The good and bad of statistics

I read the Independent yesterday. There was an article by Stephen King about a statistical report (A century of Change: Trends in UK Statistics since 1900) which had been published in 1999, but was overlooked at the time. Stephen King writes in the business pages. His main theme was that while we nostalgically imagine times were better in the past, the statistics prove otherwise. He refers to life expectancy and income figures. 


I was intrigued because the details bore out an earlier post of mine about the origins of excess weight in our society. ("Why do we get fat?" posted on 20 December). Here were the statistics about our improved wealth and more sedentary lives.

Stephen King only quoted extracts from the report. The important details for my point are that at the turn of the century there were still two million people employed on the land as well as two million in domestic service in the United Kingdom. Both these lines of work involved hard physical labour. Nowadays there are very few people in these professions - and those that are benefit from our modern labour-saving equipment. Far more people are engaged in service industries - not domestic service, but estate agents, insurance industry work etc. The kind of jobs which can be performed sitting down at a computer terminal or on the phone. 

Income figures are revealing, too. In 1900 per capita income (adjusted for inflation and so forth to modern equivalent values) was just £3,500 a year. By 1950 it had only reached about £5,000. It has been during the past fifty years that we have become so well off. There was a 191% increase in the next fifty years. 

All that wealth, combined with easier lives, less physical effort at work and at home, and easy access to processed foods have had many good effects on our general health and longevity. Unfortunately they have also had the side effect of increasing the rate of obesity or rather the number of people who weigh far more than they should. The danger is that an increasingly fat and inactive population might start to see life expectancy rates dropping again. 

I don't want to be a scaremonger, but is this the time to consider whether you need to take action to deal with a weight problem?  

My Dukan Attack Phase

I don't know if any of you chose to follow the Dukan Diet, but I can only recommend it. I will be posting over the next few days and possibly longer about my experience of the diet. This may help you decide whether this is something you want to do.

The diet plan is divided into stages and the first stage is called the Attack. It's intended as a short sharp shock to your system to get weightless going. It also gives you a boost because in those first few days you can lose quite a bit effortlessly. 

I lost 1.6kg in three days. That's three and a half pounds. 

The idea is that you go onto an exclusively lean protein diet. I say exclusively, during this phase you must also eat one and a half tablespoons of oat bran a day. The oat bran is crucial and a welcome break from the mainly meat and fish diet. 

On each of those days I made myself a "Dukan Galette", the recipe is in his book. It's a tasty savoury pancake based on oat bran. I had it with a slice of lean ham as my breakfast. I had some cold chicken breast or a tuna salad (no vegetables, other than a few bits of onion and herbs to season the tuna and some fat free fromage frais) as lunch, with a couple of hard-boiled eggs. Dinner was either a steak, or roast chicken, or lean beef burgers. My wife also made me a veal casserole.

The great thing is that there are no restrictions on the amount of food you can eat. You are just limited by the type of food as I have explained in previous posts. You eat until you are full. It is best to season your food and add as many herbs or other flavourings as you like to make it as interesting as possible to eat. You must enjoy your food. 

I drank a lot of water and weighed myself every day. I watched the weight fall off me.

The trick is that the protein only diet is very satisfying, while not providing enough calories for your daily needs. Your body will draw on its energy savings bank: your fat. The protein only diet triggers a process known as ketosis, which encourages your body to rely on its own fat stores for energy. 

So in brief, by limiting my nutrition in this way I was always satisfied by my meals, always felt full. I never felt hungry and did not crave the carbs I was denying myself. This got me off to the best start I could to losing the weight I had to lose. 

Diet stocktake after Christmas

It's the 28th December. A bank holiday in England because Christmas fell at the weekend. We don't get as many holidays as our European neighbours, but we never lose them if they fall on the Weekend... So the holiday isn't over. I was away at Christmas and enjoyed the hospitality and the delicious and abundant cooking of my sister-in-law. I decided Christmas day would be the day I had my "Celebration Meal" this week - not unreasonable! Boxing Day I was more prudent, but indulged a little more than the Dukan Diet's Consolidation Phase would normally permit. I have been a little flexible throughout this phase and I am now in week eleven. I reach the halfway stage next week, when I am allowed some more indulgence. 

I couldn't weigh myself at my brother's. This morning was the first time I was able to check my weight since Christmas morning before we left. That morning I was 76.3kg. This morning 76.8kg. I'm quite pleased with this because my weight range since I reached target has been wider than this. I have found myself a little heavier on certain mornings without the Christmas temptations. 

Is this proof? I have enjoyed my Christmas and eaten well. I certainly didn't consume the excess that is apparently the choice of an average Briton: whether it's 6,000 or 9,000 calories or somewhere in between, it's to much! I did however eat more than usual. I have maintained control without depriving myself at all. The plan works.

Next I have to get past the New Year.

The longer I go staying withing the range I have set myself, the more confident and the happier I feel.

Merry Christmas, readers!  

A final post before the holiday

Christmas is coming - the goose is getting fat. 

First of all, if it's goose for dinner he's not getting fat any more! He'll already be hanging! Secondly, if you are still in phases 1-3 of the Dukan Diet, you won't be having goose any time soon. (Unless it's a Stage three Celebration Meal).

Goose and Duck are no-nos. This rich fatty meat is not a good enough source of lean protein for the Dukan Diet. Relax, if you're planning to have turkey. The traditional bird for the season is fine. 

The average Briton apparently consumes some 6,000 calories at Christmas. I mistakenly put this at 9,000 on an earlier post. Pretty much three days' worth of calories in one. Is that really possible? Don't forget that this is apparently the average. That must mean there will be a good number of people staying sensible and a similar number passing the 6,000 mark by mid-morning. That is a sobering thought. A statistical fact however. Whenever statistical reports tell you what an average person in our population does, this does not mean a typical person. In many samples no individual needs to comply with the type describes as average. The average is a mathematical calculation, identifying all the variables and working out what would be the, well, the average. It's not the same as the mid point, although that is close. The median is simply the middle point in a range, the average is the middle value. If calorie consumption were evenly distributed across a whole range, then the mid point and the average would be the same. This would effectively mean there would be as many people consuming fewer calories and an equal number eating far more. If the spread is less even, and there are a low number going absolutely mad and eating 10,000 calories on the big day, then the average could still be higher than the majority of the sample. Unfortunately, I expect there is a fairly even spread and the 6,000 is relatively typical of the mid range point. 

