Category: Shangri-La Diet

“Hunger is a Necessary Nutrient” (Ancestral Health Symposium 2013)

Seth Roberts9 Comments

Nassim Taleb said this or something close to it on the first day of the Ancestral Health Symposium in Atlanta, which was yesterday. Danielle Fong told me something similar last week: We should use all of our metabolic pathways. Of course it is hard to know what metabolic pathways you are using. In contrast, Taleb’s point — not original with him, but a new way (at least to me) of summarizing research — is easily applied.

What I know overwhelmingly supports Taleb’s point. 1. When I did the Shangri-La Diet the first time, I was stunned how little hunger I felt. This wasn’t bad — presumably my set point had been too high, lack of hunger reflected the dropping set point, it was good to know how to lower the set point — but it was dreary, not feeling hunger. It was as if life had gone from color to black and white. Something was missing. 2. Data supporting the health benefits of intermittent fasting, which produces more hunger than the control condition. 3. The experience of my friend who had great benefits from alternate-day fasting. He told me he had never felt hunger before, at least of that magnitude. A great increase in hunger, in other words, happened at exactly the same time as a great improvement in health.

Obviously Taleb is talking about hunger caused by lack of food, rather than hunger caused by learned association (if you eat at noon every day you will become hungry at noon, if you eat every time you enter Store X, you will be come hungry when you enter Store X, the existence of this effect is why they are called appetizers). The Shangri-La Diet reduces your set point but only if your set point controls when/how much you eat is this going to make a difference. So to lose weight you need to do two things: 1. Lower your set point. 2. Lower your weight to your set point. While SLD certainly does #1, it does not do #2. You can make sure your weight is near your set point if you feel strong hunger if you don’t eat for a while.

Taleb’s comment suggests focussing on the outcome of fasting, rather than on its duration or frequency. Instead of fasting every other day (or whatever), fast until you feel strong hunger. How often you need to do this, how strong the hunger should be, are questions to answer via trial and error.

 

 

Congratulations, Morex! Shangri-La Diet Success

Seth Roberts5 Comments

The photo on the left was taken summer 2011; the photo on the right was taken June 2013. He lost 75 pounds in 5 months. Morex writes:

All my life I had been the fat guy. I was that kid in school that couldn’t run or go out and play because I was too heavy. You know how that is.

My teenage years and all my adult life I had been the fat guy. Until today.

I tried every kind of diet to my knowledge. I exercise since I have memory. But I never could lose enough weight or maintain the little weight loss I could achieve.

Until I read Freakonomics, which led me to research about Seth and SLD, which led me to these forums and to reading the book.

So last January [January 2013], after reading a little about how SLD works, I decided to give it a go.

He gives details here.

Teeccino Tasting Notes

Seth Roberts4 Comments

I started drinking lots of tea when I started the Shangri-La Diet. The diet made me crave food with smell, which tea provided. I started chewing gum, too, but that was less enjoyable, maybe because I never became a gum connoisseur.

I recently learned about Teeccino coffee-substitute “tees” (brewed like tea) from Patrick Pineda of Tisano. They resemble Pero but with more flavor and variety. I really liked the first two flavors I tried (Vanilla Nut and French Roast) so I wrote to Teeccino asking for samples of all the flavors. In addition to no caffeine, Teechino drinks are high in inulin, a soluble fiber.

Here are my comments on the samples.

Dandelion Dark Roast. Similar to French Roast (relatively strong coffee taste) but more earthy-tasting. Maybe that’s the dandelion.

French Vanilla. Strong vanilla taste. Too much like vanilla for me, I want something more complicated.

Caramel Nut. Halfway between caramel and burnt caramel, which I like. As complex as French Roast.

Mocha. Excellent. Complexity of coffee plus complexity of chocolate.

Chocolate. Like mocha, except darker coffee flavor.

Original. Excellent. Weaker coffee flavor plus fruity complexity.

Almond Amaretto. Wonderful combination of coffee flavor with nutty almond/amaretto flavor.

Java. Rounded coffee flavor.

Chocolate Mint. Enough mint but not enough chocolate and coffee.

Southern Pecan. Delicious. Pecan and coffee flavors well-balanced. I wonder: What does Northern Pecan taste like?

Maya Chai. Tastes like chai. I would prefer, in addition, a dark coffee taste.

Shangri-La Diet Success, Including Better Sleep

Seth Roberts3 Comments

Greg Pomerantz writes:

Over the Thanksgiving [2012] holiday, I suggested to a relative, Richard, that he try the Shangri-la Diet. At the time I had heard about it but did not know anyone who had tried it. I did not have any particular reason to think it would work, but since Rich had tried a number of other diets (including low carb, which he is still following for the most part) I thought it would be worth a shot.

He started the diet over the Thanksgiving holiday and has kept it up since then with a few breaks. He lost 13 pounds in the first month and another 6 pounds over the next two weeks. Altogether he lost a total of 32 pounds over the 16 weeks following Thanksgiving, an average of 2 pounds per week. During this period, he traveled a fair amount and was not able to maintain the diet every day. However, he reported that one of his favorite things about the Shangri-la Diet is how easy it is to restart after a lapse. He began using extra light olive oil but has switched to walnut oil.

There were two surprising results other than the weight loss (which I think is exceptional in its own right). First, his blood sugar control has improved, even compared to the low carbohydrate diet he was (and still is) consuming. Second, he has been sleeping better at night due to a reduction in his nighttime appetite. I believe the two may be related — one of his medications for type 2 diabetes greatly increases his appetite and causes weight gain. He has been using much less of that medication because of his improved blood sugar on the Shangri-la Diet. Therefore, reduced appetite from the diet plus a reduction in an appetite-increasing medication results in lower nighttime appetite and therefore better sleep.

