[HN Gopher] Thoughts on the potato diet ___________________________________________________________________ Thoughts on the potato diet Author : mediocregopher Score : 180 points Date : 2022-07-11 16:58 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (dynomight.net) (TXT) w3m dump (dynomight.net) | germandiago wrote: | I prefer to go jogging honestly and do exercise. Every fat-thin | cycle makes you lose muscular mass so you should combine diets | with exercise instead of getting unhealthy eating habits. | siliconc0w wrote: | A huge part of the potato diet which isn't mentioned in the | article is resistant starch. Each time you cool and cook potatoes | you increase the amount of starch your body cannot digest | (basically turning into fiber). This makes them even more | fulfilling and less caloric (studies show this around 17% each | time but I'm sure this approaches a limit). | | Also it's ridiculously cheap and way easier to cook potatoes in | bulk than practically any other food. At least with the Yukon | golds I just rinse them, stab them with a knife and drop them | into an instant pot with about a cup of water and a trivet. When | done I transfer them into a big bowl in the fridge to cool and | when I want to reheat them I reheat the whole bowl to accumulate | resistant starch. | | It's not a silver bullet but it's a really useful tool if you | haven't been successful with other diets. | CobaltFire wrote: | My son is in treatment for Leukemia, and most patients lose large | amounts of weight. | | He's also autistic and has food texture issues. | | Somehow he's good with potatoes (generally baked "fries") and | milk with some infant formula mixed in. He's the only young (<5 | YO) patient they've personally had that has gained weight during | treatment, and the attribute it to his "milk and potato" diet. To | be clear, he's continued growing, if not normally, something | approximating normal, during his chemo. That's highly unusual. | | Anecdotal, but it's my experience. | [deleted] | ksenzee wrote: | I spent a few weeks eating only potatoes and vegetable oil, | several years ago. It wasn't for weight loss, it was because I | was breastfeeding, and my baby had some kind of protein | sensitivity we couldn't nail down. Potatoes turned out to be a | safe food for him, so that's all I ate for a while. As it happens | potatoes are my favorite food, and I had vegetable oil available | so I could eat fries/chips/crisps, but even then I can't imagine | doing it without a similarly serious motivation. When my choices | were "listen to the baby cry in pain every time he eats" or "eat | potatoes until the allergist appointment," it was an easy choice. | Otherwise I wouldn't last long on the potato diet. | yelnatz wrote: | Did you lose weight while on it? Any benefits you noticed? | ksenzee wrote: | I lost 60 pounds of pregnancy weight that year, so it's hard | to tell, but I didn't notice any particular change in my | weight loss rate during the potato diet. | bbertelsen wrote: | Even if they did lose weight, it would be challenging to | differentiate this from the insane calorie pull that happens | to your body while breastfeeding. | orzig wrote: | Having recently given birth, and breast-feeding, is (Ahem) | the mother of all confounding factors | [deleted] | karol wrote: | All crazy elimination diets work short term. The true measure of | a diet is the one you can live on for years and be healthy. | Macha wrote: | I don't know if this is the intention but of the five single food | diets, I think I'd take literally any of the other 4 options | ahead of the potato diet. But the context felt like the potato | option was meant to be the most appealing? | myth_drannon wrote: | Belarusian people are the original inventors of Potato Diet - | highest consumption in the world. | x86_64Ubuntu wrote: | Maybe today, but potatoes are a new world food. So I think the | award for originality goes to someone in South America. | zoover2020 wrote: | I though Dutch people eat more of them annually | bejelentkezni wrote: | This sounds like a great way to quickly deplete most of your | vitamins and minerals. | malikNF wrote: | There was a British teen who went blind eating only fries and | chips. | | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/british-teenager-went-blind-fro... | pwython wrote: | Potatoes are a good source of vitamin C, B6, potassium, | magnesium... Butter has vitamin A, D, E, B12, K2, etc. This | diet doesn't seem TOO crazy. Perhaps pairing it with a | multivitamin supplement wouldn't hurt though. | captaincrunch wrote: | Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that potatoes gave you | every vitamin and mineral you needed (except b12 which you can | get from butter). | corrral wrote: | You can pick one of the usual Native American crop patterns | and get a solid set of vitamins. Potatoes + beans + squash or | something like that, maybe with some corn. Cf. Mann's _1491_. | If you 're going for a minimal veggie ingredient diet these | new-world combos work well as a base, in part because | potatoes are pretty much a superfood. | lucideer wrote: | B12 is a pretty important one if you want to avoid the title | of section 1 of this article though. | | And while butter contains b12, you'd probably have to be | eating a few bars of it a day to get enough long-term. | mod wrote: | That's my understanding. | | The spudfit guy did only potatoes and a B12 supplement for a | year. His claim was that he was getting everything else he | needed from the potatoes. | zhynn wrote: | I did the SMTM study and they prohibited dairy. So I got my | B12 from sweet potato. | lucideer wrote: | Sweet potato doesn't contain B12 - you're probably thinking | of Vitamin A. | | Dairy doesn't contain enough B12 to supplement you on it's | own, which is why the study recommends against and instead | suggests taking an actual B12 supplement (Puritan's Pride | lozenges) | | 4 weeks shouldn't be enough time to develop a serious B12 | deficiency but doing this for longer could impair you | cognitively. | xeromal wrote: | Is there an easy way to test your B12 when on this diet? | [deleted] | toolz wrote: | Agreed, it does sound that way, but it's amazing how many | anecdotes there are of people who eat exclusively 1 type of | food and thrive on it. I don't think modern intuition about | nutrition is likely to stand the test of time. | bee_rider wrote: | The conclusion I have come to is that humans, when starting | from an over-fed modern baseline, are robust enough to eat a | totally shit diet for a couple months. This is also long | enough to convince us it is worth blogging about. | weberer wrote: | I've only heard that about carnivore diets, and it makes | sense to me. Where can you find all the nutrients necessary | for a mammal to survive? In the body of another mammal, of | course. | AngryData wrote: | Potatoes have nearly everything you need to survive. You won't | have any deficiencies until you eat only straight potatoes for | a full year or more. | lucideer wrote: | I wouldn't quite say "most" as potatoes are surprisingly | nutritious, but yes, it is notable that the article doesn't | contain the words "nutrient(s)", "nutritious", "vitamin(s)" or | anything similar I could think of. | | I've always been curious whether many of these diets lacking | appropriate B vitamin requirements might have a compounding | effect w.r.t. people's interest & willingness to continue | trying such diets... | alanthonyc wrote: | I came to this exact conclusion a long time ago, except using | intermittent fasting (i.e. "stop eating so much"): | 1. Use a fad diet (e.g. potato) to get down to 80 kg. | 2. Weigh yourself every morning 3. If your average | weight over a week ever exceeds 81 kg, spend the next week on the | potato diet. 4. Repeat forever. | novok wrote: | My guess as to why the potato diet works is the glycoalkoloids | inside potatoes, since potatoes are nightshades. Potatoes contain | some of the strongest glycoalkoloids out of the nightshades. By | eating only potatoes, you give yourself non-standard amount of | glycoalkoloid than most humans get. Glycoalkoloids take more than | 24 hours to eliminate in the human body, so there is a build up | effect. | | Another infamous glycoalkoloid is nicotine from the tobacco | nightshade. Nicotine is a stimulant that decreases hunger. | Stimulants also increase body temperature, which is something | that happens on this diet too. Nicotine is also a depressant, | which is why your probably still able to sleep on this diet. It's | also one reason why smokers tend to be skinnier than the normal | population. | justphil wrote: | maerF0x0 wrote: | As I'm reading others' comments on here I'm shocked at the | seemingly uneducated state of comments, I blame "influencers" and | the fitness industry for spreading so much FUD + absolute | nonsense. Most of them patterned like "I lost x lbs on Y diet, | and you should too". I'm shocked at how few people realize that | diets equated for protein + fiber are essentially identical. | | I highly recommend Layne Norton's book Fat loss forever, and his | free content on youtube | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3ePbeZJzYA . | | Important tldr from his content: | | * protein and resistance training are key if you want to lose fat | (and not muscle), not just "weight" | | * All restriction diets work when adhered to, the key is to find | the one you will actually adhere to. This includes low carb, | keto, intermittent fasting of various protocols (OMAD, 16:8, | others), low fat, eat only soup, etc etc. They all work by | causing a restriction on eating time or foods eaten. They all | only work if there is a caloric deficit (net of cost of digestion | for protein + fiber, or equal if equated for protein+fiber) . | | * Calories in - calories out ("CICO") is absolutely backed by | science when the researchers are smart enough to actually account | for known things like caloric cost of digestion (changes the "CO" | part) | | Go DYOR on his content if you want the sources. | wtetzner wrote: | > They all only work if there is a caloric deficit | | I don't believe this is true. On keto for example, I lost | weight when eating an excess of calories. | | > Calories in - calories out ("CICO") is absolutely backed by | science when the researchers are smart enough to actually | account for known things like caloric cost of digestion | (changes the "CO" part) | | Not exactly. If you eat fewer calories than you burn, you'll | obviously lose weight. But the reverse is not necessarily true. | For that to be the case, your body would have to always store | all excess calories. This is probably pretty close to what | happens on a high-carb diet, though, because insulin is a fat | storage hormone. | maerF0x0 wrote: | > I lost weight when eating an excess of calories. | | You're just misunderstanding your TDEE then. It's basic | thermodynamics that is very accurate in human digestion too, | save for extremes like bulemia, gastric distress (you shit | out undigested food), or pills that simulate it w/ carb/fat | blockers. | | The most pedantic detail is CICO is actually on digested | calories, not swallowed calories. | | Your anecdata is likely accounted by: | | 1. Protein takes more calories to digest (many people | unintentionally eat more protein on keto, though keto is | actually about fat intake and protein can break ketosis | through gluconeogensis) | | 2. Up regulation in things like thermogenesis (ie you lose | more calories to the ambient air) | | 3. Inaccuracy in food tracking | | 4. Higher NEAT | | 5. Loss of water weight due to lower food mass in digestive | tract, and lower glycogen(+bound water) weight. | tigertigertiger wrote: | Crazy that I had to scroll this far to read this. This diet is | crazy good at losing muscle mass. Atleast you can lose kg at | doubled speed. | fpoling wrote: | I tried the potato diet. I consider myself a lean guy, but I | wanted to try it for a month before recommending it to my | overweight relatives. | | I stopped after two weeks mostly because the stomach became | rather bloated. There was no weight change. | | Then I