[HN Gopher] Thoughts on the potato diet
___________________________________________________________________
Thoughts on the potato diet
Author : mediocregopher
Score : 180 points
Date : 2022-07-11 16:58 UTC (6 hours ago)
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| germandiago wrote:
| I prefer to go jogging honestly and do exercise. Every fat-thin
| cycle makes you lose muscular mass so you should combine diets
| with exercise instead of getting unhealthy eating habits.
| siliconc0w wrote:
| A huge part of the potato diet which isn't mentioned in the
| article is resistant starch. Each time you cool and cook potatoes
| you increase the amount of starch your body cannot digest
| (basically turning into fiber). This makes them even more
| fulfilling and less caloric (studies show this around 17% each
| time but I'm sure this approaches a limit).
|
| Also it's ridiculously cheap and way easier to cook potatoes in
| bulk than practically any other food. At least with the Yukon
| golds I just rinse them, stab them with a knife and drop them
| into an instant pot with about a cup of water and a trivet. When
| done I transfer them into a big bowl in the fridge to cool and
| when I want to reheat them I reheat the whole bowl to accumulate
| resistant starch.
|
| It's not a silver bullet but it's a really useful tool if you
| haven't been successful with other diets.
| CobaltFire wrote:
| My son is in treatment for Leukemia, and most patients lose large
| amounts of weight.
|
| He's also autistic and has food texture issues.
|
| Somehow he's good with potatoes (generally baked "fries") and
| milk with some infant formula mixed in. He's the only young (<5
| YO) patient they've personally had that has gained weight during
| treatment, and the attribute it to his "milk and potato" diet. To
| be clear, he's continued growing, if not normally, something
| approximating normal, during his chemo. That's highly unusual.
|
| Anecdotal, but it's my experience.
| [deleted]
| ksenzee wrote:
| I spent a few weeks eating only potatoes and vegetable oil,
| several years ago. It wasn't for weight loss, it was because I
| was breastfeeding, and my baby had some kind of protein
| sensitivity we couldn't nail down. Potatoes turned out to be a
| safe food for him, so that's all I ate for a while. As it happens
| potatoes are my favorite food, and I had vegetable oil available
| so I could eat fries/chips/crisps, but even then I can't imagine
| doing it without a similarly serious motivation. When my choices
| were "listen to the baby cry in pain every time he eats" or "eat
| potatoes until the allergist appointment," it was an easy choice.
| Otherwise I wouldn't last long on the potato diet.
| yelnatz wrote:
| Did you lose weight while on it? Any benefits you noticed?
| ksenzee wrote:
| I lost 60 pounds of pregnancy weight that year, so it's hard
| to tell, but I didn't notice any particular change in my
| weight loss rate during the potato diet.
| bbertelsen wrote:
| Even if they did lose weight, it would be challenging to
| differentiate this from the insane calorie pull that happens
| to your body while breastfeeding.
| orzig wrote:
| Having recently given birth, and breast-feeding, is (Ahem)
| the mother of all confounding factors
| [deleted]
| karol wrote:
| All crazy elimination diets work short term. The true measure of
| a diet is the one you can live on for years and be healthy.
| Macha wrote:
| I don't know if this is the intention but of the five single food
| diets, I think I'd take literally any of the other 4 options
| ahead of the potato diet. But the context felt like the potato
| option was meant to be the most appealing?
| myth_drannon wrote:
| Belarusian people are the original inventors of Potato Diet -
| highest consumption in the world.
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| Maybe today, but potatoes are a new world food. So I think the
| award for originality goes to someone in South America.
| zoover2020 wrote:
| I though Dutch people eat more of them annually
| bejelentkezni wrote:
| This sounds like a great way to quickly deplete most of your
| vitamins and minerals.
| malikNF wrote:
| There was a British teen who went blind eating only fries and
| chips.
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/british-teenager-went-blind-fro...
| pwython wrote:
| Potatoes are a good source of vitamin C, B6, potassium,
| magnesium... Butter has vitamin A, D, E, B12, K2, etc. This
| diet doesn't seem TOO crazy. Perhaps pairing it with a
| multivitamin supplement wouldn't hurt though.
| captaincrunch wrote:
| Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that potatoes gave you
| every vitamin and mineral you needed (except b12 which you can
| get from butter).
| corrral wrote:
| You can pick one of the usual Native American crop patterns
| and get a solid set of vitamins. Potatoes + beans + squash or
| something like that, maybe with some corn. Cf. Mann's _1491_.
| If you 're going for a minimal veggie ingredient diet these
| new-world combos work well as a base, in part because
| potatoes are pretty much a superfood.
| lucideer wrote:
| B12 is a pretty important one if you want to avoid the title
| of section 1 of this article though.
|
| And while butter contains b12, you'd probably have to be
| eating a few bars of it a day to get enough long-term.
| mod wrote:
| That's my understanding.
|
| The spudfit guy did only potatoes and a B12 supplement for a
| year. His claim was that he was getting everything else he
| needed from the potatoes.
| zhynn wrote:
| I did the SMTM study and they prohibited dairy. So I got my
| B12 from sweet potato.
| lucideer wrote:
| Sweet potato doesn't contain B12 - you're probably thinking
| of Vitamin A.
|
| Dairy doesn't contain enough B12 to supplement you on it's
| own, which is why the study recommends against and instead
| suggests taking an actual B12 supplement (Puritan's Pride
| lozenges)
|
| 4 weeks shouldn't be enough time to develop a serious B12
| deficiency but doing this for longer could impair you
| cognitively.
| xeromal wrote:
| Is there an easy way to test your B12 when on this diet?
| [deleted]
| toolz wrote:
| Agreed, it does sound that way, but it's amazing how many
| anecdotes there are of people who eat exclusively 1 type of
| food and thrive on it. I don't think modern intuition about
| nutrition is likely to stand the test of time.
| bee_rider wrote:
| The conclusion I have come to is that humans, when starting
| from an over-fed modern baseline, are robust enough to eat a
| totally shit diet for a couple months. This is also long
| enough to convince us it is worth blogging about.
| weberer wrote:
| I've only heard that about carnivore diets, and it makes
| sense to me. Where can you find all the nutrients necessary
| for a mammal to survive? In the body of another mammal, of
| course.
| AngryData wrote:
| Potatoes have nearly everything you need to survive. You won't
| have any deficiencies until you eat only straight potatoes for
| a full year or more.
| lucideer wrote:
| I wouldn't quite say "most" as potatoes are surprisingly
| nutritious, but yes, it is notable that the article doesn't
| contain the words "nutrient(s)", "nutritious", "vitamin(s)" or
| anything similar I could think of.
|
| I've always been curious whether many of these diets lacking
| appropriate B vitamin requirements might have a compounding
| effect w.r.t. people's interest & willingness to continue
| trying such diets...
| alanthonyc wrote:
| I came to this exact conclusion a long time ago, except using
| intermittent fasting (i.e. "stop eating so much"):
| 1. Use a fad diet (e.g. potato) to get down to 80 kg.
| 2. Weigh yourself every morning 3. If your average
| weight over a week ever exceeds 81 kg, spend the next week on the
| potato diet. 4. Repeat forever.
| novok wrote:
| My guess as to why the potato diet works is the glycoalkoloids
| inside potatoes, since potatoes are nightshades. Potatoes contain
| some of the strongest glycoalkoloids out of the nightshades. By
| eating only potatoes, you give yourself non-standard amount of
| glycoalkoloid than most humans get. Glycoalkoloids take more than
| 24 hours to eliminate in the human body, so there is a build up
| effect.
|
| Another infamous glycoalkoloid is nicotine from the tobacco
| nightshade. Nicotine is a stimulant that decreases hunger.
| Stimulants also increase body temperature, which is something
| that happens on this diet too. Nicotine is also a depressant,
| which is why your probably still able to sleep on this diet. It's
| also one reason why smokers tend to be skinnier than the normal
| population.
| justphil wrote:
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| As I'm reading others' comments on here I'm shocked at the
| seemingly uneducated state of comments, I blame "influencers" and
| the fitness industry for spreading so much FUD + absolute
| nonsense. Most of them patterned like "I lost x lbs on Y diet,
| and you should too". I'm shocked at how few people realize that
| diets equated for protein + fiber are essentially identical.
|
| I highly recommend Layne Norton's book Fat loss forever, and his
| free content on youtube
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3ePbeZJzYA .
|
| Important tldr from his content:
|
| * protein and resistance training are key if you want to lose fat
| (and not muscle), not just "weight"
|
| * All restriction diets work when adhered to, the key is to find
| the one you will actually adhere to. This includes low carb,
| keto, intermittent fasting of various protocols (OMAD, 16:8,
| others), low fat, eat only soup, etc etc. They all work by
| causing a restriction on eating time or foods eaten. They all
| only work if there is a caloric deficit (net of cost of digestion
| for protein + fiber, or equal if equated for protein+fiber) .
|
| * Calories in - calories out ("CICO") is absolutely backed by
| science when the researchers are smart enough to actually account
| for known things like caloric cost of digestion (changes the "CO"
| part)
|
| Go DYOR on his content if you want the sources.
| wtetzner wrote:
| > They all only work if there is a caloric deficit
|
| I don't believe this is true. On keto for example, I lost
| weight when eating an excess of calories.
|
| > Calories in - calories out ("CICO") is absolutely backed by
| science when the researchers are smart enough to actually
| account for known things like caloric cost of digestion
| (changes the "CO" part)
|
| Not exactly. If you eat fewer calories than you burn, you'll
| obviously lose weight. But the reverse is not necessarily true.
| For that to be the case, your body would have to always store
| all excess calories. This is probably pretty close to what
| happens on a high-carb diet, though, because insulin is a fat
| storage hormone.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > I lost weight when eating an excess of calories.
|
| You're just misunderstanding your TDEE then. It's basic
| thermodynamics that is very accurate in human digestion too,
| save for extremes like bulemia, gastric distress (you shit
| out undigested food), or pills that simulate it w/ carb/fat
| blockers.
|
| The most pedantic detail is CICO is actually on digested
| calories, not swallowed calories.
|
| Your anecdata is likely accounted by:
|
| 1. Protein takes more calories to digest (many people
| unintentionally eat more protein on keto, though keto is
| actually about fat intake and protein can break ketosis
| through gluconeogensis)
|
| 2. Up regulation in things like thermogenesis (ie you lose
| more calories to the ambient air)
|
| 3. Inaccuracy in food tracking
|
| 4. Higher NEAT
|
| 5. Loss of water weight due to lower food mass in digestive
| tract, and lower glycogen(+bound water) weight.
| tigertigertiger wrote:
| Crazy that I had to scroll this far to read this. This diet is
| crazy good at losing muscle mass. Atleast you can lose kg at
| doubled speed.
| fpoling wrote:
| I tried the potato diet. I consider myself a lean guy, but I
| wanted to try it for a month before recommending it to my
| overweight relatives.
|
| I stopped after two weeks mostly because the stomach became
| rather bloated. There was no weight change.
|
| Then I tried a similar rice diet. Basically one eats rice (both
| white and brown are OK) with few fruits or fruit juices. To my
| surprise I lost about 5 kg in 25 days and then the weight loss
| stopped during the last weak. There were no apparent strength
| loss judging by weigh lifting results or uphill jogging. There
| were no other side effects. Now I recommend this, not potato
| diet.
| papito wrote:
| Potato, combined with milk, gives you all the nutrients required
| for the human body to function properly. I got a little sick of
| eating potatoes in the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet Ukraine,
| but I learned much later that THE POTATO is a superfood. It can
| really get you through if you have nothing else.
|
| The Colbert jokes are spot-on, though. We really did eat a
| buttload of potatoes. It was the primary survival vegetable.
| scythe wrote:
| Potentially related: the _Twinkie_ diet
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor...
| sebg wrote:
| Also checkout the original twitter thread results:
| https://twitter.com/mold_time/status/1521237143515013120
| aantix wrote:
| Just take a GLP-1 agonist long term and be done with the dieting
| and bankrupt will power.
|
| Wegovy (semaglutide) and Mounjaro (tirzepatide) have set a new
| bar in weight loss drugs.
