Vitamin/mineral deficiency

Splendarella

Full Member
Hello learned friends I have a query. Before starting Dukan I tried to get an appt with the dietician at GP surgery who was on leave. She returned and rang me today. I told her I no longer require her services as I have commenced this diet and am doing fine. She said the NHS would never recommend cutting out a major food group for a diet long term and it could cause potential health risks to me. She suggested writing a daily food diary for her to check in six weeks to see whether the diet is deficient in vits/mins. I said I would but in fairness when I think about colleagues diets who are not doing weightloss e.g. breakfast sugary cereal, lunch white bread cheese savoury sandwich, pack of crisps, can of fizzy and a bar of choc, snacks more fizzy with biscuits, dinner fast food plus enough alcohol to put them in a nightly coma then this way cant be that bad surely? I will make sure I vary the veg and take my supplements so is my dietician just reading from her college book that says 'thou shalt eat thy carbs and be very hungry and feel a failure when you eat a choccie bar whilst sobbing with the humiliation?'
 
I took my food diary to a dietician appointment and whilst I didn't mention the D word, she looked through my diary and thought it looked fine.
 
I agree with you. My diet pre Dukan was mostly rubbish with the odd bit of fruit and veg thrown in. How could that be healthier.
I feel so much alert on this diet and better in myself.
I think the best judge is how you feel yourself. Though think you can feel rubbish he first few days as you detox all the junk.
 
I realised as I was cooking supper that I really do eat more veg now than I did 4 months ago - today, 2 lettuces, about a 1lb of tomatoes, a head of broccoli, an onion.

Part of the problem here is that most of the medical practitioners we encounter will not have read the detail of the diet, and assume we are spending months chewing bones and sucking bacon fat out of the pan.

So when my consultant asked me how I had managed to lose weight (and improve my blood test results!), I didn't mention Dukan, I just told her I had cut as much fat and processed carbohydrate as possible, and concentrated on fresh vegetables, low fat dairy and lean fresh meat and fish.

She approved.

The only mineral I'm aware that I am missing out on is potassium (I started getting night cramps a few days ago). So I upped my vitamin pill intake for a day or two
 
Excellent - I am happy. I think then dieticians need to be better educated - I said one of the reasons why I was happy to stick with this diet is that I don't have the terrible hunger pangs and carb cravings that are just agony while calorie counting. Her reply was well it is obvious you should feel hungry while on a diet because it is your bodys way of telling you to eat more! I have done 2 hours 30 mins exercise tonight and I still have energy and can avoid the fridge! I am going to have a decaf coffee, dye my hair, fake tan and wake up a goddess! Night Dukaneers xxx
 
Splendarella

If you really want to know just how dodgy the scientific foundations of mainstream nutritional dogma are, I can recommend the work of this author:
Gary Taubes

He's a US journalist, and in no way an alternative campaigner or quack. He doesn't recommend any diets or fad foods. He just examines the science behind most of the advice we have heard for the last 40 years, and reveals how poorly designed - or non-existent - the experiments and studies really are.

He's a bit like Ben Goldacre - the journalist who pointed out that "Dr" Gillian McKeith (aka The Poo Lady) bought her "PhD in Nutrition" from a dodgy website for $50 (and bought one for his dog to prove it had no value).
 
Potassium is easy to lose, I think. Nettle tea or soup is supposed to help. In fact, young nettles (not older woody ones) are supposed to be good for clearing the kidneys, are a diuretic and good for joint problems, chest conditions and a few other things. Heavy gloves needed for collecting but no problem when cooked. I drink nettle tea sometimes, tastes like the smell of hay! Soup made with onion and chicken stock tastes good.
 
Hey, I love nettle soup! Had no idea about the potassium.

Alas, no nettles in central London where I'm stuck working for the next 10 days - but tea sounds doable.
 
You can get nettle tea in most of the supermarkets. Not sure how much you get of its properties when you only have tea though. In France recently (a cafe in La Gacilly in Brittany) I had a delicious nettle quiche, using the nettles the same way as spinach. I preferred it to spinach, which I've only acquired the taste for with difficulty.
Should not be picked after June really, unless you have cut a patch and let it regrow (no good if no garden)
Plenty of nettles in London eg by the river, Epping Forest, Wimbledon and Barnes commons etc. Nice weekend walk with heavy gloves!
 
My nettle patch is in Northumberland, on a hillside where everything is at least 3 weeks behind the rest of the UK.

And I agree - Nettles are nicer than spinach. I used to put them in risotto (and will do again, next year, when I am eating rice again!)
 
The Northumbrian nettles will be basking in sunshine today as it is glorious up here :) I can recommend young Northumbrian dandelion leaves too (taste like rocket in a salad). I too checked out Gary Taubes thanks Atropos. It all makes sense. I walk round supermarkets in horror now - trollies filled to burst feeding bad carb addictions.
 
I read Gary Taubes last year, very interesting
 
"Bad carb addictions"

When I pop into Tesco Metro for the office pint of milk, slap opposite the door is a huge "Krispy Kreme" cabinet, with special offers on pick and mix boxes of 12... right in the middle of the fruit and veg.

It just seems like an exhibit from carb bizarro world!

I remember being bewildered, years ago, when I realised that all Tesco salads ready made salads were filled with 50% pasta spirals.

Even then it seemed ridiculous to be calling a filler of cheap white flour n' water pieces "salad".
 
My dietician asked me if I was eating the bones in my fish - my diary had mentioned smoked haddock!! I had to tell her that she shouldn't be advising Copley to east that kind of fish bone, but only the soft ones like you get in sardines :)
 
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