dukan diet: Attack Phase

Jake and I are both at our heaviest weights. We both have been unhappy with ourselves for a while now. One random day after a mitral valve replacement, the cardiothoracic surgeon I was working with discussed with me  this diet he and his wife had been on and had found success with. I was intrigued with the idea of not having to count carbs or calories, so after reading more about it for a few days, and talking to Jake, we thought we'd give it a try.    Buy the book by clicking here.

There are four phases to the Dukan diet, the first phase lasts 3-7 days (depending on how much weight you'd like to lose). This "attack phase" is basically only protein, fat free dairy, 1.5 liters of water/day, and 1.5 tablespoons of oat bran/day. The main rules are you must eat your oat bran and water, and you must only eat when you are hungry. Coffee and one calorie drinks are allowed, as well as sugar free jello. 

I was on this attack phase last week, and Jake is on it this week. His meals are certainly more .... creative... than mine. If someone was more motivated and had time to cook during this phase then the menu doesn't have to look as boring as ours!

Jake :

Breakfast is two eggs and a greek yogurt.

Lunch and Dinner recipes :

Turkey rolled up with hot sauce and ricotta cheese OR

Tuna can mixed with ricotta cheese and cottage cheese with hot sauce OR

Cod OR

Chicken breast OR

Jello mixed with cottage cheese

Snacks : crab meat

Me:

Breakfast is oat bran mixed with skim milk, cinnamon, artificial sweetener and then one egg white and one full egg. 

Lunch is a lunch meat variety (a lot of this), fat free naturally flavored greek yogurt, and a little piece of the cheesecake recipe allowed (not real cheesecake haha). 

My dinners were chicken breasts, jello, and fat free cottage cheese (I'm fine eating the same things every day). 

My snacks have been hard boiled eggs, beef jerky (not sure if this is allowed technically), and cottage cheese.

I lost seven pounds during my seven days, and now I've switched to phase two. I've been on that for a few days now, and I'm doing fine keeping the weight off. I don't look different but I feel really good about myself! I'll have to stay on phase two until I reach my goal weight. The weight loss was dramatic at first, I'm guessing this was a lot of water weight too, but the weight loss slows down significantly when you go to phase two and add vegetables back into the diet. Jake hasn't finished phase one yet so I can't post his results until then. Phase two incorporates vegetables, so we have some better recipes! 

The diet boils down to a high protein, low/no carb diet. Eventually in stages 3 and 4 you add cheat days in and add carbs back into your diet. By eating proteins only for a few days, you control your hunger with an unlimited amount of food to eat, but trigger hormones that signal to your brain that you are starving and that you must break down fat for energy....even though you aren't starving. Proteins also take a lot more energy to absorb and incorporate them into your body compared to fats and carbohydrates. The diet isn't a new concept but it certainly caught my attention as something I could manage and stick too. This diet has been a favorite of celebrities for years, we bought a book for a penny on amazon and we'll see where this takes us.

PS I scheduled multiple posts for the next two weeks, so check back!