Duking It Out with the Dukan Diet and Then Opting for Octavin

Octavin: My Knight in Shining Armor

For some people one of the hardest things about dieting is giving up favorite foods such as chocolate, cheese and wine. Deprivation depresses me, but I was also feeling pretty bummed out about my tight pants and an emerging muffin top this past April. It seems totally unjust that by the end of each ski season my jeans can barely make it over my thighs and my butt feels like a little trailer albeit a more solidly-built one. But still.

No, you don’t see many skinny ski instructors. We feed on a steady supply of chili, pizza, French fries, hot chocolate and après-ski beers. You need that kind of fuel when you spend extended hours out in the cold. This year though I could tell the extra poundage was creeping up faster than ever before (must be that age thing!). My ski pants were so tight by early March that I began to feel like the Michelin man.

So around the time of the royal wedding—after having heard about Kate Middleton’s dieting success and after having consumed umpteenth celebratory scones—I decided to go on a diet. I, of course, opted for the Dukan Diet since that’s the one that allowed Kate to go down a whole dress size. Plus this much-talked about regime was created by Pierre Dukan, a Frenchman. I had tried the Montignac, another diet designed by a Frenchman, years ago when I lived in France. So I figured I owed it to my all-around French experience to attempt this one as well.

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