Dukan diet - reviews

Dukan diet: reviews from those losing weight

On the Internet you can find a huge number of photos of people losing weight on the Dukan diet.

.
the Dukan diet
really receive only positive reviews from those who have lost weight?

It’s worth honestly saying that the author’s method of weight correction according to Dukan wins over most other diets. It also has an advantage over mono-diets. Gaining significant momentum throughout Europe, it spread beyond one continent and created a real sensation.

Diet for weight loss by Pierre Dukan

allows you to forget about excess weight not for a while, but forever. This is a healthy nutrition system that does not force you to give up many foods and endure strict restrictions. In addition, you can do without constant monitoring of the number of calories. To maintain a diet, you need to go through four stages. Each of them has its own strict rules. But if you follow them strictly, you can lose up to five kilograms in a week.

At the first stage of the Dukan diet, some lose 2, some lose 6 kilograms. The phase is called “Attack”, it creates a psychological mood for the process of losing weight. Only protein foods and no carbohydrates are allowed. In the first days you may feel discomfort and weakness. a specific odor appears in the oral cavity. If you plan to lose 10 to 20 kilograms, then the first stage of the entire diet is extended over 4-5 days. If you plan to lose 20-30 kilograms of weight, then the duration of the “Attack” will be 5-7 days. Well, if 30 or more kilograms are excess, then the first stage should last 7-10 days. In any case, the ten-day period cannot be exceeded.

At the second stage of “Cruise”, protein foods alternate with vegetables. The alternation depends on how many kilograms you need to lose. So, if you plan to remove less than ten kilograms, then we alternate products according to the scheme 1 day after 1 day. If excess weight exceeds ten kilograms, then we alternate according to scheme 5 every 5 days. Based on the results of these two stages, the Dukan diet reviews of those losing weight

received positive ones. Inspired by such results, those losing weight strive for the next two stages.

The third phase of the Dukan diet involves consolidating the results. Everything that was dropped during the first two phases should not return in a week, a month, or a year. Depending on how many kilograms are lost, the duration of the third stage is calculated. Each kilogram lost is maintained for ten days. The Dukan weight loss diet allows in the third stage to consume any products from the first stage, vegetables that were added in the second stage, as well as cheese, potatoes, peas, rice, and some types of pasta. Don’t forget to eat oat bran: two tablespoons every day is a must! A little secret of the third stage: everyone who is conscientiously losing weight is allowed to eat whatever they want at one meal a week without any restrictions. But only once a week and only one appointment!

And finally, the final stage: the achieved and already consolidated results need to be stabilized. To the indicated two and a half tablespoons of oat bran, add another tablespoon - a total of three tablespoons per day. Dedicate one meal a week entirely to protein products! In general, the Dukan diet is not too strict and is suitable for those who do not know how to lose weight and control themselves. True, for those who don’t like to cook too much, the diet may not be suitable. It involves variety and preparation of dishes every day. But everyone has the right to decide for themselves what will win in them: laziness or the desire to have a beautiful figure.

How I was on the Dukan diet

I don’t know if this is a flash mob or not, but I decided to put my two cents in on the topic of weight loss.
I’ll say right away that the experience is not fresh, I was on a diet two years ago, but then I didn’t have a bicycle, that is, an account on Gossipnik. There are many negative reviews about Dukan on the Internet, especially about the harmful effects of the diet on health. Doctors warn that eating too much protein can affect your kidneys and liver. Be that as it may, I believe that we are all reasonable adults who can evaluate the pros and cons, so whether to diet or not is everyone’s personal choice. From myself I can say that I felt fine, but in principle I eat a lot of protein foods in my life, so my body did not experience much stress from switching to a protein diet.

In addition, any diet should still be approached wisely. I don’t know at which university Dr. Pierre Dukan received his diploma, but he, for example, recommends drinking diet carbonated drinks (such as Cola Light) during a diet, and in the amount of 1-3 cans per day. Maybe if you drank 3 cans of regular Cola before, then this advice will really help you lose weight, but I think it’s better to drink a glass of natural juice, even if it contains sugar, than to pour Coca-Cola into yourself.

