wkdstepmum
Silver Member
There is also the wonderful 'Dukan FAQ' post which Jaqys compiled which answers most of the questions you have asked so far all in one post! Take a look at it, it's great.
Is this normal?
- Thread starter Nina41
- Start date
Maintainer
** Chief WITCH **
Wonderful support indeed
Alexandra, I'll look forward to seeing your detailed menus henceforth in the menu thread.
Alexandra, I'll look forward to seeing your detailed menus henceforth in the menu thread.
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Have read the FAQ when I started. Will read them again.
what I find confusing is, for example, the book says we can eat chicken, the whole chicken except the skin and the wing. Then I come here and say I had drumstick or thighs and am adviced to eat only the breast. The book says we can have one kilo of dairy and here I am told 500grs is too much. That is what confuses me! Also, no wonder I bought the strawberry yogurt! The labels are the same! How was I supposed to know about the different sugars?
Pudding, I have no time to waste (like everyone here) and I want to get to the next stage ASAP so is I slip if due to pure ignorance. I will write my diary everyday and I am, as always, very grateful for the support I get here.
Maintainer, thanks for looking at my diary.
what I find confusing is, for example, the book says we can eat chicken, the whole chicken except the skin and the wing. Then I come here and say I had drumstick or thighs and am adviced to eat only the breast. The book says we can have one kilo of dairy and here I am told 500grs is too much. That is what confuses me! Also, no wonder I bought the strawberry yogurt! The labels are the same! How was I supposed to know about the different sugars?
Pudding, I have no time to waste (like everyone here) and I want to get to the next stage ASAP so is I slip if due to pure ignorance. I will write my diary everyday and I am, as always, very grateful for the support I get here.
Maintainer, thanks for looking at my diary.
Atropos
Gold Member
The point about the chicken wasn't that drumsticks are banned, but that they only animal protein you ate on the menu you gave us were all on the lower end of the scale - either higher in fat (like the drumsticks) or in added salt and starch (the crabsticks, salmon and tuna), and that as you seem to be stalling and needed advice, the advice was to swap to alternatives which were that are lower in fat and lower in salt.
The limit on dairy is indeed 1 litre/1 kilo - unless you are stalling - in which case the advice is to cut the amount of dairy.
The limit on dairy is indeed 1 litre/1 kilo - unless you are stalling - in which case the advice is to cut the amount of dairy.
wkdstepmum
Silver Member
The thing is Alessandra you said you were doing everything right and still not losing so everyone was looking for ways to get you out of your 'stall' when in reality you still were just eating the wrong things...That's why I advised you to halve your dairy, because it says if you are stalling halve your dairy allowance and see if that is the issue... I'm sure that's why people told you to just stick to the breast rather than the fattier drumsticks etc! Anyway, you're armed with information now and when you know better you do better. Good luck for Saturday's weigh in!
wkdstepmum
Silver Member
Sorry, cross-posted Atropos x
-Pudding-
Full Member
On a chicken or turkey, the leanest part is always the breast. Drumsticks & thighs are the next leanest and wings are the fattiest. The goal on Dukan is to eat lean protein. Now in reality, drumsticks and thighs are cheaper than breast so many people (including me) eat a lot of them BUT if you are stalling then you need to change something....an easy thing to change is 'fairly lean meat' for 'very lean meat'.
This is the key point:
Some people can do some things and LOOSE; other people can do those same things and STALL
Any diet that relies on restricting a food group rather than calories has some pretty particular rules. If you want to low-carb I'd really advise you to read up on the different types of sugar because that knowledge makes one hell of a difference when you're reading labels. As it is, the Dukan book DOES say you can't have fruit and you had Strawberry yogurt. The label even says it contains 'real strawberry pieces'. Dukan keeps it simple 'no fruit' - but the reason behind that is that fruit is full of sugars. The sugars in question are called Fructose and your body processes them into energy extremely easily and any energy not burned gets turned to fat.
Here's some quick info on sugars. The list below is in order of HOW EASILY the body processes them. In other words, the worst sugar is at the top and the best at the bottom:
Sucrose (caster/granulated etc sugar, made from sugar beet or sugar cane)
Fructose (sugar that is naturally present in all fruit)
Glucose (sugar from honey or very sweet fruits like grapes)
Maltose (you won't come across this unless you make home brew beer)
Lactose (sugar that is naturally present in milk)
So, you can see from that list that Fructose is second only to plain old bags of sugar in how easily the body processes it, whilst Lactose is the least sweet and hardest to process.
