One way to do the Shangri-la Diet is to drink sugar water. This can cause your blood sugar to go too high if you don’t drink it slowly. Dr. Edward Pooley, a UK doctor, has noted that in the UK you can buy FibreSure, which is powdered inulin, a flavorless soluble fiber. Adding it to the sugar drink should slow digestion of the sugar. It is also sold in the United States.

My dad has diabetes, and I casually got Amazon.com to send him the Shangri-La Diet book. I left him a message saying (still very casually) “I came across something that you might find interesting. The book is in the mail. Talk to you soon”.

A few weeks later he (casually) mentioned that he had started the oil, and was now physically incapable of overeating.

A few more weeks later, and he reports that he is unable to finish his breakfast in one sitting – he has to eat half, go work for a few hours, then finish his breakfast.

I’m elated.

My father has been compared to Homer Simpson. Both in the “get thrown out of Pizza Hut on all-you-can-eat night” and in the “awwww, my stomach hurts… I shouldn’t have eaten that packet of gravy that I found in the parking lot” departments.

From the SLD forums.

Life in Cuba:

In 1991, Mr. Castro declared a “special period” of drastic reductions in food and other rations. Average daily caloric intake fell by 40%. . . . When friends got together during those times, Ms. Sánchez recalls, a single topic dominated conversation: food. To stave off hunger pangs, Ms. Sánchez gobbled spoonfuls of sugar.

If there were several cheap foods to chose from this suggests that sugar reduced hunger more than other foods. From an excellent WSJ article about a Cuban blogger.

Thanks to Santosh Anagol.

The year isn’t over, but we have a winner:

I am going to learn Russian.

I feel so enchanted when I gaze into his handsome face. His eyes are so commanding. I cannot look away.

Should I try the Shangri-la diet?

“He” is a co-worker. She has tried many other diets without success.

Since the beginning of time everyone has been eating and sleeping — a lot. If you thought this meant there couldn’t be any new and cool twists on these activities, you’d be wrong.

1. Eating. “Last night I tried to “race myself” because I knew I would get full fairly quickly but I really enjoyed what I was eating so I ate fast.” This is from the SLD forums. Outcome of race: Lost. “I still couldn’t get through the whole salad, just too full to eat another bite. That’s amazing to me.”

2. Sleeping. Someone I know used to wake himself up in the middle of the night because he enjoyed falling asleep.

The theory behind the Shangri-La Diet was inspired by research of Israel Ramirez, which I describe in an appendix (”The Science Behind the Theory Behind the Diet”) to the book. I recently asked Ramirez what he thought of Gary Taubes’ idea in Good Calories, Bad Calories that we are fat because carbohydrate consumption pushes our insulin levels too high. He is especially well-qualified to judge because he has done experiments in which insulin injections induced obesity in rats. His reply:

As I understand Gary Taubes, he has resurrected Atkins’ idea that carbohydrates stimulate insulin which lowers blood glucose and thereby induces more eating. The evidence for this is not very compelling. You can induce overeating with insulin in lab rats but you have to give so much insulin that the animal is in danger of dying. I am not aware of any experiments of this sort in people but diabetics don’t often report being hungry after accidentally giving themselves too much insulin. There are exceptions to this pattern; for people and lab rats, glucose levels tend to fall shortly before eating.

There are clinical trials in people and lab rats showing that high protein, low carbohydrate, diets suppress intake. For people, the effects are modest in the long term, amounting to a few pounds greater loss than for people given a low fat diet at the end of a one year trial. There is some evidence that this weight loss might not be maintained after the first year. Trials showing weight loss on low carbohydrate diets required eating less carbohydrate than that consumed by 99% of lean people.

Cross national and historic data don’t strongly support Taubes. People in countries where traditional high carbohydrate diets are still consumed are often lean, i.e. Japan and China. In recent times, as people in these countries have shifted away from traditional starch diets, frequency of obesity has increased. Intake of soft drinks, on the other hand, does roughly parallel incidence of obesity. I interpret the beverage correlation as a psychological phenomenon but it is also consistent with Taubes.

Even if Taubes were entirely correct about carbohydrates, it would not contradict the idea that learning influences the amount of food you eat. Nor would it mean that extremely low carbohydrate diets are best or easiest way to lose weight; Seth Roberts’ method may still be easier for many people.

At the Shangri-La Diet forums, karky, who has lost 75 pounds on SLD, wrote:

In July I experienced a plateau, and wrestled with the same 5 lbs all month. At the end of July, I donated a pint of blood. WooHoo! Weight loss is back! I think to myself, hmmm… coincidence. In November, another plateau, wrestling with 3 lbs. I donated a pint of blood Monday. Today is Wednesday, I have lost 5 lbs since Monday, 3 lbs Tuesday morning, 2 lbs this morning.

Chrianna replied:

you certainly make a good argument for donating blood!

Which made me chuckle.

I cannot come anywhere near explaining karky’s observation. But maybe I can explain — someday, not right now — why Chrianna’s reply amused me. I once wrote down about 50 laugh-inducing sentences I heard on the the sitcom Cheers, looking for patterns. Several were obvious. For example, many of the laugh-inducing sentences were insults. Maybe I should resume this quest.

It is a good way to pass the time. A few days ago, I heard the following on a Chevrolet radio ad:

Male voice: With Pilates, three kids, and a house full of laundry, Diana is too busy to think about fuel economy.

Female voice: I’m sorry. Did somebody say something?

Funny! I was driving. I turned off the radio and thought about it for the rest of the trip. What’s the rule? What general pattern is it an instance of? I couldn’t figure it out. I’m not the only one interested in this question. In an interview I can no longer find, Robert Mankoff, cartoon editor of The New Yorker, said he wanted to write a scientific paper about the patterns he saw in New Yorker cartoon caption contest submissions. Which reminds me: I have written about patterns in New Yorker cartoon captions and talk-show monologue jokes.

The most interesting recent posts on the Shangri-La Diet forums have been from Roger Garrett (id Fastneasy), who has come up with what seems to be an especially potent version of the diet: He has a three-hour food window every day that starts when he eats his first meal; the rest of the day, he drinks sugar water and doesn’t eat anything else. He takes weekends off.

He’s 36 years old. Starting weight: 269 pounds. After about a month, he writes, “I’ve lost 24 pounds so far. This has been incredibly easy! No hunger, no struggle, and tons of energy.” He did almost the same thing eight years ago with one difference: no sugar water.

The difference between then and now is [now] I’m shedding the fat at three times the speed and with no anguish and fatigue that’s associated with the fasting. I’m not hungry, my stomach doesn’t growl. I have tons of energy and feel great in the morning. Also the funny thing, after waking in the morning after fasting for 21 hours, I’m not starving. I remember with the fast before I would wake in the night stomach growling and ready to eat. When I would wake up, I could kill to eat.