The Dukan Diet (6 page)

At a certain time during the menstrual cycle—in the four or five days before a period starts—or at certain key times in a woman’s life—such as puberty, perimenopause, or even in the prime of her sexual life if she has hormonal disorders—a woman, and especially one who is overweight, begins to retain water and starts to feel spongy, bloated, and puffy faced in the morning. She is unable to remove rings from her swollen fingers, her legs feel heavy, and her ankles swell. This weight gain is reversible, but it can become chronic.

Even women who diet in order to avoid this bloating are surprised to find that during these periods of hormonal surge, all the little things that worked before no longer have any effect. In all these cases, a diet of pure proteins such as those found in my program’s Attack phase have a decisive and immediate effect. In a few days, sometimes even in a matter of hours, water-soaked tissues begin to dry up, leaving a feeling of well-being and lightness that shows up immediately on the scales and greatly boosts motivation.

Pure Proteins Boost Your System’s Resistance
Before tuberculosis was eradicated through antibiotics, one of the traditional treatments was to overfeed patients by significantly increasing the amount of proteins in their diet. At the beginning of the twentieth century, at Berck in northern France, one of the top centers for treating tuberculosis, teenagers were even forced to drink animal blood. Today, sports coaches and trainers advocate a protein-rich diet for athletes who demand a lot from their bodies. Doctors give the same advice to increase resistance to infection, for anemia, or to speed up the healing of wounds.

It is advisable to make use of this advantage, because any weight loss, no matter how small, will weaken the body. I have personally seen that the Dukan Diet’s Attack phase is the most stimulating phase. Some patients have even told me that it had a euphoric effect, both mentally and physically, and that this happened from the end of the second day.

Pure Proteins Enable You to Lose Weight Without Losing Muscle or Skin Tone
There is nothing surprising in this observation when you realize that the skin’s elastic tissue, as well as muscle, is made up essentially of proteins. A diet lacking in proteins forces the body to use its own muscles and the skin’s proteins, so the skin loses its elasticity. Combined, these effects cause aging of the skin, the hair, and even one’s general appearance, which friends and family soon notice, and which can be enough to make you stop the diet early.

Conversely, a protein-rich diet and, even more so, a diet made up exclusively of proteins like the Dukan Diet’s Attack phase, has no reason to attack the body’s reserves because the body is being given massive protein supplies. Under these conditions, the weight loss is rapid, muscle firmness is maintained, and the skin glows, allowing you to lose weight without looking older.

This particular feature of the Dukan Diet might seem of secondary significance to young women with firm muscles and wrinkle-free skin, but it is very important for those women approaching their fifties and therefore menopause, or those who have less muscle structure or fine and delicate skin. This is especially important because, and it has to be said here, there are too many women nowadays who manage their figures guided solely
by their scales. Weight cannot and should not be the sole issue. Radiant skin, healthy-looking hair, muscle strength, and general body tone are criteria that contribute just as much to a woman’s appearance.

Opinions and rumors circulate about how much water you should drink, but almost always there is some kind of “authority” telling you today the exact opposite of what you heard yesterday. However, this water issue is not simply a marketing concept for diets; it is a question of great importance.

To simplify things, it may seem essential to burn calories so that our fat reserves melt away; but this combustion, as necessary as it is, is not enough. Losing weight is as much about eliminating waste as it is about burning fat.

Would you do a load of laundry or wash the dishes without rinsing them? It is the same with losing weight. A diet that does not involve drinking a sufficient quantity of water is a bad diet. Not only is it ineffective, it leads to the accumulation of harmful waste.

Water Purifies the Body and Improves the Diet’s Results
Simple observation shows us that the more water you drink, the more you urinate and the greater the opportunity for the kidneys to eliminate waste derived from the food burned. Water is, therefore, the best natural diuretic. It is surprising how few people drink enough water.

The many demands in our busy day conspire to delay, then finally eliminate, our natural feeling of thirst, which no longer plays its part in warning us about tissue dehydration. Many women, whose bladders are smaller and more sensitive than men’s, do not drink to avoid having to go to the bathroom constantly, or because it is awkward at work or on public transport, or because they do not like public restrooms.

However, what you may get away with under ordinary circumstances must change when you are following a weight loss diet.

Trying to lose weight without drinking water is not only toxic for the body, it can reduce and even completely block the weight loss so that all your work is for nothing.

Why?

Because the human engine that burns its fat while dieting functions like any combustion engine. Burned fuel (proteins) gives off heat and waste. If these waste products are not regularly eliminated by the kidneys, they will accumulate and, sooner or later, interrupt combustion and prevent any weight loss, even if you are following the diet scrupulously.

It is the same for a car engine with a clogged exhaust pipe, or a fire in a fireplace full of ashes. Both end up choking and dying from the buildup of waste. Sooner or later, bad nutrition and the accumulated effects of bad healthcare and extreme or unbalanced diets will make the overweight person’s kidneys become lazy. More than anyone else, overweight people need large quantities of water to get their kidneys working efficiently again.

At the outset, drinking a lot of water may seem tedious and unpleasant, especially in wintertime. But if you keep it up, the habit will grow on you. Then, encouraged by the pleasant feeling of cleaning out your insides and, even better, of losing weight, drinking often ends up once again becoming something you want to do.