So....ALL yogurt has Lactose in it, but yogurt will only have Fructose in it if it has been added in the form of fruit or simply added on its own as a sweetner.
Well you know, it depends what's important to you. I work a 40hr week in my full-time job AND another 25hrs on top of that a week in an evening/weekend job, plus do all my household chores, cook meals for my Grandmother who lives in assisted housing and walk my dog twice a day. Believe me, time is not something I have a lot of BUT losing weight is incredibly important to me so I find the time to keep a diary here. I'm a Dukan newbie so I know I'll make some screw-ups....and when I do, I want to make it easy for the kind people here who help to find the information on what I'm doing.
Atropos
Gold Member
Just to add to Pudding's excellent list of sugars...
Be very careful of anything labeled "glucose-fructose" - because that is the EU label for "High Fructose Corn Syrup", probably the worst sugar of them all, and one that is increasingly being seen as a contributing factor to the huge surge in obesity in the last 20 years.
Be very careful of anything labeled "glucose-fructose" - because that is the EU label for "High Fructose Corn Syrup", probably the worst sugar of them all, and one that is increasingly being seen as a contributing factor to the huge surge in obesity in the last 20 years.
wkdstepmum
Silver Member
Here's to making it easy for the seasoned Dukaners to help us!!! *raises water* 
Pudding, what I meant was, I don't want to slip because I have no time to waste, I want to get to conso as soon as I can! I didn't mean I have no time to post the menus. Loosing weight is one of my top 3 priorities at the moment!
I had no idea that you all would take time to look at my menus, thats why I never posted before. I posted yesterdays menu and was really surprised/pleased that so many people checked it! Wow!
For two years I took weekly menus to my ww leaders and she could never give me constructive advice! I don't think she even bothered to read them!
I WILL post everything I eat from now on! Should have done it from day one!
I had no idea that you all would take time to look at my menus, thats why I never posted before. I posted yesterdays menu and was really surprised/pleased that so many people checked it! Wow!
For two years I took weekly menus to my ww leaders and she could never give me constructive advice! I don't think she even bothered to read them!
I WILL post everything I eat from now on! Should have done it from day one!
-Pudding-
Full Member
Ok, I've got to ask. What's the rush? Are you trying to get to a specific weight for a specific event? (Holiday, wedding or something?)
If you're impatient about losing weight that you've had for years, you really risk getting disappointed and going off the rails if it doesn't come off as fast as you want it to.
Pudding, my second and last child was born 4 years ago. I was 76kgs when she was born. One year of ww later I was 67kg.
It took me one more year to get to 62kg. Since then, I've been trying to loose another 4 kgs. Do you know how many times I restarted ww saying it was th last time? About 5x since then. I have little notebooks with my diaries all around the house. I try really hard for 3 months ( no alcohol, no sugar, nothing fried, etc) and I lose 1, 1,5kgs. Then I get really angry and eat whatever for a week and put that kilo on again.
All of these times I restarted, I follow the diet the best I could. I am a perfectionist and very strict with myself. I don't believe in cheating when you diet, I see no point. I don't make exceptions so thousands of times I went out with friends and drank diet coke all night. Obviously people started saying " you are always on a diet, why haven't you lost any weight?". They obviously don't believe that I follow the diet and that's what hurts me. Even my own mother doesn't believe me and that hurts!
I just had enough! I need to lose weight ASAP. I do not accept what I weight now and I want it to change. Since day one of this diet I swear I thought I was doing 100%right. If I had ww yogurt it was because I DID read here somewhere that they were allowed. I had strawberry yogurt (once again only 3 spoons) because I read on page 64 " non-fat fruit yogurt are allowed too but to a max of two per day".
Sometimes I think people here also do not believe me when I say I am following the diet and I don't blame you! after all, how on earth can someone diet for 3 weeks and only lose 2 pounds??! It feels like I have to prove my innocence 24hours a day to the world! and I am tired of that, too tired.
It took me one more year to get to 62kg. Since then, I've been trying to loose another 4 kgs. Do you know how many times I restarted ww saying it was th last time? About 5x since then. I have little notebooks with my diaries all around the house. I try really hard for 3 months ( no alcohol, no sugar, nothing fried, etc) and I lose 1, 1,5kgs. Then I get really angry and eat whatever for a week and put that kilo on again.