We all think of the turkey and the sprouts, but they aren't the source of those calories. If you start with a slice of melon, it won't be that either. The villains of the Christmas meal table will be the potatoes, the parsnips, the Yorkshire Pudding, the gravy, the Christmas Pudding, the cream, brandy butter and custard and also everything you eat and drink in between in during the day. 

How many Quality Street tins do you have? How many boxes of chocolates? Do you have nuts - especially those chocolate brazils? Mince pies? Christmas cake later on? 

How much will you drink to wash it down?

Please, enjoy your Christmas holiday. Eat whatever you want. If you are dieting, well please try to stay focused. If you recently completed a diet, think about what you went through to get where you are. 

Please, whatever else you do, please think about what you will do after Christmas to get yourself back into shape. I'm not talking about some vague New Year's resolution. I'm talking about action. follow my blog and find out in 2011 what I'm talking about. 

Who are you?

As a small readership is growing up, I'm curious to know whether I have regular followers or not. I would appreciate comments - including negative ones. If there's anything I've said you'd like me tell you more about or if you want me to move onto other topics, a few comments will do it.

I'll be slowing down a bit over the holidays but will post something later. Let me know what you think. And if you like what you read, please don't be shy about telling your friends!

Seriously, what do we do about Christmas?

It's only a few days away and if you are on the Dukan diet now, what will you do to stay on plan and still enjoy the festivities. Let's face it, a big feed is central to most people's celebration. Whether this is the right way to celebrate the birth of Christ is another matter; it is what happens in many households.

Dr Dukan just sent me an e-mail with some superb recipes which will allow you to enjoy the day. Whoever you are sharing the day with could incorporate these dishes into their meal as well.

http://www.dukandiet.co.uk/en/680-christmas-menu.html#mc1 

This will get you there. As always they show the creativity that is possible despite the apparently restrictive nature of the plan. The recipes are for the Attack and Cruise phases. 

If you are still thinking about the plan, then there is another good reason to read these recipes. Just look at how well you can eat while still losing weight fast! Remember the only limit on how much of these delicious meals you eat is you. You eat until you have had enough. 

Drunken Turkey is a novel way of preparing a Christmas staple. If you are on the Attack, then you won't be able to have any other vegetables with it. You could have this with the veggies for the Cruise and anyone else at the table would enjoy this with "all the trimmings". 

The deserts are useful. I found I just did not bother much with them when I was in the Attack and Cruise phases. A yoghurt was normally enough. Christmas is different and if you can't have Christmas pudding, you'll need something else instead. Read these beauties... Clementine Frozen Soufflés and Christmas Swiss Roll. They are on the link I attached above.

I attach links to the books because these are indispensable when on the plan.

 

Obesity

Obesity is a word I am reluctant to use. I recognise that it has become part of the national vocabulary and is to be found frequently in the media. People who are severely overweight, to the point that their health is potentially compromised are described as obese. It is therefore the name of a medical condition.

            I am uneasy with this. Making fat a medical condition has the effect of taking the responsibility of excess weight from the fat person and makes them believe they are suffering from a condition. It is practically as if their fat was caused by a virus or bacteria. Their problem becomes medical and therefore beyond their control. I believe that many overweight people hide behind the label obese and use that as a reason to take no action.

            I am not trying to alienate anyone. I must therefore make it clear that I recognise how difficult it is to tackle a weight problem, particularly if you have been overweight for any length of time. Slimming and staying at your correct weight is going to mean substantial changes in your life and many people find this too difficult to handle on their own. There will be support if you need it and I will give some suggestions about that in another post.

            There is a difference between acknowledging the difficulty of losing weight and hiding behind the label of obesity.

            The term obese suggests the problem is external. Ultimately, weight gain is the result of eating too much. If you eat more calories than you need, as we have already seen, your digestive system will convert those excess calories into fat. When you eat, your body will always use the calories in your food for its energy needs before starting on the reserves. It follows that if you do not change the balance and eat fewer calories than you need your body will not start to turn your excess fat back into energy.

            As a fat person, you need to accept this fact in order to make the changes which will result in weight loss and ultimately stabilising your weight at a healthy level. If instead of accepting this you insist that your obesity is what is making you fat and that some treatment is the only solution, then I am afraid you are going to stay overweight.

            Obesity is another word for overweight. It is the medical term and is used by doctors. It is the label that links overweight to poor health. That does not change the simple point that fat is the body’s way of storing excess energy and eating more energy rich foods than you need will result in the fat on your body increasing.

            There are many sources of information that help you determine your healthy weight. If you can accept that you are too fat, and that this has happened because you ate more calories than you have consumed, then you are also admitting that the solution is to find a means to reverse this process.

            You can then find a plan that will work for you. You can follow the plan alone, or you can seek help. The best you will get is help; no one is going to do the work for you. You have to make the commitment to losing weight. If you believe that you will need support, and to some degree you will always need some outside assistance, then you will have to decide where that is going to come from and what form it will take.

            I am not going to discuss surgical solutions or the pharmaceutical options. There are stomach staples, gastric bands, balloons, and you can have your jaw wired shut so you can only take liquids. There are drugs which suppress appetite and which change the absorption of certain nutrients. There are no doubt other procedures which are available as well. There are also cosmetic surgical solutions to having excess fat deposits around your body; liposuction for example which is where the fat cells are liquefied and sucked out from under the skin. I will not go into any further detail about these options.