|
| 15-20% body weight loss over the course of a year.
| hirundo wrote:
| I lost over 100 pounds on a potato diet. And then gained it all
| back, plus some. Same goes for a raw vegan diet and a less strict
| McDougall vegitarian diet, and then a paleo/keto diet. When it
| comes to yo yo dieting I'm an overachiever. Yes, 100+ pounds on
| each. I do not recommend that.
|
| So out of desperation and pain I did something I thought I never
| would or could resort to. Carnivore. It hasn't fixed all of my
| problems, but it has done more to _stabilize_ my weight at a much
| lower level than anything else. It has controlled my cravings,
| making it uniquely sustainable.
|
| My new theory is that obesity is about appetite control is about
| ... malnutrition. The secret for me was simply to find the fuel
| mixture that my body demands. Appetite responds immediately. No
| fancy behavioral techniques need be applied. I'm pretty sure
| carnivory isn't the right fuel mixture for everyone. But I think
| finding what is, is a lot more important than other weight
| control strategies.
|
| Specifically I think The Hungry Brain gets it backwards. I spent
| decades trying to "outsmart the instincts that make us overeat"
| and failed horribly. I succeeded by following those instincts.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| They're all elimination diets, and lifetime adherence is the
| reality (albeit slightly more calories during maintenance than
| fat loss phases). Carnivore is one such elimination diet, with
| the mild advantage that it provides a lot of protein and thus
| has a muscle sparing effect, and increases the TDEE due to the
| digestion process.
| hirundo wrote:
| It has been 20 months on carnivore. I never made it past a
| year on the others, and it was a strain to go that far. Doing
| this is no strain. If protein alone has this effect it is
| more than a mild advantage for me.
|
| I did not start from a standard american diet this time, but
| from a clean keto diet, so yes carnivore was an elimination
| diet for me, but what I eliminated was vegetables, fruits,
| cheese, etc. For me those eliminations seem to be providing
| an advantage.
| dstroot wrote:
| Learned about this diet from Penn Jillette. He has a book out on
| his weight loss called "Presto!: How I Made over 100 Pounds
| Disappear and Other Magical Tales". I tried it for a week and the
| point that preparing that many potatoes for consumption is spot
| on. It was a bit of work! After a week I could not eat another
| potato. I think the point about trying a variety of potatoes
| might have helped. I think the biggest issue is this clearly is
| not a sustainable strategy.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| Anyone who's obese or overweight with cholesterol/blood pressure
| issues should look in semaglutide.
|
| It's expensive without insurance, but it helped me go from 25 lbs
| of weight loss to 55.
| itstomkent wrote:
| I was pretty into the idea of this drug until I saw the
| patently ridiculous cost. $1,300? Literally no drug that must
| be taken long term should cost anything close to this price.
| aantix wrote:
| Mounjaro (tirzepatide) has also now been approved.
|
| And it works slightly better than semaglutide.
| sph wrote:
| For those with no money to spend on expensive medication, just
| go on a low(er) carb diet.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| or the elimination diet that they can best adhere to.
| Adherence is the biggest issue in diets, not efficacy (whilst
| adhered to).
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Short-term weightloss is a very low bar. Losing weight long-term
| is much more worthwhile and might not go well with "all
| (restrictive) diets".
| EddieDante wrote:
| This sounds as sensible as living on hardtack, salt pork, and rum
| (the pirate diet) -- a _great_ way to get scurvy and other fun
| diseases caused by nutritional deficiencies.
| [deleted]
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I just finished a two week potato diet. I did lose weight but I
| also reset my palate. Coming out of the diet I'm surprised to
| find my cravings non existent and food tastes different - neither
| good nor bad. I'm trying to retrain my palate with a much
| healthier mode of eating than I was doing before, and two weeks
| of flavorless bland food seems to have reset. Now I find it much
| easier to eat healthier foods without compulsions.
|
| I don't know I expected it to do anything other than drop a few
| pounds and reset my palate, and it seems to do that. I wasn't
| hungry but it was hard to handle the lack of variety as I felt a
| lot of compulsions despite my lack of hunger.
| sph wrote:
| Low protein and low fat, super carb heavy diet, what can go
| wrong?
| nvahalik wrote:
| In the short term? Probably not a lot. You'll lose "weight" but
| what are you actually losing?
|
| What you eat is very important.
|
| Fat stores aren't the first thing your body will turn to. After
| the carbs, your body will turn to breaking down muscle tissue
| which is not what you usually want.
| stakkur wrote:
| Literally no science behind saying the body turns to muscle
| before fat.
| sph wrote:
| That's what I meant with my comment. Of all the things you
| need the most to LIVE, it's protein and fats, not
| carbohydrates.
|
| Energy is the least of one's problem on a super restrictive
| diet like this one, but having the building blocks for
| muscles and cells and hormones is the literally vital.
|
| There are trace amounts of fats and proteins in potatoes, not
| enough to sustain life long term. Enjoy having boundless
| energy, unable to build mass thus wasting and no libido
| whatsoever.
| TrisMcC wrote:
| Potatoes have protein and fats. Enough protein and fats for
| fat-soluble vitamins and preventing dying of protein
| malnutrition. Potatoes are not just carbs.
|
| No libido? I'd like to see the source of that claim.
|
| The western world has become "addicted" to protein and the
| claims on how much is necessary and recommended are
| extremely exaggerated.
| nvahalik wrote:
| They have about 9x more carbs than fat.
|
| If you are eating Yukon gold potatoes, and you ate 5
| pounds of them, and according to my calculations you are
| looking at approximately 2100 kcal of which a little less
| than 1900 of those calories comes from carbohydrates.
|
| We advise people not to go below 50 g of fat per day and
| according to the macros for Yukon Gold you wouldn't even
| be getting a 10th of that amount.
|
| Additionally, you're only getting about 50 g of protein.
| We normally coach people to eat 1 g of protein per pound
| of lean muscle mass. So for 150 pound person that would
| be 150 g of protein per day or approximately 600 cal from
| protein.
| TrisMcC wrote:
| > We normally coach people to eat 1 g of protein per
| pound of lean muscle mass. So for 150 pound person that
| would be 150 g of protein per day or approximately 600
| cal from protein.
|
| "Lean muscle mass" excludes the fat on the body, right? A
| 150lb person should have less than 150lb of lean muscle
| mass.
|
| USDA recommends 54g using their calculator. Don't forget
| the 38 grams of fiber! :)
| reddit_clone wrote:
| I wouldn't judge quickly. For several decades, fat was
| considered bad in all forms. Now views are changing..
| dmix wrote:
| it sounded to me like the OP was critiquing it for being low
| fat + high carb
|
| Are you saying that views on carbs might change like it did
| for fat? Keto is pretty much the best supported thing we've
| got, plus diabetes being so prevalent, so the argument
| against carbs is pretty solid.
| psb wrote:
| remember vaguely reading in some book (Jared Diamond?) that at
| one time the poor in Ireland lived almost entirely on potatoes
| and milk - and that they were much healthier in general than the
| richer elites. Apparently those two items + some green veggies
| are enough.
| [deleted]
| akudha wrote:
| I totally feel the amount of work comment, though I tried
| something totally different. I tried juicing - it was a ton of
| fun (I "cheated" by having more fruit juices than vegetables). I
| had more energy, thought clearly, slept better etc. Same with
| eating raw solid food (only fruits and veggies).
|
| The thing that sucked, was the amount of work. Buying, cleaning,
| juicing, cleaning again... crap ton of work. Ah, it is also
| expensive.
|
| If only fruits and veggies were as cheap as milk, eggs,
| chicken... life would be much better
| mylons wrote:
| i've done it three times for 2 weeks. potatoes only, that's it.
| it works very well in the short term. towards the end of the last
| 2 attempts I was able to fast for 2-3 days due to sheer boredom
| of the food. i'm a compulsive eater, and this was kind of eye
| opening.
|
| that being said, this approach didn't work long term for me
| (hence multiple times doing it). I'd transition back to the way I
| was eating before and put the weight back on.
|
| currently I'm working with a nutritionist and trying to eat
| towards specific macros, and counting everything in my fitness
| pal. the weight loss is more subtle (1-2 lbs per week tops), and
| I'm lifting weights which distorts the actual loss on the scale.
| not seeing the scale go down dramatically is hard, but eating the
| way I am now is totally sustainable and I've been doing it for
| almost 3 months now.
| zhynn wrote:
| The third week suuuuucks. I did 4 weeks. The third week was the
| worst. I was sick of potato and my weight loss plateaued in the
| third week. It started going back down again in the fourth,
| which offsets some of the boredom.
|
| I don't think 2 weeks would work though. It has worked for me,
| I kept the weight off and it reset my appetite/satiety feedback
| (I get full sooner). That said, the "I want to keep eating even
| though I am not hungry" has come roaring back after being
| totally eliminated by the fourth week of potato.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Apart from the nutritional concerns, two other huge problems with
| the potato diet are:
|
| 1 - If you want your meal to be healthy you'll have to avoid many
| (most?) tasty toppings.
|
| 2 - The diet is incredibly monotonous and boring.
|
| Hats off to people who can stomach it for an extended period of
| time, but I would be willing to wager that the vast majority of
| people who try it won't be able to stick with it for long.
| draw_down wrote:
| jasonlotito wrote:
| The moment you start thinking of a diet as something that
| deprives you of something, you are on the road to failure.
|
| "Every diet restricts food choices."
|
| This is incorrect. Good diets do not restrict food choices. They
| usually limit overall intake. You can eat whatever you want. You
| only have a certain number of calories you can eat per day
| without gaining some weight. I'm defining "good diets" as a diet
| that helps you maintain a healthy weight.
|
| Basically, a diet is what you eat. If you eat junk food, your
| diet is junk food. When you go on a "diet" to lose weight, you
| generally change what you eat and how much. So, the most
| successful diets are ones that replace your old unhealthy diet.
| This means learning to eat a good diet as a habit.
|
| It also means realizing a diet doesn't end just because you eat
| way more than you should one day. The mental strength needed to
| realize you didn't fail your diet, but simple changed your diet
| for one day, is quite high. You didn't fail. You didn't fall off
| the wagon. There is no wagon to fall off of. This is probably the
| biggest mental shift for me. Accept that I will eat unhealthy
| some times, and I don't need to feel guilty for it. I just go
| back to normal next time I eat.
|
| And that all revolves around changing your normal diet, or what
| you eat normally. All of that also means I know I can eat
| anything, but only so much.
|
| Note: This is mostly me rambling, so I apologize for any
| confusion. This is also my overall look and what's worked for me
| long-term. This isn't something that might apply to you, but it's
| how I see things, and helped me. Maybe it will help others.
| petercooper wrote:
| _Good diets do not restrict food choices. They usually limit
| overall intake. You can eat whatever you want. You only have a
| certain number of calories you can eat per day without gaining
| some weight. [...] And that all revolves around changing your
| normal diet, or what you eat normally. All of that also means I
| know I can eat anything, but only so much._
|
| There is another way to think about it that has helped me. It's
| not necessarily a _good_ way, but.. I got to thinking, what can
| you do if you struggle to adjust the diet domain? Adjust the
| time domain!
|
| So eat the same food, but just space it out more. I've found
| this a great way to start and while I am more gradually
| _improving_ the food, it has been less psychologically jarring
| to adjust the timing of my existing food as a way to get going.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Eat less food and move more. There's literally nothing to losing
| weight beyond that. It's incredible to me the amount of mental
| gymnastics that people will perform to avoid facing this.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Even if those are the fundamentals, it's still worth looking at
| the thought patterns that some people get trapped in which
| prevent them doing what is considered "easy" by others, and
| especially understanding if those traps are subject to certain
| tricks or shortcuts.
|
| For example, I put on about 20lbs early in the pandemic just
| from being around the house and being able to snack all the
| time, plus having ice cream a lot in the evenings before bed (I
| don't think I was particularly "stress eating", but maybe more
| like... boredom eating?). And yes, if a dietician or trainer
| had had me keep a food log, this would have clearly shown up
| and it would have been obvious what needed to change.
|
| What actually worked for me, though, was not just cutting out
| the snacking but also shifting my mindset back to a place where
| I'm okay with being slightly hungry some of the time. Like,
| it's okay to feel peckish in the afternoon-- it's not a problem
| that needs to be solved by having a snack, it's just a sign
| that I'm going to be good and hungry come dinner time. Same in
| the evening: I don't need to go to bed stuffed, I can just make
| sure to eat a solid dinner, and then plan on eating well at
| breakfast in the morning. That plus some protein shakes and
| getting more cardio (swimming, cycling), and I've been steadily
| shedding about a pound a week; I'm now below my pre-pandemic
| weight.
| xeromal wrote:
| This take does nothing for people who are addicted to food.
| It's not easy and many people don't have the willpower to make
| it happen without doing a gimmick like this. Your comment seems
| a bit holier-than-thou. If they lose weight doign the potato
| diet instead of stoic-ing it away like you, are they less
| successful?