tried a similar rice diet. Basically one eats rice (both | white and brown are OK) with few fruits or fruit juices. To my | surprise I lost about 5 kg in 25 days and then the weight loss | stopped during the last weak. There were no apparent strength | loss judging by weigh lifting results or uphill jogging. There | were no other side effects. Now I recommend this, not potato | diet. | papito wrote: | Potato, combined with milk, gives you all the nutrients required | for the human body to function properly. I got a little sick of | eating potatoes in the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet Ukraine, | but I learned much later that THE POTATO is a superfood. It can | really get you through if you have nothing else. | | The Colbert jokes are spot-on, though. We really did eat a | buttload of potatoes. It was the primary survival vegetable. | scythe wrote: | Potentially related: the _Twinkie_ diet | | https://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor... | sebg wrote: | Also checkout the original twitter thread results: | https://twitter.com/mold_time/status/1521237143515013120 | aantix wrote: | Just take a GLP-1 agonist long term and be done with the dieting | and bankrupt will power. | | Wegovy (semaglutide) and Mounjaro (tirzepatide) have set a new | bar in weight loss drugs. | | 15-20% body weight loss over the course of a year. | hirundo wrote: | I lost over 100 pounds on a potato diet. And then gained it all | back, plus some. Same goes for a raw vegan diet and a less strict | McDougall vegitarian diet, and then a paleo/keto diet. When it | comes to yo yo dieting I'm an overachiever. Yes, 100+ pounds on | each. I do not recommend that. | | So out of desperation and pain I did something I thought I never | would or could resort to. Carnivore. It hasn't fixed all of my | problems, but it has done more to _stabilize_ my weight at a much | lower level than anything else. It has controlled my cravings, | making it uniquely sustainable. | | My new theory is that obesity is about appetite control is about | ... malnutrition. The secret for me was simply to find the fuel | mixture that my body demands. Appetite responds immediately. No | fancy behavioral techniques need be applied. I'm pretty sure | carnivory isn't the right fuel mixture for everyone. But I think | finding what is, is a lot more important than other weight | control strategies. | | Specifically I think The Hungry Brain gets it backwards. I spent | decades trying to "outsmart the instincts that make us overeat" | and failed horribly. I succeeded by following those instincts. | maerF0x0 wrote: | They're all elimination diets, and lifetime adherence is the | reality (albeit slightly more calories during maintenance than | fat loss phases). Carnivore is one such elimination diet, with | the mild advantage that it provides a lot of protein and thus | has a muscle sparing effect, and increases the TDEE due to the | digestion process. | hirundo wrote: | It has been 20 months on carnivore. I never made it past a | year on the others, and it was a strain to go that far. Doing | this is no strain. If protein alone has this effect it is | more than a mild advantage for me. | | I did not start from a standard american diet this time, but | from a clean keto diet, so yes carnivore was an elimination | diet for me, but what I eliminated was vegetables, fruits, | cheese, etc. For me those eliminations seem to be providing | an advantage. | dstroot wrote: | Learned about this diet from Penn Jillette. He has a book out on | his weight loss called "Presto!: How I Made over 100 Pounds | Disappear and Other Magical Tales". I tried it for a week and the | point that preparing that many potatoes for consumption is spot | on. It was a bit of work! After a week I could not eat another | potato. I think the point about trying a variety of potatoes | might have helped. I think the biggest issue is this clearly is | not a sustainable strategy. | JamesBarney wrote: | Anyone who's obese or overweight with cholesterol/blood pressure | issues should look in semaglutide. | | It's expensive without insurance, but it helped me go from 25 lbs | of weight loss to 55. | itstomkent wrote: | I was pretty into the idea of this drug until I saw the | patently ridiculous cost. $1,300? Literally no drug that must | be taken long term should cost anything close to this price. | aantix wrote: | Mounjaro (tirzepatide) has also now been approved. | | And it works slightly better than semaglutide. | sph wrote: | For those with no money to spend on expensive medication, just | go on a low(er) carb diet. | maerF0x0 wrote: | or the elimination diet that they can best adhere to. | Adherence is the biggest issue in diets, not efficacy (whilst | adhered to). | avgcorrection wrote: | Short-term weightloss is a very low bar. Losing weight long-term | is much more worthwhile and might not go well with "all | (restrictive) diets". | EddieDante wrote: | This sounds as sensible as living on hardtack, salt pork, and rum | (the pirate diet) -- a _great_ way to get scurvy and other fun | diseases caused by nutritional deficiencies. | [deleted] | fnordpiglet wrote: | I just finished a two week potato diet. I did lose weight but I | also reset my palate. Coming out of the diet I'm surprised to | find my cravings non existent and food tastes different - neither | good nor bad. I'm trying to retrain my palate with a much | healthier mode of eating than I was doing before, and two weeks | of flavorless bland food seems to have reset. Now I find it much | easier to eat healthier foods without compulsions. | | I don't know I expected it to do anything other than drop a few | pounds and reset my palate, and it seems to do that. I wasn't | hungry but it was hard to handle the lack of variety as I felt a | lot of compulsions despite my lack of hunger. | sph wrote: | Low protein and low fat, super carb heavy diet, what can go | wrong? | nvahalik wrote: | In the short term? Probably not a lot. You'll lose "weight" but | what are you actually losing? | | What you eat is very important. | | Fat stores aren't the first thing your body will turn to. After | the carbs, your body will turn to breaking down muscle tissue | which is not what you usually want. | stakkur wrote: | Literally no science behind saying the body turns to muscle | before fat. | sph wrote: | That's what I meant with my comment. Of all the things you | need the most to LIVE, it's protein and fats, not | carbohydrates. | | Energy is the least of one's problem on a super restrictive | diet like this one, but having the building blocks for | muscles and cells and hormones is the literally vital. | | There are trace amounts of fats and proteins in potatoes, not | enough to sustain life long term. Enjoy having boundless | energy, unable to build mass thus wasting and no libido | whatsoever. | TrisMcC wrote: | Potatoes have protein and fats. Enough protein and fats for | fat-soluble vitamins and preventing dying of protein | malnutrition. Potatoes are not just carbs. | | No libido? I'd like to see the source of that claim. | | The western world has become "addicted" to protein and the | claims on how much is necessary and recommended are | extremely exaggerated. | nvahalik wrote: | They have about 9x more carbs than fat. | | If you are eating Yukon gold potatoes, and you ate 5 | pounds of them, and according to my calculations you are | looking at approximately 2100 kcal of which a little less | than 1900 of those calories comes from carbohydrates. | | We advise people not to go below 50 g of fat per day and | according to the macros for Yukon Gold you wouldn't even | be getting a 10th of that amount. | | Additionally, you're only getting about 50 g of protein. | We normally coach people to eat 1 g of protein per pound | of lean muscle mass. So for 150 pound person that would | be 150 g of protein per day or approximately 600 cal from | protein. | TrisMcC wrote: | > We normally coach people to eat 1 g of protein per | pound of lean muscle mass. So for 150 pound person that | would be 150 g of protein per day or approximately 600 | cal from protein. | | "Lean muscle mass" excludes the fat on the body, right? A | 150lb person should have less than 150lb of lean muscle | mass. | | USDA recommends 54g using their calculator. Don't forget | the 38 grams of fiber! :) | reddit_clone wrote: | I wouldn't judge quickly. For several decades, fat was | considered bad in all forms. Now views are changing.. | dmix wrote: | it sounded to me like the OP was critiquing it for being low | fat + high carb | | Are you saying that views on carbs might change like it did | for fat? Keto is pretty much the best supported thing we've | got, plus diabetes being so prevalent, so the argument | against carbs is pretty solid. | psb wrote: | remember vaguely reading in some book (Jared Diamond?) that at | one time the poor in Ireland lived almost entirely on potatoes | and milk - and that they were much healthier in general than the | richer elites. Apparently those two items + some green veggies | are enough. | [deleted] | akudha wrote: | I totally feel the amount of work comment, though I tried | something totally different. I tried juicing - it was a ton of | fun (I "cheated" by having more fruit juices than vegetables). I | had more energy, thought clearly, slept better etc. Same with | eating raw solid food (only fruits and veggies). | | The thing that sucked, was the amount of work. Buying, cleaning, | juicing, cleaning again... crap ton of work. Ah, it is also | expensive. | | If only fruits and veggies were as cheap as milk, eggs, | chicken... life would be much better | mylons wrote: | i've done it three times for 2 weeks. potatoes only, that's it. | it works very well in the short term. towards the end of the last | 2 attempts I was able to fast for 2-3 days due to sheer boredom | of the food. i'm a compulsive eater, and this was kind of eye | opening. | | that being said, this approach didn't work long term for me | (hence multiple times doing it). I'd transition back to the way I | was eating before and put the weight back on. | | currently I'm working with a nutritionist and trying to eat | towards specific macros, and counting everything in my fitness | pal. the weight loss is more subtle (1-2 lbs per week tops), and | I'm lifting weights which distorts the actual loss on the scale. | not seeing the scale go down dramatically is hard, but eating the | way I am now is totally sustainable and I've been doing it for | almost 3 months now. | zhynn wrote: | The third week suuuuucks. I did 4 weeks. The third week was the | worst. I was sick of potato and my weight loss plateaued in the | third week. It started going back down again in the fourth, | which offsets some of the boredom. | | I don't think 2 weeks would work though. It has worked for me, | I kept the weight off and it reset my appetite/satiety feedback | (I get full sooner). That said, the "I want to keep eating even | though I am not hungry" has come roaring back after being | totally eliminated by the fourth week of potato. | pmoriarty wrote: | Apart from the nutritional concerns, two other huge problems with | the potato diet are: | | 1 - If you want your meal to be healthy you'll have to avoid many | (most?) tasty toppings. | | 2 - The diet is incredibly monotonous and boring. | | Hats off to people who can stomach it for an extended period of | time, but I would be willing to wager that the vast majority of | people who try it won't be able to stick with it for long. | draw_down wrote: | jasonlotito wrote: | The moment you start thinking of a diet as something that | deprives you of something, you are on the road to failure. | | "Every diet restricts food choices." | | This is incorrect. Good diets do not restrict food choices. They | usually limit overall intake. You can eat whatever you want. You | only have a certain number of calories you can eat per day | without gaining some weight. I'm defining "good diets" as a diet | that helps you maintain a healthy weight. | | Basically, a diet is what you eat. If you eat junk food, your | diet is junk food. When you go on a "diet" to lose weight, you | generally change what you eat and how much. So, the most | successful diets are ones that replace your old unhealthy diet. | This means learning to eat a good diet as a habit. | | It also means realizing a diet doesn't end just because you eat | way more than you should one day. The mental strength needed to | realize you didn't fail your diet, but simple changed your diet | for one day, is quite high. You didn't fail. You didn't fall off | the wagon. There is no wagon to fall off of. This is probably the | biggest mental shift for me. Accept that I will eat unhealthy | some times, and I don't need to feel guilty for it. I just go | back to normal next time I eat. | | And that all revolves around changing your normal diet, or what | you eat normally. All of that also means I know I can eat | anything, but only so much. | | Note: This is mostly me rambling, so I apologize for any | confusion. This is also my overall look and what's worked for me | long-term. This isn't something that might apply to you, but it's | how I see things, and helped me. Maybe it will help others. | petercooper wrote: | _Good diets do not restrict food choices. They usually limit | overall intake. You can eat whatever you want. You only have a | certain number of calories you can eat per day without gaining | some weight. [...] And that all revolves around changing your | normal diet, or what you eat normally. All of that also means I | know I can eat anything, but only so much._ | | There is another way to think about it that has helped me. It's | not necessarily a _good_ way, but.. I got to thinking, what can | you do if you struggle to adjust the diet domain? Adjust the | time domain! | | So eat the same food, but just space it out more. I've found | this a great way to start and while I am more gradually | _improving_ the food, it has been less psychologically jarring | to adjust the timing of my existing food as a way to get going. | ramesh31 wrote: | Eat less food and move more. There's literally nothing to losing | weight beyond that. It's incredible to me the amount of mental | gymnastics that people will perform to avoid facing this. | mikepurvis wrote: | Even if those are the fundamentals, it's still worth looking at | the thought patterns that some people get trapped in which | prevent them doing what is considered "easy" by others, and | especially understanding if those traps are subject to certain | tricks or shortcuts. | | For example, I put on about 20lbs early in the pandemic just | from being around the house and being able to snack all the | time, plus having ice cream a lot in the evenings before bed (I | don't think I was particularly "stress eating", but maybe more | like... boredom eating?). And yes, if a dietician or trainer | had had me keep a food log, this would have clearly shown up | and it would have been obvious what needed to change. | | What actually worked for me, though, was not just cutting out | the snacking but also shifting my mindset back to a place where | I'm okay with being slightly hungry some of the time. Like, | it's okay to feel peckish in the afternoon-- it's not a problem | that needs to be solved by having a snack, it's just a sign | that I'm going to be good and hungry come dinner time. Same in | the evening: I don't need to go to bed stuffed, I can just make | sure to eat a solid dinner, and then plan on eating well at | breakfast in the morning. That plus some protein shakes and | getting more cardio (swimming, cycling), and I've been steadily | shedding about a pound a week; I'm now below my pre-pandemic | weight. | xeromal wrote: | This take does nothing for people who are addicted to food. | It's not easy and many people don't have the willpower to make | it happen without doing a gimmick like this. Your comment seems | a bit holier-than-thou. If they lose weight doign the potato | diet instead of stoic-ing it away like you, are they less | successful? | avgcorrection wrote: | Sure there's more to it unless you're a chronic bonehead. | bee_rider wrote: | Well yeah, | | * You can't sell a book with just 6 words in it | | * People will pay you a lot of money if you can convince them | they don't have to do that | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: | I'd pay a lot of money if someone can find a way to make that | easier. Actually I know the way, it's called Phentermine, but | doctor's don't give out prescriptions for it lightly. | avgcorrection wrote: | The food industry on the other hand is innocent and doesn't | want to sell you junk like soda pop that makes you even more | thirsty. Get real. | AndrewVos wrote: | It's not always as simple as this. | toolz wrote: | Simple is not always easy. I think it's important that we find | easier ways to help alleviate this obesity epidemic. | neilk wrote: | You're right and wrong. Many obese people have done this and | lost weight... and then gained it right back again. Over, and | over again. | | There is a persistent myth that the obese person lacks some | spiritual strength or willpower. I think your comment implies | this. | | And yet they do have the willpower to lose weight? And | something happened in 1980 which turned 30% of adults into | weak-willed moral degenerates, and more and more every year? Is | that actually plausible in an era with unsurpassed interest in | healthy eating, where people voluntarily exercise more than | they ever have, with better quality food than we have ever had? | | The original researchers who suggested a mass trial of the | potato diet over social media aptly said "the study of obesity | is the study of mysteries". They're investigating some high- | risk hypotheses that chemical contaminants are the cause of | skyrocketing obesity. Worth a read. | | > People in the 1800s did have diets that were very different | from ours. But by conventional wisdom, their diets were worse, | not better. They ate more bread and almost four times more | butter than we do today. They also consumed more cream, milk, | and lard. This seems closely related to observations like the | French Paradox -- the French eat a lot of fatty cheese and | butter, so why aren't they fatter and sicker? | | https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-hunger-p... | fpoling wrote: | My favorite hypothesis is that it is big refrigerators at | home and perhaps widespread use of preservatives that made | people fat as it provided uninterrupted access to high | calorie food like meat, cookies etc. | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: | > And something happened in 1980 which turned 30% of adults | into weak-willed moral degenerates, and more and more every | year? | | ...actually when you put it like that it sounds pretty | plausible. Ronald Regan was elected in 1980, officially | beginning the Reign of the Boomers. | ramesh31 wrote: | >Ronald Regan was elected in 1980, officially beginning the | Reign of the Boomers. | | ...With the election of a GI president? Boomers didn't take | over until Clinton. | [deleted] | nsxwolf wrote: | This is obviously not a solution - everyone says this, everyone | already knows this, and yet there's still an obesity epidemic. | | Unless you have a way of motivating most people to follow this | advice, day in and day out, it will not be a solution. | ranger207 wrote: | enforcing individual responsibilities as a solution to systemic | problems rarely works in the absence of changes to the system | pengaru wrote: | Excluding all other fruits and vegetables in favor of potatoes | seems obviously misguided. | [deleted] | duffyjp wrote: | Penn Jillette somewhat famously did this and lost 100+ pounds. | ribosometronome wrote: | Quickly googling it shows articles of him claiming to lose 75 | pounds over 3 months, without exercising. Even starting at 300 | lbs, running a daily 2822 calorie deficit for 3 months seems | insane. | adamdusty wrote: | There has to be some embellishing of the numbers. It's highly | improbable that at 322 pounds someone could eat 1000 calories | per day (his claim) and be at a 2800 calorie deficit with | zero exercise. | | I'm not saying it's not true, but I'm skeptical of the | numbers. | BudaDude wrote: | Kevin Smith also did a form of this diet after his heart attack | and lost a lot of weight | billjings wrote: | The only reason the potato diet is interesting to me (and | presumably the reason it's interesting to the | https://slimemoldtimemold.com/ folks) is the likely relationship | to their environmental contaminant hypothesis for the public | health issue of increasing body weights since 1980, outlined in a | series of posts here: http://achemicalhunger.com/ | | In short, while the variety and satiety explanations make a lot | of sense subjectively for an individual on this diet, they don't | match up with the empirical data on weight gain since 1980. Here | are a few phenomena that are not explained by this hypothesis: | | * The inflection point at right around 1980. There's no specific | change that occurred in 1980 that anyone can point to that | indicates a major change in variety of food in the average diet. | | * The correllation of weight gain with location in watersheds: | high altitude locales where surface water has not moved very far | (e.g. Colorado) exhibit the weight gain phenomena much less than | locales deeper down in the watershed (e.g. Mississippi and | Louisiana) | | I'm not interested in fad diets or disordered eating because they | have a track record of bad long term outcomes, but I am | interested in the potato diet as a blunt tool for taking action | on this hypothesis, which looks pretty compelling to me. And if | it doesn't work out, that's fine, too! | mrj wrote: | I enjoyed reading them until I tried to get to the source of | the 1980 data. The source appears to be from the National | Center for Health Statistics, which ran surveys in 1971-1974, | 1976-1980, 1988-1994, and 1999-2018. | | I was disappointed that they then misunderstood this as an | inflection point exactly in 1980 when that was merely the last | point in a graph that inappropriately bashed several surveys | together. They ask over and over "So what changed in 1980?" but | the data doesn't support that year specifically. They seemed to | start out from a fundamental misunderstanding and then used | that to discount other data through the rest of their posts. | zhynn wrote: | I participated in the SMTM study, and am totally happy to share | my data if anyone is at all curious. | | Results for me: - it was not as easy as i | thought it would be - i lost weight - my appetite | and satiety feedback systems were reset. After the diet was | over I ate less and got full sooner. - after the diet, I | noticed that I wanted to eat more even after i was mechanically | full. This was weird, since it didn't happen on the potato | diet (I did overeat potatoes a few times because I tried to | fill a pizza shaped hole with potato). It feels like an | addiction. I know I am full. I feel full. I am not hungry. I | want to eat more anyway. - So far the weight is staying | off (~2 months). | exolymph wrote: | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7iAABhWpcGeP5e6SB/it-s-proba... | billjings wrote: | Thanks! | | I'm not completely sold on the lithium hypothesis, either. | But I find their arguments for some kind of environmental | contaminant compelling, especially for the ways in which they | refute some of the other major hypotheses for the increase in | body weights (e.g. food variety, processed food, etc) | | Note that the SMTM folks recently published an article | responding to the TDS data referred to by "It's Probably Not | Lithium": https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2022/07/05/total- | diet-studies-... | samatman wrote: | This is... not promising. | | Someone would write like this if they don't know anything | about instrumental analysis and are just guessing as a | result. | | As an example, they don't seem to even understand that wet | and dry weights are substantivel different measures, and | speak as though _Magalhaes et al. (1990)_ is measuring wet | weight; it is measuring dry weight. | | I'm supportive of autodidactic