            I believe that most people should be able to tackle their body weight without going to these lengths. If you have run out of other options, then you should talk to your doctor to see whether any of these other options will offer you a solution to your problem. Even if you take one of these routes, they will not change your metabolism and the basics of your digestive system. You body will retain its ability to store fat if you eat more energy than you need. If you have your stomach capacity restricted you will still need to find a way to satisfy yourself with less food and, once you have lost weight and have the device removed, you will have to stick to whatever changes you have made to ensure you do not go back to where you started. This is the same for the drugs. I do not think you can spend your entire life using medication in this way. At some point you would have to stop taking the medication and then you would need to control your diet.

            I lost weight without any medical intervention and most people should be able to do the same. You should try to slim down without drastic surgery or other medical support. All surgeries carry risks. I have no doubt that the reputable doctors who specialise in these techniques manage the risks well and advise their patients properly. It must still be better to avoid the risk in the first place.

Why do we get fat? Understand this to take on the challenge

Widespread weight problems are a modern phenomenon. For the greater part of human history and pre-history, man’s greatest priority was getting sufficient food to survive. Human beings evolved over a million years ago as hunter-gatherers. There are still groups of people living in hunter-gatherer communities, which give us an indication of how life would have been for all humans before the advent of agriculture and settled life. As the remaining groups are predominantly in tropical jungle regions or the frozen Arctic zones, however they can only give an idea of the life that people led in the temperate regions before farming developed.

There is no doubt that life is hard for these groups from our perspective. They are often nomadic, since they must move with their food sources. They have few possessions, but of course need fewer things. They use ingenious but rudimentary technology which anyone can understand. They have to expend enormous amounts of energy to obtain food which is found in their living natural state and they must also carry out whatever processing is required to make it palatable. They have to catch and kill living creatures for their proteins. This involves ingenuity and strength since, unless trapped unawares, their prey is intent on not getting caught. The foodstuffs that need to be gathered have to be dug, or cut or harvested. They find these things growing, not lined up on a supermarket shelf, so they have to search for them. In some environments, even though man generally enjoys a position as a top predator, they must also consider self protection. Their environments are potentially dangerous and there will be other hunters who may see a human as potential prey as well.

This all means that the calorific cost of getting food is high. There will be many occasions when a hunting or foraging trip will simply be unsuccessful. There is a similarity between this lifestyle and that of other animals living in the wild, dependant on their own strengths and skills or instincts to provide food and stay safe.

As alien as this is to my life and to yours, human beings all lived this way for the greater part of our history. The settled lifestyle which came with agriculture only started to come about over the last ten thousand years. Humans were hunter-gatherers, dependant on the natural environment and their skill as hunters for hundreds of thousands of years before farming became the basis of food production and humans began to build fixed places to live.

Crucially we evolved as hunter-gatherers. It was the pressures of that lifestyle which have determined our physical state by deciding which strengths and attributes were most suited to our survival. I do not believe our settled lifestyle has had the chance to have significant influence on our evolution. Advances in medical science together with the particularly human tendency to adapt our environment to suit us rather than to evolve to profit from our environment means that future human evolution is not subject to the same pressures of natural selection that determined our development up to now. I am not an evolutionary scientist, and I cannot see into the future, but my observations and the limited study I have made in this area has brought me to these conclusions.

Where does that leave us with regards to our weight? In common with many other animals, we have an alimentary canal which enables us to digest food and extract from it our energy, protein, vitamin and mineral needs to keep us healthy, with sufficient energy and able to obtain more food and reproduce. Our bodies are crucially able to store excess energy as fat. This is a very important ability, particularly for the hunter-gatherer or indeed any animal which has to find its food requirements from a harsh environment. While we can go for short periods without the proteins, vitamins and minerals required for growth, repair and fighting sickness, we need energy all the time and at certain times we need additional energy, whether we can find extra food or not. This is particularly true for pregnant women and nursing mothers, but also to cope with cold or to keep the hunter going during particularly difficult hunts or when fending off attacks.

Nature’s solution is fat. Whenever we eat foods which provide more energy than is to be used immediately, it is stored as fat for use another time.  In this way we can keep going when food is scarce and spread out our energy consumption if we cannot obtain food supplies regularly.

If you have watched any of the documentaries show on television about the societies still leading pre-agricultural lives you will have seen that the people in these cultures are usually not fat. They usually look remarkably healthy, because they lead active lives. They walk, they run, climb trees and undertake physical activity to carry out any of the tasks they need to perform. When they are not hunting, or gathering food, or building shelters, or making tools or clothing or defending themselves, or moving to a new encampment, they rest. Their daily activity burns the calories they consume and they do not become fat as a result. While they will have small fat reserves on their bodies, they would not want to build up excessive fat layers because the weight would slow them down and make them less able to do the things they need to do.

Agriculture produced greater quantities of food and meant that gradually people could specialise so that not everyone was required to work exclusively in food production. Farmers could produce surpluses and exchange them for other goods and services. Other people produced the goods and services which they exchanged for food. The exchange began as direct barter, but evolved into the money exchange systems that have become the lubricant of our current complex economies.

While farmers could produce a surplus which hunter-gatherers could not assure, they still did this through hard physical labour. Other members of society exchanging other skills, or products for the farmers’ surpluses also worked hard and expended energy. Only a small minority had the leisure and ease in their lifestyles which would enable them to become fat.

Society developed and our economies became more complex but many of these factors remained the same. Right up until the second half of the twentieth century, the overwhelming majority of people in all parts of the world had to undertake physical labour. Even those who spent their working lives in the growing service sector had to walk to get around, and used more energy to do everyday things than we do. Keeping house was more physical. Keeping a house warm involved carrying wood or coal, lighting and cleaning fires. Food preparation was just that: shops supplied food in a semi-prepared state and labour was required to turn it into dishes for the table. Before the supermarkets and convenience stores, shopping involved tours around several businesses to get the things that were required. When there were no domestic refrigerators or freezers, shopping was a daily task. Before the washing machines, cleaning clothes was heavy work. Even the first washing machines did not eliminate physical effort.