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Sure there's more to it unless you're a chronic bonehead.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Well yeah,
|
| * You can't sell a book with just 6 words in it
|
| * People will pay you a lot of money if you can convince them
| they don't have to do that
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I'd pay a lot of money if someone can find a way to make that
| easier. Actually I know the way, it's called Phentermine, but
| doctor's don't give out prescriptions for it lightly.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| The food industry on the other hand is innocent and doesn't
| want to sell you junk like soda pop that makes you even more
| thirsty. Get real.
| AndrewVos wrote:
| It's not always as simple as this.
| toolz wrote:
| Simple is not always easy. I think it's important that we find
| easier ways to help alleviate this obesity epidemic.
| neilk wrote:
| You're right and wrong. Many obese people have done this and
| lost weight... and then gained it right back again. Over, and
| over again.
|
| There is a persistent myth that the obese person lacks some
| spiritual strength or willpower. I think your comment implies
| this.
|
| And yet they do have the willpower to lose weight? And
| something happened in 1980 which turned 30% of adults into
| weak-willed moral degenerates, and more and more every year? Is
| that actually plausible in an era with unsurpassed interest in
| healthy eating, where people voluntarily exercise more than
| they ever have, with better quality food than we have ever had?
|
| The original researchers who suggested a mass trial of the
| potato diet over social media aptly said "the study of obesity
| is the study of mysteries". They're investigating some high-
| risk hypotheses that chemical contaminants are the cause of
| skyrocketing obesity. Worth a read.
|
| > People in the 1800s did have diets that were very different
| from ours. But by conventional wisdom, their diets were worse,
| not better. They ate more bread and almost four times more
| butter than we do today. They also consumed more cream, milk,
| and lard. This seems closely related to observations like the
| French Paradox -- the French eat a lot of fatty cheese and
| butter, so why aren't they fatter and sicker?
|
| https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-hunger-p...
| fpoling wrote:
| My favorite hypothesis is that it is big refrigerators at
| home and perhaps widespread use of preservatives that made
| people fat as it provided uninterrupted access to high
| calorie food like meat, cookies etc.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > And something happened in 1980 which turned 30% of adults
| into weak-willed moral degenerates, and more and more every
| year?
|
| ...actually when you put it like that it sounds pretty
| plausible. Ronald Regan was elected in 1980, officially
| beginning the Reign of the Boomers.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >Ronald Regan was elected in 1980, officially beginning the
| Reign of the Boomers.
|
| ...With the election of a GI president? Boomers didn't take
| over until Clinton.
| [deleted]
| nsxwolf wrote:
| This is obviously not a solution - everyone says this, everyone
| already knows this, and yet there's still an obesity epidemic.
|
| Unless you have a way of motivating most people to follow this
| advice, day in and day out, it will not be a solution.
| ranger207 wrote:
| enforcing individual responsibilities as a solution to systemic
| problems rarely works in the absence of changes to the system
| pengaru wrote:
| Excluding all other fruits and vegetables in favor of potatoes
| seems obviously misguided.
| [deleted]
| duffyjp wrote:
| Penn Jillette somewhat famously did this and lost 100+ pounds.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| Quickly googling it shows articles of him claiming to lose 75
| pounds over 3 months, without exercising. Even starting at 300
| lbs, running a daily 2822 calorie deficit for 3 months seems
| insane.
| adamdusty wrote:
| There has to be some embellishing of the numbers. It's highly
| improbable that at 322 pounds someone could eat 1000 calories
| per day (his claim) and be at a 2800 calorie deficit with
| zero exercise.
|
| I'm not saying it's not true, but I'm skeptical of the
| numbers.
| BudaDude wrote:
| Kevin Smith also did a form of this diet after his heart attack
| and lost a lot of weight
| billjings wrote:
| The only reason the potato diet is interesting to me (and
| presumably the reason it's interesting to the
| https://slimemoldtimemold.com/ folks) is the likely relationship
| to their environmental contaminant hypothesis for the public
| health issue of increasing body weights since 1980, outlined in a
| series of posts here: http://achemicalhunger.com/
|
| In short, while the variety and satiety explanations make a lot
| of sense subjectively for an individual on this diet, they don't
| match up with the empirical data on weight gain since 1980. Here
| are a few phenomena that are not explained by this hypothesis:
|
| * The inflection point at right around 1980. There's no specific
| change that occurred in 1980 that anyone can point to that
| indicates a major change in variety of food in the average diet.
|
| * The correllation of weight gain with location in watersheds:
| high altitude locales where surface water has not moved very far
| (e.g. Colorado) exhibit the weight gain phenomena much less than
| locales deeper down in the watershed (e.g. Mississippi and
| Louisiana)
|
| I'm not interested in fad diets or disordered eating because they
| have a track record of bad long term outcomes, but I am
| interested in the potato diet as a blunt tool for taking action
| on this hypothesis, which looks pretty compelling to me. And if
| it doesn't work out, that's fine, too!
| mrj wrote:
| I enjoyed reading them until I tried to get to the source of
| the 1980 data. The source appears to be from the National
| Center for Health Statistics, which ran surveys in 1971-1974,
| 1976-1980, 1988-1994, and 1999-2018.
|
| I was disappointed that they then misunderstood this as an
| inflection point exactly in 1980 when that was merely the last
| point in a graph that inappropriately bashed several surveys
| together. They ask over and over "So what changed in 1980?" but
| the data doesn't support that year specifically. They seemed to
| start out from a fundamental misunderstanding and then used
| that to discount other data through the rest of their posts.
| zhynn wrote:
| I participated in the SMTM study, and am totally happy to share
| my data if anyone is at all curious.
|
| Results for me: - it was not as easy as i
| thought it would be - i lost weight - my appetite
| and satiety feedback systems were reset. After the diet was
| over I ate less and got full sooner. - after the diet, I
| noticed that I wanted to eat more even after i was mechanically
| full. This was weird, since it didn't happen on the potato
| diet (I did overeat potatoes a few times because I tried to
| fill a pizza shaped hole with potato). It feels like an
| addiction. I know I am full. I feel full. I am not hungry. I
| want to eat more anyway. - So far the weight is staying
| off (~2 months).
| exolymph wrote:
| https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7iAABhWpcGeP5e6SB/it-s-proba...
| billjings wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| I'm not completely sold on the lithium hypothesis, either.
| But I find their arguments for some kind of environmental
| contaminant compelling, especially for the ways in which they
| refute some of the other major hypotheses for the increase in
| body weights (e.g. food variety, processed food, etc)
|
| Note that the SMTM folks recently published an article
| responding to the TDS data referred to by "It's Probably Not
| Lithium": https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2022/07/05/total-
| diet-studies-...
| samatman wrote:
| This is... not promising.
|
| Someone would write like this if they don't know anything
| about instrumental analysis and are just guessing as a
| result.
|
| As an example, they don't seem to even understand that wet
| and dry weights are substantivel different measures, and
| speak as though _Magalhaes et al. (1990)_ is measuring wet
| weight; it is measuring dry weight.
|
| I'm supportive of autodidactic study and outsider research,
| but this is, frankly, a mess. They should unweight their
| priors considerably and bring in some chemists.
| mikkergp wrote:
| Is weight loss the only reason behind "Dieting"? Isn't the
| "carnivore diet" around mental fitness? That's why I choose a low
| carb diet, mental and physical fitness(when I'm not actively
| exercising, I try to limit my carb/sugar intake to mornings
| before I run)
| luqtas wrote:
| i will agree with the person above/below about exercising while
| fasting; it feels like a light pleasure and it is healthy!
|
| now regarding about high carb intake, people go overboard on
| their minds when thinking about diet based on blogs and news
| websites... eating fruits and vegetables all day is completely
| different than eating refined flour stuff and regarding getting
| into a fast (ketogenesis) state, you can get into, easily by
| eating a low-PROTEIN diet too (but this one i do not remember
| the keywords of the papers i read but if you are interested in
| nutrition, worth taking a look)
|
| here is a sample of human population which have the lowest
| index of mental disease, diet consisted of 64% carbs, 21%
| protein, and 15% fat |
| https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/108/6/1183/5153293
| robotburrito wrote:
| Ironically I eat a high carb diet for the same reasons. I think
| that is illustrative of the current state of dietary science
| haha :)
| go_elmo wrote:
| Endurance training on an empty stomach is a great ketone
| pathways excercise, the first few times are hard but get easier
| afterwards!
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I do this, but usually more by accident than anything else--
| I lane swim (1hr) or do a bike ride (1.5-2hrs) first thing in
| the morning before I've had much of a chance to eat anything,
| and then afterwards have a big protein shake or some bacon
| and eggs.
|
| I feel like I'd be prone to cramps if I tried push myself
| after having eaten much.
| riekus wrote:
| Runs are better as well, some Sundays I don't eat, go for a
| 30k run on 14:00 and have a meal after. Feels great. Never do
| breakfast either, sometimes lunch if I feel like it otherwise
| just a big meal in the evening.
| twawaaay wrote:
| I can confirm. I was preparing from marathon some years ago
| and the fastest improvements I have seen were when I started
| going for runs on empty stomach in the morning.
|
| But, I would make sure to give all my body needs immediately
| after the exercise.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| The point about prep being time-consuming is no joke. I recently
| (maybe 4 months ago) started a fairly strict whole food diet, and
| the prep is insane. Whole vegetables take real time to wash,
| clean up, store, and prep for cooking. Then you need to cook it.
|
| But like the potato diet, it's extremely easy to stay full and
| lose weight. Unlike the potato diet, there's a ton of variety. It
| also seems to have completely reversed a decline in health I'd
| been experiencing for over 5 years and I suspect the potato diet
| wouldn't have had the same effect, haha.
| manmal wrote:
| Where I live there's lots of pre-washed, frozen vegetables at
| supermarkets. We have an automated pressure cooker where we can
| just throw the vegs in and let them steam for 7-8 minutes. We
| have a huge freezer and can quickly prepare brokkoli, spinach,
| carrots, peas, mushrooms, etc. You can also pressure cook
| potatoes with the peel on, takes ca 20m including warmup time.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| > We have a huge freezer
|
| Ah, yeah - I have a very small one. I've been thinking about
| upgrading for years to a chest freezer. It's probably time to
| just do it.
| bob1029 wrote:
| Prep time is the biggest concern I am aware of on the
| nutritional side. My best answer to this category of excuses is
| to amortize the prep time by making more of whatever and then
| freezing the leftovers in meal-sized containers.
|
| Buying an instant pot & a box of those 2-cup pyrex storage
| bowls was the best series of personal health choices I've ever
| made. Granted, not _all_ food works out with a round trip
| through the freezer, but _most_ things do.
|
| I still do eat things that cannot be frozen (well), such as
| eggs+bacon+toast, but the core of my nutritional needs are
| available in my freezer at all times (with approximately 1-2
| weeks of buffer). Having a small buffer keeps me absolutely
| calm regarding my next meal source. I do not wait until all my
| frozen food is gone before I prepare the next batch. If I
| didn't have the buffer, my cycle would probably break and I'd
| start eating Burger King and other related trash for lunch
| again.
