A few months ago a popular Japanese TV show ran a long (30 minutes?) piece about the Shangri-La Diet, some of which you can see here. It is very odd to see my work talked about and not know what’s being said. It’s like being a fly on the wall, taking into account that flies don’t understand English. The show is long enough that some of what they’re saying must be new to me. One of the panelists (there is a panel of one man and two women) appears to be Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, whose book Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window I love, have read dozens of times, and mention in The Shangri-La Diet — at least the English version. I first came across Totto-Chan at the Mill Valley Public Library. Even though I was living in Berkeley, I checked it out. Driving home I was so entranced I read the book at stoplights while waiting for the light to change.
Category: Shangri-La Diet
Noseclipping Diary
On the Shangri-La Diet forums, David, who is 6′ 4″ and about 340 pounds, wrote about his recent experience with the diet. He wants to lose about 120 pounds. Sugar water and oil didn’t work very well. Low carb didn’t work. Then he tried nose-clipping:
Last Friday, August 14th, I tried nose clipping. The relief was immediate. The hunger subsided and I even lost a couple of pounds. On Saturday I decided to try clipping every time I ate anything. By evening I could not eat my entire dinner. When I tried, I got nauseous. I actually thought I was going to vomit for awhile.
I am very curious what happens next.
Shaved Head, Good Coffee, and the Shangri-La Diet
How are they similar? Kenneth Anderson at The Volokh Conspiracy writes:
I have shaved my head completely, as I have discovered from long experience that even if it doesn’t help me discover my spiritual side, it weirdly helps me concentrate. I highly recommend it. I have much coffee, good stuff from Antigua Guatemala. Yerba mate from Paraguay. I have my extralight olive oil re the Seth Roberts diet – to which, although I realize I’m just bragging here – I sincerely credit the loss of 25 pounds [emphasis added] and a wholly unmedicated cholesterol score last week of 128 total and 66 good (!).
All three help you concentrate. (SLD helps you not be distracted by hunger.)
Does Bad Medicine Drive Out Good? The Case of Eczema
In an article on weight regulation I read this:
One subject . . . developed symptoms possible related to EFA [essential fatty acid] deficiency (ie, mild eczema relieved by the addition of fat to the diet).
In other words, the subject — in a metabolic ward at Rockefeller University where everything he ate was supplied by the researchers — developed eczema when fed a zero-fat diet. When fat was added, the eczema disappeared. The researchers understood that not enough fat in your food can cause eczema. This research was done around 1960. The conclusion is supported by dozens of reports from people doing the Shangri-La Diet who said that when they started drinking oil their skin improved. Dry areas disappeared. I found the same thing myself. (And judging by the large fraction of people who have dry skin, a lot of people aren’t eating enough fat.)
The notion that eczema can be cured by eating more fat — perhaps high in omega-3 — could hardly be simpler. Around 1960, at least some doctors understood this (in a situation, I admit, where it was easy to understand). Yet here is how eczema is treated today, according to Bottom Line/Women’s Health (April 2009, p. 9):
Eczema (dry, itchy, swollen skin) usually is treated with topical anti-inflammatory cream twice daily during flare-ups. Patients who applied tacrolimus (Protopic) twice weekly to lesion-prone areas even when no lesions were visible went 142 days between flare-ups, on average . . . versus 15 days for placebo users. Tacrolimus can cause nausea and muscle pain and may increase skin cancer risk — ask your doctor about the pros and cons of preventative eczema treatment.
The information comes from a study done by Sakari Reitamo, a professor of dermatology at University of Helsinki, and others published recently in Allergy.
The surface things — the things that impress many readers — appear good: large sample, big difference between groups, peer-reviewed journal, good university. Yet once you know that eczema can be cured by eating more fat, the whole thing sounds Orwellian.
One Crazy Diet
The Shangri-La Diet has made a list of Top 10 Craziest Diets Ever. Part of the description:
The principle behind this diet is that the body has a set point (the weight that it wants to sustain) and appetite is moderated by the body to ensure that you stay at your set point.
That’s exactly right. The idea that this is “crazy” amuses me.
Shangri-La Diet Quote of the Day
From Daffodil-11:
The other great benefit I’ve seen, the thing that makes it worth chugging my mix of oil and water twice a day in and of itself, is the change I’ve felt in my attitude toward myself. I no longer feel disordered and tortured and ashamed. I no longer feel that I’m daily failing at something that so many people seem to find so easy and effortless. Now this thing I’ve fought with my whole life has become so much easier, so very nearly effortless for me as well. It turns out it wasn’t a fundamental failure of my essential being after all. Who’d have guessed?
SLD on Twitter?
According to this there is a Shangri-La Diet page on Twitter. I found only these tweets.
Teaching Kids to Cook
Outside Berkeley Whole Foods I encountered this cooking camp in session — they teach kids 8-12 years old to cook in two-week sessions, 4 hours/day. I love the idea. I think childhood obesity is due to eating ditto foods (foods, usually factory-made, that taste exactly the same each time) — teaching someone how to cook is a good way to reduce that.
I asked if they included any fermented foods in the curriculum. “Tomorrow we’re making tofu,” said one of the counselors — a Nutrition major at UC Berkeley. Tofu is not a fermented food, I said. She wasn’t sure what a fermented food was.
Shangri-La Diet for Pets
In March, Century posted this on the SLD forums:
I’d like to put my dog on SLD by giving him his calories through sugar cubes. Would that work?
The dog will whine constantly when he’s hungry. He’s pretty old, and at this point, we don’t have the heart to put him on a strict diet. The hope is that with SLD, we won’t have to choose between a happy dog and a healthy dog. If it works, he won’t whine after he’s been fed his normal serving.
Today he posted this:
It’s worked incredibly well. It’s gotten to the point where he won’t whine at all. If I don’t remember to feed him, he won’t eat anything. I haven’t been able to weigh him, so I don’t really know how much weight he has lost, but a number of people have commented on how much thinner he looks. I’ve started to cut back on the sugar.
Any doubt I’ve had that SLD is for real has been erased. It’s unreal how well it’s worked for the dog.
Thanks to Heidi.
Probably Not Placebo
This, from the SLD forums, made me laugh:
Ya know its probably NOT placebo. . . . First time I ever did it I could not finish my bowl of oatmeal. Before SLD I had never, not ever, been able to not finish anything.