The Dukan Diet (13 page)

Another common mistake is that many dieters—ones who are very overweight as well as ones who are not quite so overweight—think that it will be easier to stabilize at a certain weight if they lose a little more so that they have a few pounds as a safety margin. However, wanting, for example, to go down to 125 pounds in order to stabilize at 150 pounds is not just an error, it is a huge mistake, because the amount of willpower wasted getting your weight down to 125 pounds will be sorely missed when you need it later in order to stabilize. The more you force your weight down, the more your system will be prone to rebound upward.

In conclusion, you must choose a weight that is achievable, high enough to be attainable and low enough to provide the gratification and well-being you will need to stick to that weight.

I call this weight the True Weight. It is not the same thing as the
body mass index (BMI) (see
this page
), which is useful for pinpointing high-risk groups but less useful for determining particular individual’s weight and setting strategic goals.

By definition, each person’s True Weight is personal. For starters, it must take a person’s age and gender into account. For example, we know that with each decade, a woman’s stable weight needs to be increased by 1.8 pounds and a man’s by 2.6 pounds. Furthermore, a person’s needs, and especially the likelihood of achieving a certain weight, will differ between age 20 and age 50.

When working out this True Weight, family history must also be considered. Here again, there is no point asking a woman whose family has a history of obesity to aim for the same stable weight as a woman whose family is by nature slim. In addition, it is absolutely essential to include the history of a person’s weight problems, the crucial moment when weight started to get out of control: was it childhood, adolescence, or at a time of major stress, medical treatment, or depression—or for a woman, at her first contraceptive pill, with pregnancy, or in perimenopause? Each person is different from the next, and these differences need to be taken into consideration.

It is also equally necessary to take into account what I call the “weight range”—the difference between the least someone has ever weighed after the age of twenty and the most the person has weighed apart from during pregnancy. This range tells us what is recorded in that person’s biological memory and remains there forever.

Also figuring into calculating a person’s True Weight is how many unsuccessful diets have been followed, and which ones, as there are some diets from which the body never quite recovers—diets that go against nature and trigger “body anxieties.” The best known of these diets are based on powdered or liquid meal substitutes, which are the very opposite of what is natural for humans to eat.

We are not programmed to feed on meal substitutes, and our bodies may develop a sort of adverse reaction that unfortunately makes us resistant to other diets. Fasting is a disaster for our muscle mass, because with fasting, the body has to use muscle to get the vital proteins it needs for its survival. But fasting is infinitely more natural than eating these meal substitutes, as it can happen in nature that a predator catches no prey and is forced to fast for a few days.

You can see that there are many different parameters used to calculate a person’s True Weight and that it is too complex to be calculated just by using pen and paper. I recommend that you go to the Dukan Diet website (
www.dukandiet.com
), where you will find a free questionnaire with eleven questions that will let you find your True Weight. Answer them, and you will have your True Weight straightaway. Then you will know the exact bull’s-eye for your target. You can measure the distance, I will give you the bow and arrow, and you will stand a much better chance of scoring a hit.

You have just ended your final day of the alternating protein diet, and for the first time on your scales you have seen your True Weight, the weight that I hope you have managed to achieve. If this is not the case, then the weight that you set yourself when you started your diet. Like many others before you, carried away by your success, you feel tempted to continue to try and lose a little more to have a safety margin. Please do not think of doing this. The dice have been thrown, you wanted this weight, you have it, and now you have to summon all your strength to try and keep it. I am not just saying this: one in every two failures occurs in the 3 months after the desired weight has been attained.

The length of this transition diet is based on how much weight you have lost: 5 days on this new diet for every pound lost. For example:
If you have just lost 40 pounds, you must follow the transition diet for 40 × 5 days, or 200 days (6 months and 20 days). If you have lost 20 pounds, you will need to follow the diet for 100 days. Everyone can easily calculate the exact amount of time needed until the definitive Permanent Stabilization phase begins.

Am I going to give you the Permanent Stabilization diet at this point? No. You now realize that you are too vulnerable, you are like a deep-sea diver coming up from the depths who has to do it in stages for safety’s sake. This is the role of the diet that I am now going to introduce.

During this Consolidation phase, you will follow as faithfully as possible the following transition diet, on which you can eat as much as you want from the foods I will outline below.

Up to this point, during your Cruise phase, you alternated between proteins and proteins
+
vegetables. From now on, you do not have to alternate. You can eat all proteins and vegetables together and still have as much as you want.

Proteins and vegetables constitute a stable foundation on which you will build the Consolidation phase, as well as the final and Permanent Stabilization phase that will follow it. You can see why these two major food categories are so important, because for the rest of your life you can eat them without there being any limit on quantity, time of day, or combination.

