Dukan Diet: Yay or nay?

Summer is just around the corner. Most of the people are happy, but I know that more than a half of them are having the exact same problem as I do and that is weight! I personally do not really do diets and am not a big fan of them. But every summer I have the “tradition” of an ultimate diet where I challenge myself, just because at the end of the day I want to feel happy and love myself for who I am and my looks as well. So, if you are having the same “problem” as I do, I hope this post will help you. Finding a diet that is good, efficient, and fast but not that harmful for you is very hard. Not everyone is the same. And not every diet means starving to death and not eating at all. I personally, always wanted to see the results as fast as possible and I wanted to eat! After trying a lot of them, I finally found the one that’s best for me. Researching, reading different blogs and forums, getting as many information as I could was really frustrating and the diet itself was not really described the easiest way. So for all of you, who want to kind of “detoxicate” your body, feel good, lose weight fast, Dukan diet is the answer!

Dukan diet consists of 4 different phases: attack phase, cruise phase, consolidation phase and stabilization phase. I would describe the Attack phase as the hardest one. Why? Because it is what you start with. If you decide to go through this diet you will have to stay positive and just try to “survive” the first phase. Within few days you will see the results, trust me! As the name itself says, the attack phase is where you stop eating what you have been eating before, and start eating ONLY PROTEINS! You can basically eat as much as you want, as long as you are eating proteins. All kinds of meat, fish, eggs, low fat yoghurt, low fat cheese and oat brans. If you search the internet you will definitely find a whole list of things you are allowed to eat in the first phase, but I personally ate these and they helped! Attack phase lasts from 2 to 7 days. You will lose 1kg or more per day, so if you want to lose 10kg you will have to do the attack phase for 10 days, but everything that is more than that, you will need to consult your doctor, and I personally would not recommend it. Doing any activity in this phase will help you lose weight faster. You do not need to run a marathon, walking is an activity too! After you have started losing weight, you will get more motivated and will not want to stop. After that you can move to phase number 2! You have probably heard about the “boomerang effect” where all the weight you lost comes back. That is why, in the Dukan diet you have this phase which prevents you from it. You will have to be aware of the fact that at this phase you are not going to lose weight as quickly as in the attack phase. You will be allowed to eat vegetables such as artichokes, broccoli, cucumber, mushrooms, onion, peppers, pumpkin, spinach and tomatoes. Oat brans are allowed too. You will basically need to eat only vegetables, plus one day you can allow yourself vegetables plus proteins. In the second phase, you will lose weight almost every week, and this phase will last as long as you do not get to your real weight. Consolidation phase, or the third phase, is the time where you are at your most vulnerable. Your body and mind have been through a lot. That is why you need to stay focused and positive! In this phase you will start eating fruit (every day) and what is most important in case you want to maintain your true weight is Protein Thursday. Physical activity is again very important! In this phase you will also have up to two “celebration” meals per week, allowing you to eat whatever you like. Isn’t that great? And finally, when you are done with this hard process of reaching your goals, you will get to the final phase, the stabilization phase. That is pretty much the rest of your life (in case you want to and can keep up with the process that you have been through), where you basically eat everything from the menus you made separately through the first three phases. I personally, was never able to maintain the weight that I have lost during the diet for the rest of my life but I got what I wanted: THE PERFECT SUMMER LOOK!

So, in case you were having the same taught as I did go ahead and try it! It will not be easy, but if you are as stubborn as I am or if you are that kind of person who has to make everything that is in their heads come true, do not hesitate and give it a shot! For all of you willing to try it, I will write you down what I ate during the attack phase and I will try to make it easier for you so that you do not have to search the internet and waist time (as I did). Let’s do this!

For breakfast, I used to eat oat brans with low fat yoghurt as soon as I woke up. It is also important that throughout the whole process and phases you drink at least 1.5 liters of water per day! After that little bowl of oat brans, when I feel like I am getting hungry, but it is still not lunch time, I usually made hard boiled eggs with again oat bran muffins aside. In case you want to make them you will need oat brans (as much as you want), low fat yoghurt, one egg, salt and voila! Bake it for about 10-15 min in preheated oven. If you want a more “harder” breakfast you can make omelet with any kind of low fat bacon. Remember, proteins only!

