All the calories, none of the flavor

[neoteny]

Following patrissimo 's lead, in early February I decided to give the Shangri-La Diet a try. It centers around manipulating your body's weight set point (and appetite) by taking in some number of daily calories with no strong flavor association. I'm happy to report that since then I've dropped 10 lbs (from a stable 190 down to 180) with very little effort

Comments

[hober]

Matt has been on it for a while, and has had similarly positive results.

I wonder how much of people's success on the SLD, or, for that matter, many other diets, can be explained by something like the Hawthorne effect -- that is, it's simply the increased awareness brought by doing something, anything different, that brings about the effect, and not actually the thing you're doing differently.

[flamingnerd]

eh, I dunno. I'm a pretty big skeptic about a lot of stuff, but I felt the decreased appetite too. Awareness is one thing, but some effects are a bit less than subtle. At the time I was just doing it to be in solidarity with my mate, thinking that it probably wouldn't be additive with the appetite suppresant effects of Adderall (which were certainy strong enough) but, to my annoyance, it did. So I stopped taking the oil.

So, G, how much sugar-water is that? concentration and volume please :) My male finds the oil vile and is interested in trying sugar.

[neoteny]

My measurements have been very sloppy - essentially 3-4 packets, or 2-3 tablespoons of sugar into a large glass, then fill with water. If not all the sugar dissolves, drink down to 1/2 full or 1/4 full (look at me, I'm an optimist :)) and refill.

Seth Roberts claims that one can avoid a blood sugar spike by drinking the mix slowly over the course of at least half an hour, which is what I try to do.

[neoteny]

Hawthorne effect: doubtful. This feels like a real physiological response - once I start feeling full, if I eat much more I quickly feel disgustingly full. It now also takes me longer between meals before I feel hungry again, long enough that other food-related signals (brain: "hey, you haven't had food in a while"; mouth: "hey, I haven't chewed / tasted stuff in a while") actually stand out as signals distinct from hunger - very odd.

Didn't you try ELOO or EVOO at some point?