Category: Shangri-La Diet

Shangri-La Diet on Good Morning America

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Karina Smirnoff, a world-champion dancer on Dancing With the Stars, told Us Weekly that she controls her weight by “taking a tablespoon of olive oil on an empty stomach,” which is her mom’s advice. “On an empty stomach” — I wish I’d thought of that way of putting the between-meal requirement. Good Morning America mentions it here — quick, go to the “keeping bodies ballroom ready” segment, which will only be available for a few days.

SLD hasn’t been translated into Russian. A case of independent discovery?

Thanks to Joyce Cohen.

A Shangri-La Diet Skeptic’s Log

Seth Roberts4 Comments

From the Shangri-La Diet Forums:

I chanced upon the book on sale at Barnes and Noble for $4.98. I pored over the book with a slice of stratta, one chocolate lava cake, and a large Green Tea Frappuccino. I was smirking as I read it, in disbelief — it sounded ridiculous!! . . . I’ve been on different diets since 2003. I weighed 137.5 lbs at my heaviest in 2006. The lowest I’ve been was 126 lb in 4/2004. For New Year 2008 I resolved to take a break from caring about my wt. I wanted to see how big would I actually get if I do nothing – I canceled the GYM (saved $100/month) and ate all the food I wanted anytime. I was happy as a lark and actually shed some weight without even trying. My weight settled between 128-130 lb. New Year 2009 came and a coworker asked what diet I was planning to be on. She also informed me of the company’s drive, inviting employees to a health challenge: For every pound you lose, Pound For Pound will donate 10¢ to Feeding America . . . A sucker for “causes”, I committed to lose 7 lb. I have been procrastinating ever since – it’s not that easy to get back on track and start working-out again. I couldn’t give up Belgian Chocolates or Nutella Crepes. The first thing I do when I wake up is pop a truffle or 4 in my mouth. (isn’t that gross?) I do the same at night, before eating my lunch or dinner etc. There’s nothing quite like it – the texture of different truffles, the smell, etc., especially after having no food for at least 2 hours. I eat my dessert before my meal. When I read this book, I thought – this can’t be true. Lose your appetite without even trying? Let’s see… 3/18/2009 I cleaned up my dusty Tanita scale, replaced the batteries & weighed myself. It registered 128.5 lb . . . 3/26/2009 It’s not really time to weigh in or measure but yesterday my belt had to be re-adjusted down a notch. Results WT= 123.5 lb Body Measurement of parts with losses (inches): Waist = -.5; Abs = -.5; Hips -.5 ; Under Bra -.5 Total lost = 2 inches. I guess it works. I only have 2 lb more to go for the Pound for Pound Challenge. Have I changed my eating habits? I’d say I’m eating a lot less chocolates (by far). I’m so motivated to lose more wt. I have already shared the news at work, of course. This is by far the easiest diet I’ve ever been on with the quickest results.

It’s like a weight-loss ad come to humorous life.

Nose-Clipping Works

Seth Roberts1 Comment

From Igor Carron’s blog, which is usually about compressive sensing:

Since mid-December, I have lost about nineteen pounds (8.5 kg) by following some of the results of the self-experimentation of Seth Roberts, a professor at Berkeley . . . What did it take to do this ? For me, just one thing: a $4 nose clip that I put on my nose every time I eat. That’s it. No exercise. I eat what I usually eat although now in a rather lower amount (not because I am starving myself but because I feel full earlier). The weight loss was pretty steep at the beginning. Putting a nose clip has some social cost though and when I eat out with friends or through the Christmas food, I lose it. . . . I can now see abs that I had not seen for the past twenty years.

Shangri-La Diet Quote of the Day

Seth Roberts7 Comments

From the I Hate My Message Board forums:

I honestly couldn’t care less if it makes sense or not. The book is a good read [thanks!] and the science behind it seems sound. But, honestly, none of that matters to me. Whatever the reason, this plan works. Period. If it turned out that extra-light olive oil was made out of ground up kitty cats, I’d still follow the plan. If I wasn’t losing weight, I’d STILL do it, just because of the enormous positive impact it’s had on my life. I was addicted to food. Now I’m not. It’s extraordinary.