When They Are Combined, Water and Pure Proteins Act Powerfully on Cellulite
This issue concerns women, as cellulite is a type of fat that, under hormonal influence, accumulates and remains trapped in the thighs, hips, and knees. Diets are very often powerless against it. I have discovered that the pure protein diet, together with a reduction in salt intake and an increase in consumption of mineral water (see “
Which Water Should You Drink
?”) with a low mineral salt content, leads to a weight loss with moderate but genuine weight loss in the difficult areas, such as the thighs or the insides of the knees, and achieves the best overall reduction around the hips and thighs.

These results can be explained by the diuretic effect of proteins and the intense filtering undertaken by the kidneys made possible by the increased water intake. Water penetrates all tissues, even cellulite. It goes in, pure and clean, and comes out salty and full of waste. Adding the powerful effect of burning up pure proteins to this expulsion of salt and waste brings about definite, even if modest, results. This is a rare achievement and sets this diet apart from most others, which have no specific effect on cellulite.

When Should You Drink Water?
People still cling to old wives’ tales that would have you believe that it is best not to drink at mealtimes to avoid food’s trapping the water. Not only does this idea have no physiological basis, in many cases it makes things worse. Not drinking while you eat, at a time when you naturally get thirsty and when drinking is so easy and enjoyable, may result in your suppressing your thirst. Then, when you are busy later on with your daily activities, you may forget to drink water for the rest of the day. During the Dukan Diet and especially during the alternating proteins phase, except in cases of exceptional water retention caused by hormonal or kidney problems, it is absolutely essential to drink 1½ quarts of water a day. If possible, drink mineral water, or take it in any other liquid form such as tea, herbal tea, or coffee.

Have a cup of tea at breakfast, a large glass of water midmorning, 2 more glasses and a coffee at lunch, 1 glass during the afternoon, and 2 glasses with dinner and you have easily downed 2 quarts. Many patients have told me that in order to drink when they were not thirsty, they got into the habit of drinking directly from the bottle, and this worked better for them.

Which Water Should You Drink?
Mineral water
. The most suitable waters for the pure protein Attack phase are mineral waters low in sodium, which are slightly diuretic and laxative. Among the best-known mineral waters are Evian, Poland Spring, Fiji Water, Voss, Saratoga Springs, and Perrier, the famous sparkling variety. You should avoid San Pellegrino, which is good but contains too much sodium to be drunk in large quantities.

Water Is Naturally Filling
As you know, we often associate the sensation of an empty stomach with being hungry, which is not entirely wrong. Water drunk during a meal and mixed with food increases the total volume of the food mass and stretches the stomach, creating the feeling of a full stomach, the first sign of satisfaction and satiety. This is another reason for drinking at mealtimes. However, experience proves that keeping the mouth busy works just as well in between meals—for example, during the danger zone in your day, between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. A big glass of any liquid will often be enough to calm your hunger pangs.

Nowadays, the world’s richest populations are confronting a new type of hunger: a self-imposed denial while surrounded by an infinite variety of foods that they dare not touch because of the risk to their health or because they have weight problems.

It is surprising to see that at a time when individuals, institutions, and pharmaceutical laboratories dream of discovering the perfect and most effective appetite suppressant, there are so many people for whom this is an issue. They still do not know about or even worse refuse to use a method as simple, pure, and inexpensive as drinking water to tame their appetite.

Salt is an element vital to life and present to varying degrees in every food, so adding salt at the table is always superfluous. Salt is just a condiment that improves the flavor of food, sharpens the appetite, and is all too often used purely out of habit.

A Low-Salt Diet Is Never Dangerous
You could and even should live your whole life on a low-salt diet. People with heart and kidney problems or high blood pressure live permanently on low-salt diets without suffering harmful effects. However, people with natural low blood pressure and those who are used to using salt on their food should exercise caution.

A diet too low in salt, especially when combined with a large intake of water, can lower blood pressure. If your blood pressure is already naturally low, this can produce fatigue and dizziness if you get up quickly. People with low pressure should not go overboard with salt reduction and should limit their water intake to 1½ quarts per day.

On the Other Hand, Too Much Salt Leads to Water Retention
In hot climates, salt pills are regularly distributed to workers so that they avoid dehydration.

However, many women, especially women intensely influenced by hormones during premenstrual or perimenopausal periods, or even during pregnancy, retain impressive amounts of water.

For these women, this water reduction diet par excellence works most effectively when as little salt as possible is absorbed, allowing the water to pass more quickly through the body.

By the way, we often hear people complaining that they have put on 2 or even 4 pounds in one evening after a lapse in their diet. Sometimes a weight gain like this is not due to a real lapse. When we analyze exactly what was eaten, we can never track down the 18,000 calories of food required to produce these 4 extra pounds. It was simply the combination of an oversalty meal accompanied by wine, beer, or cocktails. Salt and alcohol combine to slow down the elimination of the water drunk. Never forget that 1 quart of water weighs about 2 pounds, and 2 teaspoons of salt are enough to retain this water in your body’s tissues for a day or two.