study and outsider research, | but this is, frankly, a mess. They should unweight their | priors considerably and bring in some chemists. | mikkergp wrote: | Is weight loss the only reason behind "Dieting"? Isn't the | "carnivore diet" around mental fitness? That's why I choose a low | carb diet, mental and physical fitness(when I'm not actively | exercising, I try to limit my carb/sugar intake to mornings | before I run) | luqtas wrote: | i will agree with the person above/below about exercising while | fasting; it feels like a light pleasure and it is healthy! | | now regarding about high carb intake, people go overboard on | their minds when thinking about diet based on blogs and news | websites... eating fruits and vegetables all day is completely | different than eating refined flour stuff and regarding getting | into a fast (ketogenesis) state, you can get into, easily by | eating a low-PROTEIN diet too (but this one i do not remember | the keywords of the papers i read but if you are interested in | nutrition, worth taking a look) | | here is a sample of human population which have the lowest | index of mental disease, diet consisted of 64% carbs, 21% | protein, and 15% fat | | https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/108/6/1183/5153293 | robotburrito wrote: | Ironically I eat a high carb diet for the same reasons. I think | that is illustrative of the current state of dietary science | haha :) | go_elmo wrote: | Endurance training on an empty stomach is a great ketone | pathways excercise, the first few times are hard but get easier | afterwards! | mikepurvis wrote: | I do this, but usually more by accident than anything else-- | I lane swim (1hr) or do a bike ride (1.5-2hrs) first thing in | the morning before I've had much of a chance to eat anything, | and then afterwards have a big protein shake or some bacon | and eggs. | | I feel like I'd be prone to cramps if I tried push myself | after having eaten much. | riekus wrote: | Runs are better as well, some Sundays I don't eat, go for a | 30k run on 14:00 and have a meal after. Feels great. Never do | breakfast either, sometimes lunch if I feel like it otherwise | just a big meal in the evening. | twawaaay wrote: | I can confirm. I was preparing from marathon some years ago | and the fastest improvements I have seen were when I started | going for runs on empty stomach in the morning. | | But, I would make sure to give all my body needs immediately | after the exercise. | steve_adams_86 wrote: | The point about prep being time-consuming is no joke. I recently | (maybe 4 months ago) started a fairly strict whole food diet, and | the prep is insane. Whole vegetables take real time to wash, | clean up, store, and prep for cooking. Then you need to cook it. | | But like the potato diet, it's extremely easy to stay full and | lose weight. Unlike the potato diet, there's a ton of variety. It | also seems to have completely reversed a decline in health I'd | been experiencing for over 5 years and I suspect the potato diet | wouldn't have had the same effect, haha. | manmal wrote: | Where I live there's lots of pre-washed, frozen vegetables at | supermarkets. We have an automated pressure cooker where we can | just throw the vegs in and let them steam for 7-8 minutes. We | have a huge freezer and can quickly prepare brokkoli, spinach, | carrots, peas, mushrooms, etc. You can also pressure cook | potatoes with the peel on, takes ca 20m including warmup time. | steve_adams_86 wrote: | > We have a huge freezer | | Ah, yeah - I have a very small one. I've been thinking about | upgrading for years to a chest freezer. It's probably time to | just do it. | bob1029 wrote: | Prep time is the biggest concern I am aware of on the | nutritional side. My best answer to this category of excuses is | to amortize the prep time by making more of whatever and then | freezing the leftovers in meal-sized containers. | | Buying an instant pot & a box of those 2-cup pyrex storage | bowls was the best series of personal health choices I've ever | made. Granted, not _all_ food works out with a round trip | through the freezer, but _most_ things do. | | I still do eat things that cannot be frozen (well), such as | eggs+bacon+toast, but the core of my nutritional needs are | available in my freezer at all times (with approximately 1-2 | weeks of buffer). Having a small buffer keeps me absolutely | calm regarding my next meal source. I do not wait until all my | frozen food is gone before I prepare the next batch. If I | didn't have the buffer, my cycle would probably break and I'd | start eating Burger King and other related trash for lunch | again. | pawsforthought wrote: | YMMV, but I got great returns on investing in a proper chef's | knife, and learning how to use and maintain it properly. | There's a real pleasure in dicing an onion or whatever in | seconds. Knowing I can do that helps lower the 'activation | energy' of cooking versus takeout, as does just generally | loosening up about cooking. | | My favorite meals are often thrown together in 20 minutes | with zero planning, and certainly no recipe. Knowing a few | fundamentals (see _Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat_ ) gets you a long | way. | jiggywiggy wrote: | Patotoes have a very round nutrients profile and relatively high | complete proteins. Not the worst pick. | | But to eat 2500kcals of potatoes a day is so hard. No wonder they | loose weight. That's so much potatoes! | | With 70-80 kcals per 100 grams an adult would need between 3-4 | kilos. Every day | | That's a mountain of potatoes twice the size of your stomach. | | Some bake it with fat or oils I've read which makes it somewhat | more manageable volume wise. | moses-palmer wrote: | My favourite part of the article, hailing from a part of the | world _sans raton laveur_, was the explanation of "Raccoon | trouble" for purchasing a lot of potatoes. What's with raccoons | and potatoes? | zootboy wrote: | Nothing. It's meant to be an absurdist joke meant to leave the | person wondering exactly what you were wondering. | polynomial wrote: | Seems more like an experiment than a diet. | occz wrote: | What's your reasoning behind this thought? | TedShiller wrote: | This is actually great if your goal is to lose muscle | layer8 wrote: | Right, potatoes and vegetable oil is basically a very-low- | protein diet. | layer8 wrote: | > EVERYTHING WORKS. (at least in this short term) How to explain | this? Well, what does _everything_ have in common? Every diet | restricts food choices. | | Now I wonder what is the minimum _N_ such that switching diets | every _N_ days ad libitum would work. | dmix wrote: | Aren't potatoes high starch which is generally avoided with keto- | type diets? | fknorangesite wrote: | Yes, but this isn't keto. | dmix wrote: | So it's basically going to spike insulin and do much for | weight loss... besides not eating the other bad stuff they | planned to eat. | | So it doesnt really matter they are eating potatoes. Unless | they want to do it cheap then it makes sense. Which is good | but there's so much more variety in the keto approach then | boring potatoes. | TrisMcC wrote: | Yes, there's not a lot of variety in just eating potatoes. | Maybe some people don't need variety. | | People lose a lot of weight this way. Insulin sensitivity | increases. Insulin-lowering medicines can be reduced or | stopped. Bad cholesterol drops to the floor. | | If you go beyond monomeals of potatoes and add in tasty | vegetables (like you do in keto) and limit the fat you add | to the meal, you will have all the benefits of the potato | diet without the mind-numbing boredom. | | Variety in the keto approach? There are only so many ways | to dress up chicken/beef/pork and cheese. | dmix wrote: | In the last few days I've had blueberry greek yogurt | overnight oats, almond/peanut butter shake, horseradish | deviled eggs, cowboy chili, cauliflower mac & cheese, | keto-friendly Jello, and a BBQ steak dinner with a monk | fruit/allulose simple-syrup Gimlet cocktail. | | Doesn't get much more varied than that for a 'diet'. | soared wrote: | This is really well written and easily digestible. It's rare that | content about diet is lighthearted and fun! No outlandish claims, | very little misconstrued science, but tons of funny fads. Usually | you'd have to dig deep to find the root of the authors point in | articles like this, but the simplicity is baked in from the | start. | [deleted] | zoover2020 wrote: | Would've agreed if it wasn't for proteins as a macro which have | been suddenly forgotten in its entirety. | | Even if you're not working out, your body still craves | proteins. Neglecting this is dangerous | zhynn wrote: | potatoes have protein. | thehias wrote: | "You can't eat potatoes forever." | | Actually I heard from the local potato lobby organisation in my | country, that the potato is the only food in existance which you | can eat exclusive forever and you can't get any bad sideeffects, | because a potato contains all nutritions needed... | | Is this not true? :D Is there any real science on that? | zhynn wrote: | I felt fine after a month of nothing but potato and a few cheat | days. But... it's not just potato. I ate oil too. And spices | and vinegar. And a sweet potato every few days for variety and | B-vitamins. But as far as I can tell you can get almost | everything you need nutritionally from potatoes (if you eat the | peel). | | It was boring and awful 3 weeks in, but it totally worked. | Happy to share my data if you are curious. | darkhorse222 wrote: | I can't speak generally, but when he asked if I'd prefer five | bacon hamburgers or like twenty potatoes to get through the day, | I would definitely choose the burgers. | avodonosov wrote: | One my friend once had to stay on a diet of only green tea and | salo (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salo_(food)) with rye | bread. According to him, after two weeks of this diet he | experienced incedible lightness in the body. | fleddr wrote: | Potato diet sounds like the much acclaimed "dutch cuisine". | | I'm exaggerating, but not by much. I grew up on tasteless boiled | potatoes, at least 6 times per week. Supplemented with veggies | boiled to pulp. Very fatty meat. And lots of milk. | | It's laughed at in relation to the highly creative and tasty | mediterranean cuisine, but I respect our bland food for other | reasons. It's creative for being a nutrition/cost hack born out | of necessity. | | Potatoes are a nutritional super food but also cheap and you can | store them for months even without refrigeration. Even the skin | isn't wasted, it has several uses. | | The veggies are boiled to pulp because unlike potatoes, those do | go bad when stored longer. In modern times a needless precaution | but the paranoia to eat rotten veggies has stuck around for a | while in people's habits. | | Milk, not part of an adult's normal diet, but a cheap source for | protein regardless, so let's use it. | | Altogether, it's a physical worker's ultra cheap yet highly | nutritional meal. In that sense it's very creative. It's creative | where it counts, not just for optics. | adam_arthur wrote: | Intermittent fasting has been the easiest thing for fine tuning | control over weight for me. My Dad always says it's too hard, he | gets hangry etc, but once you commit to it for ~2 weeks you don't | even get hungry in the fast window anymore. | | The body gets very conditioned to eating patterns. Something to | ease into. | | I'm not sure the average person can succeed on a diet predicated | on greatly limiting the variety of foods you eat. It's an | interesting idea though! | OrangeMonkey wrote: | Intermittent fasting works well for some, but could be a danger | for others. Like you, I used it to fine tune my weight until I | wanted to lose and then decided to lose more via IF. | | I'm not going into my life story, but I've had fast that have | lasted for more than 2 weeks and have had loved ones ask me to | stop. Fasting is not an eating disorder, but it can be a path | to one if you are not careful. Sounds like you are. I hope | others, who may not be, know this. | | Cheers. | meowtimemania