Kate Middleton's Mother on Dangerous Diet

A diet created by the French nutritionist Pierre Dukan is being used by Carole Middleton to slim down for the royal wedding between Prince William and her daughter Kate. She actually started it two months ago and she is reportedly living on “prawns and cottage cheese.” The Dukan diet employs a mixture of high-protein and low fat foods. Researchers at the Institut Pasteur in Lille however, have found the Dukan diet may interfere with a person’s natural metabolism and create nutritional imbalances. (Source: TheTelegraph)

Dukan said he created the diet after advising a friend who wanted to lose weight without giving up meat, “I told him to eat nothing but protein and drink only water for five days…” Source: (TheDailyMail)

He expanded his idea to a series of phases where one type of protein is eaten on a specific day only, without vegetables. The program starts with a short period of only eating meat, fish and eggs. The first all-protein phase lasts five to ten days depending on how much weight is to be lost. Next comes the cruise phase, when you can add days with protein and vegetables to the days of protein-only foods.

An example of a protein day menu includes: yogurt or cottage cheese and turkey or a boiled egg for breakfast; crab sticks, chicken leg, salmon or pepper steak for lunch; and prawns and chicken for dinner.

A review of the Dukan diet by WebMD says it can be effective for weight loss because it reduces calories greatly, but it could also result in nutritional imbalances. “A once-daily multivitamin will not compensate for the nutritional goodness from fruits, whole grains and healthy fats that are inadequate in The Dukan Diet,” said Keri Gans, from the American Dietetic Association. (Source: WebMD.com)

The Dukan diet has led to rapid weight loss for some people, but losing weight quickly can be associated with gallstones, bone problems and muscle loss (Source: WebMD.com). The Dukan Diet book has sold two million copies, and celebrities such as Gisele Bundchen and Jennifer Lopez have been rumored to have used the diet.

Image Credit: Fastily

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John M.

9:24AM PST on Feb 18, 2012

Yes this is a diet that all the starving children in Africa need desperately.Actually any food would be helpful.#richfatpeopleproblems

send a green star

Doro W.

7:36PM PST on Jan 12, 2012

That diet can not be good for you. Just looking at the sample menu made me want to go get a salad.

Sue M.

7:28PM PST on Jan 12, 2012

good grief

pElAgUS h.

8:10AM PDT on Sep 25, 2011

Sounds a lot like the atkin diet to me....

Indah P.

5:19AM PDT on Jun 14, 2011

without Oat bran.. its just slower

Charles B.

11:19PM PDT on Jun 1, 2011

hum???
Thank you anyway Jake!

anne r.

10:28AM PST on Feb 26, 2011

Crash diets alone do more harm than good. Radical elimination should never be done for early weddings or events. It is the public image that may harm her more.

Barbara E.

12:00AM PST on Dec 14, 2010

To each his own :-0 thanx

jane r.

9:01AM PST on Dec 9, 2010

She'll look great for the wedding no doubt. This woman will go back to her usual fare and will hopefully live out her life without anymore major dramatics.

Walter G.

1:13PM PST on Dec 4, 2010

Hester Goedhart, how can we not care? This is the latest commoner member of the famous traveling circus, 'The Windsor-Mountbatten-wales-Blimey etc travelling circus. Without this latest injection of new blood they would continue to produce ingenious midgets, bleeders, members who perform impossible feats of idiocy, and the requirement to spend all that money on them. Mercedes Benz, of course is just about fresh out of royal crash dummies, most other members embracing Daimler and other British er, ah, excuse me former British car brands. Slimming down is only part of the asinine voyage about to be undertaken by this young lady, ask 'Fergy' or Dianna if you have a ouija board. It can't be helped, no more 'acceptable' marriageable royal blood available. One good aspect of it is that soon the royal family will have a resident snub target, and they won't have to travel to various countries to do it. Who am I to criticize them anyway, when we in the US have our own 'Royal (pain in the butt) family' composed of various supposedly elected leaders? Its the same thing, they gain, increase and permanentize, ad infinitum, perks and public money by another name to their exclusive benefit. 'Let 'em eat cake,' Marie Antoinette, famous for her out of body experience in Paris said. Well, this is modern day USA, and we say 'Oh, God, there is a melamine and lead recall of my cake!' OK, we'll see how long this one lasts and how she leaves the hallowed royal halls.