For lunch and all you salmon lovers here is a simple way to make it fat free. You need to get fresh salmon, sprinkle it with salt, pepper and lemon juice. I always like to put some lemon underneath it so that it has some extra juice and taste. I also like to put it on baking paper, and I like to preheat the oven before. You will know when it’s done, but it usually takes 20-25 minutes (sometimes less, depending on how big the salmon is).

For dinner, you can make chicken filet sprinkled with again salt, pepper and rosemary. You can use lemon as well. You will need a little bit of olive oil for the chicken and again, you will bake in the oven. Avoid frying things!

And that is about it. You will see the results if eating things that are allowed. My breakfasts always looked the same, but for lunch and dinner, you can change the meat that you are eating and try to be creative as much as you can. If you decide to try it out, let me know the results!

Who am I?

“A good painting to me has always been a friend. It keeps me company, comforts and inspires.”

I had a tough time making or even thinking of trying to make a blog post so that you guys could kind of get the picture of who I am.  There are over 7 billion people on the lovely planet called Earth, which means there are over 7 billion unique stories to tell. But today is my turn and I´ll try and do my best.

Stuttgart, Germany, July 24^th 1994, “Marien Hospital”. A girl named Adna Kurtagić was born. I know I know, Adna isn´t really a German name. Both of my parents are from Bosnia, but during the war they escaped to Stuttgart, and there I was. At the age of four we moved back to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Primary school was just around the corner. I started school in Sarajevo and finished it there, but in the meantime I moved a lot. Being able to spend time in the beautiful and sunny California (San Diego and Irvine) and not that sunny but still beautiful Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur) made me much stronger as a person and more independent. But times were not always that easy and fun. Do you know that feeling when you finally meet good friends, you get along with everyone, you are doing well at school and then all of a sudden it all comes to an end? The next second you find yourself on another continent, don´t know anyone and you just feel lost. Yup. Been there done that. Days over there, especially Malaysia, were not easy. Peer pressure, bullies and all kinds of things that you as a teenager do not want to experience, came up to me. It felt like someone threw a bunch of things in my face and I was trying to find my way back out. But, as they say, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

Music, art, dance, singing, playing the guitar and ukulele.. It was all about finding that one spot where the world stops and your imagination starts. All of a sudden you feel like you are your own superhero, actor of your own movie called “Life”, trying to make it to the top and reach the stars… Ok, maybe I overdid it but seriously, have you ever felt that one spark in you trying to get out of you so you could really show the world how much you mean and who you really are? 

Those are and always will be Adna´s five minutes of fame. Everyone who knows me, knows that I do not really talk about me and my way of making music. On the other hand they know how much I love talking about music in general and trust me you never want to get in an argument with me about it or dare me to play the ‘Who-knows-every-song-in the world-challenge’, because you know I´ll win (not even kidding, but yes, I just did make up a new challenge :D ). Anyway, I will hate myself because of saying this but it is true: “I couldn´t imagine my life without music”. Drawing, fashion, makeup and all the other similar things related to arts are what I am really passionate about and what define me as a person.

That is also when we come to the question what am I doing in Graz?

After the period when I got back from Cali and Malaysia I finished my primary school in Sarajevo and started with high school. I went to a bilingual high school which followed the national curriculum and the International Cambridge Curriculum. But shortly after that, I moved to Zagreb, Croatia, again where I finally got my high school diploma and got my IGCSE´s, As and A levels done. YAY! But then the questions came: what do you want to study, where do you want to go and what do you want to do? The first thing that popped up my mind was: Languages! I love meeting new people, new cultures, traveling and hearing new stories. So, I figured out I want to go again somewhere abroad and just enjoy both the student life and the city and people where I end up living. After being accepted to Dundee University in Scotland and getting a full scholarship at the University of Istanbul, I decided I do not want to spend my bachelor years somewhere far away from family and friends.. Not again. At that point of my life I wasn´t feeling ready for it.

So here I am now, close to everything I need in my life but still far enough to have my own space and life. And yes, all of you who may be reading my blog, my life may seem to be quite intense and kind of moving from one place to another, but trust me it isn’t.  As a person I could not be any simpler than I already am. If you would ask me what my next stop in life is I could not give you an answer. I will just let things go with the flow and see where I end up living and what I end up doing...

Btw, in case you are bored and don´t know what to do or listen to, check out my Sound Cloud profile, feel free to both comment and share it and let me know what you think of it  : https://soundcloud.com/adna-kurtagic  :))