The Dukan Diet Gluten Free Style+ My First Giveaway

The Dukan Diet Weight Loss Coaching + My First Giveaway

*Disclosure: This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of The Dukan Diet. 

I was recently approached by the folks behind The Dukan Diet about the opportunity to learn more about their weight loss coaching program and connect with their Head Nutritionist and ask her any questions I want about the program. I have heard about The Dukan Diet from friends and I’ve seen their book in bookstores but I didn’t know what it was all about. All I knew was their tag line about how The Dukan Diet is “the reason the french stay so thin.” I wasn’t sure if the principles of The Dukan Diet would align with my gluten free and paleo lifestyle but I was curious to find out and learn more about it.

I received The Dukan Diet book in the mail and read through parts of the book to learn more about the diet. It was pretty cool because the whole time I was going through the book I knew I could ask the Head Nutritionist about any questions I had. How neat is that? After doing my research, the basic principles of The Dukan Diet is that its divided into four phases:

• The first phase is called the attack phase and you only eat lean protein. Yup, that’s it. You do this for a certain number of days based on how much weight you are trying to lose. For example, if you have 10 pounds to lose you would probably only be in the attack phase for 1-2 days. If you have more weight to lose, it could be up to 7 days.
• The second phase is called the cruise phase where you can eat as much as you want from a list of 100 acceptable foods.
• The third phase is consolidation and you can add fruits, bread, cheese, and other vegetables back into your diet. More on this to come.
• The fourth phase is called permanent stabilization where you can eat whatever you want but follow certain rules one day per week.

After reading about the four phases I thought all this sounds pretty good. But then I read that The Dukan Diet recommends adding Oat Bran daily into your diet. Oat bran is not gluten free and I was looking forward to speaking to the Head Nutritionist about her thoughts on The Dukan Diet and being gluten free.

Being Gluten Free on The Dukan Diet

When I spoke to Simone Gloger, Head Nutritionist for The Dukan Diet, I asked her about the Oat Bran and her recommendations for someone who is gluten free and leans towards a paleo diet lifestyle (ie: no gluten free straight substitutes like gluten free oat bran and gluten free bread). She is gluten free (which I thought was pretty cool) and recommended that someone who is gluten free on The Dukan Diet can increase their shirataki noodle consumption (in chicken stir fry or vegetable stir fry) or take a glucomannan powder or supplement daily in replace oat bran. The importance of the oat bran is about the fiber and the feeling of fullness and those were her recommendations.

Phase three on The Dukan Diet also reintroduces breads and cheese into a person’s diet. I asked Simone what modifications she would recommend to someone who is gluten free. Here were some of her gluten free recommendations:

• Gluten Free Bread: Make sure to find a kind without any added sugar. Or take my advice and don’t eat gluten free bread at all!
• Substitute an extra serving of fruit in replace of the bread
• Substitute Brown Rice, Quinoa, Millet, or Amiranth in replace of the bread.

And if you are following a paleo diet and don’t eat cheese, Simone recommends substituting the cheese with a serving of nuts and more low glycemic fruit like apples, mixed berries, pears.

So, what’s the difference between The Dukan Diet and the Paleo Diet? 

When I asked Simone what the biggest difference between The Dukan Diet and The Paleo Diet were, she said The Dukan Diet is more like the paleo diet because it goes back to hunter gatherer times. You are going to eat very similar to paleo but the key difference is The Dukan Diet does not believe in fat sources as part of the diet until you get into phase three. The reason behind this is because The Dukan Diet believes that when you have a high protein, low fat diet you see results quicker.

Conclusion

Overall I really enjoyed my conversation with Simone and getting to learn more about The Dukan Diet. She was very knowledgeable and knew her nutrition and I always love talking to people like that. I am very curious about The Dukan Diet and have considered trying it myself. I don’t really have much weight to lose right now, but I would like to lean out and lose some more body fat. Simone told me that she was already at her target weight when she joined The Dukan Diet weight loss coaching program. She is 5’10’ and was 124 pounds and she lost another 7 pounds in a month from The Dukan Diet. So now I’m seriously thinking about trying this out for a month (with the gluten free modifications, of course) to see if it leans me out. If I do, would any of you be interested in joining me? We can hang out and snack on turkey all day and email each other about our progress! If you are interested, let me know by posting in the comments.

If you are interested in learning more about The Dukan Diet, you can visit http://www.dukandiet.com/. If you are interested in learning more about their weight loss coaching program, you can receive 25% OFF your program by using the promotional code J13BG25.

And Now, The Giveaway!

I was impressed after I spoke with Simone and the folks at The Dukan Diet because I think this is a really interesting approach to weight loss and could help people reach their goals. I asked if they would like to give a copy of The Dukan Diet book to one of my lucky readers and they said yes! So I present to you my first giveaway here on FitandAwesome.com. Sign up below and you will be entered to win a free copy of The Dukan Diet book plus other Dukan Diet goodies.

Enjoy!

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What about you? Have you heard of The Dukan Diet? What are your thoughts on it? Post in the comments and let me know!