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.