On Wednesday Stephen Marsh and I appeared on The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet to talk about the Shangri-La Diet. The clip, alas, is no longer available. There were two critics: a doctor and a dietician. A friend of mine was amused by the doctor’s belief that because someone from Berkeley had criticized the diet it couldn’t be any good. Discussion in the SLD forums. Before the segment, the producer said to me, “What happens determines the length. If it’s interesting, it will be longer. If it’s boring, it will be short. That’s just the reality.” It was really short. If she hadn’t told me that . . . I felt bad for a while but other people convinced me it was okay. I’m pleased by the publicity, of course. Overall, I like the show; I like its focus on everyday issues and problems.
Two other diets were covered in the previous segment: The Flat Tummy Diet and The Warrior Diet. The author of the latter wasn’t pleased.
> “What happens determines the length. If it’s interesting, it will be longer. If it’s boring, it will be short. That’s just the reality.”
That was your cue to hit someone with a chair during the segment. You see, these shows aren’t scripted at all, but if you want your segment to be long, you do need to find some spontaneous, honest, authentic way to make it interesting. Hitting someone with a chair for example. That’s just “reality.”
I think you have to have some brain to understand this diet.
Seth,
This is the second time I’ve seen you criticized by a nutritionist for the fact that you are a psychologist. Both times, they suggested that psychologists have no business giving nutritional advice. You really should remind these people that nutrition is a sub-discipline of physiology (or should be!), and that the scientist that discovered the type of learning that underlies the SLD was Ivan Pavlov, a famous Russian physiologist. Physiologists (including learning psychologists) are probably more qualified to discuss diet and nutrition than are most nutritionists which don’t have a strong background in physiology.
Oh.. and you should beat them in the head with a chair while telling them this.
I think Taubes compellingly demonstrated that historical nutrition science is anything but…
Liked the chair suggestion. They already had the next clip up, so I suspect that it didn’t matter how interesting anyone was.
Still, it was great to meet Seth face to face.
I just watched the clip. Pretty amazing when they say “He didn’t lose weight because he drank oil. He lost it because he ate less food.” They did deserve to be hit with a chair, but I can see where that wouldn’t have advanced your cause any. Anyway, things like this remind me why I don’t own a TV.
“Still, it was great to meet Seth face to face.”
I’m so jealous of you, Stephen.
The link seems to have been taken down or broken. I get a 404 error when I click on the link. Is it just me or do others have that problem.
Darkhorse, well, maybe on his next book’s tour.
BTW, just checked Amazon.
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #9,378 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category: (What’s this?)
#47 in Books > Bargain Books > Health, Mind & Body
Good move from over 100,000
I was able to find the first segment at
https://www.mandjshow.com/videos/“mj-investigatesâ€-new-dieting-trends/
but the 2nd segment (with SLD) is missing. Can anybody find it?
Losing weight is all about controling the 2 hormones – insulin and glucagon. Insulin stores energy (fat), glucagon releases energy.
This is easily manipulated by the foods you eat. Get this right, and the weight will just fall off. I went from over 150 pounds to 119 in a very short time.
“Valerie,” or should I say Jason LeGris, you have built the phoniest affiliate squeeze page I have ever seen. (And it takes a bit of gall to promote a diet that rips Seth’s work off on his blog!)
And it’s even more impressive that “Valerie” managed to write ten weeks of blog entries…considering the blog was created yesterday.
https://who.godaddy.com/WhoIs.aspx?domain=myfatloss4idiotsjournal.info&prog_id=godaddy
David wrote: I just watched the clip. Pretty amazing when they say “He didn’t lose weight because he drank oil. He lost it because he ate less food.”
Was that not the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard? Did that woman think Seth was claiming some sort of magical fat-burning properties for the oil? Ugh. I agree…chair throwing was in order.
And re: “Valerie”…hilarious!
Yeah, saying he lost weight “because he ate less food” is some sort of low point.
Aaron, that’s a good point about Pavlov. Yeah, I should do that.
Wait a minute. I thought the whole point of the SLD was that it allows the body’s set point to move to a lower value, which then leaves you less hungry, so that you eat less. Wasn’t this the logic presented in the book? So in a sense the critic was right, Steve lost weight because he ate less. But what allowed him to eat less was that drinking the flavorless oil caused his set point to lower which thereby reduced his hunger and cravings, thus leading to a reduction in caloric intake (smaller, less frequent meals, loss of appetite for ditto foods, etc.). So the critic was right, but failed to see the significance of the oil in kick-starting and maintaining the weight loss.
I found the second (SLD) segment Googling this
site:https://www.mandjshow.com investigates trends
The page is gone or broken but click ‘Cached’ below the link with –continued in the URL and you will find enlightenment (actual link:https://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:0bnSNMkYoZYJ:www.mandjshow.com/videos/%E2%80%9Cmj-investigates%E2%80%9D-new-dieting-trends-%E2%80%93-continued/+site:https://www.mandjshow.com+investigates+trends&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us)
Get it while it’s hot.
I may try this. I have not watched TV for years, and found the panel including the accredited ones to be buffoons, but maybe they were instructed to be confrontational. There is a big trade off trying to discuss anything intelligently in that kind of forum. All three diets look fine, I guess the quest for Shangri-La is to work smarter and not harder
“S/he just ate less food, that’s all” is also a common criticism of low-carb approaches to weight loss. I’ve never understood how it’s supposed to translate to a negative comment, but somehow people mean it that way, and take it that way.
If eating less leads to weight loss (I don’t agree with the positive/negative energy balance theory of fat accumulation and loss, so I say “if”), then wouldn’t anything that helps you eat less without suffering be a good thing?
But what allowed him to eat less was that drinking the flavorless oil caused his set point to lower which thereby reduced his hunger and cravings, thus leading to a reduction in caloric intake (smaller, less frequent meals, loss of appetite for ditto foods, etc.). So the critic was right, but failed to see the significance of the oil in kick-starting and maintaining the weight loss.
Exactly.