| pawsforthought wrote:
| YMMV, but I got great returns on investing in a proper chef's
| knife, and learning how to use and maintain it properly.
| There's a real pleasure in dicing an onion or whatever in
| seconds. Knowing I can do that helps lower the 'activation
| energy' of cooking versus takeout, as does just generally
| loosening up about cooking.
|
| My favorite meals are often thrown together in 20 minutes
| with zero planning, and certainly no recipe. Knowing a few
| fundamentals (see _Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat_ ) gets you a long
| way.
| jiggywiggy wrote:
| Patotoes have a very round nutrients profile and relatively high
| complete proteins. Not the worst pick.
|
| But to eat 2500kcals of potatoes a day is so hard. No wonder they
| loose weight. That's so much potatoes!
|
| With 70-80 kcals per 100 grams an adult would need between 3-4
| kilos. Every day
|
| That's a mountain of potatoes twice the size of your stomach.
|
| Some bake it with fat or oils I've read which makes it somewhat
| more manageable volume wise.
| moses-palmer wrote:
| My favourite part of the article, hailing from a part of the
| world _sans raton laveur_, was the explanation of "Raccoon
| trouble" for purchasing a lot of potatoes. What's with raccoons
| and potatoes?
| zootboy wrote:
| Nothing. It's meant to be an absurdist joke meant to leave the
| person wondering exactly what you were wondering.
| polynomial wrote:
| Seems more like an experiment than a diet.
| occz wrote:
| What's your reasoning behind this thought?
| TedShiller wrote:
| This is actually great if your goal is to lose muscle
| layer8 wrote:
| Right, potatoes and vegetable oil is basically a very-low-
| protein diet.
| layer8 wrote:
| > EVERYTHING WORKS. (at least in this short term) How to explain
| this? Well, what does _everything_ have in common? Every diet
| restricts food choices.
|
| Now I wonder what is the minimum _N_ such that switching diets
| every _N_ days ad libitum would work.
| dmix wrote:
| Aren't potatoes high starch which is generally avoided with keto-
| type diets?
| fknorangesite wrote:
| Yes, but this isn't keto.
| dmix wrote:
| So it's basically going to spike insulin and do much for
| weight loss... besides not eating the other bad stuff they
| planned to eat.
|
| So it doesnt really matter they are eating potatoes. Unless
| they want to do it cheap then it makes sense. Which is good
| but there's so much more variety in the keto approach then
| boring potatoes.
| TrisMcC wrote:
| Yes, there's not a lot of variety in just eating potatoes.
| Maybe some people don't need variety.
|
| People lose a lot of weight this way. Insulin sensitivity
| increases. Insulin-lowering medicines can be reduced or
| stopped. Bad cholesterol drops to the floor.
|
| If you go beyond monomeals of potatoes and add in tasty
| vegetables (like you do in keto) and limit the fat you add
| to the meal, you will have all the benefits of the potato
| diet without the mind-numbing boredom.
|
| Variety in the keto approach? There are only so many ways
| to dress up chicken/beef/pork and cheese.
| dmix wrote:
| In the last few days I've had blueberry greek yogurt
| overnight oats, almond/peanut butter shake, horseradish
| deviled eggs, cowboy chili, cauliflower mac & cheese,
| keto-friendly Jello, and a BBQ steak dinner with a monk
| fruit/allulose simple-syrup Gimlet cocktail.
|
| Doesn't get much more varied than that for a 'diet'.
| soared wrote:
| This is really well written and easily digestible. It's rare that
| content about diet is lighthearted and fun! No outlandish claims,
| very little misconstrued science, but tons of funny fads. Usually
| you'd have to dig deep to find the root of the authors point in
| articles like this, but the simplicity is baked in from the
| start.
| [deleted]
| zoover2020 wrote:
| Would've agreed if it wasn't for proteins as a macro which have
| been suddenly forgotten in its entirety.
|
| Even if you're not working out, your body still craves
| proteins. Neglecting this is dangerous
| zhynn wrote:
| potatoes have protein.
| thehias wrote:
| "You can't eat potatoes forever."
|
| Actually I heard from the local potato lobby organisation in my
| country, that the potato is the only food in existance which you
| can eat exclusive forever and you can't get any bad sideeffects,
| because a potato contains all nutritions needed...
|
| Is this not true? :D Is there any real science on that?
| zhynn wrote:
| I felt fine after a month of nothing but potato and a few cheat
| days. But... it's not just potato. I ate oil too. And spices
| and vinegar. And a sweet potato every few days for variety and
| B-vitamins. But as far as I can tell you can get almost
| everything you need nutritionally from potatoes (if you eat the
| peel).
|
| It was boring and awful 3 weeks in, but it totally worked.
| Happy to share my data if you are curious.
| darkhorse222 wrote:
| I can't speak generally, but when he asked if I'd prefer five
| bacon hamburgers or like twenty potatoes to get through the day,
| I would definitely choose the burgers.
| avodonosov wrote:
| One my friend once had to stay on a diet of only green tea and
| salo (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salo_(food)) with rye
| bread. According to him, after two weeks of this diet he
| experienced incedible lightness in the body.
| fleddr wrote:
| Potato diet sounds like the much acclaimed "dutch cuisine".
|
| I'm exaggerating, but not by much. I grew up on tasteless boiled
| potatoes, at least 6 times per week. Supplemented with veggies
| boiled to pulp. Very fatty meat. And lots of milk.
|
| It's laughed at in relation to the highly creative and tasty
| mediterranean cuisine, but I respect our bland food for other
| reasons. It's creative for being a nutrition/cost hack born out
| of necessity.
|
| Potatoes are a nutritional super food but also cheap and you can
| store them for months even without refrigeration. Even the skin
| isn't wasted, it has several uses.
|
| The veggies are boiled to pulp because unlike potatoes, those do
| go bad when stored longer. In modern times a needless precaution
| but the paranoia to eat rotten veggies has stuck around for a
| while in people's habits.
|
| Milk, not part of an adult's normal diet, but a cheap source for
| protein regardless, so let's use it.
|
| Altogether, it's a physical worker's ultra cheap yet highly
| nutritional meal. In that sense it's very creative. It's creative
| where it counts, not just for optics.
| adam_arthur wrote:
| Intermittent fasting has been the easiest thing for fine tuning
| control over weight for me. My Dad always says it's too hard, he
| gets hangry etc, but once you commit to it for ~2 weeks you don't
| even get hungry in the fast window anymore.
|
| The body gets very conditioned to eating patterns. Something to
| ease into.
|
| I'm not sure the average person can succeed on a diet predicated
| on greatly limiting the variety of foods you eat. It's an
| interesting idea though!
| OrangeMonkey wrote:
| Intermittent fasting works well for some, but could be a danger
| for others. Like you, I used it to fine tune my weight until I
| wanted to lose and then decided to lose more via IF.
|
| I'm not going into my life story, but I've had fast that have
| lasted for more than 2 weeks and have had loved ones ask me to
| stop. Fasting is not an eating disorder, but it can be a path
| to one if you are not careful. Sounds like you are. I hope
| others, who may not be, know this.
|
| Cheers.
| meowtimemania wrote:
| Totally agree with what you say OrangeMonkey however I think
| I understood GP's comment differently. I thought GP was
| saying once you stick to an IF schedule for 2 weeks (for
| example only eating 12pm to 8pm), after 2 weeks it becomes
| easy to only eat within those windows. I don't think they
| were suggesting prolonged fasting >24 hours.
| OrangeMonkey wrote:
| I agree - it wasn't what they were saying.
|
| I was just stating my own experience without exposing too
| much personal history. For me, mild intermittent fasting
| led to deep intermittent fasting, multi day fasting, then
| week, then half a month. At that point it was anorexia not
| fasting.
|
| I meant no disrespect to him at all nor the implication he
| was suggesting it - just wanted to throw a caution out. For
| some, it could lead to unhealthy excess.
| strbean wrote:
| What window do you eat during? I've seen lots of focus on
| eating only in the morning, but much of my life I naturally had
| low appetite in the mornings and mostly only ate dinner. That
| also coincided with being young and having an insane
| metabolism. I haven't actually intentionally implemented
| intermittent fasting, but I've considered it, and I'm strongly
| biased towards favoring a "dinner only" window from that
| experience.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| > being young and having an insane metabolism
|
| curious, how young do you mean? Human metabolism doesn't
| really change during adulthood until old age:
|
| > Fat-free mass-adjusted expenditure [...] remains stable in
| adulthood (20 to 60 years), even during pregnancy; then
| declines in older adults.
|
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5017
| curmudgeon22 wrote:
| I typically do a Noon to 8 PM eating window, which works for
| me. I agree with you, much easier to skip breakfast than to
| skip dinner. Also, I do more social eating for lunch/dinner.
| flobosg wrote:
| An afternoon window is ok. I've done IF eating on a 12pm-8pm
| or 2pm-8pm schedule and it worked just fine.
| joshgroban wrote:
| wpietri wrote:
| Having done both time-based and food-based restrictions, I
| would say that both can work for some people but won't work for
| others. And I think the details matter a ton. E.g., I've
| happily done months of fasting where my eating window is circa
| 7a-1p. But I spent a month trying a switch to a 12p-6p so I
| could eat dinner with people and it was hell. I got mean in the
| 10a-12p range and that did not improve over the month.
| safety1st wrote:
| There's actually some science behind this diet. Potatoes are the
| highest scoring food on the satiety index.
| https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/15-incredibly-filling-f...
|
| Basically they're the most filling food per calorie. So if you
| subscribe to the idea that losing weight is mainly about how many
| calories you consume, a potato heavy diet should be effective.
|
| And an all potato diet, while monomaniacal, even more effective.
|
| Eggs and fish are also very high on the satiety index. If you
| threw in pretty much any vegetables and spices of your choosing
| and just stuck to those along with potatoes, even with a cheat
| day or three you'd have a very healthy diet which I bet most
| people would lose weight on.
| GordonS wrote:
| This seems _highly_ unlikely to me.
|
| I have reactive hypoglycemia, and can say that potatoes spike
| my blood glucose levels more than _table sugar_ - they have a
| really high glycemic index, and anyone with blood sugar issues
| should totally avoid them IMO.
|
| And the thing about foods with a high glycemic index is that
| they cause you to feel hungry when your blood sugar rapidly
| drops back to baseline.
|
| I find protein and fat _way_ more satiating than, well,
| _anything_ else. For example, eat 2 eggs for breakfast and I
| guarantee you won 't even think a out food again until lunch
| time, if not dinner time.
| Gatsky wrote:
| What is reactive hypoglycemia?
| tpoacher wrote:
| > I find protein and fat way more satiating than, well,
| anything else. For example, eat 2 eggs for breakfast and I
| guarantee you won't even think a out food again until lunch
| time, if not dinner time.
|
| That's not what satiety means (at least in this context),
| right?
|
| I'm reading OP's definition as "you'll eat less [calories]
| per sitting because you'll feel satiated more quickly",
| rather than your "your feeling of non-hunger will last
| longer".
|
| The two seem pretty orthogonal definitions to me.
| rolisz wrote:
| > eat 2 eggs for breakfast and I guarantee you won't even
| think a out food again until lunch time, if not dinner time.
|
| I usually eat 3 scrambled eggs when I have them for
| breakfast. Lunch can't come soon enough afterwards. I think
| my record is 7 scrambled eggs. I'm sure I had normal lunch
| that day.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| Eat 1 cup organic whole oats, half cup of milk, 4 diced
| strawberries, and 1 tablespoon of brown sugar.
|
| Should be good until 2-3 in the afternoon, at least in my
| experience.
| jaggederest wrote:
| I also have reactive hypoglycemia and I tried the potato diet
| out and had zero crashes the entire time. It's just not
| possible (for me) to eat enough calories, quickly enough, to
| cause a crash. I was only on it for a few days (~5),
| precisely for the logistic issues that the article and the
| original diet post discuss - I couldn't cook and eat enough
| calories to not be absolutely starving after the first couple
| days.
|
| But zero crashes, monitored by finger stick blood glucose.
