Dukan diet Cruise Phase (Phase 2) week 23 – I lost 3.6 pounds and fit comfortably into 32-inch pants

by Marshall Brain

Here is my journey so far with the Dukan Diet:

And today I am reporting on my twenty third week (days 158 through 165) on the Dukan diet. This week has been a really good one on the weight-loss front. I managed to lose 3.6 pounds for the week, bringing my total weight loss on the Dukan diet to 51.2 pounds. I am eating an average of 1,900 calories per day (while getting a good amount of exercise) without feeling hungry. I bought some pants this week with a 32-inch waist and they fit comfortably. And in theory I now know the secrets to getting six-pack abs. Here is how the week unfolded:

Day 158 –

  • Today on the scale I gained 0.4 pounds and weigh 180.0.
  • As you will recall from last week, I gained 2.0 pounds for the week in what was almost certainly pure water weight. On Day 157 I had consumed 10,000 milligrams of salt. On Day 156 I gained weight after riding my bike 42 miles. On Day 155 I ate too many nuts I admit, but the amount of weight gained was disproportionate to the crime. So I am looking this week to eliminate all the water and get back on track with weight loss. My low last week was 176.6 – I therefore should theoretically be able to eliminate 3.4 pounds of water plus whatever weight loss I am able to achieve this week.
  • So today I tried to have a light day on the food front, and I did. It was helped by the fact that yesterday was a 3,800 calorie day, so I was not particularly hungry today.
  • Today I ate a pound of salmon, half a pound of chicken, 2 cups of cottage cheese, a box of antioxidant vegetables and a serving of asparagus. That’s it. Perhaps 1,200 calories total for the day.
  • We took a 3 mile family walk at Lake Johnson this evening for exercise. It was a beautiful weather after 4 inches of rain over the past 2 days.

Day 159 –

  • And this morning I was rewarded with a big loss of water, although that meant I did not sleep particularly well last night due to multiple restroom runs. I lost 2.8 pounds overnight and now weight 177.2. A couple more days like this and I will be a happy guy.
  • Today I ate half a pound of chicken, half a pound of tilapia, 3 eggs, a cup of cottage cheese, half a cup of plain yogurt, a handful of walnuts, 6 meatballs, a restaurant salad (for lunch), 2 ounces of lunch meat, a box of antioxidant vegetables and a serving of asparagus. Maybe 2,300 calories, although the salad is a wild card.
  • I rode the exercise bike for 400 calories, about 45 minutes. I watched the pilot for No Ordinary Family.

Day 160 –

  • Today my weight is unchanged. I weigh 177.2.
  • Today I ate a pound of chicken, half a pound of salmon, 3 cups of cottage cheese, 8 ounces of lunch meat, about 400 calories of raw walnuts and a serving of asparagus. About 2,000 calories.
  • No exercise to speak of.
  • BP is 120/80.

Day 161 –

  • I lost 0.4 pounds this morning and now weigh 176.8.
  • Last night I had these amazing, vivid dreams on a variety of topics. One was about discount shopping for a used car. One was about dogs. One was about being somewhere where they were serving pizza, and having this huge debate in my head about whether I should have any or not, and if I have any whether to have 1 or 2 slices. The weird part about the dream was that the pizza was enormous – say a yard in diameter – so each slice is a foot and a half long. What does it mean when you are dreaming about yard-wide pizzas? Even better, what does it mean when you are having long, drawn out dreams about negotiating the price of a used car?
  • This is all going to come down to the weekend, which starts today. David becomes a teenager today, and we are having a birthday party featuring pizza and ice cream cake tonight. Yum… but I can’t eat that. The rest of the weekend follows suit. Should be interesting.
  • So today I ate a pound and a half of chicken, half a pound of salmon, 2 cups of cottage cheese, 3 eggs, half a pound of lunch meat, a box of antioxidant vegetables, a serving of asparagus, and a tiny half-slice of pizza (maybe 100 calories) at David’s party. No ice cream cake, no pancakes this morning with the kids (they had the day off from school), no nuts… A good day for me. Maybe 2,000 calories.
  • On the exercise bike I rode for 420 calories while watching episode 7 of Lost. Do I gain weight tomorrow because I exercised tonight?