wrote: | Totally agree with what you say OrangeMonkey however I think | I understood GP's comment differently. I thought GP was | saying once you stick to an IF schedule for 2 weeks (for | example only eating 12pm to 8pm), after 2 weeks it becomes | easy to only eat within those windows. I don't think they | were suggesting prolonged fasting >24 hours. | OrangeMonkey wrote: | I agree - it wasn't what they were saying. | | I was just stating my own experience without exposing too | much personal history. For me, mild intermittent fasting | led to deep intermittent fasting, multi day fasting, then | week, then half a month. At that point it was anorexia not | fasting. | | I meant no disrespect to him at all nor the implication he | was suggesting it - just wanted to throw a caution out. For | some, it could lead to unhealthy excess. | strbean wrote: | What window do you eat during? I've seen lots of focus on | eating only in the morning, but much of my life I naturally had | low appetite in the mornings and mostly only ate dinner. That | also coincided with being young and having an insane | metabolism. I haven't actually intentionally implemented | intermittent fasting, but I've considered it, and I'm strongly | biased towards favoring a "dinner only" window from that | experience. | silicon2401 wrote: | > being young and having an insane metabolism | | curious, how young do you mean? Human metabolism doesn't | really change during adulthood until old age: | | > Fat-free mass-adjusted expenditure [...] remains stable in | adulthood (20 to 60 years), even during pregnancy; then | declines in older adults. | | https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5017 | curmudgeon22 wrote: | I typically do a Noon to 8 PM eating window, which works for | me. I agree with you, much easier to skip breakfast than to | skip dinner. Also, I do more social eating for lunch/dinner. | flobosg wrote: | An afternoon window is ok. I've done IF eating on a 12pm-8pm | or 2pm-8pm schedule and it worked just fine. | joshgroban wrote: | wpietri wrote: | Having done both time-based and food-based restrictions, I | would say that both can work for some people but won't work for | others. And I think the details matter a ton. E.g., I've | happily done months of fasting where my eating window is circa | 7a-1p. But I spent a month trying a switch to a 12p-6p so I | could eat dinner with people and it was hell. I got mean in the | 10a-12p range and that did not improve over the month. | safety1st wrote: | There's actually some science behind this diet. Potatoes are the | highest scoring food on the satiety index. | https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/15-incredibly-filling-f... | | Basically they're the most filling food per calorie. So if you | subscribe to the idea that losing weight is mainly about how many | calories you consume, a potato heavy diet should be effective. | | And an all potato diet, while monomaniacal, even more effective. | | Eggs and fish are also very high on the satiety index. If you | threw in pretty much any vegetables and spices of your choosing | and just stuck to those along with potatoes, even with a cheat | day or three you'd have a very healthy diet which I bet most | people would lose weight on. | GordonS wrote: | This seems _highly_ unlikely to me. | | I have reactive hypoglycemia, and can say that potatoes spike | my blood glucose levels more than _table sugar_ - they have a | really high glycemic index, and anyone with blood sugar issues | should totally avoid them IMO. | | And the thing about foods with a high glycemic index is that | they cause you to feel hungry when your blood sugar rapidly | drops back to baseline. | | I find protein and fat _way_ more satiating than, well, | _anything_ else. For example, eat 2 eggs for breakfast and I | guarantee you won 't even think a out food again until lunch | time, if not dinner time. | Gatsky wrote: | What is reactive hypoglycemia? | tpoacher wrote: | > I find protein and fat way more satiating than, well, | anything else. For example, eat 2 eggs for breakfast and I | guarantee you won't even think a out food again until lunch | time, if not dinner time. | | That's not what satiety means (at least in this context), | right? | | I'm reading OP's definition as "you'll eat less [calories] | per sitting because you'll feel satiated more quickly", | rather than your "your feeling of non-hunger will last | longer". | | The two seem pretty orthogonal definitions to me. | rolisz wrote: | > eat 2 eggs for breakfast and I guarantee you won't even | think a out food again until lunch time, if not dinner time. | | I usually eat 3 scrambled eggs when I have them for | breakfast. Lunch can't come soon enough afterwards. I think | my record is 7 scrambled eggs. I'm sure I had normal lunch | that day. | rubicon33 wrote: | Eat 1 cup organic whole oats, half cup of milk, 4 diced | strawberries, and 1 tablespoon of brown sugar. | | Should be good until 2-3 in the afternoon, at least in my | experience. | jaggederest wrote: | I also have reactive hypoglycemia and I tried the potato diet | out and had zero crashes the entire time. It's just not | possible (for me) to eat enough calories, quickly enough, to | cause a crash. I was only on it for a few days (~5), | precisely for the logistic issues that the article and the | original diet post discuss - I couldn't cook and eat enough | calories to not be absolutely starving after the first couple | days. | | But zero crashes, monitored by finger stick blood glucose. | Crazy stuff, for someone who has them all the time. | rubicon33 wrote: | Is a food coma / crash always the result of a blood sugar | spike? I've never seen any literature supporting that the | feeling of tiredness and fatigue after a meal is the direct | result of blood sugar levels. Mostly what I've seen is just | conjecture online, and correlational anecdotes about eating | high glycemic index foods and feeling tired. | | Not discounting people's experiences, but trying to suss | out the science here. If you were, for example, to inject | sugar directly into someone's blood stream would the result | be fatigue every time? | | It seems to me that there's more involved in this. In my | experience (more anecdata!) I'm able to eat anything in the | morning. Giant bolus of carbs and sugar, and I feel great. | That same meal in the afternoon will give me such a fatigue | that I need to lay down. | | Clearly there's some other factor at play for me in the | function whos result is fatigue. | | FATIGUE_LEVEL = CARB_GRAMS * (HOUR_OF_DAY / 24) | jaggederest wrote: | > If you were, for example, to inject sugar directly into | someone's blood stream would the result be fatigue every | time? | | Missed this the first time around. They do this, for | research, it's called a glucose clamp test. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucose_clamp_technique | | Unfortunately it's almost impossible to find someone | willing to administer it to you. It's an outpatient | hospital procedure lasting a number of hours, and almost | no insurance would cover it, as far as I am aware. | jaggederest wrote: | Well, for me, I've been monitoring my blood sugar | intensively for a while. I started when I worked for a | nutrition and glucose monitoring company (as a test!), | found out I had really anomalous blood sugar dips, and | confirmed it with finger stick and another blood sugar | monitor. So for me, the answer is, yes, the "sugar crash" | postprandial is actually a dip in blood sugar - not to a | hazardous level (e.g. passing out or seizure) but to a | very uncomfortable level, with epinephrine and the | shakes. (mine has gone down to 45mg/dl at worst) | | For many people, it may not be, I can only speak for | myself. There's another thing, called 'idiopathic | postprandial syndrome' which is essentially the symptoms | above, but without actual low blood sugar (<60mg/dl), | which some people think is another form of insulin | resistance, where your blood sugar is normal but your | body "wants" more sugar in the blood. | | Talking with endocrinologist, they say that the insulin | sensitivity for most people is much higher in the AM and | daytime than at night, so it makes sense that you might | have more problems in the afternoon, but you should | probably talk to a doctor rather than taking my word for | it! | | It's often difficult (in the US at least) to get primary | care and endocrinologists to take you seriously if you | are not actually dying of diabetes or passing out from | low blood sugar - this is where dipping into the realm of | concierge medicine can be helpful, or at least, it has | been for me. They are often much more willing to | investigate thoroughly. | GordonS wrote: | Strange, potatoes can spike and crash my blood sugar faster | than anything else. I haven't eaten mashed potato in a | decade or so, but IIRC it only took half an hour or so | before I was trembling, sweating, feeling very anxious and | fearful, and having a strong desire to eat sugar. Not long | after I'd become progressively more confused, and sometimes | aggressive. | | I know 2 T1 diabetics, and both never touch potatoes | because of the GI. | | Can I ask how you deal with your reactive hypoglycemia? I | switched to keto a long time ago, which took me from having | hypos multiple times a _day_ to never. But often in late | afternoon I start feeling some mild hypo symptoms, even | though my blood glucose is stable. | jaggederest wrote: | Honestly it's still up in the air right now. I have | glucose snacks on hand, I try to monitor how often I eat | and not let it go too long, but my Hb a1c is still low | and I'm still bothered once or twice a day at least. It's | only maybe once a week that it gets bad enough to be | super bothersome like you say, basically a panic attack. | | I tried keto but it was difficult to get the variety, | especially (as you say) when you're intensely craving | sugar. It obviously solved the problem but was really | challenging to continue, so I only lasted a couple weeks. | idonotknowwhy wrote: | How long did you yet keto for, and how strict were you? I | did it for 5 years and found that if you're strict, the | carb cravings completely go away after a couple of weeks. | jaggederest wrote: | I was in ketosis for 3 weeks, from a total of ~1 month | eating a keto diet. I was super, super strict, which was | probably part of the problem. I estimated <20g net carbs | a day | omginternets wrote: | Do you eat your potatos with either butter or olive oil? | My understanding is that lipids flatten the glycemic | curve. | ghostly_s wrote: | > eat 2 eggs for breakfast and I guarantee you won't even | think a out food again until lunch time, if not dinner time. | | What a patently absurd claim. Your anecdata is not evidence. | rockostrich wrote: | While anecdotal, it entirely depends on habits and context. | | If your usual breakfast is pretty big and you tried to | switch then you'd definitely start to get pangs of hunger | earlier than you usually would. But after a while, your | body would adjust and you'd be fine for longer and longer | (really until whenever you usually ate your next meal). | It's the reason why intermittent fasting or "one-meal-a- | day" sucks the first couple of weeks you try it. | | I'm not recommending one way or the other. Personally, I | wouldn't eat just 2 eggs for breakfast because it sounds | like a boring breakfast (at least throw it on some toast | with some hot sauce). But it's certainly plausible that 2 | eggs for breakfast would satiate most folks after they got | through the initial growing pains. | stevage wrote: | How would you get through the initial pains? Hunger is | absolutely intolerable for me. | | When I go out for breakfast I will often have two | eggs...and a couple of big pieces of toast, mushrooms, | hash browns, spinach etc. I have great difficulty | believing that two eggs alone would be sufficient. | rootusrootus wrote: | > eat 2 eggs for breakfast and I guarantee you won't even | think a out food again until lunch time, if not dinner time. | | Tried that. Two eggs and a piece of toast