Until the post Second World War era, food was relatively expensive for most ordinary working people. Social studies revealed considerable malnutrition in most countries, particularly among the working classes. Energy was also costly. When houses are cold, we use more calories just to keep our bodies at the correct temperature for our metabolism to function.

Several elements changed at the same time in the post-war period, particularly for the developed nations and the standard of living improved. Most people became considerably wealthier than they would have been in earlier times. Food became cheaper. Investment into agriculture meant that production increased and prices dropped. More people had disposable income and the consumer market blossomed. They were able to buy cars, domestic appliances, central heating systems and all the other conveniences of our modern lives. Industry and the services have also found ways of reducing the physical effort required for most forms of work. Automation and labour-saving technology have all contributed to reduce our daily calorie requirement. Our working day is shorter and our holidays are longer than they were a few generations ago. We travel further, but we are more likely to take the car, rather than walk half a mile to the school or the station. We drive to the supermarket once a week, rather than tour around half a dozen shops on foot every day.

Another important change has been in food processing. Not only has food become cheaper in relative terms, its energy content has increased. Far more of the food we buy has been processed prior to purchase. Whether this is the pre-washed salads, or the fully prepared microwave meals, we are less likely to carry out as much food preparation at home as our grandparents did. We tend to buy ready-baked cakes and biscuits, we are more likely to buy jars of jam than make our own.

The food processing industry has also increased the energy content of our food and has tended towards ingredients which release energy more easily. We eat more refined sugar, white flour and other starchy foods which require little digestion. This is a direct result of our digestion and our tastes. We are instinctively attracted to foods which will provide us with sugars quickly. We are attracted to them because they are so rare and difficult to find in the natural environment. They were the real treats and consequently posed no risk. The situation changes completely when they are readily available at low cost and begin to dominate our diets.

The growth of food processing has been long. Ever since the first bakers and specialist butchers opened their businesses, the industry has existed. The change has been the enormous range of prepared products available and our increased ability to buy them. More and more households depend on two incomes. When a family relies on a salary from both husband and wife, there will be less time available for the preparation of food. It is logical that such a family will tend look for meals that require less effort, whether it is the microwave meals or the takeaway dinner.

Let me state straight away that I am not simply condemning the food processing industry or the supermarkets or the restaurants. I do not subscribe to the simplistic labelling of food as “healthy” or “unhealthy”. Unless something is poisonous – in which case it is not a food – all foodstuffs have their place in the choices available to consumers. I do believe that one needs to be cautious with foods containing high amounts of fat, particularly transfats, as well as refined sugars and starches. I am particularly wary of corn syrups, which are a cheap source of sugars in a format particularly adapted to processed foods. None of this should be taken to mean that I think consumers should not choose processed foods. I advocate a balanced diet with appropriate quantities of all types of food.

We have reached a point, then, where we now have easy access to ample quantities of high calorie foodstuffs at the time when our energy requirements have dropped. We have reached this position while we are still using our hunter-gatherer bodies which process the food we eat very efficiently, extracting all the energy available and storing any surplus as fat. Our bodies are conditioned not to believe this bounty can continue, so we need to lay down the fat. And that is what we are doing.

Many people are now getting too fat. While our bodies evolved to be good at building up the fat, the circumstances in which we live are not those which conditioned our evolution. Our systems are aware that getting too thin, being malnourished, will lead eventually to the curtailing of our lives. It turns out that getting too fat results in other very serious health problems. It is relatively recent in our history that we have had to consider the risk of excessive fat. Cardiovascular problems, increased risk of stroke, diabetes, cancers, fertility problems, and many other sicknesses are related to carrying too much weight. The World Health Organisation recognised a worldwide epidemic of obesity in 1997.

More generally, I can vouch for the fact that being overweight means you have less energy, you are more prone to fatigue and generally less comfortable. I believe we instinctively know that things are not right when we are not at a healthy weight and this can cause depression.

Not only can being overweight cause depression, an inability to correct the problem can increase the depressed state. Depression itself can also be a factor in causing weight problems. Comfort eating is an attempt to resolve depression. It does not work. When we eat comfort foods we are eating too much of the easily obtained sweet tasty foods we are surrounded by, not because we are hungry, but simply for the instant fleeting pleasure of the intense sweet flavours that refined sugars, carbohydrates and fats give us. Whether the depression is caused by being fat or by other things, it can quickly become a factor in weight problems.

Paradoxically the iniquities of the world mean that while those of us fortunate to live in the developed world are struggling with the problems caused by our excess supplies of cheap food and a third of the population predicted to be obese in the near future, this is not the case elsewhere. In the developing world malnutrition remains the biggest dietary concern. While I hope to help you with your excess weight, it is important to remember that we are suffering as a bi-product of our good fortune. This does not lessen the importance of the consequences of excess fat.

Water

Along with protein and oat bran, the other obligation is drinking water. 

Most people don't drink enough water. Water is the main chemical component of our bodies. Depending on one's size, we are made up of 55-78%. That's from slightly more than half to slightly over three-quarters water. We are more than simply skin bags of water however. The water is involved in all the processes of our body. We are using it and therefore need to keep topping up the water.

A lack of water - dehydration - adversely affects many things. We think slower, our muscles are weaker and our digestive processes work less efficiently to start with. If you keep your water levels correct you will feel better and stronger and you will look better. Another effect of dehydration is unhealthy skin. While you are spending your cash on creams and skin treatments, you might just need to drink a glass of water.

Drinking water, plenty of it, is fundamental to losing weight. It is particularly important if you are taking a lot of protein. Digesting protein puts additional stress on your kidneys. Drinking extra water will flush your kidneys out and make your body deal with this process more efficiently.

Smelly breath is sometimes mentioned as an adverse side effect of a high protein diet. It is more likely to be a side effect of dehydration while following a high proten diet. If your mouth feels dry or your breath is smelly, before getting worried and thinking you can't follow the diet, drink more water and see if the problem is resolved.