Beyond the Shangri-La Diet

Seth Roberts2 Comments

On the Shangri-La Diet forums is a very interesting discussion:

It’s a way of life when SLD is working, that is… And, to be honest, over the past few months it’s not been working as much as it once did. Or, rather, it’s has been working, but I only lose weight when SLD is strong. It was strong to start with and it’s strong right now, but it’s been 50% or less in between.

My breakthrough came a week or two ago when I started to control my IBS with Colpermin tablets. That helped enormously because it stopped my stomach churning and grumbling so much. But the hot sugar water I was drinking didn’t work 100%. I could manage a few days of decent SLD, but then the hunger fell on me like a heavy weight and I would binge. They were small binges, because SLD was still working and I just couldn’t eat a lot. But the total calorie intake was enough to stop me losing weight.

So, a few days ago I went back to basics. For me, that means back to those nose-clipped cans of Coke Smile And strong SLD is back. To be brutally frank, I feel humiliated that Coke is the only thing that seems to produce conclusive results for me. Even Pepsi doesn’t seem to work as well, or the various clones of Coke that (frankly) cost less Rolling Eyes I wish oil worked, or sugar water, I really do.

But there’s something weird about Coke… We’ve speculated about it’s stomach calming effects in other threads.

However, the fact is that I’m back in what I might call the SLD zone. It’s a lovely place to be, but it’s so terribly hard to describe. Today I ate one meal. And I’m fine. Tomorrow I go out for lunch, and I’m looking forward to it—a chance of have some nice food. But… that’s the difference between strong SLD, and normality. I can wait for that nice food. It’s just less important. I absolutely LOVE feeling this way. My life is my own.

Nose-clipped Coke worked much better than sugar water. Fascinating. When I did SLD — when I lost about 3 pounds/week drinking fructose water — I also started craving flavor. I started drinking tea and haven’t stopped. I started chewing gum and haven’t stopped. I became far more interested in supermarket samples, which are always flavorful. A later comment in that thread:

I once read a newspaper report about a woman who was going slowly blind through an eye disease. She heard about the raw food diet and tried for a few weeks, thinking it might help her. Her eyesight did marginally improve, but she decided she’d rather go blind than face any more raw foods.

Raw food has flavor, but it doesn’t have complex flavors — that’s why people ferment it, even when they don’t need to preserve it. Compare cabbage with kimchi, for example. Cooking food usually increases complexity of flavor. Coke has a very complex flavor. Sugar water has no flavor.

Why do we like unami-tasting foods? Why do we like sour-tasting foods? Why do we like complexity of flavor, including unfamiliar complexity? I think the answer is these likes were built into us to because they caused us to eat more bacteria-laden food, which kept our immune system functioning well. Just as a taste for salt causes us to eat more salt, which we need.

This story suggests that the desire for certain tastes (supplied by nose-clipped Coke but not sugar water) can be strong enough to interfere with weight loss. Future versions of SLD should take account of this

Shangri-La Diet on Facebook

Seth Roberts1 Comment

An SLDer has created a Facebook page for SLD. Sophie Lorenne vividly writes:

My own personal story I will post here. I have lost 7 lbs in 3 days. I am amazed that with so little effort on my part that it’s actually working! The best part is that I’m no longer hungry. And trust me I was hungry all the time, by the time others have just started their first meal. I was on my 3rd meal.

I created this page to share with others my journey and to also create a support system for others.

Thanks, Sophie.

And thanks, Marian Lizzi, for telling me about this.

More Nassim Taleb has started a Facebook group called Make Bankers Accountable — a “J’accuse” by Roubini and Taleb. Great idea. Thanks to Dave Lull.