The 5 Mistakes Most People Make on the Dukan Diet

The Dukan diet is one of the fastest growing new diets. With so many people rushing to get started and experience the fast weight loss and hunger reduction program, only a few may make mistakes in their rush to lose weight. In this article, I’ll take a look at the five most common Dukan diet mistakes.

1. Not eating enough and being hungry

People accustomed to starvation and calorie counting diets have a hard time getting used to the idea that they can eat as much as they want on the Dukan diet. There is a misconception that to lose weight you have to feel hungry all the time. Consequently, some people new to the Dukan diet will unconsciously reduce their portion sizes to avoid feeling full and thus feeling like they are dieting (and losing weight). You don’t need to feel hungry all the time to lose weight! The Dukan diet is a low hunger diet, you should not feel hungry while following this weight loss program. If you’re hungry, eat something (as long as it’s on the allowed foods list!)

2. Not having enough variety in your diet

When you first start on the Dukan diet, you may need to refer to the Dukan diet book several times. It’s natural to want to double check which foods are allowed and which are not. It can take a week or two to have the list memorized so that you can put on the Dukan diet. friendly meals together become second nature. For some people, once they find a food they like to eat, they stick with that food, thinking it’s easier to stick with what they know is safe and easy. The downside to this plan is that meals quickly become repetitive and boring. The meal fix that was once pleasant and eagerly awaited becomes a dreaded task. So, to avoid getting tired of just seeing turkey kebabs in tikka and mint sauce (for example), be sure to take the time to experiment and expand your Dukan diet menu.

3. Constantly stepping on the scale

Weight loss on the Dukan diet, especially during the Attack Phase, can be very rapid. Dieters will get a motivational buzz stepping on the scale to see the pounds have been dropping. However, the weight fluctuates throughout the day. The scale may show an exciting loss of a couple of pounds in the morning, but it shows that you’ve actually gained a pound in the afternoon! One day you might see weight loss and another day show weight gain. This is unnecessarily annoying.

You should also keep in mind that most household scales are not very accurate machines. Move the scales slightly to the left or right and you’ll probably find a different result when you step on them.

Weighing should not be done more frequently than once a week. Once a month would be better in my opinion. Weight loss should always be thought of in terms of week to week at a minimum, preferably month to month. Which brings me to the next error.

4. Taking too much advantage of casual slip-ups

It’s very easy to slip on your diet and eat something you shouldn’t have. Someone can offer you a cookie and you are mindlessly eating it before you realize what you are doing. You are in a situation where refusing to eat or drink would be inappropriate and impolite. There are also little accidental slip-ups on the Dukan diet, like accidentally drinking whole milk in your coffee or eating a fattier cut of meat than you thought you were eating. I remember when I was first at the Dukan, accidentally picking up a packet of roast pork slices instead of roast turkey. For a couple of minutes I was devastated until I managed to put things in proportion!

A little slip up while on the Dukan diet is nothing. Imagine that one day you drink a couple of glasses of wine. Naughty, naughty, wine is not allowed in the Dukan. But to exaggerate this slip would be crazy! Let’s say the extra calories for the wine were 280 kcal. That’s 280 kcal which you shouldn’t have had for sure. But instead of thinking of this as an extra 280 kcal for that day, think of it as an extra for the week. This means that this slip caused you to consume an additional 40 kcal a day for the next month.

So instead of wasting time worrying about drinking those glasses of wine and feeling miserable, think about burning off that extra 40 kcal every day for a month. This won’t be too hard! Drinking a liter of ice cold water will burn that much (you don’t have to drink it all at once!) due to the fact that your body will burn calories just by raising the temperature of the water.

5. Thinking that the Dukan Diet works by magic

It’s not hard to see why so many people seem to think that the Dukan diet works like magic. The lack of hunger and rapid weight loss seems so different from all other diets that food combinations must seem like they work like magic. Some people talk about dieting as if their stomachs were cauldrons and the food they eat were ingredients in a magic weight loss potion. They think that if they get one thing wrong, eat too much or this or too little or that, eat the wrong food or drink the wrong drink, then the spell will be broken and all weight loss will stop!

Of course this is not the case. There is nothing magical about the way the Dukan diet works. All that happens is what happens with all diets that work. Dieters simply burn more calories than they consume, and weight loss occurs when their bodies use stored fat for energy. The good thing about the Dukan diet, for which so many people sing its praises, is that the whole process is much easier and faster than what is experienced with other diets. The high protein, low carb menus at Dukan mean people naturally consume fewer calories simply because they feel full faster and don’t feel hungry or craving any longer. If you mess up or eat the wrong food, you’ll have eaten more calories that day, nothing will be ruined or undone, as long as you get right back into the program, your weight loss will continue as before.