The Problem With the Celebration Meal

In case you are just tuning in now, phase 3 of the Dukan Diet is the Consolidation Phase and something you get to look forward to while following this phase is the CELEBRATION MEAL.

A couple things you should know about the Celebration Meal:

1. It’s a meal, not a day.
2. You can eat absolutely anything you want to eat, anything you have been craving, anything!
3. You are not allowed a second helping of your Celebration Meal.
4. In the first half of phase 3 you are allowed one Celebration Meal a week, in the second half you are allowed two.

A Celebration Meal, as discussed with me by some of my readers, is something you should plan for, something to get you through the week. For instance, looking forward to Friday night when you go out with your girlfriends to such and such a restaurant.

Some of my readers have suggested not making an entire meal of ‘cheat’ foods, but rather adding on side dishes that you enjoyed pre-Dukan to your meal.

So eat your usual Saturday night steak, but add those mashed potatoes you have been craving and a yummy dessert.

This seems all nice and swell doesn’t it? Eating those foods you have been just aching for. If you have a sweet tooth you can finally enjoy a slice of apple pie with a scoop of ice cream to finish off your dinner. You can enjoy a glass of red wine with your supper, or really… anything you could dream of! As long as it’s just the one serving.

Now, having been on Phase 3 for almost 70 days now (where has the time gone?!) I can tell you there is a small problem with the Celebration Meal, at least for me.

I find, even though I have planned the majority of my Celebration Meals out in advance, that because I have allowed myself through the Celebration Meal, to taste a little ‘freedom’, that temptation is harder to resist during the actual week prior to the meal.

This is hard to explain, and I have resisted all temptation, but I feel like I did in the beginning of the diet. When someone would eat a cinnamon bun, slice of pizza, or other delicious food in front of me I would get this sortof pang. I missed the food. Through the many months of following Dukan very strictly I found I had these cravings less and less and by the end of it all, could watch anyone eat anything and not feel a thing.

I didn’t miss the food anymore.

Now that I have opened the floodgate, by allowing myself this ‘Cheat Meal’ basically, I find those feelings are coming back, and it sucks.

I feel that… wanting feeling, and then I think to myself (every time) that I could just move my Celebration Meal up a few days and eat whatever I am craving right then and there. I have (so far) resisted the temptation. But it’s getting more and more difficult.

Also, I was really doing Celebration Meals wrong prior to my vacation, overeating and was always left feeling sick. Just so you are aware, if you eat a proper amount of food you shouldn’t feel ill like I was feeling afterwards.

The meals are fleeting, you finish eating and always realise that you could have totally done without the Celebration Meal. I don’t quite understand it.

xoxo