Another curiosity of dehydration is that we tend to mistake our thirst for hunger and eat when we really want a glass of water. Remember water is filling, because it adds volume, but it has neither calories not fats nor anything else. Think about that. Next time you fancy a quick bite, have a glass of water (or a cup of tea) and see if you are still hungry after that. 

When you are properly hydrated your metabolism will be more effective. When your body is in the ketosis process I described previously, it needs plenty of water to help your metabolism turn the stored fat back into calories to be used for energy.

Constipation is a side effect of dehydration. Some people experience constipation difficulties when going through the Attack and Cruise phases of the Dukan plan. This can be a simple result of dehydration and even if it isn't, drinking more water to increase the volume of what's going through your gut can resolve the problem.

This is the important point you should take from this blog. I can confirm this from my experience. Keeping the water levels up speeded up my weightloss. Keep water handy and keep sipping, if that works for you. Water passes through your system helping everything working for you. Have a bottle of water by your bedside. You can use a glass, of course, but cover it to ensure any insects or dust don't drop in it. I used to monitor how much water I drank during the weightloss phase (the Cruise) and I honestly found I lost less weight on the days when for whatever reason I drank less than normal. In consequence I was strict with myself and did not have days when I drank too little. I still maintain the water consumption.

How much should you drink? A litre and a half minimum. There is nothing wrong with drinking more. Drinking double that would be fine if you want to. If you are active, or it is hot, drink more to compensate for your perspiration. Do not drink less. 

How much is a litre and a half? Well, if a standard glass is about a quarter of a litre (or half a pint) it's about six glasses. If you have a couple of glasses with your lunch and again with your dinner, then you'll only need to drink another couple of glasses in between. That's not so much, is it? It would be a simple thing to up that to eight glasses and then you will be up to two litres.

Water does not just mean plain water. It means your fluids. Cups of coffee and tea, for example. Make sure you use skimmed milk (if you don't prefer your tea and coffee black) and if you normally take sugar, you'll either have to go without or use a sweetener. How much tea and coffee do you drink? Do you drink iced tea? Provided it is unsweetened, or artificially sweetened, that is fine. 

Dukan also suggests you can include diet soft drinks (Coke Zero, etc). He advises that you should not drink too much of these products, but if you cannot more plain water, these carbonated products can help you hydrate. I am not keen on them myself and I don't believe drinking large amounts of acidic carbonated drinks can do you or your teeth any good. the sugared versions are certainly a huge source of calories - the kind you can exploit too easily - and therefore a bad component in poor diets. Treat then with caution.

See for yourself. Work out how much you are drinking now? If you are not drinking a litre and a half, you must drink more. Even if you already do drink that much, drink more, drink as much of it as you can as natural, plain water, and see what effects this has on your weightloss and your health and your appearance. It can be a shock. 

Oat bran

Dr Dukan requires those following his plan to have a daily serving of oat bran. During the initial Attack phase you need to eat one and a half tablespoons of oat bran a day. this rises to two tablespoons during the Cruise and Consolidation stages and then goes up to three tablespoons when you are in the Stabilisation Phase. 

Oat bran is a marvelous food. It is the only fibrous food you will eat until you get to the Consolidation phase. It is a soluble fibre which means it is highly absorbent and it is particularly effective at absorbing fat. This is its real value. It can swell to many times its original size, soaking up any fat in your gut and trapping it all the way through your system. It is known for helping to reduce cholesterol and this fat absorption is how it achieves this. 

You will be very glad of your oat bran, especially if you like a cereal for breakfast. It can be made into a tasty porridge, or you can follow Dukan's own recipe to make a delicious savoury pancake to eat with ham or (my favourite) smoked salmon.

You should not confuse oat bran with porridge oats (oatmeal, or flaked oats). The bran of any grain is the outer husk. It is removed in the milling process. With wheat, the bran is removed when producing white flour. Oat bran is taken away when producing porridge oats. As grains go, porridge oats are very good. They, too, have the soluble qualities which will help reduce cholesterol. Unfortunately they are also very high in calories and Dukan diet wants us to rely on protein for calories - at least in the earliest stages. Oat bran provides necessary dietary fibre and in soluble form, but does not add large amounts of calories. 

Eating oat bran is very satisfying. You will find that if you start your day with the savoury pancake (or galette) or a bowl of oat bran porridge, you will feel satisfied for a lengthy period. It fills you up and, as it absorbs other things, it keeps you feeling full without adding to your calories. 

To make the porridge, I found the best way was to put the oat bran in a large bowl with sufficient skimmed milk, or skimmed milk and water to make the volume up to 200ml. I cooked it in the microwave on full power for about three and a half minutes, but a minute at a time. Between cooking I stirred it thoroughly. I also found it is a good idea to watch it because it can sometimes boil up and spill. Once cooked add some sweetener, if you like, and/or all spice or just a little nutmeg and two generous spoons of fat free fromage frais. mix together and enjoy.

For the galette, mix two tablespoons of oat bran with two table spoons of fat free fromage frais and a large egg. Beat thoroughly. Wipe a non stick pan with oil and heat it. When hot enough to start to smoke, pour the batter into the pan, cook on each side for about two or three minutes and serve. I have never seasoned the batter as I found with smoked salmon or lean ham it did not need anything else. If you prefer, you can add a little salt to taste.

Having a hot breakfast is worth the effort. You need to plan a little more and allow the time, but you should in any case make the time to prepare your food whatever the meal.

Enjoy your oat bran!

What's the big deal about protein?

Protein is the real key to the success of the Dukan Diet. Before I explain the other factors, I should explain this. I'll explain as a layman, however since I am no dietitian.