Day 162 –

  • I gained 0.8 pounds today. On the scale this morning I weigh 177.6. Why is that?
  • The first thing I did today was walk 4 miles. I woke up early and needed to do some thinking, so I walked for nearly 1.5 hours. It was still dark when I left and turned into a beautiful morning as I walked.
  • Today was a day of temptation, mostly thwarted. After the walk I had to take David to Lego League. We stopped on the way and bought 2 dozen delicious Krispy Kreme donuts for the team. I didn’t eat any of those. When I got home, the kids had had a sleep over and Leigh had made delicious, enormous cinnamon rolls for the kids, filling the house with a delicious aroma. I didn’t eat any of those. There was a similar incident at lunch. And then for dinner we had a family picnic at a local park. It featured a big batch of BJ’s muffins and lots of other tempting stuff. I ate one hot dog (no bun) at the picnic. Then this evening we all sat down and watched “E.T. – The Extraterrestrial” with a huge batch of popcorn. This was air popped popcorn with a little butter and salt. I will admit I had some popcorn, because air popped popcorn is basically air and the butter is no-carb. I had about 3 cups of popcorn – maybe 20 grams of carbs.
  • Today I ate a pound of chicken, half a pound of Tilapia, 2 cups of cottage cheese, 2 cups of plain yogurt, 8 ounces of lunch meat, 3 eggs, a handful of walnuts, a box of antioxidant vegetables and the 3 cups of popcorn. About 2,400 calories or so.
  • For exercise today I walked 4 miles and then worked in the yard all day trying to finish the project up.
  • I feel pretty good about today. I avoided a bunch of temptations and got a fair amount of mixed exercise. I probably ate a little too much, but nothing excessive given all the opportunities for straying.

Day 163 –

  • Today on the scale I gained a pound. I now weigh 178.6. Why? I have no idea. Perhaps it was yesterday’s lack of asparagus.
  • Today I ate a pound of chicken, half a pound of salmon, 400 calories of peanuts, a cup of cottage cheese, a box of vegetables and a serving of asparagus. Maybe 1,500 calories and much less salt than normal.
  • Exercise today was mixed – yard work, a couple miles of bike riding with the kids, etc. Nothing strenuous, but I was in motion all day.
  • We were at Wal-mart today and I bought one of those chin-up bars that goes in the doorway. Doing the legs lifts seen in this post on abs looks like something to try. Doing those leg lifts is not nearly as easy as it looks!

Day 164 –

  • I was up a couple of times last night, and today on the scale I dropped 2.2 pounds of water to hit 176.4, a new low. That felt good!
  • BP is good, at 120/85.
  • I had hit a low of 176.6 last week, on Day 155, before I started putting on water weight. It still seems like my body is holding onto some water. So I am going to try to be as good today as I was yesterday and see if I can’t dump that water and get into the 175s. This might be called, “treating weight loss as a game” or “treating weight loss as a challenge.” It can’t hurt to try. After gaining several pounds last week in what was surely pure water, it would be nice to be able to say that I lost 4 pounds this week by taking all that water back off.
  • So today I ate a pound of chicken, half a pound of Tilapia, 2 cups of cottage cheese, 3 eggs, a box of vegetables, a serving of asparagus, maybe 4 ounces of lunch meat and a handful of walnuts. That’s a bit more (like 350 calories more – 1,850 total) than yesterday, but still well within specs.
  • I rode my real bicycle about 10 miles today with David taking him to boy scouts.
  • Over the weekend we went to Good Will and I bought 2 pairs of shorts and a pair of jeans ($1.39 for each pair of Old Navy shorts, $3 for the jeans. Hard to beat that). These are my first “32-inch waist” purchases, and I wore a pair of the shorts today. They fit great.

Day 165 –

  • And today on the scale there was no effect. I weigh the same as yesterday – 176.4. I lost 3.6 pounds this week, and have lost 51.2 pounds since starting the Dukan diet.

Overall I feel like this week went really well. If you look at my calorie intake for the week, it was: 1,200 ; 2,300 ; 2,000 ; 2,000 ; 2,400 ; 1,500 and 1,850. That’s an average of 1,900 calories per day, hunger free. According to this calculator my daily calorie needs are 2,435 in “sedentary” mode. I ran a 500-calorie daily deficit for the week. And I got a fair amount of exercise as well for the week.

My point being that I should have lost fat this week, as well as water weight. This leads me to believe that my body is still holding onto some water, and hopefully it can come off next week. Maybe I can hit 175. Onward!

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