| Crazy stuff, for someone who has them all the time.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| Is a food coma / crash always the result of a blood sugar
| spike? I've never seen any literature supporting that the
| feeling of tiredness and fatigue after a meal is the direct
| result of blood sugar levels. Mostly what I've seen is just
| conjecture online, and correlational anecdotes about eating
| high glycemic index foods and feeling tired.
|
| Not discounting people's experiences, but trying to suss
| out the science here. If you were, for example, to inject
| sugar directly into someone's blood stream would the result
| be fatigue every time?
|
| It seems to me that there's more involved in this. In my
| experience (more anecdata!) I'm able to eat anything in the
| morning. Giant bolus of carbs and sugar, and I feel great.
| That same meal in the afternoon will give me such a fatigue
| that I need to lay down.
|
| Clearly there's some other factor at play for me in the
| function whos result is fatigue.
|
| FATIGUE_LEVEL = CARB_GRAMS * (HOUR_OF_DAY / 24)
| jaggederest wrote:
| > If you were, for example, to inject sugar directly into
| someone's blood stream would the result be fatigue every
| time?
|
| Missed this the first time around. They do this, for
| research, it's called a glucose clamp test.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucose_clamp_technique
|
| Unfortunately it's almost impossible to find someone
| willing to administer it to you. It's an outpatient
| hospital procedure lasting a number of hours, and almost
| no insurance would cover it, as far as I am aware.
| jaggederest wrote:
| Well, for me, I've been monitoring my blood sugar
| intensively for a while. I started when I worked for a
| nutrition and glucose monitoring company (as a test!),
| found out I had really anomalous blood sugar dips, and
| confirmed it with finger stick and another blood sugar
| monitor. So for me, the answer is, yes, the "sugar crash"
| postprandial is actually a dip in blood sugar - not to a
| hazardous level (e.g. passing out or seizure) but to a
| very uncomfortable level, with epinephrine and the
| shakes. (mine has gone down to 45mg/dl at worst)
|
| For many people, it may not be, I can only speak for
| myself. There's another thing, called 'idiopathic
| postprandial syndrome' which is essentially the symptoms
| above, but without actual low blood sugar (<60mg/dl),
| which some people think is another form of insulin
| resistance, where your blood sugar is normal but your
| body "wants" more sugar in the blood.
|
| Talking with endocrinologist, they say that the insulin
| sensitivity for most people is much higher in the AM and
| daytime than at night, so it makes sense that you might
| have more problems in the afternoon, but you should
| probably talk to a doctor rather than taking my word for
| it!
|
| It's often difficult (in the US at least) to get primary
| care and endocrinologists to take you seriously if you
| are not actually dying of diabetes or passing out from
| low blood sugar - this is where dipping into the realm of
| concierge medicine can be helpful, or at least, it has
| been for me. They are often much more willing to
| investigate thoroughly.
| GordonS wrote:
| Strange, potatoes can spike and crash my blood sugar faster
| than anything else. I haven't eaten mashed potato in a
| decade or so, but IIRC it only took half an hour or so
| before I was trembling, sweating, feeling very anxious and
| fearful, and having a strong desire to eat sugar. Not long
| after I'd become progressively more confused, and sometimes
| aggressive.
|
| I know 2 T1 diabetics, and both never touch potatoes
| because of the GI.
|
| Can I ask how you deal with your reactive hypoglycemia? I
| switched to keto a long time ago, which took me from having
| hypos multiple times a _day_ to never. But often in late
| afternoon I start feeling some mild hypo symptoms, even
| though my blood glucose is stable.
| jaggederest wrote:
| Honestly it's still up in the air right now. I have
| glucose snacks on hand, I try to monitor how often I eat
| and not let it go too long, but my Hb a1c is still low
| and I'm still bothered once or twice a day at least. It's
| only maybe once a week that it gets bad enough to be
| super bothersome like you say, basically a panic attack.
|
| I tried keto but it was difficult to get the variety,
| especially (as you say) when you're intensely craving
| sugar. It obviously solved the problem but was really
| challenging to continue, so I only lasted a couple weeks.
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| How long did you yet keto for, and how strict were you? I
| did it for 5 years and found that if you're strict, the
| carb cravings completely go away after a couple of weeks.
| jaggederest wrote:
| I was in ketosis for 3 weeks, from a total of ~1 month
| eating a keto diet. I was super, super strict, which was
| probably part of the problem. I estimated <20g net carbs
| a day
| omginternets wrote:
| Do you eat your potatos with either butter or olive oil?
| My understanding is that lipids flatten the glycemic
| curve.
| ghostly_s wrote:
| > eat 2 eggs for breakfast and I guarantee you won't even
| think a out food again until lunch time, if not dinner time.
|
| What a patently absurd claim. Your anecdata is not evidence.
| rockostrich wrote:
| While anecdotal, it entirely depends on habits and context.
|
| If your usual breakfast is pretty big and you tried to
| switch then you'd definitely start to get pangs of hunger
| earlier than you usually would. But after a while, your
| body would adjust and you'd be fine for longer and longer
| (really until whenever you usually ate your next meal).
| It's the reason why intermittent fasting or "one-meal-a-
| day" sucks the first couple of weeks you try it.
|
| I'm not recommending one way or the other. Personally, I
| wouldn't eat just 2 eggs for breakfast because it sounds
| like a boring breakfast (at least throw it on some toast
| with some hot sauce). But it's certainly plausible that 2
| eggs for breakfast would satiate most folks after they got
| through the initial growing pains.
| stevage wrote:
| How would you get through the initial pains? Hunger is
| absolutely intolerable for me.
|
| When I go out for breakfast I will often have two
| eggs...and a couple of big pieces of toast, mushrooms,
| hash browns, spinach etc. I have great difficulty
| believing that two eggs alone would be sufficient.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > eat 2 eggs for breakfast and I guarantee you won't even
| think a out food again until lunch time, if not dinner time.
|
| Tried that. Two eggs and a piece of toast will get me easily
| to lunch. Four eggs will get me an hour or so, despite having
| more calories.
| appletrotter wrote:
| > I have reactive hypoglycemia
|
| Makes sense that this diet wouldn't work for you - but I
| think using this argument is sort of like arguing that
| peanuts are unhealthy because some people are allergic to
| them.
|
| Fun Fact: You can let your potatoes cool down, and then re-
| heat them, to significantly lower the glycemic impact.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29629761
| gruez wrote:
| Seems like the linked study only applies to pasta. Whether
| it applies to potato is unknown.
| tingletech wrote:
| https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2016.03.120
| leksak wrote:
| I eat six eggs for breakfast, with vegetables and maybe a
| bowl of kefir with some mango and I'm hungry around 10 --
| breakfast being at 7-8.
| GordonS wrote:
| I guess you're an outlier (or have a tapeworm :)
|
| I physically can't eat any more than 3 eggs because I'd
| feel completely full.
| leetrout wrote:
| Yea, my anecdata is that I feel crazy full from eggs.
| Maybe the choline in them? I dont know but more than any
| other food eggs trigger my brain to say "stop thats
| enough".
| [deleted]
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I'm the same [as the person who you are replying to].
| Eggs are good as part of a meal, but they don't fill me
| up. I need a bit of carbs to go with them.
| orionion wrote:
| Egg Consumption Increases Risk for Diabetes
|
| https://www.pcrm.org/news/health-nutrition/egg-
| consumption-i...
|
| "The authors note results from a recent meta-analysis and
| data from the Physicians' Health Study and Women's Health
| Study showed an increased risk for diabetes of up to 77%
| with seven or more eggs consumed per week."
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| Satiety is a mental construct. I've been underweight, normal
| weight, and overweight in my life. What your brain tells you to
| put in your stomach is almost entirely divorced from
| nutritional requirements for thriving and surviving.
|
| The only way to be exceptionally healthy and thin is to ignore
| the urge to overeat, and this urge is extremely dynamic on a
| per human basis. As a result, some people out there will eat a
| case of potatoes and still feel very hungry and unsatisfied.
| simplify wrote:
| If you mean "mental" as in "not based on reality", then no,
| that's wrong.
|
| However, it _is_ true that your hunger urges are not solely
| based on thriving and surviving, but also significantly on
| the current state of your gut bacteria, which is highly
| influenced by diet and stress. They say the gut is a second
| brain for good reason.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I've never managed "underweight", but having been as high as
| 320+lbs and as low as 161lbs, I agree. The key to losing
| weight is to find ways to ignore what your brain tells you to
| eat and stick to a calorie intake limit that matches the base
| metabolic rate of your target weight.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Satiety is a mental construct._
|
| Yeah, just not according to science.
|
| E.g. there's ghrelin, cholecystokinin and other "satiety
| signals".
|
| Except if you mean "satiefy is a mental construct" the same
| way pain is a mental construct. In which case, in a Kantian
| way, everything is, including space and time.
|
| > _What your brain tells you to put in your stomach is almost
| entirely divorced from nutritional requirements for thriving
| and surviving._
|
| (a) You'd be surprised.
|
| (b) It only appears that way because we have diverged in a
| exteremely small span of time (evolutionary speaking) into
| completely different circumstances and food availability.
|
| Otherwise, what the brain tells us is very much based on
| nutritional requirements for thriving and surviving.
|
| It's just that in 2022 we have an endless supply of food we
| can just order or walk into a supermarket and buy, as opposed
| to food scarcity where we don't know if we will be able to
| find something to hunt tomorrow - like the last 100,000 of
| thousands of years before historical times (and millions of
| years considering our primate ancestors)...
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| >not according to THE SCIENCE
|
| sorry, dont care
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| This is bro science. Sorry dude. Caloric intake matter
| because in the end it is CICO. However, there are foods that
| absolutely make you feel full quicker and for a longer period
| of time and that matters as much as calories because if you
| can't fight off the hunger because your diet is primarily
| white bread and doritos as opposed to healthy fats , greens,
| and proteins then calories won't matter because you will 100%
| fail because of cravings.
| jsiaajdsdaa wrote:
| >this is bro science
|
| sorry, I don't care
| diordiderot wrote:
| It could be much much more than CICO. If you want to read
| an epic saga on modern obesity and it's theories check out
|
| https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-
| hunger-p...
| trentgreene wrote:
| It seems like everything in that article reinforces CICO.
| Is there something that diverges from the CICO model that
| I might be missing?
|
| E.G. it's examples of the Maasai and Inuit eating higher
| calories make a lot of sense when you consider their
| exposure to temp extremes and additional cal burn coming
| from thermoregulation (along with probably elevated
| levels of daily activity).
|
| Most of the nuance I've seen around CICO that holds isn't
| that CICO isn't true, it's that the intake and output are
| hard to calculate when you look at nutrient absorption
| and lifestyle
| bumby wrote:
| > _Satiety is a mental construct._
|
| Are you implying that there aren't physical manifestations
| that cause hunger? In other words, I could inject you with a
| suprahuman amount of ghrelin and you wouldn't feel hungry?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| There are physical situations that can nudge your brain's
| choice to make you feel hungry or not, IME. For example, I
| stopped eating breakfast and lunch for two years (because,
| I am a colossal idiot, and knew it was stupid when I did
| it) and it took very little time for my body to realize
| "feeling hungry" at noon was a fools errand, so it quickly
| stopped happening. I was absolutely physically hungry,
| seeing as I wasn't eating larger dinners, and having been
| about 18 hours since I last put food in my body, but habit
| has a large effect on your feelings of hunger if you aren't
| living in the wild Savannah. If my thoughts are correct,
| then a possible indicator would be people with wildly
| different "normal" times for dinner would get hungry at
| those different times, ie my grandparents who eat at 4 get
| hungry at 4 compared to someone who normally eats at 8pm
| getting hungry at 8pm.
|
| I'm unsure if that "support" for my argument exists.
| bumby wrote:
| That fits with my current understanding. Your body's
| hunger response (driven in part by hormones) is
| complicated, and for lack of a better word it can be
| "habituated" to a routine. But I believe there are still
| very real mechanisms (like said hormones) rather than
| being a psychological construct. I would be willing to
| bet if you had blood samples, you would see very real
| distinctions in blood markers associated with hunger as
| your response changed.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Also, if you're having a lot of food intolerance or allergy or
| digestion issues, having potatoes to fall back on can feel like
| a lifesaver. It's early in the elimination diet re-introduction
| schedule.
| frostwarrior wrote:
| Potatoes may be pure carbs, but they're full of water.
|
| When I eat a portion of mashed potatoes (I cook them with very
| little butter), it feels like I've eaten a very dense soup.
| corrral wrote:
| Fish is high on my personal satiety index, because I didn't eat
| much of it growing up so never developed a taste. Result is
| that when served fish I eat a little to be nice but don't enjoy
| it at all. That'd certainly help me eat less.
|
| Oddly, I love calamari and sushi.
| hahajk wrote:
| Of course, eating food you don't like so you end up eating
| less doesn't sound like the way to go through life!
| corrral wrote:
| IIRC a study made it on here once (a couple years ago,
| maybe?) that boiled down to "we're fat because modern,
| affordable, low-or-zero-prep food tastes too good and is
| too varied"
|
| One of my not-well-backed suspicions is that this is
| closest to the truth of any of the various attempts to
| explain this.
| xeromal wrote:
| I had a buddy that created a spreadsheet of various foods and
| their micro/macro nutrients. He's an engineer and wanted to
| engineer his diet to cover every deficiency in the minimal
| amount of food possible. He told me that potatoes were almost
| the perfect food if you could magically reduce the amount of
| glucose you took from them.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Is there some form of fermented potato dish / treatment?
|
| Apparently yes:
| https://drdavisinfinitehealth.com/2018/02/fermented-raw-
| pota...
|
| (One of several results on search. I've no idea on merits /
| validity here.)