There are the major food groups: carbohydrates or starches, fibre (sometimes called roughage), fats and proteins. There are also the vitamins and minerals. The carbohydrates are the energy foods. It is from these that we extract the bulk of our calories. The fibre or roughage is a mass of indigestible matter that bulks up what passes through the gut. Although not providing nutrients, this bulk is extremely important to our good health. Fats have several roles. They are a further source of calories and they also have a function a bit like the vitamins and minerals because they facilitate the absorption of certain of these micro nutrients. Protein is made up of amino acids and is what the body uses to do its repairs, growth and they are also vital for the proper functioning of our cells and for metabolic processes. 


Proteins are also a source of calories. The calories in protein are the hardest for the body to use. There is a relatively low amount of calories in a given quantity of protein and the body has to expend about thirty percent of the energy obtained to release those calories.

Carbohydrates and especially fats release their larger quantity of calories much more easily and at a much lower energy cost.

The body cannot store proteins and cannot synthesise them all from other things we eat. To stay healthy therefore we need a reasonable intake of protein, whereas we will have fat reserves to replace calories if we do not get sufficient from our daily food. 

Protein foods are mainly meats. The best are lean meats. (The leanest meats still contain sufficient fats for our essential needs, without providing so much that they become a significant source of calories.) The best lean meats are the least fatty cuts of beef and veal, chicken and turkey, fish and seafood. Eggs are also very good. Egg while is the purest form of protein naturally occurring. Egg yolk on the other hand is high fat. Normally if all other foods are very low fat, egg yolks do not pose a problem. If you embark on this diet but have previously had cholesterol problems, you might want to eliminate egg yolks as well. This is one to discuss with your doctor.

Fat free dairy is also a good source of protein and can make a lean protein diet more palatable. Dr Dukan has some excellent advice about preparing sauces with fat free yoghurt and fromage frais. Fat free yoghurts also provide some sweet foods. Very few deserts can qualify as low fat, carbohydrate-free high protein! 

Most protein is in the form of meats. Meat is a satisfying food to eat. It needs to be chewed, and it takes a considerable amount of energy to digest. It is also filling. If you sit down to a plate of starchy food, it is easy to eat and you quickly eat a lot. A plateful of meat will take more effort and you will feel satisfied quicker. 

The energy value of a satisfying serving of meat is very low. If you filled up on the carbohydrates, not only will you have eaten more, the calories you will get will be even greater than those you would have obtained by eating your fill of meat.

By filling up with foods which have a low energy value we force our bodies into a state known as ketosis. This is the metabolic state when we start to rely on our own fat reserves for our energy needs. This is the key to the rapid weight loss which can be achieved on the Dukan diet. By getting yourself into a state of ketosis and staying there your body starts to use stored fat for energy rather than dietary calories. 

Every time you eat your fill of protein you provide your body with the amino acids to keep everything running properly, but your body keeps using your fat to provide the energy.

It is possible to buy synthesised proteins in powder form which can be used to prepare milkshake drinks. While these provide a purer more controlled dose of protein than a plate of high protein natural foods, they will not give you the satisfaction of eating real food. We evolved as creatures which obtain their nutrients from food. Our bodies have systems which digest those foods. Our sensory experience of food is attuned to the flavours, aromas and textures of real food. These are essential to the satisfaction we get from eating. For this reason I think it is better to eat natural food than synthesised products. When you are limiting yourself to only eating certain foods it is far more enjoyable to make every meal as interesting as possible.

Proteins then provide satisfying tasty meals that will trick your body into consuming its fat. Avoid all carbohydrates and, as far as possible, fats, and you will lose weight easily.

What about the Dukan Diet?

I should tell you a little about the Dukan Diet. Dr Dukan tells it so much better in his book, though.

He wasn't working as a dietitian when he discovered the diet. He was a GP and had a patient who needed to lose weight, but could not give up his meat or count calories. In the end Dr Dukan told him just to eat lean meat and then was astounded by the results. He looked into why this should be and from that - over the next couple of decades - honed the plan into what he advises today.



I mentioned before this diet is holistic. There are four phases: the Attack, the Cruise, the Consolidation and the Stabilisation. The first part is a relatively short period of only eating lean protein. This is very short, from a couple of days to a maximum of about ten days. The Cruise is the weight loss period when you alternate between days of pure lean protein and days of protein and vegetables. 

After this life starts to return to normal, the Consolidation is a period of re-education when you gradually start to eat a wider diet, including carbohydrates, fruits and some fats. This stage goes on for a while and is supposed to take you through a period when your metabolism tries to rebuild the lost fat stores you exhausted while slimming. The period retains one day a week of pure protein.

After that stage comes Stabilisation, which is another name for the rest of your life! It is a set of solutions which should prevent you ever regaining the weight you shed. The simplest explanation of this is that for six days a week you can eat whatever you like, but on one day ("Protein Thursdays") you revert to a lean protein only plan. 

There are three other elements to this whole diet plan. oat bran, water and some simple exercise. At each stage there is a daily requirement to eat a measured amount of oat bran. The importance of drinking water is stressed by Dr Dukan. You must drink at least a litre and a half of water a day. The exercise is very simple and explained perfectly logically: you need to take a brisk walk every day of 20-30 minute according to the stage you are at, or more if you don't find it too arduous. Dr Dukan also asks that you should live your life "as though lifts and escalators do not exist". I will write more about that, but the good Doctor is quite correct in that they symbolise how convenience has taken over our lives in the developed world. It is very easy to never make any effort. 

Apart from the oat bran for most of the diet nothing else is measured. It is all about eating as much as you want of the foods you are allowed. I think this was how I did so well. You can eat until you have had enough and  as often as you like. You never need to be hungry.

Have you read enough to want to try the diet? Please don't stop reading my posts if that's the case, but also please go ahead and try the diet. Buy the book. Or try the website 



www.dukandiet.co.uk 


Next time I'll tell you what I have worked out about proteins from my experience on this diet.

Enjoy the fruits of losing weight

There is a danger of becoming very smug when you lose weight.

