[Timothy Beneke, an Oakland, California writer, was one of the first to try Shangri-La Diet. — Seth]
First, let me say that just as Seth can list a remarkable number of positive effects — related to sleep, mood, weight, balance, and even gum health — from surprising methods of self experimentation, I can do something similar. Here are the two biggest examples:
Following Seth’s advice, by getting sunlight in the morning and going to bed earlier — around midnight instead of 3:30 a.m. — my mood has gotten better; I’d estimate a 2 point improvement on a 10 point scale — which is a lot. It led to an awakened passion for music and dancing, better functioning, and to put it mildly, a lot more joy in my life. That baseline improvement has formed the basis for other improvements of mood as well.
Using Seth’s weight loss theory, I’ve lost about a third of my body weight — from 280 to 190. I’ve kept 30 pounds for 6 and a half years; 70 for 3 years, and 90 for approaching 2. I went from 280 to 250 eating weaker tasting low glycemic index foods; from 250 to 210 consuming about 350 calories of extra light tasting olive oil a day, and trying to avoid strong tasting high GI foods. Then, applying Seth’s theory, I invented a way to get as many calories as I wanted taste free. I liquified lots of fruits and vegetables in a blender, added rice, bean, nut, soy, non-fat milk, flax, oat, and at times other powders to the liquified fruits and vegies, added water, cooked it in a microwave until it’s moderately hard — not crusty, but not liquidy either. And then take spoonful of the mush, put it in my mouth, and gulp down water and float it down my throat.
Using this method, I went from 210 to 177 going about 70-80% tasteless for 4 months; in the last 20 months, my weight has oscillated between 177-190, perhaps a little higher — I don’t weigh myself often for strategic reasons.
RE morning sun, here is a possible mechanism:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9539254&dopt=Abstract
(more references here: https://www.vitamindcouncil.com/depression.shtml )
I wonder if experimentation with Vitamin D supplements would yield results as interesting as those for omega 3s? Perhaps there is a circadian component, i.e. morning supplements would be more effective than those later in the day?