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| I learned this concept from Jeremey Either on youtube and
| highly recommend his content.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxktmQ3zJOA He does a good job
| of summarizing content and then the only hard part is putting
| it into action in your life.
| entropicgravity wrote:
| Thanks for this, but I'll stick to the peanut butter diet :)
| com2kid wrote:
| Peanut butter doesn't fill me up at all. I can consume 1k
| calories of it, nothing, still hungry after.
|
| Same with fish, I cannot get full eating fish in any
| quantity. Shrimp, sure, but not fish.
|
| Nuts, same deal. I'll eat 500+ calories of nuts, does nothing
| for me.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| See a doctor.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Eh, different people respond to food differently. This is
| not controversial. This whole discussion has a huge
| amount of bro science, and very little actual science. To
| the limited extent such a thing even exists in the
| nutritional space.
| com2kid wrote:
| Plenty of other foods fill me up just fine. A 4oz steak
| and some broccoli. Bacon and eggs. Meat + a veg does me
| fine.
|
| > See a doctor.
|
| Doctors know next to nothing about gut biome stuff.
|
| "I don't get full eating an entire jar of peanut butter"
| is going to result in the doctor telling me to not eat a
| jar of peanut butter.
|
| Heck plenty of people don't get full eating entire tubs
| of ice cream. The answer is to avoid downing tubs of ice
| cream.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| You just listed a bunch of things that don't make sense?
| See a specialist rather than quibbling over the
| definition of doctor.
| com2kid wrote:
| You ever tried eating fish with bones in it? It takes me
| forever. By the time I finished picking the bones out of
| 700 calories of fish it'd be time for my next meal.
| Meanwhile I have friends who eat fish just fine and get
| full.
|
| FWIW Salmon drenched in butter and lemon does the trick,
| but that kind of feels like cheating.
|
| Maybe fish sticks would fill me up? Heck if I know.
|
| Peanut butter is another one, plenty of people can eat
| crap tons of peanut butter and not get full. Other people
| get full from peanut butter easily.
|
| Same goes for nuts, and a _ton_ of snacking foods. That
| is why they are called snacking foods
|
| I once had a coworker who could honest to goodness get
| filled up from an ice cream cone. Calorically, that is
| correct, but the vast majority of people's bodies will
| completely ignore calorie math when consuming ice cream
| (see: Common jokes about a separate desert stomach).
|
| > See a specialist rather than quibbling over the
| definition of doctor.
|
| "Hi doctor, yeah, I have a normal BMI and I am in above
| average health and I work out multiple times per week but
| some guy online says I should see you because I don't get
| full eating peanut butter."
|
| You do realize that there are literally _not specialists_
| for this stuff? If medical science understood why some
| people never get full eating certain foods, we wouldn 't
| have so much obesity.
|
| On the flip side, food scientists understand that fat +
| sugar = never satiated. That is why donuts are even a
| thing. Realistically a donut and a sweetened coffee are
| "enough calories" but they aren't satiating at all.
|
| And then there is the nastiness of the human body mostly
| ignoring liquid calories all together[1], outside of
| mechanical fullness of the stomach. That is why starbucks
| can get away with selling drinks that have almost an
| entire day's worth of calories in them.
|
| [1] Protein shakes are a notable exception to this.
| friedman23 wrote:
| I wonder where the misinformation that potatoes were unhealthy
| / fattening came from? Was it from french fries and fried
| starches?
| djmips wrote:
| The Glycemic Index (GI) looks bad, even look at the chart in
| the article. However the GI for potatoes changes depending on
| how you eat them. Cold potatoes have a much lower GI than hot
| freshly served.
| xeromal wrote:
| Wow, really? That is very interesting? Too bad hot potatoes
| are delicious. I think as long as I air fried mine and let
| them cool to room temp, I would enjoy them.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It's not really about the heat. They undergo a change as
| they cool down which changes the GI. Heating them back up
| does not reverse that, so you can still have hot potatoes
| with the lower GI effect as long as you cool them down
| first.
| xeromal wrote:
| That's incredible. Thanks for sharing. Can you tell me
| what hte process is called?
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| Also, potatoes (Russets especially) are an excellent source
| of potassium, which most people are grossly deficient in.
| ThePadawan wrote:
| I believe it might be based on misunderstanding the generic
| category "vegetables".
|
| I.e. "I eat lots of vegetables! I had french fries on
| Tuesday, mashed potato on Wednesday, ..."
|
| Reminds me of the classic regulatory decision (which I
| actually looked up to make sure that it wasn't an urban myth,
| that's how crazy it sounds) that the tomato paste on top of
| pizza is classified as a vegetable for school lunches [0].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup_as_a_vegetable
| strbean wrote:
| Potatoes are calorie dense. I think the focus on satiation
| rather than pure calorie counting is a more recent trend.
|
| Also, it sounds like water content is a significant
| contributor to their capacity to satiate, so things like
| potato chips probably fail miserably under this lense. Many
| processed foods made from potatoes have far less water in
| them than home cooked versions (french fries, hash browns).
| TrisMcC wrote:
| > Potatoes are calorie dense.
|
| No.
|
| https://gurmeet.net/Images/food/calorie_density/CalorieDens
| i...
|
| Boiled potatoes are 870 kcal per kilogram.
|
| 1 kilogram of potatoes is a lot.
| zhynn wrote:
| Having done 28 days of the potato diet, this is true. It
| is difficult to get over 1kcal of potato. Eating two
| kilos of potato in a day is heroic. I would eat like 1
| kilo per day, and be satisfied-full. It's wild.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I could definitely eat 2kg of potatoes a day. As french
| fries. Kind of ruins the whole point though
| strbean wrote:
| The term 'calorie dense' is used in reference to
| proportion of other nutrients. Water isn't typically
| included.
|
| By your standards, Coca-Cola is actually less calorie
| dense than boiled potato, but I don't think anyone would
| recommend a Coca-Cola diet.
| TrisMcC wrote:
| Calorie density is not something made up. You are
| redefining a very well-known term. Many legumes, grains,
| and root vegetables are made up of copious amounts of
| water in their prepared form.
|
| Calorie density is also not the only metric for
| recommendation. Everyone agrees that liquid calories are
| not "felt" by the body in the same way as solid foods.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| A couple years back I tried making colecanon due to a random
| suggestion from a friend. It's just mashed potatoes mixed with
| cabbage or kale or such, seasoned as you like. I do a version
| where I brown the cabbage in butter first.
|
| I was surprised just how satisfying a plate of it as a meal,
| and thought exactly the same thing: I'm pretty sure you could
| live on that stuff indefinitely and be in great shape.
| memcg wrote:
| I love colecanon. Mine has skin on boiled and mashed potatoes
| (any type or a mix), lots of butter, full fat whole milk
| greek yogurt and chopped cooked kale. My family loves it hot
| or cold. Add a few more spices and a little mustard, and I
| serve it as potato salad to my mayo hating in-laws.
| lesstyzing wrote:
| Same goes for Champ (mashed potatoes with diced spring onions
| throughout). Seems super basic but really filling.
| strbean wrote:
| Eggs for breakfast and Marmitako for lunch and dinner, got it.
| treis wrote:
| They're borderline at best for protein content, though. You'd
| probably want to at least supplement with a protein shake or
| two.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| Or however many leads to 1g of protein per pound of lean body
| mass. No point losing weight if its lean body mass. (Protein
| has a muscle sparing effect during diets)
| zhynn wrote:
| potatoes have like 3g of protein per potato. And to stay
| full you eat _a lot_ of potato. I tried it! It was easy,
| then not easy, then totally shitty, then fine, and then I
| was done (28 days). I ate a few sweet potatoes along the
| way for B vitamins.
| [deleted]
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| iirc vitamin b12 is essentially non-existent in vegan
| diets. So it's important to either eat meats/seafood, eat
| a vegan food fortified in it, or take a supplement (the
| later two are equivalent, just different delivery
| mechanism)
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Eggs are definitely my goto on a calorie controlled keto diet.
| Obviously potatoes are out of the question :) . They are simply
| awful for people who prediabetic or think they have metabolic
| syndrome; not as bad as white bread or sugar but bad.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| > _There 's actually some science behind this diet. Potatoes
| are the highest scoring food on the satiety index._
|
| Never heard of this before, but I was surprised by the number
| of potatoes this person ate. I can eat like, 1.5 large potatoes
| max. Then I'm good. But this guy was quoting 18 med potatoes
| everyday!?!?
| stevage wrote:
| So that's 6 per meal? Maybe the equivalent of 3 large?
| Doesn't seem absurd, when you're eating nothing else.
| mminer237 wrote:
| This. There really is something special about potatoes that
| just makes them far more filling than they "should be":
| https://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/fullness-factor
| com2kid wrote:
| That list is ... suspect?
|
| > Lowfat yogurt
|
| I've never been satiated eating lowfat yogurt. I actually
| recently started buying high fat yogurt (10g+ of fat) and it
| is super satiating. Given I can eat 3x the amount of lowfat
| yogurt and still not be full, I'm not buying it.
|
| > Watermelon
|
| Maybe due to bloating from water?
|
| > Bean sprouts
|
| I challenge anyone to get full eating just bean sprouts.
| Again, they are more akin to drinking (crunchy) water than
| eating food. It is maybe a mechanical sense of fullness, it
| is not satiated as is normally thought of.
|
| > Fish, broiled
|
| I get bored eating fish long before I get full from eating
| fish.
|
| > Sirloin steak, broiled
|
| Yes, this works. Steak is super satiating.
|
| > Popcorn
|
| Has anyone in the history of humanity ever been satiated
| eating popcorn? To be fair I know a few people who go to the
| movies and eat only a small bit, but most people I know can
| easily down an entire large bag and it'll have no impact on
| their appetite soon after.
|
| > Oranges
|
| Eh, this also falls into the category of "hungry a little bit
| later."
| mminer237 wrote:
| Well that's satiety/calories. So water will be have an
| index of infinity even if it's effect is rather small.
|
| I was more just linking it to highlight the 1995 study.
| Potatoes were by far the most satiating food found and far
| exceeding what NutritionData's modeling predicts it would
| be. (And FWIW, yoghurt was found to be much less satiating
| than the numbers would suggest.)