All of these times I restarted, I follow the diet the best I could. I am a perfectionist and very strict with myself. I don't believe in cheating when you diet, I see no point. I don't make exceptions so thousands of times I went out with friends and drank diet coke all night. Obviously people started saying " you are always on a diet, why haven't you lost any weight?". They obviously don't believe that I follow the diet and that's what hurts me. Even my own mother doesn't believe me and that hurts!
I just had enough! I need to lose weight ASAP. I do not accept what I weight now and I want it to change. Since day one of this diet I swear I thought I was doing 100%right. If I had ww yogurt it was because I DID read here somewhere that they were allowed. I had strawberry yogurt (once again only 3 spoons) because I read on page 64 " non-fat fruit yogurt are allowed too but to a max of two per day".
Sometimes I think people here also do not believe me when I say I am following the diet and I don't blame you! after all, how on earth can someone diet for 3 weeks and only lose 2 pounds??! It feels like I have to prove my innocence 24hours a day to the world! and I am tired of that, too tired.
Atropos
Gold Member
Alessandra - no one thinks you are cheating. When we asked questions about your height and menus we weren't trying to "catch you out".
What comes across so strongly is someone who is so focused on the goal that they aren't actually noticing the path they are walking on, and stumbling into potholes and over stones without meaning to.
So slow down, take a deep breath, have a long relaxing bath to chill out, and realise that doing this step by step - slowly - is the way to get where you want to be.
(And I've got a mum like yours too - she's naturally willowly and simply can't understand how her daughter could have been on weightwatchers for 3 years and put more weight on... Losing in Dukan has been wonderful, because I don't have to listen to her "advice" any more).
What comes across so strongly is someone who is so focused on the goal that they aren't actually noticing the path they are walking on, and stumbling into potholes and over stones without meaning to.
So slow down, take a deep breath, have a long relaxing bath to chill out, and realise that doing this step by step - slowly - is the way to get where you want to be.
(And I've got a mum like yours too - she's naturally willowly and simply can't understand how her daughter could have been on weightwatchers for 3 years and put more weight on... Losing in Dukan has been wonderful, because I don't have to listen to her "advice" any more).
Atropos, when my son(my first) was born it took me 20 months to loose 20kgs on ww. At that time I used to count points with extreme precision.
When he was baptised we had a party. I made the guest food and made my food separately ww friendly. I didnt have any cake or wine because I had no points left.
Anyway, it happens I put on that week and was really upset about it. I called my mum looking for sympathy but all she could say was "u follow the diet alright but I bet you had all the left overs when the party was finish". My own mother! Thats why I think no one else believes me!
When he was baptised we had a party. I made the guest food and made my food separately ww friendly. I didnt have any cake or wine because I had no points left.
Anyway, it happens I put on that week and was really upset about it. I called my mum looking for sympathy but all she could say was "u follow the diet alright but I bet you had all the left overs when the party was finish". My own mother! Thats why I think no one else believes me!
-Pudding-
Full Member
I did WW for one month only and put weight on - the group leader didn't believe I was doing it right. In fact I was doing it to the letter; I'd been given my points allowance and because I was working insane hours at the time ALL I bought to eat was weight watchers products because they had the points printed on the box so I couldn't possibly do it wrong.
After a month and about half a stone weight GAIN I had a light bulb moment.....essentially, for me at least, WW was rubbish. Their products, which were ALL I was eating, are essentially rammed full of c.r.a.p - artificial this and that, stabilisers, colourings etc etc and when you actually looked at the ingredients list there was very little of good nutritional value....it was simply calorie restricted because it was portion restricted. For some reason my body reacted to all the rubbish in their food by laying down fat and NOT losing it.
Low-carb diets don't work by portion restricting but they DO work by maintaining a delicate balance between the food groups you eat...it's a bit like walking a tightrope; get it wrong and there are pretty dramatic consequences. When low-crabbing previously (Atkins) I could literally gain 5lbs on the scales in two days if I gave in to cravings and ate a piece of fruit or a piece of bread.
