My Dukan Diet adventure. Part 1

I knew it was time to get serious about losing that 25 pounds I have been watching creep up on me for awhile now. We have a wedding in October and I have a black fitted dress that I found at Ann Taylor back in May that I got from the clearance rack. A steal at $12.00. I'm the type of girl who cannot pass up a bargain at Ann Taylor even though the dress was a little snug on me. The time clearly has come that if I want to look good in that dress without a full body corset, I needed to trim down right away. Let's just say that summer has not been good for my waistline. Too many treats, wine and eating out has left me with a summer gain of 10 extra pounds.

Normally I just try and watch what I eat and hit the gym more than usual, but clearly that was not working. I would be fine for about 2 weeks and something would happen, a big stressor at work, or just a busy week and I find I can't say no to any sweet in front of me. Yes, I am a self confessed sugar addict. My bad habits have been hard to break and have rubbed off on my daughter.

I decided to reserve a copy of The Dukan Diet book from my library. The only things I really knew about it was the diet was developed from a French doctor and it was very popular in France. This was reason enough for me to check it out. My obsession for all things French and Parisian includes how the French eat and stay slim and how they diet. Plus I heard this was the diet Kate Middleton and her Mom did before her infamous royal wedding.



I now have that copy in my possession. I eagerly started to read it. Basically it is based on a four part plan. The first phase is the hardest phase and lasts up to 10 days depending on how much you want to lose. In this phase you eat just lean protein. This is a kick start phase when you lose weight fast to give you incentive to keep going. The second phase is when you reintroduce foods back into your diet. You stay on this phase until you reach your predetermined goal weight. The third phase is when you add more foods back and the fourth is when you go back to eating what you want, but no second helpings and you have one day a week where you do the lean protein only.


I won't get into the details on the Dukan Diet just yet, there will be more time for that later.

I had done the Atkins diet years ago with great success, or maybe not, since I have not been able to keep the weight off. Dukan is different in that the strict protein phase is much shorter. All I know is that I have developed some nasty eating habits and am looking to drastically change direction before I end up with some real health issues.

I'm sure it will not be an easy road and there will be some bumps along the way. All I know is since I am such a francophile I am willing to do as the French do and lose weight the Dukan way!




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A Day At The Fair. Deep Fried Butter And Other Fun Stuff!

It's fair time again which in Wisconsin means farm animals, really bad for you food, beer, great entertainment, and of course rides. All the things that add up to a really great day. Well unless you indulge in too much bad for you food and beer. In this case you should know better! I know, it's hard to resist.

So, the hubby, daughter and I decided to make a trek on Friday down to West Allis for check it all out. Our daughter hates rides so we skipped that part of the fair. I know, she's a little different. When I was her age I would ride anything that spun, went upside down, or traveled at the speed of light! Now that I'm um... MUCH older I can't ride anything. Heck I can't read and sit in the passenger seat in a car without getting nauseous.

We settled on just checking out all the vendors, going through a couple of animal buildings, but most important of all, EATING all that bad, but oh so interesting food.

First thing we took care of was the vendors buildings. I think I have seen enough mop and ring cleaner salespeople to last a lifetime. I mean do they really sell that many mops? Okay maybe, since I have fell victim to their pitch more than once. I know, don't pick on the mops salespeople! We did end up buying a couple of things. Hubby bought a wire cutters that will actually work great for him in his part time electric dog fencing business. I bought a frozen blender drink mix that I can add a bottle of wine to and after a couple of hours in the freezer I will have a cold summer slushie drink. Now we're talking!!

All that walking and ducking sales pitches made us very hungry. I wanted to eat "outside the box". Megan wanted pizza(now that's original! Teenagers!) hubby wanted to just eat. We found ourselves walking bad food alley which is everywhere at the fair. Megan got her pizza and we found the place that had some strange food. Deep fried butter, krispy kreme donut hamburgers, chocolate covered bacon on a stick, pb&j sandwich on a stick and some other less weird selections. We decided to go all out and get the combo platter. One krispy kreme burger, deep fried butter, and the chocolate covered bacon. All for $8.00. We would share. The fried butter wasn't very popular between the three of us. The chocolate covered bacon was okay but interesting. The burger was the best of the three. I kinda liked it. We could have done without the ketchup hubby put on though. A very interesting combo of salty and sweet.


After this I was done for awhile. Rick on the other hand still was hungry. The next thing he tried was the boiled crawfish with potatoes and sausage. I was gonna pass on this. I had no interest whatsoever in eating the little red lobster look-a-likes. So Megan and I just watched him eat this. In the end he gave that meal a thumbs down.

A short time later we passed a fried noodle stand. This looked very appetizing to me. Even though the noodles were fried in a giant wok there were huge vegetables tossed in. I got that. Now we're talking. Very good, but not too off the wall.

We capped off out culinary fair adventure with Megan and I getting some frozen dipped cookie dough. This was a choice near and dear to me since I am the one who makes eggless cookie dough for Megan's schools concessions during sporting events to sell. This was good but Megan said it wasn't as good as mine! We ended up going home with our to go pack of cream puffs. This is a Wisconsin State Fair staple and you cannot go to the fair without getting them cream puffs.

I know we ended up missing many more awesome food items, but ones stomach can only handle so much. There's always next year!!






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