'The Dukan Diet': Meat Lovers' Delight? Eat Meat, Don't Go Hungry and Lose Weight Fast, Plan Claims

April 19, 2011 — -- The new diet craze -- the Dukan Diet – claims dramatic results without requiring dieters to count calories or go hungry. In fact, the diet is so promising it may be fit for a future queen.

Kate Middleton– who will marry Britain's Prince William on April 29 -- has lost so much weight, tabloids speculate she's been shrinking not from pre-wedding jitters, but the Dukan Diet. Buckingham Palace denies the report.

Her mother, Carole Middleton, told a reporter she herself had lost weight on the Dukan Diet. The plan grew quietly in popularity in France until those comments. Now it's one of the world's hottest diets and it's headed for the U.S.

"Everyone picked up on the fact that Carole had lost weight clearly because the pictures said she had," said Katie Nicholl, who has long covered the royal family. "She'd lifted the lid on the secret to her weight loss which was the Dukan diet, although the palace now insisting that neither Kate nor Carol are actually on this diet."

Read an excerpt from Dukan's bestselling book.

Anne Agoren says the Dukan Diet has changed her life and given her the confidence she's never had.

"Five sizes. I've lost five dress sizes and it just, I feel great that I can walk into a room now and go, 'this is me, look at me,' where before I would have hid in the corner," she said.

Dukan's bestselling book, "The Dukan Diet," is being released across the U.S. and Canada today. The creator of this hot new diet is a mild-mannered French doctor who say's it's not a fad diet.

The soft-spoken nutritionist stumbled onto the high-protein, quick weight loss plan 35 years ago, but it took him decades to perfect his weight loss plan.

Similar to the Atkins diet, the Dukan plan allows dieters to eat meats but put some limits other kinds of food. The Dukan Diet comprises of four phases.

The attack phase encourages speedy weight loss with nothing but lean protein and Dukan's special ingredient, oat bran culled from the husks – not rolled oats or oatmeal.

The cruise phase allows the diet to add vegetables, but not starchy potatoes or fatty avocadoes.

The third, or consolidation, phase, is the most critical.

Dieters are allows to add one serving of fruit and two slices of whole wheat bread per day.

The final phase, called stabilization, last the rest of one's life. Dieters can eat whatever they want as long as they return to eating only pure protein for one day a week.

There are other requirements. Each day, dieters must drink six glasses of water, walk for 20 minutes and eat at least 1 1/2 tablespoons of the oat bran.