You probably know all the foods by now, but I will briefly review them so as to avoid any misunderstanding. For more details, you will find the complete list in the chapters on the Attack phase and the Cruise phase. These allowed foods are

• Lean meats—the least fatty cuts of beef and veal, buffalo, and venison
  
• Organ meats such as liver, tongues, and kidneys
  
• Fish and seafood
  
• Poultry (except duck and goose), always without the skin
  
• Low-fat ham, sliced low-fat chicken and turkey
  
• Eggs
  
• Nonfat dairy products
  
• Raw and cooked vegetables
  
• 1½ quarts of water
  

As well as the above base of proteins and vegetables, the Consolidation phase introduces new foods that will improve your daily eating. They can be added in the following proportions and quantities.

I’m sure most of you believe that fruit belongs to the “as much as you want” category because it is so naturally healthy. This is partly true: fruit is a natural product and it is also one of the best-known sources of vitamin C and carotene.

Fruit in its natural state was a colorful and satisfying reward for humans. It is only through intensive farming and selection that we nowadays have the impression that fruit is easy to come by. As it is, most fruit with a high sugar content, such as pineapples, bananas, and mangos, comes to us from tropical regions and was only recently introduced into our regular diet, thanks to progress in transportation.

In fact, fruit is not the prototype of a healthy and natural food. It is the only natural food that contains what diabetes specialists call rapid-assimilation sugars. Consumed in large quantities it can be unhealthy, especially for diabetics and overweight people who tend to eat fruit outside of mealtimes.

Rationed to 1 serving of fruit per day, you are now allowed to eat all types of fruit
except
bananas, grapes, cherries, dried fruits, and nuts (walnuts, peanuts, almonds, pistachios, macadamias, and cashews).

How much is a serving? With fruits the size of an apple, pear, orange, grapefruit, peach, or nectarine, a serving is 1 medium-size piece of fruit. For smaller fruits, or larger ones, use a normal serving: a cup of strawberries or raspberries, half of a medium cantaloupe or a quarter of
a honeydew melon, an inch-thick slice of watermelon, 2 kiwis, 2 nice apricots, 1 small mango or half a large one. You can eat all these fruits, but remember, only 1 serving per day and not per meal.

Bear in mind that the best fruits for stabilizing your weight are the following, in descending order:

• Apples. I give priority to the apple, because its high pectin content helps keep you feeling full.
  
• Strawberries and raspberries. These are low in calories and look colorful and festive.
  
• Melon and watermelon, if you stick to the serving size, because of their high water and low calorie content.
  
• Grapefruit, for its pulp, is rich in pectin and low in calories.
  
• Kiwi is high in vitamin C and low in sugar content. Peaches and nectarines are full of flavor, with a luscious texture and moderate sugar content. Mango is the richest in vitamins A, C, and E, three major antioxidants.
  

If you are prone to putting on weight, get into the habit of avoiding white bread. White flour is too refined, and like white and other simple sugars, it enters into the bloodstream too quickly and in too great a quantity.

One hundred percent whole grain bread tastes good and has a natural proportion of bran, which is a major ally in normal elimination.

For this Consolidation phase of the diet, you are still under strict surveillance as your body is waiting to extract calories from everything. But once you reach the Permanent Stabilization phase, you will be able to eat bread normally, as long as it is whole grain or, even better, enriched with bran or fiber. From now on, if you enjoy bread at breakfast, you may lightly spread your 2 slices of whole grain bread with some reduced-fat butter or spread. But you may also decide to eat these 2 slices of bread at some other time of the day, for a cold meat or ham sandwich at lunchtime, or in the evening with some cheese, which is the next food to be added to your list.

What cheese are you allowed to eat, and how much?

You may eat all hard-rind cheeses, such as cheddar, Swiss cheese, Gouda and other cheeses from Holland, Tomme de Savoie (a hard French cheese from the Alps), Mimolette, Emmental. Avoid fermented cheese for now, such as blue cheese, Brie, Camembert, or goat cheese. As for how much, you should eat a 1½-ounce (40-gram) serving. I am not usually in favor of weighing food, but since the Consolidation phase will not last too long, this is a good standard serving that satisfies most appetites. Choose whichever meal suits you best, but remember only 1 serving per day.

What about reduced-fat or diet cheeses? Many are of poor quality, so if you cannot find a good one, I would advise against eating food that has lost most of its flavor. If you enjoy soy cheeses, a 1½-ounce portion is acceptable.

Up until now you have been allowed to eat the reintroduced foods every day. Starchy foods, however, will be reintroduced gradually. After calculating how long your Consolidation phase will last, based on 5 days for every pound lost, divide this phase into two equal halves. In the first half you are allowed 1 serving of starchy foods per week; in the second, 2 servings per week. This approach avoids the risk of your starting to eat sugar-rich foods too suddenly.

Starchy foods refer to potatoes, foods made from flour, such as breads and pasta, as well as cereals such as rice and corn. In the Consolidation phase, in which prudence is the rule, all starches are not of equal value, and I list them for you here in descending order of interest.