If anyone suddenly plans to try it, then starting a diet now is the time, because, in my opinion, it is absolutely winter. Firstly, in the hot summer you don’t really want to eat meat, and secondly, during the first two stages you are not allowed to eat any fruit, and what is summer without berries, peaches and watermelons? Moreover, over the summer we need to accumulate more vitamins for the long Russian winter.

It is worth noting that this diet was created for those who love meat in all its forms, because your diet essentially consists of it and dairy products. Somewhere on the Internet I saw a version of Dukan for vegetarians, but honestly, I can’t imagine how you can replace such an amount of protein with vegetables, except maybe fish.

Dukan was the first full-fledged diet in my life, when I did everything according to the rules, and not “okay, I’ll eat a donut this morning, because I need to pamper myself.” I downloaded his book, studied all the forums and generally approached the process responsibly. Although, for me it was more fun than a real attempt to lose weight. Even in the most gluttonous and unsportsmanlike times, I didn’t wear more than size 44, and the maximum weight was 60 kilograms with a height of 160. Looking ahead, I actually lost weight on the diet, but I couldn’t finish the job, so the kilograms quickly came back (although, Maybe this was not the fault of the diet, but the fact that I ended up in France for six months and ate exclusively bread and croissants).

For those who don’t know, the Dukan diet is a protein diet that is based on a list of allowed foods and lasts 4 stages. Dukan claims that you can eat as much as you want, not exercise (walking 30-40 minutes a day and climbing stairs is enough) and still lose weight. Such statements did not help me personally, but on the contrary, because I have never eaten as much as on a diet in my life. Usually my diet consists of a hearty breakfast, a full lunch, a snack of some yogurt and a light dinner. On Dukan, all my meals, including dinner, were full and heavy. Having learned that I didn’t have to go in for sports, I happily clapped my hands and gave up on fitness (however, I regularly walked for 40 minutes). As a result, the process of actually losing weight was very slow. Therefore, let me be the captain of the obvious, no matter what Monsieur Dukan says, sport is our everything.

The list of permitted products includes:

- lean meat

- Fish and seafood

— dairy products 0% fat

- eggs

- vegetables, but not all

Plus, there are other foods, such as crab sticks and goji berries, that are allowed to be consumed in limited quantities.

After shopping with this list, I ran into one problem. Namely, that in Russia (and even in Moscow) it is very difficult to find sugar-free products (not counting all kinds of weight loss bars and fructose chocolate) and products with low fat content. For example, all theoretically permitted sausage and ham products in our country have a fat content of 15+. In the end, I found a turkey ham produced by Dymov with a fat content of 4 (I recently looked at it in the supermarket, it now costs so much money that you can’t afford it) and a turkey roll from an unknown factory from a store near my house. In Europe there is no such problem, I specifically looked at the fat content of products in stores - both milk and meat rarely have a fat content of more than 10.

In addition, every day you need to eat 2 tablespoons of oat bran. At first I was perplexed - are they eaten raw or what? It's not tasty. I know that some people add them to kefir, but I don’t like kefir. And then I surfed the forums, and it turned out that these same 2 spoons, which will always be missing, will be the basis of all the goodies that can be prepared while on this diet.

And another condition of the diet is to drink 2 liters of water a day. In this case, any liquid is considered water, so I drank about a liter of pure water (I can’t physically fit in more, no matter how hard I try), the rest came from tea.

Now about the stages themselves.

Stage 1 is called attack . Its duration, like that of the entire diet, can be calculated for free on the Dukan website. During this period (maximum one week) you eat only proteins. Since this is the very beginning of the diet, it is perceived easily. Of the permitted foods, therefore, you can eat meat and fish, eggs, dairy products + the standard 2 tablespoons of bran.

Dukan claims that it is at this stage that the most weight is lost. But either initially I didn’t have that much extra, or he’s being disingenuous, but during this stage I lost a little more than a kilogram, half of which immediately came back as soon as I started eating vegetables. Therefore, in my opinion, the second stage is still the main one:

Alternation . It is called that because you alternate: 1 protein day, 1 protein-vegetable day. By this point, proteins are already starting to get boring, so every vegetable day is perceived as a holiday. To please myself, I tried to use 2 tablespoons of bran more often to prepare something tasty. In principle, this stage has no duration; you sit on it until the scales show the number you need.

