, often going far beyond the weight you started out with.
   
2. Or, you can get back on track by resuming the Attack diet and sticking with it until your set goal is attained.
   
3. Or, you can admit that you feel incapable of going any further, but that you are ready to do whatever it takes to preserve what you have achieved so far. If this is your choice, stop the weight loss phase of the Dukan Diet and go directly to the
   Consolidation phase
   . The Consolidation phase has a much more varied choice of food, and it is easy to work out how long it lasts (5 days for every pound you have lost). Then go to the Stabilization phase, in which you are allowed a completely free choice of food, with just 1 day per week of the pure protein diet.
   

The Cruise phase is the key time in the weight loss period, the one which will take you to your goal, your True Weight.

If you have over 40 pounds to lose, and if there are no other particular difficulties involved, you might hope to shed that weight over 20 weeks of the alternating protein diet—that is, in a little under 5 months.

For some, however, losing weight may be more difficult for several reasons:

• For physiological reasons, such as a family tendency to obesity
  
• For psychological reasons, such as little self-discipline or weak motivation
  
• For individuals with a history of having dieted many times with bad diets or diets not followed properly or simply abandoned midway.
  
• For girls during prepuberty, and for women when their periods are irregular, or during pregnancy, and above all during perimenopause and menopause
  

In all these cases, weight loss will be slowed down and will require specific adjustments. Even so, even in difficult cases, the spirit of the Attack phase is so strong, and the pace of the first 2 or 3 weeks of the Dukan Diet so intense, that most resistance and inhibitions are overcome, resulting generally in an initial loss of 8 to 10 pounds. This is the point at which old demons can reappear to slow things down.

If your family history predisposes you to being obese, in less than a month you will likely fall under the threshold of losing 2 pounds a week and reach an acceptable pace of 6 to 7 pounds a month for 2 to 3 months. This,
added to your initial loss, will bring you to a loss of about 30 pounds. At this stage, your monthly weight loss will be further reduced to around 4 or perhaps 3 pounds a month.

You may then ask yourself, Is this all worth it? More often than not, the answer is no.

Unless you have been advised by your doctor to continue the weight loss part of the diet for reasons such as the threat of diabetes or severe and inoperable arthritis, or unless you have an imperative personal reason for doing so, it is probably best to stop the Cruise phase and not run the risk of undermining the results you’ve obtained so far. Instead you can go on to the Consolidation and Stabilization phases and can wait for better days to continue your weight loss to your original goal.

You can be proud of having lost around 35 pounds lost during your 4 months or so of following the alternating protein diet.

If you are not very motivated or lack the willpower to follow the diet, you are in a worse position. You will also lose the first 8 to 10 pounds, but the temptation to give up will rear its head straightaway. In the best-case scenario, if you can count on those around you and can count on your doctor’s helping you, you can expect to lose another 10 pounds in 5 weeks and then quickly go on to the Consolidation phase and even more quickly to the Stabilization phase, where you will have to agree to eat only proteins for 1 day a week for the rest of your life. You have to accept this painless and simple measure before you even start this program.