will get me easily | to lunch. Four eggs will get me an hour or so, despite having | more calories. | appletrotter wrote: | > I have reactive hypoglycemia | | Makes sense that this diet wouldn't work for you - but I | think using this argument is sort of like arguing that | peanuts are unhealthy because some people are allergic to | them. | | Fun Fact: You can let your potatoes cool down, and then re- | heat them, to significantly lower the glycemic impact. | | https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29629761 | gruez wrote: | Seems like the linked study only applies to pasta. Whether | it applies to potato is unknown. | tingletech wrote: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2016.03.120 | leksak wrote: | I eat six eggs for breakfast, with vegetables and maybe a | bowl of kefir with some mango and I'm hungry around 10 -- | breakfast being at 7-8. | GordonS wrote: | I guess you're an outlier (or have a tapeworm :) | | I physically can't eat any more than 3 eggs because I'd | feel completely full. | leetrout wrote: | Yea, my anecdata is that I feel crazy full from eggs. | Maybe the choline in them? I dont know but more than any | other food eggs trigger my brain to say "stop thats | enough". | [deleted] | rootusrootus wrote: | I'm the same [as the person who you are replying to]. | Eggs are good as part of a meal, but they don't fill me | up. I need a bit of carbs to go with them. | orionion wrote: | Egg Consumption Increases Risk for Diabetes | | https://www.pcrm.org/news/health-nutrition/egg- | consumption-i... | | "The authors note results from a recent meta-analysis and | data from the Physicians' Health Study and Women's Health | Study showed an increased risk for diabetes of up to 77% | with seven or more eggs consumed per week." | jsiaajdsdaa wrote: | Satiety is a mental construct. I've been underweight, normal | weight, and overweight in my life. What your brain tells you to | put in your stomach is almost entirely divorced from | nutritional requirements for thriving and surviving. | | The only way to be exceptionally healthy and thin is to ignore | the urge to overeat, and this urge is extremely dynamic on a | per human basis. As a result, some people out there will eat a | case of potatoes and still feel very hungry and unsatisfied. | simplify wrote: | If you mean "mental" as in "not based on reality", then no, | that's wrong. | | However, it _is_ true that your hunger urges are not solely | based on thriving and surviving, but also significantly on | the current state of your gut bacteria, which is highly | influenced by diet and stress. They say the gut is a second | brain for good reason. | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: | I've never managed "underweight", but having been as high as | 320+lbs and as low as 161lbs, I agree. The key to losing | weight is to find ways to ignore what your brain tells you to | eat and stick to a calorie intake limit that matches the base | metabolic rate of your target weight. | coldtea wrote: | > _Satiety is a mental construct._ | | Yeah, just not according to science. | | E.g. there's ghrelin, cholecystokinin and other "satiety | signals". | | Except if you mean "satiefy is a mental construct" the same | way pain is a mental construct. In which case, in a Kantian | way, everything is, including space and time. | | > _What your brain tells you to put in your stomach is almost | entirely divorced from nutritional requirements for thriving | and surviving._ | | (a) You'd be surprised. | | (b) It only appears that way because we have diverged in a | exteremely small span of time (evolutionary speaking) into | completely different circumstances and food availability. | | Otherwise, what the brain tells us is very much based on | nutritional requirements for thriving and surviving. | | It's just that in 2022 we have an endless supply of food we | can just order or walk into a supermarket and buy, as opposed | to food scarcity where we don't know if we will be able to | find something to hunt tomorrow - like the last 100,000 of | thousands of years before historical times (and millions of | years considering our primate ancestors)... | jsiaajdsdaa wrote: | >not according to THE SCIENCE | | sorry, dont care | stjohnswarts wrote: | This is bro science. Sorry dude. Caloric intake matter | because in the end it is CICO. However, there are foods that | absolutely make you feel full quicker and for a longer period | of time and that matters as much as calories because if you | can't fight off the hunger because your diet is primarily | white bread and doritos as opposed to healthy fats , greens, | and proteins then calories won't matter because you will 100% | fail because of cravings. | jsiaajdsdaa wrote: | >this is bro science | | sorry, I don't care | diordiderot wrote: | It could be much much more than CICO. If you want to read | an epic saga on modern obesity and it's theories check out | | https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical- | hunger-p... | trentgreene wrote: | It seems like everything in that article reinforces CICO. | Is there something that diverges from the CICO model that | I might be missing? | | E.G. it's examples of the Maasai and Inuit eating higher | calories make a lot of sense when you consider their | exposure to temp extremes and additional cal burn coming | from thermoregulation (along with probably elevated | levels of daily activity). | | Most of the nuance I've seen around CICO that holds isn't | that CICO isn't true, it's that the intake and output are | hard to calculate when you look at nutrient absorption | and lifestyle | bumby wrote: | > _Satiety is a mental construct._ | | Are you implying that there aren't physical manifestations | that cause hunger? In other words, I could inject you with a | suprahuman amount of ghrelin and you wouldn't feel hungry? | mrguyorama wrote: | There are physical situations that can nudge your brain's | choice to make you feel hungry or not, IME. For example, I | stopped eating breakfast and lunch for two years (because, | I am a colossal idiot, and knew it was stupid when I did | it) and it took very little time for my body to realize | "feeling hungry" at noon was a fools errand, so it quickly | stopped happening. I was absolutely physically hungry, | seeing as I wasn't eating larger dinners, and having been | about 18 hours since I last put food in my body, but habit | has a large effect on your feelings of hunger if you aren't | living in the wild Savannah. If my thoughts are correct, | then a possible indicator would be people with wildly | different "normal" times for dinner would get hungry at | those different times, ie my grandparents who eat at 4 get | hungry at 4 compared to someone who normally eats at 8pm | getting hungry at 8pm. | | I'm unsure if that "support" for my argument exists. | bumby wrote: | That fits with my current understanding. Your body's | hunger response (driven in part by hormones) is | complicated, and for lack of a better word it can be | "habituated" to a routine. But I believe there are still | very real mechanisms (like said hormones) rather than | being a psychological construct. I would be willing to | bet if you had blood samples, you would see very real | distinctions in blood markers associated with hunger as | your response changed. | browningstreet wrote: | Also, if you're having a lot of food intolerance or allergy or | digestion issues, having potatoes to fall back on can feel like | a lifesaver. It's early in the elimination diet re-introduction | schedule. | frostwarrior wrote: | Potatoes may be pure carbs, but they're full of water. | | When I eat a portion of mashed potatoes (I cook them with very | little butter), it feels like I've eaten a very dense soup. | corrral wrote: | Fish is high on my personal satiety index, because I didn't eat | much of it growing up so never developed a taste. Result is | that when served fish I eat a little to be nice but don't enjoy | it at all. That'd certainly help me eat less. | | Oddly, I love calamari and sushi. | hahajk wrote: | Of course, eating food you don't like so you end up eating | less doesn't sound like the way to go through life! | corrral wrote: | IIRC a study made it on here once (a couple years ago, | maybe?) that boiled down to "we're fat because modern, | affordable, low-or-zero-prep food tastes too good and is | too varied" | | One of my not-well-backed suspicions is that this is | closest to the truth of any of the various attempts to | explain this. | xeromal wrote: | I had a buddy that created a spreadsheet of various foods and | their micro/macro nutrients. He's an engineer and wanted to | engineer his diet to cover every deficiency in the minimal | amount of food possible. He told me that potatoes were almost | the perfect food if you could magically reduce the amount of | glucose you took from them. | dredmorbius wrote: | Is there some form of fermented potato dish / treatment? | | Apparently yes: | https://drdavisinfinitehealth.com/2018/02/fermented-raw- | pota... | | (One of several results on search. I've no idea on merits / | validity here.) | maerF0x0 wrote: | I learned this concept from Jeremey Either on youtube and | highly recommend his content. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxktmQ3zJOA He does a good job | of summarizing content and then the only hard part is putting | it into action in your life. | entropicgravity wrote: | Thanks for this, but I'll stick to the peanut butter diet :) | com2kid wrote: | Peanut butter doesn't fill me up at all. I can consume 1k | calories of it, nothing, still hungry after. | | Same with fish, I cannot get full eating fish in any | quantity. Shrimp, sure, but not fish. | | Nuts, same deal. I'll eat 500+ calories of nuts, does nothing | for me. | mixmastamyk wrote: | See a doctor. | rootusrootus wrote: | Eh, different people respond to food differently. This is | not controversial. This whole discussion has a huge | amount of bro science, and very little actual science. To | the limited extent such a thing even exists in the | nutritional space. | com2kid wrote: | Plenty of other foods fill me up just fine. A 4oz steak | and some broccoli. Bacon and eggs. Meat + a veg does me | fine. | | > See a doctor. | | Doctors know next to nothing about gut biome stuff. | | "I don't get full eating an entire jar of peanut butter" | is going to result in the doctor telling me to not eat a | jar of peanut butter. | | Heck plenty of people don't get full eating entire tubs | of ice cream. The answer is to avoid downing tubs of ice | cream. | mixmastamyk wrote: | You just listed a bunch of things that don't make sense? | See a specialist rather than quibbling over the | definition of doctor. | com2kid wrote: | You ever tried eating fish with bones in it? It takes me | forever. By the time I finished picking the bones out of | 700 calories of fish it'd be time for my next meal. | Meanwhile I have friends who eat fish just fine and get | full. | | FWIW Salmon drenched in butter and lemon does the trick, | but that kind of feels like cheating. | | Maybe fish sticks would fill me up? Heck if I know. | | Peanut butter is another one, plenty of people can eat | crap tons of peanut butter and not get full. Other people | get full from peanut butter easily. | | Same goes for nuts, and a _ton_ of snacking foods. That | is why they are called snacking foods | | I once had a coworker who could honest to goodness get | filled up from an ice cream cone. Calorically, that is | correct, but the vast majority of people's bodies will | completely ignore calorie math when consuming ice cream | (see: Common jokes about a separate desert stomach). | | > See a specialist rather than quibbling over the | definition of doctor. | | "Hi doctor, yeah, I have a normal BMI and I am in above | average health and I work out multiple times per week but | some guy online says I should see you because I don't get | full eating peanut butter." | | You do realize that there are literally _not specialists_ | for this stuff? If medical science understood why some | people never get full eating certain foods, we wouldn 't | have so