The Challenge
It’s a fact: we are a nation obsessed with dieting. A recent poll suggests that more than one in four adults in the UK is on some sort of diet, while almost two in five (37%) women in the UK admitted to dieting ‘most of the time’. From the South Beach to Weight Watchers, almost all of us have at one point in our lives been on a diet.
Although I sadly belong to this group of lifetime dieters, I am notoriously sceptical of fad diets and their quick-fix promises. One which has become increasingly popular is The Dukan Diet. This protein-loving, carbohydrate-and-fat-hating diet has become one of the most well-known and effective weight loss programmes in recent years. Made famous by celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez and Victoria Secret model Giselle Bunchen, it is now being attempted by thousands of us mere mortals.
Being a vegetarian, I have found that I am often excluded from mainstream diets as the recipes inevitably include meat and other animal products. So today I shall fight back by beginning the ultimate diet challenge; to follow an extremely strict diet aimed at meat lovers as a lifelong vegetarian. My hope is that my experiences, documented in this blog, might be of some help to other veggies out their looking to drop a few pounds.
But how achievable are these types of protein loving diets for vegetarians who want to lose a bit of weight? I am currently living with two carnivores that have been on the Dukan diet for the past few months and between them have lost over three stone. The reason they say it has been so easy to follow? They love meat! And as the first phase of the diet lays out a strict protein-only meal plan, this has suited them perfectly.
In his book, the developer of the diet Dr Pierre Dukan, does not recommend his diet for an ‘ovo-lacto vegetarian’ such as myself, as it “will be extremely difficult to substitute the large amounts of protein, essential to the success of the programme, on a vegetarian diet”. So how well will I fare in this experiment without my beloved veggies and salads for a week and what will the side effects be? Will I lose any weight and thus prove Dr Dukan wrong?