Lose Smell, Lose Weight: Evidence For the Theory Behind the Shangri-La Diet

Seth Roberts4 Comments

A friend of this blog writes:

What prompted me to try SLD: When I first went paleo I dropped 30 pounds with no exercise or food restriction, but my weight has been stable for about a year. In January and February [2013] I went through a bad allergy spell, with my nose congested all the time. I dropped six pounds in that time. When the seasonal allergy went away, the weight came right back. Calories without smell suddenly look like a big factor.

Here is a paper about the theory behind the Shangri-La Diet.

Does Unfamiliar Food Cause Weight Loss?

Seth Roberts2 Comments

My theory of weight control predicts that eating unfamiliar food will cause weight loss. As food becomes familiar, we learn to associate its smell with its calories. Stronger smell-calorie associations produce a higher set point than weaker ones. Unfamiliar food has not yet gone through this learning process.

One way to eat unfamiliar food is to travel to another country. When I’ve done this, I’ve usually come home a few pounds lighter, supporting the prediction.

Another way is to have someone else choose what you’ll eat. This is what Dan Goldstein did. “I emailed my friend Dan Reeves, who has a fitness-expert sister named Melanie Reeves Wicklow, to request a healthy diet I could follow for seven days with no exceptions.” He thought of it as a diet where he would make no decisions about what to eat.

Here’s what happened on Day One:

Discovered that if you eat oatmeal with an egg in it instead of just oatmeal, you feel full for much longer.

Here’s what happened overall:

I lost 15 pounds in about a couple months after the “no-decision” diet. (I lost no weight during the week of the diet).

My explanation: During the week of the diet, he ate the specified amounts, which were more than he would have eaten based on hunger. This kept his weight up. During the following weeks, three things happened: 1. He resumed eating according to hunger. His lower set point caused lack of hunger, which caused less eating, which caused weight loss. 2. Because he ate less, his set point went down. 3. During the no-decision week, he picked up some new habits, causing him to eat less familiar food during the following weeks. He says that the no-decision week “changed his cravings” and caused him to “commit to eating better”.

He also says the no-decision week caused him to exercise more but no details are given. I doubt this made a difference. Few people lose 15 pounds in two months from exercise so minor that they don’t bother to describe it.

Thanks to Andrew Gelman.

Furikake (Japanese Condiment): Attention Crazy Spicers!

Seth Roberts4 Comments

From a trip to Japan a friend gave me a mystery jar of some sort of flavoring. It turned out to be wasabi-flavored furikake. Furikake is used to season rice, I learned. It vaguely resembles salt and pepper but is far more complex and powerful. A version I bought has 25 ingredients, including sesame, wheat flour, lactose, salt, MSG, salmon, fish bone powder, and soybean protein. I use it many ways: on roast beef, eggs, and yogurt, for example. It is the easiest way I know to make hamburgers taste good.

The nearest Japanese market (in Berkeley) has 25 different types, I discovered. They cost about $4 each. I bought four. I’m going to buy ten more, to use for crazy spicing (randomly varying the smell of food to prevent strong smell-calorie associations from forming).

Assorted Links

Seth Roberts5 Comments

Thanks to Rashad Mamood.

Assorted Links

Seth RobertsLeave a comment

Thanks to Bryan Castañeda.

Great Side Effects of the Shangri-La Diet

Seth Roberts1 Comment

In a recent post on the Shangri-La Diet forums, Morex, who lives in Mexico, describes several great side effects of the Shangri-La Diet:

1. At peace with food. “I am in control of what I eat. If I want I have a piece of chocolate or some peanuts, but food is no longer in command. Food is no longer an obstacle or an excuse. This is FANTASTIC! For 40 years I had a horrible relationship with food. It commanded my every activity in the day. I was always on the look for better flavors and foods that would quench my never fading hunger. This is no longer an issue.”

2. No more junk food. “Thanks to SLD, I quit junk food. I no longer crave it and when I have tasted it, it’s horrible! Too salty and greasy. Or too sweet. That means no soda, pizza, chips, donuts, candy or anything like that. When I want something sweet in the afternoon, I’d have a teaspoon of honey and that’s it.”

3. More money. ”We eat so little that we are saving extra cash. Who knows, maybe we could soon afford a nice vacation on the beach! (Vacations for Mexicans in Mexico are VERY expensive.)”

4. More time. Much more time. “Since we have been doing SLD, our days are longer! Because of the fact that we eat so very little portions, we are barely cooking. And when we do, it lasts for about 4 days! Before SLD we spent about an hour a meal. 30 mins. cooking, and 30 mins. eating. Some days it was longer, depending on what we cooked. That means that we spent about 3 or 4 hours a day cooking and eating. Now we prepare meals in about 10 minutes and eat in about 5!!! That’s right. For breakfast I have half a bran cookie, some cereal or some fruit. For lunch I just heat up in the microwave something we cooked. For dinner we have a little oatmeal or cereal. And that’s it! My days are longer for 3 hours! We have been reading our books (we’re book worms here), watching movies we didn’t have the time to watch and going out for walks!! FREAKING AWESOME!”

I didn’t have the first two problems (loss of control and junk food) but I too distinctly noticed saving money and (especially) time. Just like he says. It’s been a long time since I wrote The Shangri-La Diet but I think I failed to mention how much time and money I saved. (If I’m wrong, please correct me.)

What about his weight? He doesn’t have a scale but says this: “Before SLD I was size 44. Today [after 2 months of SLD] I am 38, which I haven’t been able to wear since I was in the University (19 years old).” He wants to get to size 36. He also posts several pictures, before and after.

Thanks, Morex.