Is it time to quit?

I hit a bit of a wall this week - I suddenly realised I'd only made it to week ten of this dieting malarkey, and faced with another forty two I felt like curling up in a ball and weeping. Weeping into my Dukan oat bran pancake.

I wonder now why I ever thought it was a good idea... sure I've lost weight, three pounds this week! So it's not even like I'm failing terribly. It's just the constant changing between diets, the disappointment at finding one you like... Then having to stop, and the fact this week I've not been able to eat fruit. I hate diets where I can't eat fruit. I have started taking a multi vitamin to help though, but it's just not the same.

Those around me are split on the issue. My better half says I should just quit and do a proper diet. That just makes me want to stick at it. Others say that I've started so should finish - and think of how amazing it will feel at the end of the year when I look back. In my head even now I'm thinking great... dieting over Christmas and New Year. Woo hoo.

You're probably starting to think "Whinge, whinge, whinge...moan, moan, moan"... so i will stop. I'm not going to quit... for now. But I'm not completely sold on the idea. I was however quite sold on my diet this week - the Dukan diet.

This is quite an extreme diet at the start - when you attack. I like the idea of attacking my fat. Although given what you can eat on this diet the attacking is really just throwing large quantities of eggs and meat at your belly. I opted for a five day attack phase. That meant for five days all I eat was protein, no fat dairy and one and a half tablespoons of oat bran.

Oat bran. I was suspicious of this foul sounding supplement too. The truth though is it was the highlight of my day. On Pancake Day... when faced with just a chicken breast for tea it made my day to have what you could say at least looked like a pancake - see...  

 It didn't taste like one, but you can't have everything. Oat bran though can be made into muffins... porridge... all sorts of tasty treats so you can fool your body into thinking the dukan diet is all right. Because as I said in reality it is quite extreme. You can't really stick at it and have a normal family meal at night. Well you can... but just to give you an example one night we had roast. All the works... Yorkshire puddings, stuffing, gravy. I had three slices of Roast Beef and nothing else. It sucked.

Like I said initially though it does work and the weight comes off. After the attack phase you move into the cruise phase where you can re-introduce vegetables into your diet. They taste amazing after five days of going cold turkey (or cold chicken, cold roast beef, or maybe tuna fish.... any make an alright lunch on Dukan attack). Once in the cruise phase you're advised to alternated one day meat, one day meat and vegetables - given i only had two days and physically missed vegetables I did two days meat and vegetables. (And wine and a handful of cornflakes ones day... shhh don't tell anyone)

I'm sure if you had time to get into it the evening meals would be a bit more appealing. Certainly more appealing than some of the low carb side effects you get... my tongue is a really odd colour. But i'd recommend Dukan to anyone. I just wish I could stick at it for a bit longer....