Introduction

Today I start the Dukan Diet, what could quite possibly be the latest fad diet. However, I've seen results from people I know, not to mention advice from healthcare professionals, so that's inspired my wife and me to give it a go. We've tried other diets, with reasonable success. However, it didn't stick and we were soon back where we started.


The aim of this blog is to act as a bit of a diary for myself. Hopefully, I can also offer some advice for others trying the diet. With a bit of luck and perseverance, I may even be able to give you some inspiration. I am not being paid by the Dukan company, so expect to see a full range of my reactions from pleasure, to skepticism, to outright mockery of the program.

I don't really think of myself as that big, but I guess if you compare me to some of the top-enders, I'm not. On the other hand, if you look at my BMI, I just scrape in as obese. I don't put much stock in BMI, as it only considers two variables from a wide range; height and mass. I've never been that concerned with my mass directly. I want to be healthy. I want my wardrobe to not require regular updating. I want my mass to be consistent! According to the BMI, I should have a mass of 80 Kg. According to Dukan, it should be 86 Kg. Right now, I'm at 103 Kg, so either goal is going to require some work!

I don't consider myself a naturally active person; I have better things to do with my time than use excess energy in repetitive tasks. I want my mass-loss to come primarily from my diet, which I will balance with being practically active; riding to work and using stairs, as opposed to jogging or gym-ing.

We signed up for the Dukan Diet last week, but postponed the start-date until today. Yesterday was my Son's baptism and there was too much celebratory fare to be had! Sign-up involves using the Dukan website to determine your True Weight, which is just a short survey asking a few simple questions. The True Weight is supposed to be a realistic, healthy mass to aim for. Once you have your True Weight, you can sign up for the program.

My first bit of advice is over choice of website. You can opt for an American or British version. The product is the same, so my natural instinct was to use the British version. Culturally, we (Australians) are similar to the Brits, so I figured it would be more relevant. However, after investigating both options, I noticed that the British version wanted to charge me $60 more than the US version. If the product is the same, then naturally I was going for the cheaper option. I ended up paying $160 for my program.

In theory, I should be told what to eat. For my $160, I get coaching on my diet and close monitoring of my progress. I suspect the 'close monitoring' will be mostly automated, but it should give me some day-too-day feedback on how I'm doing and offer advice on how to improve.

Next up: Day 1!