But it’s not enough for us to simply lose weight; we also need to maintain the weight. Therefore, the third stage comes into play - consolidation. The list of permitted products is expanding significantly. This now includes, for example, fruits and whole grain bread. The duration of the stage is calculated as 10 days for each kilogram lost.

To be honest, I didn’t make it to this stage. I probably would have been able to finish the job, but the end of my rotation came during the May holidays, when I went on a trip. The first few days I honestly held on, ate bran muffins prepared from home, climbed the supermarket shelves in search of low-fat yogurt and turned my nose up at the goodies. But a vacation is such a vacation... In short, my diet ended ingloriously.

The fourth stage lasts your entire life and consists in the fact that every week you need to arrange a protein day for yourself.

In general, I received tremendous pleasure from the diet, and everything was, as they say now, fun for me. Firstly, the diet is very popular, so a huge number of forums, groups and websites are dedicated to it, where people share their experiences and create a kind of weight loss community. Secondly, the diet opened up for me many foods that I still enjoy eating, such as oat bran, yogurt, cottage cheese, etc. I also found a whole bunch of recipes that I now use all the time. For example, bran cake for breakfast is a regular dish of mine.

Thirdly, in addition to the fact that I have never eaten as much as on this diet, I have never cooked so much. Remember there were posts with culinary masterpieces from women's forums? So, this is just nonsense compared to how fantasy works in conditions of limited products! Because they make everything “Dukan style”: candy and chocolate, ketchup, sour cream and mayonnaise, cheese, yoghurt, jam (fruit, I remind you, is not allowed, so jam from tomatoes and hibiscus tea), cauliflower rice and millet bran ( cereals are also not allowed). There are thousands of recipes for pancakes, bread and desserts. Since my most cherished dream is to eat Nutella in jars and not gain weight, my favorite was dutella - a chocolate spread made from soft cottage cheese, cocoa and milk powder. I consider Tiramisu a la Dukan to be my main culinary masterpiece, which, by the way, turned out to be very tasty and truly authentic.

I dug up a photo of my du-waffles with dutella as proof. The quality is not very good, but it’s somehow inconvenient to take other people’s photos as an example.

It is worth noting, however, that these two points - the hype of the diet and the variety of recipes - also have their downsides, namely the huge amount of money that I spent on purchasing dietary products. Supermarkets, especially large ones, now have products made specifically for the diet. Crisps, cookies, bran, pancake mixes - all with official diet symbols. But the main scam for money is DOPs, that is, products allowed in limited quantities.

Will explain. For example, you really want something sweet and decide to bake something delicious. You open the recipes and realize that with your set of products, the most you can do is the notorious pancakes, which you already eat every day for breakfast. But for more complex things, such as a cake, you need: skimmed milk powder, low-fat cocoa, goji berries, chia seeds, corn starch, soy flour, gluten, etc. and so on. By the way, the basis of the vast majority of desserts is oat bran, of which you can eat a maximum of two tablespoons per day. Thus, the quantity of dessert is still limited, and this is very sad. It’s still easier for me to give up sweets completely than like this - half, when it seems to be there, but it’s impossible. But here everything is individual.

Returning to DOPs, most of these products are not available in Russian stores, so I had to order them from Iherb (and at the same time completely inedible sugar-free jam and sugar-free ketchup). The second batch of cocoa and milk powder arrived when I was no longer on a diet, so I used them instead of regular ones. Among additional supplements, I also constantly used goji berries, which are now actively advertised as a means of prolonging beauty, youth, health and everything in the world. I got used to making jam from them - soaking the berries in water (they are sold dried), grinding them in a blender and mixing them with sakhzam. Given the lack of normal jams, it went very well with cottage cheese.