much obesity. | | On the flip side, food scientists understand that fat + | sugar = never satiated. That is why donuts are even a | thing. Realistically a donut and a sweetened coffee are | "enough calories" but they aren't satiating at all. | | And then there is the nastiness of the human body mostly | ignoring liquid calories all together[1], outside of | mechanical fullness of the stomach. That is why starbucks | can get away with selling drinks that have almost an | entire day's worth of calories in them. | | [1] Protein shakes are a notable exception to this. | friedman23 wrote: | I wonder where the misinformation that potatoes were unhealthy | / fattening came from? Was it from french fries and fried | starches? | djmips wrote: | The Glycemic Index (GI) looks bad, even look at the chart in | the article. However the GI for potatoes changes depending on | how you eat them. Cold potatoes have a much lower GI than hot | freshly served. | xeromal wrote: | Wow, really? That is very interesting? Too bad hot potatoes | are delicious. I think as long as I air fried mine and let | them cool to room temp, I would enjoy them. | rootusrootus wrote: | It's not really about the heat. They undergo a change as | they cool down which changes the GI. Heating them back up | does not reverse that, so you can still have hot potatoes | with the lower GI effect as long as you cool them down | first. | xeromal wrote: | That's incredible. Thanks for sharing. Can you tell me | what hte process is called? | nathanaldensr wrote: | Also, potatoes (Russets especially) are an excellent source | of potassium, which most people are grossly deficient in. | ThePadawan wrote: | I believe it might be based on misunderstanding the generic | category "vegetables". | | I.e. "I eat lots of vegetables! I had french fries on | Tuesday, mashed potato on Wednesday, ..." | | Reminds me of the classic regulatory decision (which I | actually looked up to make sure that it wasn't an urban myth, | that's how crazy it sounds) that the tomato paste on top of | pizza is classified as a vegetable for school lunches [0]. | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup_as_a_vegetable | strbean wrote: | Potatoes are calorie dense. I think the focus on satiation | rather than pure calorie counting is a more recent trend. | | Also, it sounds like water content is a significant | contributor to their capacity to satiate, so things like | potato chips probably fail miserably under this lense. Many | processed foods made from potatoes have far less water in | them than home cooked versions (french fries, hash browns). | TrisMcC wrote: | > Potatoes are calorie dense. | | No. | | https://gurmeet.net/Images/food/calorie_density/CalorieDens | i... | | Boiled potatoes are 870 kcal per kilogram. | | 1 kilogram of potatoes is a lot. | zhynn wrote: | Having done 28 days of the potato diet, this is true. It | is difficult to get over 1kcal of potato. Eating two | kilos of potato in a day is heroic. I would eat like 1 | kilo per day, and be satisfied-full. It's wild. | mrguyorama wrote: | I could definitely eat 2kg of potatoes a day. As french | fries. Kind of ruins the whole point though | strbean wrote: | The term 'calorie dense' is used in reference to | proportion of other nutrients. Water isn't typically | included. | | By your standards, Coca-Cola is actually less calorie | dense than boiled potato, but I don't think anyone would | recommend a Coca-Cola diet. | TrisMcC wrote: | Calorie density is not something made up. You are | redefining a very well-known term. Many legumes, grains, | and root vegetables are made up of copious amounts of | water in their prepared form. | | Calorie density is also not the only metric for | recommendation. Everyone agrees that liquid calories are | not "felt" by the body in the same way as solid foods. | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | A couple years back I tried making colecanon due to a random | suggestion from a friend. It's just mashed potatoes mixed with | cabbage or kale or such, seasoned as you like. I do a version | where I brown the cabbage in butter first. | | I was surprised just how satisfying a plate of it as a meal, | and thought exactly the same thing: I'm pretty sure you could | live on that stuff indefinitely and be in great shape. | memcg wrote: | I love colecanon. Mine has skin on boiled and mashed potatoes | (any type or a mix), lots of butter, full fat whole milk | greek yogurt and chopped cooked kale. My family loves it hot | or cold. Add a few more spices and a little mustard, and I | serve it as potato salad to my mayo hating in-laws. | lesstyzing wrote: | Same goes for Champ (mashed potatoes with diced spring onions | throughout). Seems super basic but really filling. | strbean wrote: | Eggs for breakfast and Marmitako for lunch and dinner, got it. | treis wrote: | They're borderline at best for protein content, though. You'd | probably want to at least supplement with a protein shake or | two. | maerF0x0 wrote: | Or however many leads to 1g of protein per pound of lean body | mass. No point losing weight if its lean body mass. (Protein | has a muscle sparing effect during diets) | zhynn wrote: | potatoes have like 3g of protein per potato. And to stay | full you eat _a lot_ of potato. I tried it! It was easy, | then not easy, then totally shitty, then fine, and then I | was done (28 days). I ate a few sweet potatoes along the | way for B vitamins. | [deleted] | maerF0x0 wrote: | iirc vitamin b12 is essentially non-existent in vegan | diets. So it's important to either eat meats/seafood, eat | a vegan food fortified in it, or take a supplement (the | later two are equivalent, just different delivery | mechanism) | stjohnswarts wrote: | Eggs are definitely my goto on a calorie controlled keto diet. | Obviously potatoes are out of the question :) . They are simply | awful for people who prediabetic or think they have metabolic | syndrome; not as bad as white bread or sugar but bad. | 2muchcoffeeman wrote: | > _There 's actually some science behind this diet. Potatoes | are the highest scoring food on the satiety index._ | | Never heard of this before, but I was surprised by the number | of potatoes this person ate. I can eat like, 1.5 large potatoes | max. Then I'm good. But this guy was quoting 18 med potatoes | everyday!?!? | stevage wrote: | So that's 6 per meal? Maybe the equivalent of 3 large? | Doesn't seem absurd, when you're eating nothing else. | mminer237 wrote: | This. There really is something special about potatoes that | just makes them far more filling than they "should be": | https://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/fullness-factor | com2kid wrote: | That list is ... suspect? | | > Lowfat yogurt | | I've never been satiated eating lowfat yogurt. I actually | recently started buying high fat yogurt (10g+ of fat) and it | is super satiating. Given I can eat 3x the amount of lowfat | yogurt and still not be full, I'm not buying it. | | > Watermelon | | Maybe due to bloating from water? | | > Bean sprouts | | I challenge anyone to get full eating just bean sprouts. | Again, they are more akin to drinking (crunchy) water than | eating food. It is maybe a mechanical sense of fullness, it | is not satiated as is normally thought of. | | > Fish, broiled | | I get bored eating fish long before I get full from eating | fish. | | > Sirloin steak, broiled | | Yes, this works. Steak is super satiating. | | > Popcorn | | Has anyone in the history of humanity ever been satiated | eating popcorn? To be fair I know a few people who go to the | movies and eat only a small bit, but most people I know can | easily down an entire large bag and it'll have no impact on | their appetite soon after. | | > Oranges | | Eh, this also falls into the category of "hungry a little bit | later." | mminer237 wrote: | Well that's satiety/calories. So water will be have an | index of infinity even if it's effect is rather small. | | I was more just linking it to highlight the 1995 study. | Potatoes were by far the most satiating food found and far | exceeding what NutritionData's modeling predicts it would | be. (And FWIW, yoghurt was found to be much less satiating | than the numbers would suggest.) | mrguyorama wrote: | >Has anyone in the history of humanity ever been satiated | eating popcorn? To be fair I know a few people who go to | the movies and eat only a small bit, but most people I know | can easily down an entire large bag and it'll have no | impact on their appetite soon after. | | I'll take this one. I actually 100% agree that list is | useless, but an entire bag of microwave popcorn is | extremely satiating to me. It's the perfect midnight snack | IME because it is only 400ish Calories and yet takes up a | large volume of space and takes a significant amount of | time to eat. | flobosg wrote: | When I was doing intermittent fasting I would usually have | roasted fish and potatoes for lunch, all prepared on the same | baking dish[1]. It was very filling, agreeing with your post. | | [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/18/dining/the-minimalist- | tak... | mattgreenrocks wrote: | This was my discovery as well. Keto, at its core, amounts to | optimizing for satiety. Typically that takes the form of | increasing fat intake, and progressively lowering carb intake. | For most people, this results in fewer calories ingested, as | fats + protein heavy diets make it hard to overeat. I burned | through my excess weight rapidly: maybe 2-3lb a week IIRC? | | After that, it changes to figuring out how many net carbs you | need. I've found that this amount changes and is not a hard and | fast rule. When I started keto, I aimed for 20g total (I don't | recommend that low). Now, it is more like 50-100g. There's also | the mental shift: carbs are not bad, they're just a tool. | | The thing that feels most unfair is once your body gets to a | lower weight, you're accustomed to eating less, and you've | 'reset' things, I found I had a lot of leeway in what I could | get away with, diet-wise. | screamingpotat wrote: | Potato diet given milk/butter seems quite doable, Ireland lived | off milk and oats for a very long time and potatoes, especially | older varieties are incredibly nutritious given the skin so mixed | with dairy JT seems like a relatively manageable diet. | TehCorwiz wrote: | Do yams and sweet potatoes count even though they're not | "technically" potatoes? | renewiltord wrote: | There's something interesting about this. I ate a Halo Top and | Water diet for 3 weeks and it got me a quick crash diet outcome | of 6 kgs or somewhat down (long time ago) but at the cost of my | mental health. So maybe this dude's "restrict foods" thing works. | whoomp12342 wrote: | potato diet?!?! | | what is this. Can we just come out and say, the recent increase | in price of food is too damn high instead of hiding it behind a | veneer of clever diets that choose lesser costing food? | worker_person wrote: | I did plain chicken and sweet potatoes for a month. No spices, | boiled or baked. Water or Green Tea. | | Best I have ever felt. Ended six months of whole body agony. | | I try and follow AIP these days. (Potatoes aren't allowed, but | Sweet Potatoes are.) | manmal wrote: | Basil, oregano, thyme, ginger and some other spices are allowed | according to AIP though? | kzrdude wrote: | They are herbs and not necessarily called spices | dangus wrote: | I gotta ask: why no spices? | jillesvangurp wrote: | Exactly, that's the genius of Indian cuisine: making | otherwise bland ingredients (chickpeas, lentils, potatoes, | spinach, etc.) taste amazing. I just polished off a simple | rice, spinach and tuna dinner. Very tasty thanks to some | sprinkling of misc. spices. I could swap out the rice for | potatoes and it would probably even healthier. | silicon2401 wrote: | > the genius of Indian cuisine: making otherwise bland | ingredients (chickpeas, lentils, potatoes, spinach, etc.) | taste amazing. | | How is that different from any other cuisine? Rice, | noodles, potatoes, beans, cabbage, fish, meat, chicken all | get mixed with spices in almost every cuisine | worker_person wrote: | It was