Nobody thinks you are cheating, but your impatience and anxiety come across very clearly in your posts and therefore people ask you to give more detail because, without it, all they can give you is general advice and if that doesn't work you'll get even more anxious. If you have been dieting for a long time your body will be pretty resistant - our bodies fight HARD to maintain current weight, even if current weight is too high. You've also swapped from a diet that allows you to eat pretty much anything as long it falls within the allowed calories/points for the day to a diet that is extremely exact about what you can and cannot eat. You and your body just need a chance to readjust.
After a month and about half a stone weight GAIN I had a light bulb moment.....essentially, for me at least, WW was rubbish. Their products, which were ALL I was eating, are essentially rammed full of c.r.a.p - artificial this and that, stabilisers, colourings etc etc and when you actually looked at the ingredients list there was very little of good nutritional value....it was simply calorie restricted because it was portion restricted. For some reason my body reacted to all the rubbish in their food by laying down fat and NOT losing it.
Low-carb diets don't work by portion restricting but they DO work by maintaining a delicate balance between the food groups you eat...it's a bit like walking a tightrope; get it wrong and there are pretty dramatic consequences. When low-crabbing previously (Atkins) I could literally gain 5lbs on the scales in two days if I gave in to cravings and ate a piece of fruit or a piece of bread.
Nobody thinks you are cheating, but your impatience and anxiety come across very clearly in your posts and therefore people ask you to give more detail because, without it, all they can give you is general advice and if that doesn't work you'll get even more anxious. If you have been dieting for a long time your body will be pretty resistant - our bodies fight HARD to maintain current weight, even if current weight is too high. You've also swapped from a diet that allows you to eat pretty much anything as long it falls within the allowed calories/points for the day to a diet that is extremely exact about what you can and cannot eat. You and your body just need a chance to readjust.
Maintainer
** Chief WITCH **
Also, did you ever figure out your "true weight" Alexandra with the official Dukan website. Two kids... 62K... I wonder what the calculator would set your true weight at. We can't fight nature. I would love to weigh what you currently weigh (but know how I look at that weight, and my face suffers!), but my diet history means it's impossible. I've accepted that now, but it took a few years.
It's certainly not that we don't believe you ... just that we're making suggestions constantly, and you're almost "arguing" back. ("the books says" this or that. Yes we know, but we have been doing the diet for a while and some things work well for some, others for others... etc etc.)
As the others have said, please RELAX. Post accurate menus (drinks included...), quantities, brands. We'll get to the bottom of it.
And please let us know your true weight.
It's certainly not that we don't believe you ... just that we're making suggestions constantly, and you're almost "arguing" back. ("the books says" this or that. Yes we know, but we have been doing the diet for a while and some things work well for some, others for others... etc etc.)
As the others have said, please RELAX. Post accurate menus (drinks included...), quantities, brands. We'll get to the bottom of it.
And please let us know your true weight.
wkdstepmum
Silver Member
I too had problems for the 6 weeks I tried WW, I found it awful, it cost me a fortune but I was eating all of these pre-made packaged foods, I felt bloated and ill constantly and I retained water because packaged meals seem to have high quantities of salt and other agents...
EVERYONE HERE understands that you've been on diets that haven't worked. NONE OF US would be here if we had been on diets that had worked, we'd be slim and there wouldn't have been any need to try Dukan. I think what comes across more strongly with you is this almost desperation, which I can understand because I've been desperate to lose weight but you need to drop that, it's hard work to deal with and it's not healthy to be in that frame of mind because any diet will make you fluctuate day to day and you can't tie your happiness to weight loss.
Why not just trust in the diet, trust in the forum and the advice, stop trying to justify everything when people ask questions because honestly everyone here is trying to help... You will be successful on this if you do it right, keep posting menus etc! Hope you're having a good day so far...x
EVERYONE HERE understands that you've been on diets that haven't worked. NONE OF US would be here if we had been on diets that had worked, we'd be slim and there wouldn't have been any need to try Dukan. I think what comes across more strongly with you is this almost desperation, which I can understand because I've been desperate to lose weight but you need to drop that, it's hard work to deal with and it's not healthy to be in that frame of mind because any diet will make you fluctuate day to day and you can't tie your happiness to weight loss.
Why not just trust in the diet, trust in the forum and the advice, stop trying to justify everything when people ask questions because honestly everyone here is trying to help... You will be successful on this if you do it right, keep posting menus etc! Hope you're having a good day so far...x
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