A New Menu

Day 21


Then: 15 stone 5 pounds (215 lbs)
Now: 14 stone 9 pounds (205 lbs)

A pound lost: thank goodness I’m back on track.

Jo has been telling me that, despite the strictures of the official Dukan diet, I really should be kinder to my taste buds and friends, and I think she’s right. I’m still focused on protein, and taking almost no carbs (apart from the two potatoes last night and the regular morning bowl of wet cardboard), but in the evening I’ve been adding garden salad.

There’s nothing quite like salad taken straight from the ground to the plate. I planted it long before I started this game, and I can’t bear to let it go to seed. I grow five or six different types of lettuce, several different mustard greens, wild rocket, spring onions, courgettes, lots of different beets (including the rare white, gold and stripy ones), and there’s no diet that’s going to tell me I can’t enjoy these zero-calorie treats.

So, I have a new plan. Dukan (or Dukan’t, as I call him) says I should alternate protein-only days with protein-and-vegetables. I’m now doing protein for three quarters of a day, and protein-and-greens in the evening. It’s keeping me sane, and I’m calling it the YuCan Diet:

THE YUCAN DIET
Version 1.0

Breakfast: Coffee and Cardboard
Double Espresso drink while cooking 2 tbs oatbran, cooked with 300 ml salted boiling water for 3 minutes until it’s gloopy. Eat smugly.

Snack: Small fat-free yoghurt
Absurdly small – the tiniest they sell. Eat, with very small spoon to make it last longer, with triple espresso (yes, triple).

Lunch: Naked Chicken
1 packet cooked chicken breast from a supermarket. Open with sharp knife. Eat slowly direct from the packet. Say “yum” at every bite to make yourself feel better. Drink one Coke Zero to stop yourself falling asleep.

Snack: Forget it
Take with either black tea or black tea.

Dinner: Main Course: The YuCan Special
Any amount of cooked dead fish or deceased animal (but no lamb, pork, fatty beef, duck or anything with real flavour that might make the meal vaguely interesting). Mountain of Garden Salad with weird dressing, either made with fat-free yoghurt, mustard, a little white wine vinegar and peanut oil, or with balsamic vinegar, water and a little peanut oil. Don't worry that these quantities make no culinary sense, the aim is not to make a properly emulsified dressing, but to make a bit of liquid which lies at the bottom of the salad bowl and remind you of better times.

Dessert: Remote Pudding
Take one rich, chocolaty, creamy, fat-full dessert from any quality supermarket. Unwrap or cook and put carefully on a plate. Add large scoop of Creme Chantilly or half a tub of any Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Hand to your 12-year-old and watch him eat it. Sigh deeply.