I will keep this review very simple. This diet worked for me.
I am only 5 feet tall and, since the age of 15, have always been a very careful, healthy eater and a regular exerciser. However, in the past ten years, my weight just continued to creep higher and higher. No matter how much I tried, I simply could not lose the weight. I had my hormones checked and my thyroid checked and just about everything else checked and the weight simply continued to pile on slowly and regularly.
Please don't say that a "better" diet and "more exercise" would have worked. It simply did NOT work for me, and my diet was about as balanced, low-fat, and healthy as a diet could be and I walked and exercised nearly every single day. Yet, I got fatter and more sluggish as time went on.
All those scientists and nutritionists and doctors out there who are telling people not to follow the Dukan Diet, please tell me why I gained so much weight if I ate only good foods, watched my calories carefully, never (and I do mean never) ate junk, and exercised regularly? Was I supposed to accept the theory that it was "menopause" or "aging" or something else that I couldn't control?
Out of sheer desperation,and thanks to a suggestion from my sister, I bought The Dukan Diet book and I started the diet. I have lost 22 pounds, and I now weigh about what I weighed when I was only 18!! I went from a size 8 to a size 4 (and sometimes 2), I have energy and muscle tone, and I feel great.
There are some carbohydrates in this diet (the oat bran and wheat bran) and there are also the natural sugars that occur in the dairy products that (thankfully) are "allowed" on the diet. In the third phase, one would add in fruits, pasta, bread, etc., once again.
I am now in the third phase of the diet, in which these foods are added back in.
While I would guess that this diet could be quite unhealthy if you stayed on it forever, this is really a short-term diet with a long-term plan for healthy eating and weight maintenance. Everything that Pierre Dukan says in the book makes a lot of sense to me. I am not a doctor, not a scientist, and not a nutritionist. However, I don't know a single person who went on a calorie-restricted diet and did not gain the weight back after reaching his/her weight goal and then eating like a normal person again.
It makes sense to me that if you go on a calorie-restricted diet for a period of time and simply resume eating regularly after you lose weight, you will most likely gain the weight back. If you use the Dukan Diet, follow the diet through its first two phases, and then begin to add foods back in slowly, it seems to make sense that you will most likely maintain your weight. Better yet, you will have accomplished something wonderful and focused on your health and well-being as well as on your eating styles.
What I liked best about this diet, besides the fact that it WORKED, is that non-fat dairy products are allowed (and there is a lot to choose from these days) and certain soy-based burgers are allowed. Additionally, the first phase, the attack phase, in which you eat only proteins, is really for only a short time. Then, you can add in vegetables once again.
I did not like many of the recipes in the book; however, by reading the ingredients, I was able to create recipes that worked and still fit within the parameters of the diet. For example, I could not stomach the thought of the Dukan Pizza with salmon; however, I took the portion of the recipe that made the "pizza crust" and made two pancake-sized crusts instead. I was able to use that like bread, and darned if it didn't satisfy any desire for bread!
I am proud of myself for accomplishing my weight loss goal, and I am thankful to Pierre Dukan for creating and sharing this very easy to follow diet.
By the way, I found the Dukan approach to be less boring than what I was doing every day before I started the diet. Want to know why? Because I IMMEDIATELY began to lose weight! Losing weight by eating every day and walking for only 20 or 30 minutes was surely a lot easier and more exciting than counting/restricting calories, taking an aerobics class, and wondering how much more I would weigh the next day despite watching what I ate and exercising.
Following a particular diet is a very personal choice, and many of my friends took one look at this book and said they couldn't possibly follow this diet. I found it easy to follow.
Because I am still in the third phase of the diet, I honestly cannot comment on the long-term result. However, I can, with all honesty, say that, if it weren't for the Dukan Diet, I would still be 22 pounds heavier!