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >Has anyone in the history of humanity ever been satiated
| eating popcorn? To be fair I know a few people who go to
| the movies and eat only a small bit, but most people I know
| can easily down an entire large bag and it'll have no
| impact on their appetite soon after.
|
| I'll take this one. I actually 100% agree that list is
| useless, but an entire bag of microwave popcorn is
| extremely satiating to me. It's the perfect midnight snack
| IME because it is only 400ish Calories and yet takes up a
| large volume of space and takes a significant amount of
| time to eat.
| flobosg wrote:
| When I was doing intermittent fasting I would usually have
| roasted fish and potatoes for lunch, all prepared on the same
| baking dish[1]. It was very filling, agreeing with your post.
|
| [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/18/dining/the-minimalist-
| tak...
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| This was my discovery as well. Keto, at its core, amounts to
| optimizing for satiety. Typically that takes the form of
| increasing fat intake, and progressively lowering carb intake.
| For most people, this results in fewer calories ingested, as
| fats + protein heavy diets make it hard to overeat. I burned
| through my excess weight rapidly: maybe 2-3lb a week IIRC?
|
| After that, it changes to figuring out how many net carbs you
| need. I've found that this amount changes and is not a hard and
| fast rule. When I started keto, I aimed for 20g total (I don't
| recommend that low). Now, it is more like 50-100g. There's also
| the mental shift: carbs are not bad, they're just a tool.
|
| The thing that feels most unfair is once your body gets to a
| lower weight, you're accustomed to eating less, and you've
| 'reset' things, I found I had a lot of leeway in what I could
| get away with, diet-wise.
| screamingpotat wrote:
| Potato diet given milk/butter seems quite doable, Ireland lived
| off milk and oats for a very long time and potatoes, especially
| older varieties are incredibly nutritious given the skin so mixed
| with dairy JT seems like a relatively manageable diet.
| TehCorwiz wrote:
| Do yams and sweet potatoes count even though they're not
| "technically" potatoes?
| renewiltord wrote:
| There's something interesting about this. I ate a Halo Top and
| Water diet for 3 weeks and it got me a quick crash diet outcome
| of 6 kgs or somewhat down (long time ago) but at the cost of my
| mental health. So maybe this dude's "restrict foods" thing works.
| whoomp12342 wrote:
| potato diet?!?!
|
| what is this. Can we just come out and say, the recent increase
| in price of food is too damn high instead of hiding it behind a
| veneer of clever diets that choose lesser costing food?
| worker_person wrote:
| I did plain chicken and sweet potatoes for a month. No spices,
| boiled or baked. Water or Green Tea.
|
| Best I have ever felt. Ended six months of whole body agony.
|
| I try and follow AIP these days. (Potatoes aren't allowed, but
| Sweet Potatoes are.)
| manmal wrote:
| Basil, oregano, thyme, ginger and some other spices are allowed
| according to AIP though?
| kzrdude wrote:
| They are herbs and not necessarily called spices
| dangus wrote:
| I gotta ask: why no spices?
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Exactly, that's the genius of Indian cuisine: making
| otherwise bland ingredients (chickpeas, lentils, potatoes,
| spinach, etc.) taste amazing. I just polished off a simple
| rice, spinach and tuna dinner. Very tasty thanks to some
| sprinkling of misc. spices. I could swap out the rice for
| potatoes and it would probably even healthier.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| > the genius of Indian cuisine: making otherwise bland
| ingredients (chickpeas, lentils, potatoes, spinach, etc.)
| taste amazing.
|
| How is that different from any other cuisine? Rice,
| noodles, potatoes, beans, cabbage, fish, meat, chicken all
| get mixed with spices in almost every cuisine
| worker_person wrote:
| It was an elimination diet. See what things were bothering
| me. Severe migraines and autoimmune issues. I was very
| desperate at that point.
|
| Sweet potatoes didn't bother me at all, and kept me full.
|
| After a month I slowly started adding things back in to see
| how I reacted. Made it easy to tell what foods were an issue.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Great that it helped. I was also on AIP for some periods,
| long ago now though (maybe because it's so hard)
| 55555 wrote:
| It's a diet for autoimmune disorders.
| [deleted]
| stu2b50 wrote:
| Genuinely I'm not quite sure I get the connection. Would
| spices in general cause issues with autoimmune diseases?
| Specific spices?
| sudden_dystopia wrote:
| I have heard Paprika and chili powder, along with peppers
| in general, doing something with opening the tight
| junctions in the gut from Paul Saladino but I can't
| recall the what the specific issue or mechanism was.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| Herbs have all sorts of compounds, many of which are
| known to interact with the body's immune system.
|
| Loads of studies about tumeric and inflammation,
| arthritis. Also capsaicin, piperine, etc. The list is
| extensive.
|
| Remember: Herbs and spices are where medicinal remedies
| originated.
| worker_person wrote:
| From. https://thrivingonpaleo.com/aip-spices-and-herbs/
|
| What spices are NOT allowed on AIP? Allspice Anise Seed
| Annatto Seed Black Caraway Black Cumin Black Pepper
| Caraway Cardamom Capsicums Cayenne Celery Seed Chili
| Pepper Flakes Chili Powder Chinese Five-Spice Chipotle
| Chili Powder Coriander Seed Cumin Seed Curry Powder
| (typically contains nightshades) Dill Seed Fennel Seed
| Fenugreek Seed Garam Masala Juniper Mustard Nutmeg
| Paprika Pepper (from black, green, pink, or white
| peppercorns) Poppy Seed Poultry Seasoning Red Pepper
| Russian Caraway Star Anise Steak Seasoning Sumac Taco
| Seasonin
| ufo wrote:
| Deep down, AIP is one of those fad diets that prohibit
| more things than there's evidence for. It's justified
| based on some pseudoscientific ideas about certain foods
| causing autoimmune issues. People might say things about
| intestinal permeability, but the scientific connection
| can be a bit sketchy.
| weberer wrote:
| The idea is that the disorders may not actually be
| autoimmune, but reactions to certain foods.
| [deleted]
| shipman05 wrote:
| Samwise Gamgee approves.
| mkaic wrote:
| "Taters? What's taters, precious?"
|
| "You don't know what taters are? Po-tat-oes? Boil 'em, mash
| 'em, stick 'em in a stew?"
| xeromal wrote:
| Nice crispy taters.
| csours wrote:
| If this is interesting I highly recommend "The Hungry Brain".
|
| Some other thoughts:
|
| Obesity is not a disease of over-eating, it is a disease of
| managing hunger.
|
| "Losing weight" is a terrible goal. "Changing Body Composition"
| is a much better goal. Specifically change the proportion of fat
| to muscle.
|
| ----
|
| If your immediate answer is "Those are the same thing but with
| different words!!!" then here are some questions to get you
| thinking:
|
| * Can you measure someone else's hunger and compare it to your
| own?
|
| * What parts of hunger come from perceptions and what parts come
| from psychological conditioning?
|
| * Can you survive being hungry? Can you survive starvation? How
| does your body know the difference?
|
| * How does food energy relate to hunger? For CICO a Calorie is
| always a Calorie; is that also true for hunger?
|
| * How do you measure progress towards a goal and how does it feel
| when you can't perceive progress?
|
| * Excess body weight can put stress on your joints, but doesn't
| generally have any other negative effects. Excess body fat has
| many negative effects. A scale is cheap and consistent. Body fat
| monitors and measurement isn't always cheap or consistent (or
| accurate).
| stakkur wrote:
| No, obesity is a metabolic problem. And barring personal
| medical issues, diets of starch and sugar are the cause.
|
| [EDIT], Folks, obesity is a result of metabolic disease.
| Obesity is an epidemic, and the science is abundant on this.
| This isn't a grammatic nuance, it's the essence of the global
| obesity epidemic that results from diet and eating habits. It's
| literally the foundation of the growing understanding amongst
| medical professionals of why low-carb diets and fasting work
| dramatically on this.
| csours wrote:
| I feel it would be accurate to say that obesity is _also_ a
| metabolic problem.
|
| The difficulty with disentangling "what is obesity" is that
| the body is full of feedback and feed-forward mechanisms. You
| can look at any part of the machinery and say "here is the
| problem". There are a significant number of systems that deal
| with adiposity, hunger, and energy management and allocation.
|
| Once we find something to blame for a problem we often stop
| looking. Processed carbs are not compatible with a sedentary
| lifestyle, that is true. But our ancestors ate carbs for
| generations. Many modern cultures eat carbs and don't have a
| big problem with obesity.
| Pakdef wrote:
| > "Losing weight" is a terrible goal. "Changing Body
| Composition" is a much better goal. Specifically change the
| proportion of fat to muscle.
|
| 400lb of muscles or fat is probably not healthy either way...
| csours wrote:
| I don't think this is a good faith comment. It is very
| difficult and rare to add that much muscle.
| Pakdef wrote:
| I just don't know how much muscles steroid junkies can add,
| but either way it's not healthy... but yeah you are
| probably right that it isn't that much.
|
| Also, that parent comment was saying that you should trade
| fat for muscles, so my comment still stands.
| zeroxfe wrote:
| > Also, that parent comment was saying that you should
| trade fat for muscles, so my comment still stands.
|
| Great -- you win by technicality! For the vast majority
| of people, the parent made a very reasonable statement,
| so comments like this are not helpful.
| Pakdef wrote:
| > so comments like this are not helpful.
|
| Maybe you think my comment was not helpful, but his
| comment was ignoring many variables.
|
| Eat less if you are fat and do cardio no matter what.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| Second this, Stephan Guyenet is a brilliant guy.
| sph wrote:
| > Obesity is not a disease of over-eating, it is a disease of
| managing hunger.
|
| Indeed it is, and the solution to managing hunger (i.e.
| returning your whole insulin and leptin system to a more
| optimal baseline) is NOT going for a 90% carbohydrate diet.
|
| That's exactly why we have a bloody obesity epidemic. It's a
| fun thought experiment, but reading the comments in here people
| actually think this is genius and sustainable.
| TrisMcC wrote:
| Do you really believe that the obesity epidemic was caused by
| people eating 90% carbohydrate diets?
|
| The "high carb meals" at McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza
| Hut... are all also (and more per calorie) high in fat.
|
| Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to your mixed-green salad?
| That has turned into a high fat salad. Most people cannot
| avoid cheese or nuts on salad, either.
|
| Eating the potato diet with sour cream/butter/cheese: High
| fat.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| I'm overweight because I eat too much. Eat caloric surplus,
| gain weight. That part isn't complicated. Why I eat too
| much is another question...
| goodpoint wrote:
| No. A healthy diet is a diet that provides you with the
| right amount of nutrients without leaving you hungry or
| unsatisfied.
|
| By not being hungry and unsatisfied you'll then stop
| overeating (surprise!).
|
| "My diet is OK, I just eat too much" is all wrong: there
| is a complex relation between caloric intake, which foods
| are eaten, hunger, satisfaction, energy, mood etc.
|
| Many fad diets "work" even if they are not grounded in
| any scientific fact and are even unhealthy in the long
| term (low fat, low carb, keto, gluten-free, all-meat).
|
| They artificially restrict the variety of food one person
| can eat and this indirectly encourages people to eat
| less. And when people stop overeating they feel better
| and believe the fad diet is sound.
|
| There were even a diet where you can only eat foods in a
| given meal from the same group... by color. Same trick.
|
| Bracing for all the downvotes...
| sph wrote:
| Talk about generalising. How is gluten-free unhealthy in
| the long term. Do you actually believe that wheat in
| particular is _required_ for health?
|
| Just above you said a diet needs to be nutritionally
| complete. Low carb, keto, gluten free, hell even low fat
| can be nutritionally complete and satisfying, though the
| latter one will not feel really good in the long term.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| Your body stores calories you eat, and it's really good
| at it. If you eat too much of anything (that contains
| more calories than the calories required to digest it),
| you will gain weight. Eat too much fried chicken, gain
| weight. Eat too many oranges, gain weight. Eat too many
| beans, gain weight. You can probably gain weight from
| eating too much broccoli, although I'd get sick of
| broccoli before that happened.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Did you just repeated the previous point without
| understanding anything of what I wrote?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| It's funny too, because I have perfectly logged data
| showing that the weeks I eat fewer than about 1800
| calories reliably, (because I have an incredibly
| sedentary lifestyle) reliably and predictably lower my
| weight.
