1 Week Into Dukan Diet (text heavy)

Hi everyone,

I decided to start Dukan Diet last week. I wanted to start on Sunday, but had a department happy hour scheduled for Monday so ended up starting on Tuesday October 15th.
Dukan is somewhat of a modified Atkins diet, where you eliminate a lot of carbs and sugar in your diet.
It's basically split into 4 phases, where a lot of protein and carbs are incorporated in your diet.
You've probably heard about it because of Kate Middleton.


If you want to read more about it you can either google 'dukan diet' or read about the phases here.

I just finished a week of Phase 1, where you're heavily loaded only on lean protein and water.

I wanted to share my journey with you guys because I really haven't seen much info on vegetarians/pescatarians doing this diet.

** Reason **

First, I think one has to establish a reason for entering this, or any, diet. Well, duh, losing weight - seems like a pretty simple answer, but other than that, why would you want to do this diet? My answer was simple.  I'm a pescatarian, and Dukan diet seemed like an extent of a strict veg diet, so it will hopefully be a bit easier on me.

I know a lot of people will roll eyes and say 'Fad Diets Don't Work girl!' but even the 'conventional' diet won't work if you're not in the right mind set.  To me, losing weight is more of fixing one's eating pattern, so the closest program I could relate to was the Dukan Diet.


** Figuring out your problems **

My biggest problem is (1) too much sweets - i have the biggest sweet tooth in the world, period, (2) too much eat outs - foods that are heavily loaded with butter and cheese, (3) no working out whatsoever - i somehow managed to eliminate working out from my life entirely and (4) soda.

Okay, so I analyzed my weaknesses and figured why I'm gaining so much weight. Aging ain't helping either since the rate of gaining weight seems to get faster by the year.

The answer is simple (in theory).
Wipe out all of the above bad habits and start working out regularly. If your intake is equal or less than what you burn off, weight should shed.

** Setting a goal **

It's pretty important to have practical and realistic goals.  I'm not going to set my goal as 'Victoria's Secret Model' or anything that's not even remotely possible.
I want to be slim. Not skinny or overly fit and muscles popping out. Just slim and lean..
My goal weight is going back to 115-118lbs, which looks best for my frame and height (5'6)




** Starting **

The starting point was quite hard for me.  Whenever I was about to start, something came up. A night out with friends, another friend's weekend visit, co-workers happy hour, department meeting, someone's birthday party.. omg! At one point, you have to put your foot down and say "This is it. Today is the day I start" - and for me, that was Tuesday October 15th.


** Going public **

I always used to attempt diets in a secretive way. I'd secretly do my diet hoping that one day I could be like "ta-da!!!! look how much weight i lost!!", which never helped. This time I went public and told everyone around me that I was going on a diet. Surprisingly, most people around me supports me and helps me stay away from temptation. And since I was such a big mouth about it, I feel like I HAVE to somewhat succeed to prove a point.



So - I'm just going to lay out some of my week 1.


Food I ate during Phase 1 (attack phase 10/15/2013 - 10/21/2013)

- Tuna protein dish when I had to eat out (tuna grilled. I only ate the tuna and some shrimp, the rest went to my bf)
- Shrimp (no seasoning or sauce)
- Fish cutlet (only the inside part.. this I also ate when I had to have lunch with my vendor. No salad, rice or sauce)
- Non-fat greek yogurt
- Soy Cheese
- A lot of unsweetened soy milk
- Egg whites every morning (seasoned with a little bit of salt, pepper and tabasco sauce)
- Soy and hemp protein powder