WheatenDad, a 70-year-old man who lives in San Carlos, California, started the Shangri-La Diet two years ago and began posting his weight on the Shangri-La Diet forums. At the time, he weighed 300 pounds (BMI = 38). Now he weighs about 200 pounds (BMI = 26). He lost about 1 pound/week for 2 years:
He did SLD by taking 3 tablespoons/day of extra-light olive oil. In February 2008 he increased it to 4 tablespoons/day. In May 2007 he started walking 1-2 miles/day, eventually increasing this to 3-4 miles/day.
This is great.
A little over a year ago, I read the book, and started the diet using sugar water. For whatever reason — maybe my body chemistry — it was the wrong thing for me. Truthfully, sugar itself — despite my love for the stuff — has never tasted good to me, neither has sugar substitutes. So it may be that when something doesn’t actually taste good to you, it means your particular body says, “I really don’t want this in me, you idiot.”
I went off it within a few days (and suddenly had an attack of vertigo, which really made me nuts until a doctor diagnosed it. I doubt it had anything to do with sugar water, but it happened at the same time, so I went off any kind of diet or program at that point — and even gave up martinis, because I’d had one the night before the vertigo jumped me and threw me on the floor.)
So, I decided sometime after that to go low-sodium with food to mainly lower my blood pressure, and voila, lost about 30 pounds this way over about 7 months — without doing anything other than keeping my sodium intake to 2,000 mg per day (or thereabouts).
This meant I had to cut out all fast food, fried food, and most frozen and overly processed foods. I also made sure I walked or got on a bicycle about 4 days a week for 40 minutes or so. But I had been doing that long before, and I hadn’t lost any weight from it. So the 30 pounds definitely moved by watching sodium and keeping it well-within the reasonable 2,000 mg level (which is still a lot of sodium every day.) I ended up cutting out all kinds of food I had been eating prior to this — just by watching sodium on the labels.
Still I ate everything I wanted, whenever I wanted it, within my sodium range.
Then, I hit a plateau, and even though I’ve exercised about five hours a week over the past year, I couldn’t make the scale move lower…given my work, which is very sedentary, those five hours a week really aren’t that much…
So, in semi-desperation, I decided to re-try The Shangri-La Diet with flavorless oil. For reasons of health, I went with walnut oil, as well as some fish oil. The fish oil comes in a bottle, so I use a tablespoon with that. I don’t believe that Extra-Light Olive Oil has much health benefit, and I needed some Omega-3s and also to reduce my triglyceride level (there is some evidence that fish oil can help with this.)
I cover my nose when I take the fish oil, but the cold pressed walnut oil has zero flavor. 1 tbsp fish oil and 3 walnut oil each day (I do mornings when I rise and night just before I get into bed.) Then, still keeping my nose shut, basically, I drink a glass of water and swoosh some of it around in my mouth to remove any linger fish oil taste.
Now, this is only my first week but…four pounds down. Four pounds down in one week — without my even watching what I’m eating — after no movement on that scale for several months.
I’ll keep it up and see how it goes from there, but I am impressed. As I said, I hit a plateau for about five months after losing the initial 30 pounds via going to a sane sodium-intake level (and realistically, I don’t always — sometimes when I eat out, who knows how much sodium is in that food? And I eat out in restaurants about 4 times a week.)
I don’t count calories at all — I’ve never believed that works for people, or the idea of deprivation. When I’m hungry, I really want a good meal. I didn’t feel as if any eating habit of mine changed while taking this oil, so it makes me wonder if there aren’t several mechanisms at work here besides set point and satiety.
Could it be that oil has another action in the body that helps this? Still, it could be satiety — it could be that I’m actually eating less than I usually do, but am not noticing what “less” is because the set point is lowering. Who knows?
So, just wanted to post this, particularly after having read of this amazing success story here. Thank you, Seth.
That’s kind of incredible – but more down to determination than the diet he chose. If he could have stuck with calorie counting, for a whole year, i’m sure his results would have been pretty good. Congrats to him!
Nick, I don’t know anyone who has lost 100 pounds by calorie counting. Perhaps calorie counting is too hard and SLD is much easier?