|
| I've literally got a science experiment in my own body
| that shows reducing calories in, without reducing the
| actual design of my meals, reduces my body mass.
|
| I'm willing to accept that there are some minor
| irregularities and difficulties that make "Calories in ==
| Calories out" not 100% accurate, but I'm betting the
| effect size is closer to +-10%, and therefore easily
| discarded for approximations, even though they are
| scientifically significant and could create a more
| accurate model.
| bumby wrote:
| I agree that the CICO is a model that works, but it is at
| least somewhat complicated by the fact that CO is a
| function of CI. I.e., what you eat takes different
| amounts of energy to metabolize so it also contributes to
| what you burn. If I eat 1800 kcal of protein I may have
| higher CO than if I ate 1800 kcal of simple
| carbohydrates.
|
| There's already a lot of uncertainty when most people
| measure their calories (very few people actually weigh
| their food) and this just adds another layer of
| uncertainty. I have a feeling those all combine to make
| it inaccurate enough in practice for some people to claim
| the CICO model doesn't work.
| LesZedCB wrote:
| i thought fat was largely debunked as being the primary
| cause, though i'm not going to go searching for studies as
| i'm not a dietician (though my partner is).
|
| consider this: each of those meals at McD's, BK, or Pizza
| hut come with a 1-2 liter soda, loaded with calories and
| sugar. yes, the fats are there, but they are _always_
| paired with loads of sugar.
| seadan83 wrote:
| I agree with the debunking that fats are not bad for you,
| though, not all fats are equal. The rule of thumb is that
| fats that remain liquid at body temperature can be
| considered "dietary fat". The only problem with "dietary
| fat" is they have a load of energy on them and that can
| blow your calorie budget for the day quite easily if you
| overdo them.
|
| Fats though that stay solid at body temperature arguably
| should be completely avoided. Hence the big-mac with a
| 1-2 liter soda, loads of unhealthy fat paired with loads
| of sugar, all with very minimal fiber..
| emmanuel_1234 wrote:
| I'd be curious to understand where you get that
| information from.
|
| Fat that stays solid at room temperature is generally
| high in saturated fat (except for margarin, but let's
| keep it out). Fat that stays liquid is generally
| vegetable oil (e.g.: canola).
|
| I don't think there is strong evidence that vegetable oil
| is good for you whereas saturated fat is not. If so, I'd
| really like to read about it.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Well.... Fats can be bad in that they are calorie dense
| foods, and thus it's easy to add more calories than you
| should to food with them.
|
| It's significantly harder to be fat eating nothing but
| broccoli, but I could continuously gain weight eating
| only 250g of vegetable oil per day.
|
| Sugar is bad for exactly the same reason IMO
| seadan83 wrote:
| My unsupported personal belief is that the human body
| processes different carbohydrates in very different ways.
| Carbs that come from starch are not equivalent to carbs from
| cane sugar, and yet again not equivalent to honey, and again
| not equivalent to high fructose corn sryup, and again
| different from breads & pasta.
|
| Ratio of fiber to carbohydrate and how that carbohydrate is
| processed by the body is also important as well.
|
| Hence, french fries are not good, they have added sugar, the
| skin is removed, and they have a lot of added fats from the
| fried oils. That strikes me as a world of difference compared
| to a whole baked potato consumed with a sauteed broccolli
| with a side salad (plenty of fiber).
|
| Unrelated, and unsolicited 2 cents, IMO it's all about eating
| as many fibrous and leafy greens as possible. At that point,
| a moderate side of lean meat, potato, carb, practially
| whatever - does not matter so long as the fibrous and leafy
| greens are the majority source of calories.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Unrelated, and unsolicited 2 cents, IMO it's all about
| eating as many fibrous and leafy greens as possible. At
| that point, a moderate side of lean meat, potato, carb,
| practially whatever - does not matter so long as the
| fibrous and leafy greens are the majority source of
| calories.
|
| If you eat a meal with a small steak and a baked potato,
| how many pounds of salad would you need to consume to get
| the majority of your calories from eating those leaves?
| goodpoint wrote:
| > personal belief is that the human body processes
| different carbohydrates in very different ways
|
| This is nutritional science 101.
|
| Slow-digesting carbohydrates like big-flake oats are really
| good.
|
| Fast-digesting things like sugars, processed foods, fast
| food and meat products are bad as they create spikes in the
| glycemic index.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Slow-digesting carbohydrates like big-flake oats are
| really good.
|
| if only they tasted that way!
| rootusrootus wrote:
| With enough brown sugar and butter they sure do. But I
| suppose that defeats the point...
| mpalczewski wrote:
| > Indeed it is, and the solution to managing hunger (i.e.
| returning your whole insulin and leptin system to a more
| optimal baseline) is NOT going for a 90% carbohydrate diet.
|
| Leptin system returns to a more optimal baseline with weight
| loss.
|
| Insulin returns to a more optimal baseline by increasing
| insulin sensitivity. Exercise does this most effectively,
| loosing weight also does this. Low carb diets don't do this
| directly, only through weight loss.
|
| Managing hunger is managing your dopamine response. Eating
| nothing but one food, will make you very bored of your food.
| You won't be looking for food as entertainment, stress
| relief, or a cure for boredom(dopamine). You will only eat
| for true hunger(lack of dopamine can feel similar).
| bumby wrote:
| > _Exercise does this most effectively_
|
| Curious, does it depend on the type of exercise and, if so,
| do we know what mechanisms cause some types to have a
| disproportionate impact?
| nostrebored wrote:
| CGMs should disillusion people of this pretty quickly. I
| really wish more people would try them for a month just to
| see how they respond to certain foods.
| jrvarela56 wrote:
| I did and would recommend. It shows you the impact of foods
| in your blood glucose and made it easier to convince myself
| and change my behavior.
|
| Some lessons I got from using it for 2 months (these are
| personal, some should apply to most people):
|
| - Plantains cause a BIG glucose spike (I thought they
| didnt; in my case even more than pasta or rice)
|
| - Walking ~10min after a meal removes the glucose spike of
| even pretty large meals
|
| - Intense exercise before (duh) removes the glucose spike
| of any meal, even with big desert/ice cream
|
| - Eating veggies (or taking fiber pills) before a meal
| removes the glucose spike of most meals
|
| Some of these things I had read about online, but seeing
| the impact live on my own blood glucose made the lessons
| stick.
| code_duck wrote:
| Why do you feel you need to change your food intake, and
| how do you interpret your CGM results? If you don't have
| a form of diabetes it doesn't really make a difference.
| Your glucose will go back down to 85 fairly soon.
| dubswithus wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong but I feel that your comment is
| trying to connect a "big glucose spike" with the cause of
| diabetes. They are not connected. Millions of people are
| eating apples, grapes, plantains, strawberries,
| raspberries, etc every year without issue.
|
| To tell people to avoid these healthy foods is not backed
| by the science. And so what if it raises your levels
| temporarily? Running raises my heart rate and blood
| pressure. Does that mean I'm about to die?
| pcorsaro wrote:
| That's not what this person is saying. "Big glucose
| spike(s)" actually are the cause of diabetes. The more
| regular spikes a person has, the more resistant to
| insulin they become, which is where type 2 diabetes
| starts. The point of the comments I believe was just to
| say that certain foods cause different responses in
| different people. If plantains cause a large spike in a
| person, I would say that person should probably not eat
| them every day all the time.
| dubswithus wrote:
| > "Big glucose spike(s)" actually are the cause of
| diabetes. The more regular spikes a person has, the more
| resistant to insulin they become, which is where type 2
| diabetes starts.
|
| People who don't have diabetes or pre-diabetes spike. But
| I hardly see a body of work that suggests that everyone
| is at risk of diabetes.
|
| > If plantains cause a large spike in a person, I would
| say that person should probably not eat them every day
| all the time.
|
| People from South America eat them every day and they
| aren't linked to diabetes as far as I know.
| autoexec wrote:
| I'd do it if they had one that didn't involve needles.
| dubswithus wrote:
| So I think this is an attempt to link a random result to a
| metabolic disease? This goes against the advice of pretty
| much every health doctor, nutritionist, and scientist.
| ericb wrote:
| CGM ?
| [deleted]
| csours wrote:
| Continuous Glucose Monitor.
|
| Related topic: Glycogen storage in the liver and muscles
| and glycogen depletion
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| By this logic, the obesity epidemic should've happened in the
| 17th century when the potato was introduced to the rest of
| the world and became the staple crop of poor farmers
| everywhere.
| sph wrote:
| They did not eat a potato only diet, however poor they
| were.
|
| I actually have relatives in a third world country that
| however poor they were they'd have a diet of mostly
| starches but including decent protein, even if it's just
| fish, literal bugs, small rodents and other subpar meat.
|
| They'd laugh you out the village if you'd tell them they
| can live on yams and tapioca alone.
|
| Staple doesn't mean one food diet.
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| _> Obesity is not a disease of over-eating, it is a disease of
| managing hunger._
|
| If that is so, why is obesity so much worse in some countries
| than in others? Are Italians really so much better at managing
| hunger than Americans?
|
| It seems far more plausible to me that the differences in
| obesity between countries are caused by simple cultural habits
| than by some complex psychological task called managing hunger,
| which seems less likely to be cultural.
| csours wrote:
| > It seems far more plausible to me that the differences in
| obesity between countries are caused by simple cultural
| habits than by some complex psychological task called
| managing hunger, which seems less likely to be cultural.
|
| I don't see a clear point here. Culture has a HUGE impact on
| psychology.
|
| Also, managing hunger is Psychological AND Physiological.
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| _> Culture has a HUGE impact on psychology._
|
| I would agree with that in general, but hunger seems like
| such an incredibly old issue to deal with from evolutionary
| perspective. Managing hunger is something "we" have been
| doing for millions of years and it has always been at the
| very center of our survival as a species.
|
| The idea that a cultural group could lose its ability to
| deal with such a key psychological and biological necessity
| in a short period of time just seems far less likely to me
| than a change in habits brought about by far more recent
| industrial and socioeconomic circumstances.
|
| Take that from yet another pseudonymous internet autodidact
| ;-)
| csours wrote:
| > The idea that a cultural group could lose its ability
| to deal with such a key psychological and biological
| necessity in a short period of time just seems far less
| likely to me than a change in habits brought about by
| industrial and socio-economic circumstances.
|
| But those industrial and socio-economic circumstances
| also had a huge impact on culture! It's super
| complicated!
|
| I am not strongly anti-capitalist, but consider the
| impact of capitalism on food:
|
| Take low cost ingredients. Put them together in an
| appealing way. Sell the product at a relatively low price
| (higher than the ingredients, but not much). Advertise
| the product widely in such a way to condition people to
| desire your product.
|
| I am describing junk food of course. Walk into a
| convenience store or look at the checkout lines of a
| grocery store. Look at all the food you are conditioned
| to desire.
|
| edit: I am not blaming capitalism as the single cause of
| obesity. There is much more to it than that.
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| Well, exactly, but would you really describe these
| cultural changes as a disease of managing hunger on an
| individual psychological level (which is how I understood
| the term)?
|
| If something like what you're describing is going on then
| our psychological ability to manage hunger hasn't changed
| at all. Other things have changed, which is my whole
| point.
| csours wrote:
| Yes, the conditions we live under have changed; the big
| question is "Why are some individuals so much more
| affected by the new environmental effects than others and
| what should we do about it"
|
| When we gain weight, we understand we need to eat less to
| lose weight. But that obviously does not work for many
| many people.
|
| I'm carrying excess fat right now. Abolishing capitalism
| or taxing soda (or whatever other social, political, or
| cultural changes you would make) won't get rid of that
| fat. It is commendable to work on the social causes of
| obesity. I frame it as an individual psychological issue
| because it is an individual experience. If it was a
| matter of finding "the right foods to eat and avoid" or
| any particular set of facts that could convey how to
| actually lose weight, then the problem would be solved.
|
| In other words, you can't tell someone to be hungry. Or
| at least, that doesn't sell any books or diet plans.
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