Years of eating rich French food was taking its toll on JANE SHORTHALL's waistline until she discovered the Regime Dukan
SINCE 2003 I have lived in southern France, in the foothills of the Pyrenees. To begin with, life here was fantastic – laid back and chock-full of long lunches and dinners. This is rich, pastoral land, where food and wine take centre stage. It is the land of the duck and its much-loved fat, which the mesdames use to cook everything in. The smallest town has a boulangerie and a patisserie. I tried everything and loved it all.
Over the past two or three years, however, the kilos crept on due a combination of not enough exercise, an excess of rich foods, lots of wine and, finally, my quitting smoking overnight in 2006, which unleashed a sweet tooth I never knew I had. The French paradox did not apply to me. Now, happily, thanks to a French regime, it does.
At a wedding last summer, an expensive linen outfit of trousers, long tunic and heels could not conceal the extra weight. By the end of the year I was wearing long flowing things, a nod to my hippie years of the 1970s. But I didn’t want to wear layers of black and huge jewellery forever. I was by no means obese, or indeed enormous, but I am only just over five feet tall.
I had made up my mind to tackle this weight issue and had an appointment with my doctor for mid-January to discuss it. Then, in typical, stylish French fashion, it was while drinking Champagne with a dynamic French woman on New Year’s Eve that the answer presented itself. She happily let me in on her secret – Regime Dukan.
I began researching it the very next day, January 1st, and was impressed by its clarity and honesty. I filled in a detailed questionnaire, hiding nothing, owning up to when and how much I ate and, horrors of horrors, how much wine I drank.
The response arrived in my in-box along with a comprehensive, proposed programme tailored to me as an individual and suggesting a couple of starting dates. I knew it might be difficult to begin and I wanted to start without any invitations to lunch or dinners.
I began the regime on Saturday, January 8th, with the first phase – the attack. This lasted three days, after which I could already see results. One month later, I was well on the way to my goal and three months on I had reached it. Effectively, in the first three months of this year, I lost almost 10kg, reverting to my normal size 10.
The Dukan method made me aware of every bite I ate. I lost the taste for certain foods and luckily they were the big offenders. I used to cook using almost a cup of olive oil, now I use a spoonful. A tiny piece of rich cheese is quite sufficient, as opposed to a slice of everything offered.
Egg mayonnaise seems far too heavy now, but tangy, herby mustard is great with hard-boiled eggs. A large pizza seems enormous at one sitting. (When did I ever need a whole pizza?) Quite apart from foods, it shocked me to realise that my wine intake alone could easily account for 650 calories or more, every single day.
Personally, I found Regime Dukan to be a thoroughly sensible approach to weight loss. I understand that doctors are divided as to the effectiveness of Dukan in the long term, with most agreeing that more research is needed. My own doctor had absolutely no qualms about it; she thought the method excellent.
In the end, it only boiled down to about 12 weeks of a re-education of eating patterns, which certainly worked for me and for lots of French women who have used it before me.
