The Dukan Diet

The material in this book is for informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for the advice and care of your physician. As with all new weight loss or weight maintenance regimes, the nutrition and fitness program described in this book should be followed only after first consulting with your physician to make sure it is appropriate for your individual circumstances. Keep in mind that nutritional needs vary from person to person, depending on age, sex, health status, and total diet. The author and the publisher expressly disclaim responsibility for any adverse effects that may result from the use or application of the information contained in this book.

On April 12, 1945, the day that President Roosevelt died, my brother was born. My family, which is Jewish, named him Franklin in recognition of what this great president did to liberate Europe, France, and the French people. My father realized that without America’s intervention, my brother would never have been born or been able to bear this first name.

For the rest of his life, my father continued to admire and feel great affection for the American nation. Although in the second half of the twentieth century there was no shortage of tension and fraternal quarreling between our two countries, my father held steadfast to his creed: “Never forget that the Americans saved us,” he would say. “We are indebted to them. If one day you find yourself in a situation where you can show them our gratitude, do this with all your heart.”

As I write this note for the American edition, I am moved to think of my father, because I feel that in bringing this book to America, I am carrying out his wish. I come to you and also your Canadian neighbors with a weight loss method to which I have devoted thirty-five years of my life and which has been tried and tested in almost every corner of the world.

I am a medical doctor in the field of nutrition. Very early on in my professional career I specialized in fighting against weight problems, a field in which contemporary medicine had failed to make any headway. Inspired by one of my patients, I started specializing in treating weight problems through personal consultations. Very quickly I devised my own tools and a diet that suited my patients’ psychology, as well as their
metabolism—a diet that was much more successful for them than the low-calorie diets prevalent at that time. Seeing how effective this plan was and how it produced far better results, I soon felt the need to try to help a wider public. When I was sure that my four-phase weight loss method had shown proven results, I turned it into a book dedicated to the general public as well as to my medical peers in France.

In the past ten years, this book has become a publishing phenomenon, selling 2 million copies in France, where it has been at the top of the best-seller list since 2006. The Dukan Diet then became an Internet phenomenon as a community of 10 million men and women sprang up, exchanging their ideas on five hundred websites, forums, and blogs dedicated to my method. At the same time, this diet was crossing borders and becoming established in over thirty countries, including England, Korea, Brazil, and Poland, and in doing so it has proved its universal appeal.

I am not giving you this background out of immodesty but rather to offer evidence of the effectiveness of this diet and the enthusiasm with which it has been received internationally. To be honest, the scale of this worldwide movement and the immense wealth of friendship, kindness, and emotional closeness that it has set in motion has been a tremendous gift to me—and an equally tremendous surprise.

Offering you the Dukan Diet is both my greatest challenge and my greatest risk. In recent years, several opportunities arose to get this book published in North America and to see my method do battle with North America’s weight problems. I chose instead to wait, for in truth the North American audience scared me somewhat. To me North America represents the ultimate test of this diet, and I wanted to take this challenge on when I had the very best chance of succeeding.

When everything seemed just right and I had found my publisher, I began further research to tailor my diet for a North American audience. I chair an international association of nutritionists, and I asked its American members for help, for I needed to grasp the deep and personal nature of what it is to be overweight in America.

I gained even greater reassurance from seeing Americans and Canadians buy my books on Amazon UK and from the number of North
American users on the British coaching website for the diet. I carefully followed the progress of these North American users. I conversed with them in chat sessions, and I read their reports, their questions, their testimonials, and their recipe suggestions. I also immersed myself in the American way of life. I spent hours in American supermarkets and restaurants, I read American magazines, I listened to American TV programs, and I took part in discussions on American blogs and forums.

All my American research led me to two conflicting conclusions.

First, the problem of being overweight appeared to me more difficult in America than anywhere else because Americans are at the forefront of technological progress and also at the forefront of one of present-day civilization’s major afflictions—being overweight. Each year in the United States, every second patent aims to cut down physical effort and to save time and in so doing encourages stress and a sedentary lifestyle. America’s consumer society has brought riches and power, but also weight problems for which you are paying the highest price: 72 million Americans are obese, and in Canada the number is 5.5 million, their lives shortened daily by the excess weight they carry.

While attending a conference in Houston, I had the opportunity of meeting one of the most eminent public relations professionals in North America. We talked about weight problems and how they are such a blight in our world. He knew about my method, about how it had developed and spread, and about my plans to bring it to North America. “Nowadays, for a method to get established on North American soil, however well it works, its promoters will need to invest millions of dollars in public relations and marketing,” he said. “The market for weight loss programs is saturated; there are new offers each year. If a program is new, well presented, and makes people dream, the results don’t really matter.” I shuddered at his words because I knew he believed what he was saying.

On the other hand, I saw the problem from a different angle. Yes, the North American cultural, economic, and political environment contributes to the escalation of weight problems. But the second conclusion I reached from my North American research was that in each North American citizen there is a human being who longs to respect
the essential relationship between a healthy body and a healthy mind. I realize that most Americans and Canadians would like to lose weight but that a great many have given up on the idea because, having already tried dieting so many times in vain, they no longer believe in the hope of a real solution.

Faced with all these obstacles, I could have become disheartened about bringing this diet to the United States and Canada, but I know that of all the nations in the world, these two are the ones to which I can give the most and to which I want to give the most. Here there are lives to be saved, health and well-being to be restored. And I know in my heart of hearts that I have the means and a method that can succeed in doing this.

I know that North Americans become fired up by causes and challenges. I am setting you a cause and a challenge equal to your stature. Take this method, make it your own, and show the world how to reverse the pattern of excess weight and obesity.

Weight problems are proof of our growing difficulty in adapting to our civilization’s afflictions. If you are trying to eat more healthfully, it is almost always possible to find what you are looking for, but at the same time it is very difficult not to succumb to the less healthy choices being offered to you.

For example, I am in a supermarket and am looking for a jar of pickles. But reading the label, I discover that these pickles contain sugar. So do many canned vegetables and ready-made meals. Indeed, sugar is found in a great many processed products when there is no particular reason at all for it to be there. The situation is the same with fats.

The same products without added fats and sugar exist, but you are going to have to search them out. You are going to have to scrutinize labels so that you pick the right products for your health. I am asking you to make this effort. If you want to tackle your weight problem, you have to know what you are eating.