'The Dukan Diet': Weight Loss Plan from Dr. Pierre Dukan's Book

April 19, 2011— -- Check out an excerpt of "The Dukan Diet," a weight loss plan rumored to be favored by Britain's princess-to-be Kate Middleton and Hollywood stars including Jennifer Lopez and Penelope Cruz.

The book is written by Dr. Pierre Dukan, a French nutrition expert who developed the four phase, high protein diet that allows participants to lose weight fast and keep it off.

Read an excerpt of the book below and then check out the "GMA" Library for more great reads.

When I was a very young doctor, I was practicing general medicine in the Montparnasse area in Paris while also specializing in neurology for paraplegic children in Garches, just outside the capital. At that time, one of my patients was an obese, jovial, and tremendously cultivated publisher whom I treated regularly for a very trying case of asthma. One day he came to see me, and once he was seated comfortably in an arm-chair that creaked under his weight, he said, "Doctor, I have always been satisfied with your treatment. I trust you, and I've come to see you today because I want you to make me lose weight."

In those days, all I knew about nutrition and obesity was what my teachers had passed on at medical school, which amounted to simply suggesting low-calorie diets and miniature-sized meals so tiny that any obese person would laugh and run a mile in the opposite direction. For big eaters, the very idea of having to ration their happiness is preposterous.

I declined, stuttering under the pretext that I knew nothing of the subtleties of weight loss.

"What are you talking about? I have seen every specialist in Paris, every one of whom put me on a starvation diet. Since my teens I've lost over seven hundred pounds, and I've put it all back on again. I have to admit that I've never been deeply motivated and, without realizing it, my wife has done me no great service by loving me despite all my extra pounds. I can't find any clothes that fit and, if I'm honest, I'm beginning to fear for my life."

His final sentence changed the course of my professional life: "Put me on whatever diet you want, deprive me of whatever food you want, anything, but not meat. I like meat too much."

I can still remember how I replied without the slightest hesitation: "Fine, since you like meat so much, come back tomorrow on an empty stomach and weigh yourself on my scales. Then, for the next 5 days, eat nothing but meat. However, avoid fatty meats like pork, lamb, and the fattier cuts of beef such as ribs or rib eye. Grill your meat and drink as much water as you can. Then come back in 5 days' time on an empty stomach and weigh yourself again.""Okay, you have a deal."