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What is Dukan Diet and its side-effects?

This article gives pertinent information about Dukan Diet and its side-effects

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Pierre Dukan, a French doctor and nutritionist, challenged with the case of obesity started to look for alternative ways in curing the illness. After 20 years of thorough research he published in the year 2000, a book called, “Je ne sais pas maigrir” or translated as, “I don’t know how to get slimmer.” It gained the best-seller in France after a year it has been published.
It was made a hit in UK when Kate Middleton, now the duchess of Cambridge, tried the Dukan Diet before her marriage to the beloved Prince William, she reportedly claimed a loss of two dress sizes. It also allegedly claimed to help five million French. The book is also gaining fame in the US in the year 2011 when actress/singer, Jennifer Lopez, lost pounds after her pregnancy by following this diet.
Dukan Diet: What is it? How does this work?
Dukan Diet is similar to the famous Atkins diet. Atkins and Dukan are much alike in terms of non-intake of carbs initially and do not require portion control or counting calorie consumptions. In Atkins, it requires net carbohydrate intakes and unlike Dukan, it suggests a daily intake of oats, increase water consumption and 20 minutes of everyday brisk walking. Dukan Diet adopts four phases namely: Attack, Cruise, Consolidation and Stabilization.
Four Phases of the Dukan Diet
Attack: In this starter phase, the dieter is only allowed take protein rich foods that are exquisitely low in fat. Dr. Dukan provided 72-item list of foods to be eaten, it excludes pork, lamb, poultry products and cheeses. Food should always be cooked but without adding any fat to it, it best to cook in grilling or roasting. It also requires you to eat 1 ½ tbsp. oat bran & 1.5 liters of water per day. This phase should be followed around 2-7 days or more. Results from this initial phase within 5 days may result in 4-7 lbs. loss. This phase promotes quick loss of weight since it is strictly based on a protein-only diet.
Cruise: Cruise, the second to the fourth phase of the Dukan diet scheme. During this phase dieters who were only allowed to eat protein-only foods can now alternate a 28-items of non-starchy vegetables. They may take attack phase diet for today and take non-starchy veggie diet for tomorrow, and so this phase must go on by alternating these two types of diet each day. This phase may last long enough as much as you want by reaching your desired weight and assuring 2 pounds per week loss.
Consolidation: As one achieves the desired weight, one has to go the next phase called Consolidation, this is the maintenance phase of this diet scheme where you have to prevent putting back excess pounds. The plan in this phase is less strict compared to the first two phases. During this phase you are permitted to eat protein-only and veggie diet along with a piece of low-sugar fruit, 2 slices of whole grain bread and a portion of hard cheese. In this phase you are allowed to have 1-2 serving of starchy foods and one celebration meal per week. The phase of consolidation does not expect to loss off pounds but rather it is steadily the maintenance process.
Stabilization: Stabilization is the final phase and a life-long phase of the diet scheme. In here maintenance of the life-changing diet may be a challenging and tempting. During this portion of the scheme, one is already permitted to allow any food intake that a person wants and by also sticking to the diet rule in the consolidation phase. As Pierre Dukan suggest, that staying on the phase 1 rule once a week and eat whatever you like for the rest of the week lowers the chances of regaining weight.
Pros and Cons of Dukan Diet
Pros: The fast results of this diet scheme is beneficially rewarding and motivating. It allows you to have protein and veggie meal plan diets and does not require you to count off your calorie intakes.
Cons: It is highly restrictive and can exclude healthy foods. Dieters can experience side-effects such as symptoms of headaches, nausea, lethargy, irritable and loss of concentration. Dieters may acquire halitosis (bad breath), metallic tasting mouth and strong smell in their urines. For those people who have problems with their kidneys and liver are not advised to follow this diet plan. It is not also recommended for pregnant and nursing mothers.

Views and Opinions by Health Experts on the Dukan Diet
There are lots of critics in this diet plan. Due to the restrictive type scheme of this diet, some fruits, grains and nuts which are healthy and have high amounts of vitamins and minerals that are vital to the nutrition of the body are eliminated. Keri Gans of American Dietetic Association, said that the lost amount of multivitamins that should be acquired from those restricted foods are not compensated in the Dukan diet. Experts have also criticized that experiencing such side-effects may not be healthy at all.

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Improve Your Motivation To Lose Weight

Most people will know that there are too many weight loss products that fail to give you what they say they will. After so many attempts the motivation to lose weight begins to disappear.

However not all weight loss methods are useless and they practice healthy ways towards weight loss. So why is it that so few people manage to aquire the goal of weight loss?