I was at a meeting yesterday and a colleague I hadn't seen for a while remarked on my changed appearance. This is an amazing ego boost. I have to say it's not the first time either. I have overcome the initial shock I used to experience when this happens and now have a response ready. I recount briefly what I've done, how long it took. The replies I get are always positive, although some people assume I must now be living an ascetic life, like a hermit in the desert, deprived of all the enjoyment of food. I quickly reassure them that this is not the case. 

Then they say that they have been thinking of doing something about their own weight. Maybe it's a factor of my age or some latent sexism, but I'm always surprised when these conversations are with men. I usually do not immediately tell them all the detail of what I did, just the overview, but I offer to explain more if they want. 

It is very clear that men are becoming more concerned about their health and their appearance. I would be very surprised to learn that my father's generation had the same conversations when they were in their thirties and forties. There are two reasons for this: they didn't worry about their appearance in this way (they kept their hair tidy, washed and shaved, wore their trousers pressed properly and polished their shoes, but did not worry about their physical appearance beyond this); the second reason is they had less need to worry about their weight. They had grown up leading more physical lives and expected to do more things by the power of their muscle. They also grew up without the luxury of the abundance which surrounds us. They were not usually fat. I'm talking about the generation born in the 1930s and 1940s. This is the last group that would have had to do National Service in the UK. The last people who knew what it was like to eat food limited by rationing. By the time we get to the people born in the postwar period - the late forties and 1950s, who are too young to be my parents - life was very different. 

Don't take me for a crusader! I don't want this to take over my life completely, although food and eating a good balanced diet is fundamental to a happy satisfying life, so it needs to be in its proper place. So I am now pleased to hear men interested in taking care of themselves, and where I can I like to help.

Please keep reading and thinking about your own weight. It is a great feeling to be told you look good. It is a real surprise when people, especially other men (if you are a man!), are sufficiently impressed to comment. If you are not sure about taking the step into dieting, think about how your ego will be boosted when you are receiving compliments, especially if, like me, you had spent many years assuming people thought the opposite. They probably didn't give me a second thought; now I get noticed for the right reasons. By some people at least...

The Dukan Diet

I followed the Dukan Diet - that's the secret to my rapid weight loss. 

The diet is from France. It was devised, you won't be surprised to read, by Dr Pierre Dukan and has been refined by him over a couple of decades. I fiddled with a few bits, but I'll explain that later. The Doctor's plan has spread by word of mouth, not through some major marketing program. It has become a big business now. The great success has been the fact that successful dieters have told their friends. 


It's been big in the French-speaking world and other markets. Only recently has Dr Dukan cultivated English-speaking clients.


I liked the programme because it was holistic; not only does it offer a diet plan to lose weight which appeared logical and doable - and I've proved that it works - it also provides a long term solution to staying slim. I won't quote statistics, but the facts are that a huge proportion of people who lose weight put it back on quickly after they finish their diet.


I'm not going to rewrite his book. I will explain my thoughts but Dr Dukan's book is superb. 


The philosophy is based around the importance of proteins. Dukan has been called the "French Atkins" which is unfortunate. I think Dukan's plan is much more complete. 


What I can say is that while I followed this diet I ate well, I was never hungry and I found myself fitter and healthier than I have felt in years.

The best thing of all is the speed. I don't think it counts as crash dieting. Dr Dukan has a very good website which includes tools to help you plan your own diet programme. A simple on-line questionnaire will let you feed in your diet history and desired goals and it will calculate how long it should take you to lose the weight you want. It will also suggest an ideal weight which may not match your own plans. 


For some reason and without consciously trying I lost the weight to reach my target much faster than the site predicted. I cannot say this will happen to you but I suspect there is some slack in the plan so that if your willpower isn't quite as strong as it should be, then you won't be discouraged by slipping behind the plan. I stuck to it and did so without difficulty. The result, I reached the target about a month ahead of the schedule. 


You can find the site at www.dukandiet.co.uk have a look. There are general services and it will propose you sign up and subscribe to additional content. I didn't do this, so I can't really comment on what that offers but I have some thoughts on support during a diet. I would recommend you think about what is on offer. I would definitely recommend you get the book.

The Christmas Challenge

Having lost weight, I find myself approaching what is probably the worst time of year for staying slim. I saw on BBC Breakfast News the other day a feature about Christmas food. The average calorie intake on Christmas Day is supposed to be 9000! Can that be right?

I started thinking about this. It sounds impossible. That's about four days' calories all in one day. But then a modest slice of a typical Christmas Cake is 900. Christmas Pudding, especially dosed liberally with cream, brandy butter (and) custard will be around there, too. The best bit of a traditional Christmas dinner will be the turkey. A lean, high protein meat. The stuffing, chipolatas and bacon will be another story.

The real risk at this time of year is the jumbo tins of chocolates, the mince pies and the biscuits which are out on every coffee table waiting for the visitors.  Then there's the drink. There was a Two Ronnies sketch some years ago. It was set in an off licence, and Ronnie Barker was buying gallons of drink; all the spirits, wines and beer, as well as the Christmas staples you never seem to think of at other times, Advokaat, sherry, cherry brandy et al. The punchline was: "If it wasn't for the kids, I don't think we'd bother"!

It's easy to say that you can enjoy Christmas without overdoing it. If you are in a weight loss phase of a diet, you will need to stick to your plan and just remember that next Christmas will be different. 

If you have shed the weight, then you need to consider two things. Can you enjoy Christmas without it setting a pattern for your future? We all need to celebrate and we all need to indulge ourselves from time to time. What will you do afterwards? You can eat your Christmas dinner, you can have a mince pie or two and you can have a drink. Will you do the same thing on Boxing Day. We are heading to a four day holiday weekend, with Christmas and Boxing day falling on Saturday and Sunday, we will have Monday and Tuesday as bank holidays. Is this going to turn into a four day binge with just a three day gap until it all starts again on New Year's Eve?

My advice is to do what you should always do when you are successfully controlling your weight: think about your food. Enjoy your Christmas dinner. Have a drink. Don't do it the next day. If you are following the plan, you should still be checking your weight every day. You know what to do if your weight starts to go up. Do it.