Well, the latest money scam is the so-called coaching system on the Dukan website. Towards the end of the diet, I fell for it and bought myself a month of coaching, which was a waste of money. Online coaching is expressed in the fact that every morning a letter “your instructions” arrives in the mail, containing general and clearly not individual recommendations like “don’t forget to drink 2 liters of water,” as well as a list of exercises and recipes that can be found on the Dukan website in the open access.

Summing up my diet, I note once again that the main mistake, of course, was my refusal to exercise. If you really set yourself the goal of losing weight on Dukan, you should never do this.

I will also say that I am not going to repeat my experience in the near future. Now I am much closer to the methods of so-called proper nutrition, so I don’t want to give up cereals and fruits. What I really didn’t like about Dukan was the use of sugar substitutes and their active promotion. I know that stevia, for example, is even considered healthy, but in most “sugar-free” products the substitutes are not natural, but chemical. I’m not a doctor or a chemist, so I can’t say for sure whether they are harmful or beneficial, but purely psychologically it’s easier for me to eat a product that contains sugar (even if it’s higher in calories) than one that has acesulfame potassium and many other scary words.

This is where I end my opus and wish everyone to find the figure of their dreams, no matter how you do it!

Diet stages

The Dukan program includes 4 main stages. Each is designed to achieve a certain result or to maintain it. Let's look at them in more detail.

Stage No. 1. Attack

This is the shortest, but most important stage. This is where sudden weight loss occurs. The number of days is calculated based on the amount of excess weight. To find them out, you need to calculate the Dukan weight, as stated at the beginning of the article.

The attack phase should not last more than a week and a half - this is important. Meals should be regular. Allowed foods can be eaten in any quantity. Excessive physical activity is not allowed here.

List of permitted products:

• any meat (except pork and lamb);
• Fish and seafood;
• eggs (mostly white);
• milk-containing products with minimal fat content;
• 1.5 tbsp. spoons of oat bran;
• All drinks are without sugar.

Do not fry food, choose other cooking methods without using any oil. Do not use mayonnaise and ketchup. I salt my food to a minimum.

Stage No. 2. Cruise

During this period, weight loss is best, although not as rapidly as in the previous stage. On average, about one kilogram is consumed per week. Its length depends on what result needs to be achieved. When the desired number appears on the scales, you can proceed to the third stage.

• days of eating protein alternate with days of eating protein and vegetables;
• the frequency of changing days is selected individually (1/1, 2/2, etc.);
• eat only raw, boiled or steamed vegetables;
• do not season them with oil, you can use vinegar, kefir or soy sauce;
• 2 tbsp. Use spoons of bran every day;
• drink 2 liters of water daily;
• Average physical activity is required.

You are allowed to eat everything: mushrooms and vegetables, except legumes and potatoes. Cook without oil and a lot of salt.

Stage No. 3. Consolidation

This period is not associated with weight loss. The body must adapt to new food and nutrition system. The menu is diversified, but there are strict restrictions on the number of products consumed. The duration is determined based on the weight lost. Every kilogram lost means 10 days of consolidation.

Features of this period:

• eat proteins and vegetables for six days;
• the remaining day of the week, eat only proteins;
• eat 2 tbsp daily. spoons of oat bran;
• Be sure to moderate physical activity and special exercises daily;
• compliance with the drinking regime.

This stage is divided into 2 halves.

In the first half, in addition to vegetables, you can add to protein products:

• a couple of slices of whole grain bread a day;
• fruits;
• products containing starch (once a week);
• 50 gr. cheese a day;
• ham, pork or lamb (once a week);
• once a week festive lunch/dinner.

The second half additionally includes:

• starchy foods (+ once a week);
• festive lunch/dinner (+ once a week).

The total is 2 days of starchy food (preferably durum pasta) and 2 days of a festive meal. But it is worth considering that these days cannot be consecutive.

Stage No. 4. Stabilization

At the final stage, the basic mechanisms of the body become established and the body becomes accustomed to the new nutritional system, which will need to be adhered to constantly.

• eat according to the rules of Stage No. 3;
• One day a week remains only protein.

A number of restrictions concern:

• reducing the amount of fatty fish eaten;
• It is better to choose dairy products with a minimum amount of lactose;
• In chicken, eat only white meat.