One of the major issues that can make the difference between who succeeds and who fails is the ability keep your willpower strong.

All diets and weight loss products are useless if you don’t have the willpower to see them through. In all honesty most people who want to succeed end up losing the motivation before losing the weight.

The Motivation to lose weight seems to be strong in the beginning; however it does not take long for this to disappear. This is a common situation but can be avoided if done properly. It is just as important to work on the mind as it is to work on the body.

As soon as you start to get the feelings that you are starting to find things difficult, stop worrying about it. Accept that you are getting these feelings and that they are completely normal. Once you can learn to accept something you no longer have to fight against it.

I am not talking about giving up I am talking about knowing that you have these feelings in your head and there is nothing wrong with them. Go back to the feelings that you had at the start. Why you wanted to lose weight and how motivated you first felt. Write down all the reasons you had for wanting weight loss.

Was it so that you look and feel more attractive? Was it because you wanted to become healthier? Was it because you wanted more energy?

Whatever the reasons were write them all down and focus on those reasons. The motivation to lose weight can become stronger with practice. The more you think about motivation, and the less you think about how hard it is, the better off you will be.

The truth is that the more you think about something the bigger it gets. Have you ever had a problem where you find that the more you dwell on this problem the bigger and more stressful it seems to get?

What many people don’t realise is that this works both ways, focusing on good things on a regular basis will also result on those good things the better you will feel, motivation can be improved in this way too.

Start to think about what results you are going to get, how you are going to look, how others will see you, how you are going to feel; try to see these thoughts as pictures in your mind. This is called visualization and can be a very valuable tool.

Stay positive, stay determined, stay strong, stick with your goals, visualize, think of these things everyday and your motivation to lose weight will go from strength to strength.

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Canada Pharmacy Shares New Weight-Loss Drug

A weight-loss medication, Qnexa is awaiting permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It manifested remarkable effects in a current international trial. While it is in review, to buy Xenical is one of the best alternatives.

Dr. Louis Aronne, founder and director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City, was cautiously optimistic that Vivus did a good job responding to FDA safety concerns, and that the FDA will give the drug its nod of approval — with some caveats. Aronne was not involved in the trials but has been an adviser to Vivus and other companies developing weight-loss medications.

“We have learned our lessons with weight-loss drugs,” he said. “They need to be used in the right people under the right circumstances.” The heart risks need to be weighed against reductions in heart disease risk factors that come with weight loss, he explained.

“Qnexa is no riskier than bariatric surgery,” Aronne said, but it can be distributed more widely. He hopes for a compromise that allows the new compound to be prescribed but not misused. Taking safety into consideration, generic Xenical is surely on the top of the list.

“Once new medications are approved, local medical boards will need to enforce rules and make sure these medications are prescribed appropriately to the right candidates,” he said. “We don’t want to open up pill mills.”

Dr. Scott Kahan, an obesity expert at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and director of the National Center for Weight and Wellness in Washington, D.C., said, “Qnexa looks promising.”

“The weight-loss effects are striking and approaching the amount of weight loss over two years that we get with bariatric surgery,” Kahan said. “This is really impressive.” Canada pharmacy will surely have this on stock once it is approved and launched.

Weight loss, in the context of medicine, health or physical fitness, is a reduction of the total body mass, due to a mean loss of fluid, body fat or adipose tissue and/or lean mass, namely bone mineral deposits, muscle, tendon and other connective tissue. It can occur unintentionally due to an underlying disease or can arise from a conscious effort to improve an actual or perceived overweight or obese state.

Unintentional weight loss occurs in many diseases and conditions, including some very serious diseases such as cancer, AIDS, and a variety of other diseases.

Poor management of type 1 diabetes mellitus, also known as insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM), leads to an excessive amount of glucose and an insufficient amount of insulin in the bloodstream. This triggers the release of triglycerides from adipose (fat) tissue and catabolism (breakdown) of amino acids in muscle tissue. This results in a loss of both fat and lean mass, leading to a significant reduction in total body weight. Untreated type 1 diabetes mellitus can produce weight loss. In addition to weight loss due to a reduction in fat and lean mass, fluid loss can be triggered by illnesses such as diabetes, certain medications, lack of fluid intake or other factors. Fluid loss in addition to reduction in fat and lean mass exacerbates the risk for cachexia.

Infections such as HIV may alter metabolism, leading to weight loss.

Hormonal disruptions, such as an overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism), may also exhibit as weight loss.

One cutoff value of where unintentional weight loss is of significant concern is where there’s a weight loss of more than 5% in the past month, or at least 10% during the last 6 months.

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