What's up?

Some people have asked me what's up with the blog and if I'm still on the diet.

Well to be brutally honest, I have lost interest in the Dukan diet and therefore I don't feel like updating the blog. Like many dieters, I became obsessed with the diet when I was on it. Understandable as I was loosing kilos at the time. From mid 2009 to Christmas 2009, I lost over 30Kg. A massive amount as most would agree. But by the end of it I was sick of dieting, diet food and all the rigmarole associated with the diet.

Around that time I also worked for Dr Dukan helping him launch the diet in the UK. Stresses of work, commuting and business issues made dieting not very easy. Funny how so many office workers are on diet, but don't seem to be getting any thinner.

I tried restarting the diet once in 2010 and again in Early 2011. Each time I lasted about three weeks. I think that the previous knowledge of Dukan food just put me off. I suppose that the success of my 2009 diet was partly due to it being the first diet I ever did, everything being new and interesting. Doing it over just depressed me. So I ended up putting on about 20Kg over 2010. That is probably the most dangerous aspect of dieting. The speed that you can put it back on. It took me 15 years to go from normal weight to overweight, 6 months to loose most of it (under medical supervision so that part was OK), but one year to put 66% of the lost weight back on!

Now you may ask why someone who was so passionate about the diet and loosing the weight would ever let themselves put it back on and so fast. Well it is not so simple. Us humans often do things against logic and common sense. We are able to diet all week then binge on junk food and sweets if something cracks.

Where the Dukan Diet failed me is that I don't think that it is not geared up for someone like me who needed to loose quite a lot of weight and needed to be kept interested in the diet itself. Everyone I've met who had over 20Kg to loose failed on the diet at one point. The diet does work for people with less to loose. I know a few people who lost between 5 and 10 Kg and have kept most of it off.

So what about the aspects of the diet and my opinion of them? Here are some pros and cons:

Pros:

• The Dukan Diet makes you aware of the food types and teaches you about what is healthy to eat and what is unhealthy.
• It teaches you to cook in a more healthy way.
• You can loose weight quite fast in the initial stages of the diet if you stick to it.

Cons:

• You get bored with some of the food quite quickly.
• You get tired as you are not taking on sugars.
• As you are tired, you don't feel like exercising. No exercise makes dieting more difficult.
• A few other side effects of too much protein (sore joints for example).
• The long-term post diet phase is not really sufficient.

I believe after doing the diet 3 times and methodically analysing my weight (spread-sheets etc.) and following what I eat, that the 2-phase approach of alternating between pure protein and then protein and vegetables is nothing but a gimmick. I abandoned the 2-phase ritual the last time I did the diet and lost a few kilograms quite easily and at the same rate as before when I was doing it by the book, but the process of dieting - Dukan or other just had got to me and I 'switched-off'.

I think Dr Dukan doesn't sufficiently address the cases of people like me who need to loose more weight, who will be longer on the diet and need better solutions for after the diet. I didn't get to the Consolidation phase and the Stabilisation phase of the Dukan Diet is not appealing enough.

Where I'm at now: I'm eating well. Not eating too badly, but if there is something tempting in the house bought for the kids, I just may be tempted. I do eat a bit of bread and drink some wine. We cook healthily and I walk briskly for about 40 minutes 5 times per week. I'm not really loosing much, but I'm not putting anything back on. Don't say 'Diet' to me please. I'll update this page at a later date and say if anything changes.