For those of you not yet onto my plan, stick with me. I'll be explaining more in my next post.

 

Setting out to find the slimmer me

For most of my thirties and forties I was fat. Fat. There is no point dressing this up with euphemisms.  Overweight sounds ambiguous; obese sounds like a medical condition in its own right. Certainly being fat is the cause of a lot of medical problems, but when we talk about obesity it sounds like a factor beyond our control, a health problem in its own right requiring treatment. A person “suffering from obesity” is less responsible for their condition than another who acknowledges they are fat.

            I will write about this more in due course, but the important point to highlight right now is that I am no longer fat. After so many years I was able to take control of my diet and lose that extra weight I had been carrying. In total I lost eighteen kilos. That is forty pounds; or two stone, twelve pounds. I lost the weight in two and a half months. To be precise, it took just 76 days.

            I would like you to think about that for a moment. If you are more comfortable with metric weights, that is 237 grams a day; if you prefer imperial measurements, a shade over half a pound a day. Whatever your preference, that is rapid weight loss.

            At no point during the process did I suffer hunger pangs, nor did I feel that I was depriving myself. I was healthy, well-motivated and more energetic than I had been for years. I believe I was eating well.  The result was a great success. I have gained two things: I have lost the weight and I have overcome the demon that was a blight on my life for too many years.

            I should tell you a little about myself. I am forty-seven, married and I have four children. Two are away at university and two are still at school. I have been leading a life which is more or less sedentary. I have never been particularly sporty. I enjoy my food and drink. These are the factors which resulted in me becoming fat.

            This brief paragraph tells you I am rather typical of a great number of people in the UK working in the service sector who have benefited from the relatively easy lives we all have the luxury of leading in the early part of the twenty-first century.

            Many of you will start to protest at that last comment; I should qualify it. Saying our lives are easy is an over simplification. We all have a great many concerns: job security; bills to pay; debts to repay; mortgages to secure; children to put through university. All of these things are sources of stress and worry. There is one big thing we do not have to worry about and that is getting an adequate supply of food to keep us going. This is the problem that we in the UK – I will widen that to say we in the developed world – have effectively eliminated. We have only managed to achieve this for ourselves. Millions throughout the world still struggle to get an adequate diet to keep themselves and their families alive and well.

            It is easy to forget that for the greater part of human history getting enough to eat was the primary preoccupation. We watch wildlife programmes and see the ingenious lengths wild animals must go to in order to get food. We also see what happens to the ones which are unsuccessful. Human beings faced these same challenges for thousands of years and even as we started to live settled lives in diverse economies, famine and hunger remained a serious difficulty for all or parts of society at one time or another. The advanced nations of the world only really overcame this challenge in recent times. The very success of our food economies has laid the foundations of the current dietary crisis: ill health through overeating.

            It took me a long time to come to grips with the excess weight I amassed and finally rid myself of it. I am surprised by the relative ease I had losing the pounds when I eventually focussed myself on the task. Losing the weight was, in the end, not the most difficult part of the process. Plucking up the courage to take on the challenge was far harder. Next I had to find a method to achieve the objective I set myself. I also had to decide what that objective really was. Then I had to do it.

            I like to think of myself as a thorough person. The reality is I am not. I do like to cover all the variables and understand what I am intending to do, whatever task I am taking on. This can also be an excuse for inaction. I will research a problem, spend ages searching the internet for information on a subject. I still go to the public library, as I did before the internet brought so much information to me. I buy books and then embark on a quest for information that could go on forever. This is partly a genuine attempt to comprehensively plan how I will achieve my goal. It is however a quest that does not need to end. I could drag the research out forever, always tracking down new references, more recent reports. The objective becomes delay: while there are facts out there to acquire, I have an excuse to put off starting on the plan. Many schemes have fizzled out while I have dragged out the preparation. The longer the planning goes on, the more obstacles can be revealed. Instead of preparing myself for the project, I have been able to talk myself out of ever starting by uncovering the pitfalls and downsides to the plan.

            There are all sorts of half-baked plans which should rightly be abandoned. We need to look into things and when there are too many negatives, it is right to drop an idea. Nevertheless, there are some thoughts, like losing weight, that are inherently good.

            My intention here is to recount my progress from fat to normal. If I tell you what I did and how I did it, you might see a solution to your own weight problems and save yourself some time and effort as I have done the legwork for you. I will describe the causes of weight problems and tell you about some of the options out there. I will recount my own thoughts on those plans, why I think they do or do not work, and I will explain to you the solution I chose to follow to rid myself of the fat. I must acknowledge straight away that I have taken ideas from others and I give credit where it is due. I have found a solution that has worked fantastically well for me. I do not believe I am so different from other people, so my solution could well be yours.

            I will take you through my understanding of the plan I followed, tell you how to use it and how to stay on track to achieve the same rapid weight loss I managed. In the future I hope to offer guidance on how to keep the weight off. This is important because there is no point going through the process of shedding the excess fat only to pile it back on again. There are some interesting ideas on why this is a particularly risky consequence.

            I want to tell you some of the consequences of losing a lot of weight. There are a number of things that will change for you, some more important than others. I will say now that I have not found anything that was negative, but I have had to make changes in my life to take account of unexpected changes.

            I am also presenting this from my perspective; that of a man. Most information about diets is aimed at women. That’s fair enough since women have always represented a larger market for the diet industry. Women take better care of themselves that men and are more likely to worry about their weight. It is a fact that women are more likely than men to be judged on appearances and so they have had to pay more attention to this. Men are no longer as free from this concern as they once were. Men are waking up to the realities of their health and fitness. Male grooming is a booming business.

If you do decide to try something similar, please refer back to this to see if there is something else you can take on board which might help you. At the very least I have done the research and prevarication already. Even if you go a different way, I will have saved you a lot of work, and perhaps a few excuses. I hope my experience helps.