an elimination diet. See what things were bothering | me. Severe migraines and autoimmune issues. I was very | desperate at that point. | | Sweet potatoes didn't bother me at all, and kept me full. | | After a month I slowly started adding things back in to see | how I reacted. Made it easy to tell what foods were an issue. | kzrdude wrote: | Great that it helped. I was also on AIP for some periods, | long ago now though (maybe because it's so hard) | 55555 wrote: | It's a diet for autoimmune disorders. | [deleted] | stu2b50 wrote: | Genuinely I'm not quite sure I get the connection. Would | spices in general cause issues with autoimmune diseases? | Specific spices? | sudden_dystopia wrote: | I have heard Paprika and chili powder, along with peppers | in general, doing something with opening the tight | junctions in the gut from Paul Saladino but I can't | recall the what the specific issue or mechanism was. | throwaway09223 wrote: | Herbs have all sorts of compounds, many of which are | known to interact with the body's immune system. | | Loads of studies about tumeric and inflammation, | arthritis. Also capsaicin, piperine, etc. The list is | extensive. | | Remember: Herbs and spices are where medicinal remedies | originated. | worker_person wrote: | From. https://thrivingonpaleo.com/aip-spices-and-herbs/ | | What spices are NOT allowed on AIP? Allspice Anise Seed | Annatto Seed Black Caraway Black Cumin Black Pepper | Caraway Cardamom Capsicums Cayenne Celery Seed Chili | Pepper Flakes Chili Powder Chinese Five-Spice Chipotle | Chili Powder Coriander Seed Cumin Seed Curry Powder | (typically contains nightshades) Dill Seed Fennel Seed | Fenugreek Seed Garam Masala Juniper Mustard Nutmeg | Paprika Pepper (from black, green, pink, or white | peppercorns) Poppy Seed Poultry Seasoning Red Pepper | Russian Caraway Star Anise Steak Seasoning Sumac Taco | Seasonin | ufo wrote: | Deep down, AIP is one of those fad diets that prohibit | more things than there's evidence for. It's justified | based on some pseudoscientific ideas about certain foods | causing autoimmune issues. People might say things about | intestinal permeability, but the scientific connection | can be a bit sketchy. | weberer wrote: | The idea is that the disorders may not actually be | autoimmune, but reactions to certain foods. | [deleted] | shipman05 wrote: | Samwise Gamgee approves. | mkaic wrote: | "Taters? What's taters, precious?" | | "You don't know what taters are? Po-tat-oes? Boil 'em, mash | 'em, stick 'em in a stew?" | xeromal wrote: | Nice crispy taters. | csours wrote: | If this is interesting I highly recommend "The Hungry Brain". | | Some other thoughts: | | Obesity is not a disease of over-eating, it is a disease of | managing hunger. | | "Losing weight" is a terrible goal. "Changing Body Composition" | is a much better goal. Specifically change the proportion of fat | to muscle. | | ---- | | If your immediate answer is "Those are the same thing but with | different words!!!" then here are some questions to get you | thinking: | | * Can you measure someone else's hunger and compare it to your | own? | | * What parts of hunger come from perceptions and what parts come | from psychological conditioning? | | * Can you survive being hungry? Can you survive starvation? How | does your body know the difference? | | * How does food energy relate to hunger? For CICO a Calorie is | always a Calorie; is that also true for hunger? | | * How do you measure progress towards a goal and how does it feel | when you can't perceive progress? | | * Excess body weight can put stress on your joints, but doesn't | generally have any other negative effects. Excess body fat has | many negative effects. A scale is cheap and consistent. Body fat | monitors and measurement isn't always cheap or consistent (or | accurate). | stakkur wrote: | No, obesity is a metabolic problem. And barring personal | medical issues, diets of starch and sugar are the cause. | | [EDIT], Folks, obesity is a result of metabolic disease. | Obesity is an epidemic, and the science is abundant on this. | This isn't a grammatic nuance, it's the essence of the global | obesity epidemic that results from diet and eating habits. It's | literally the foundation of the growing understanding amongst | medical professionals of why low-carb diets and fasting work | dramatically on this. | csours wrote: | I feel it would be accurate to say that obesity is _also_ a | metabolic problem. | | The difficulty with disentangling "what is obesity" is that | the body is full of feedback and feed-forward mechanisms. You | can look at any part of the machinery and say "here is the | problem". There are a significant number of systems that deal | with adiposity, hunger, and energy management and allocation. | | Once we find something to blame for a problem we often stop | looking. Processed carbs are not compatible with a sedentary | lifestyle, that is true. But our ancestors ate carbs for | generations. Many modern cultures eat carbs and don't have a | big problem with obesity. | Pakdef wrote: | > "Losing weight" is a terrible goal. "Changing Body | Composition" is a much better goal. Specifically change the | proportion of fat to muscle. | | 400lb of muscles or fat is probably not healthy either way... | csours wrote: | I don't think this is a good faith comment. It is very | difficult and rare to add that much muscle. | Pakdef wrote: | I just don't know how much muscles steroid junkies can add, | but either way it's not healthy... but yeah you are | probably right that it isn't that much. | | Also, that parent comment was saying that you should trade | fat for muscles, so my comment still stands. | zeroxfe wrote: | > Also, that parent comment was saying that you should | trade fat for muscles, so my comment still stands. | | Great -- you win by technicality! For the vast majority | of people, the parent made a very reasonable statement, | so comments like this are not helpful. | Pakdef wrote: | > so comments like this are not helpful. | | Maybe you think my comment was not helpful, but his | comment was ignoring many variables. | | Eat less if you are fat and do cardio no matter what. | JamesBarney wrote: | Second this, Stephan Guyenet is a brilliant guy. | sph wrote: | > Obesity is not a disease of over-eating, it is a disease of | managing hunger. | | Indeed it is, and the solution to managing hunger (i.e. | returning your whole insulin and leptin system to a more | optimal baseline) is NOT going for a 90% carbohydrate diet. | | That's exactly why we have a bloody obesity epidemic. It's a | fun thought experiment, but reading the comments in here people | actually think this is genius and sustainable. | TrisMcC wrote: | Do you really believe that the obesity epidemic was caused by | people eating 90% carbohydrate diets? | | The "high carb meals" at McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza | Hut... are all also (and more per calorie) high in fat. | | Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to your mixed-green salad? | That has turned into a high fat salad. Most people cannot | avoid cheese or nuts on salad, either. | | Eating the potato diet with sour cream/butter/cheese: High | fat. | devoutsalsa wrote: | I'm overweight because I eat too much. Eat caloric surplus, | gain weight. That part isn't complicated. Why I eat too | much is another question... | goodpoint wrote: | No. A healthy diet is a diet that provides you with the | right amount of nutrients without leaving you hungry or | unsatisfied. | | By not being hungry and unsatisfied you'll then stop | overeating (surprise!). | | "My diet is OK, I just eat too much" is all wrong: there | is a complex relation between caloric intake, which foods | are eaten, hunger, satisfaction, energy, mood etc. | | Many fad diets "work" even if they are not grounded in | any scientific fact and are even unhealthy in the long | term (low fat, low carb, keto, gluten-free, all-meat). | | They artificially restrict the variety of food one person | can eat and this indirectly encourages people to eat | less. And when people stop overeating they feel better | and believe the fad diet is sound. | | There were even a diet where you can only eat foods in a | given meal from the same group... by color. Same trick. | | Bracing for all the downvotes... | sph wrote: | Talk about generalising. How is gluten-free unhealthy in | the long term. Do you actually believe that wheat in | particular is _required_ for health? | | Just above you said a diet needs to be nutritionally | complete. Low carb, keto, gluten free, hell even low fat | can be nutritionally complete and satisfying, though the | latter one will not feel really good in the long term. | devoutsalsa wrote: | Your body stores calories you eat, and it's really good | at it. If you eat too much of anything (that contains | more calories than the calories required to digest it), | you will gain weight. Eat too much fried chicken, gain | weight. Eat too many oranges, gain weight. Eat too many | beans, gain weight. You can probably gain weight from | eating too much broccoli, although I'd get sick of | broccoli before that happened. | goodpoint wrote: | Did you just repeated the previous point without | understanding anything of what I wrote? | mrguyorama wrote: | It's funny too, because I have perfectly logged data | showing that the weeks I eat fewer than about 1800 | calories reliably, (because I have an incredibly | sedentary lifestyle) reliably and predictably lower my | weight. | | I've literally got a science experiment in my own body | that shows reducing calories in, without reducing the | actual design of my meals, reduces my body mass. | | I'm willing to accept that there are some minor | irregularities and difficulties that make "Calories in == | Calories out" not 100% accurate, but I'm betting the | effect size is closer to +-10%, and therefore easily | discarded for approximations, even though they are | scientifically significant and could create a more | accurate model. | bumby wrote: | I agree that the CICO is a model that works, but it is at | least somewhat complicated by the fact that CO is a | function of CI. I.e., what you eat takes different | amounts of energy to metabolize so it also contributes to | what you burn. If I eat 1800 kcal of protein I may have | higher CO than if I ate 1800 kcal of simple | carbohydrates. | | There's already a lot of uncertainty when most people | measure their calories (very few people actually weigh | their food) and this just adds another layer of | uncertainty. I have a feeling those all combine to make | it inaccurate enough in practice for some people to claim | the CICO model doesn't work. | LesZedCB wrote: | i thought fat was largely debunked as being the primary | cause, though i'm not going to go searching for studies as | i'm not a dietician (though my partner is). | | consider this: each of those meals at McD's, BK, or Pizza | hut come with a 1-2 liter soda, loaded with calories and | sugar. yes, the fats are there, but they are _always_ | paired with loads of sugar. | seadan83 wrote: | I agree with the debunking that fats are not bad for you, | though, not all fats are equal. The rule of thumb is that | fats that remain liquid at body temperature can be | considered "dietary fat". The only problem with "dietary | fat" is they have a load of energy on them and that can | blow your calorie budget for the day quite easily if you | overdo them. | | Fats though that stay solid at body temperature arguably | should be completely avoided. Hence the big-mac with a | 1-2 liter soda, loads of unhealthy fat paired with loads | of sugar, all with very minimal fiber.. | emmanuel_1234 wrote: | I'd be curious to understand where you get that | information from. | | Fat that stays solid at room temperature is generally | high in saturated fat (except for margarin, but let's | keep it out). Fat that stays liquid is generally | vegetable oil (e.g.: canola). | | I don't think there is strong evidence that vegetable oil | is good for you whereas saturated fat is not. If so, I'd | really like to read about it. | mrguyorama wrote: | Well.... Fats can be bad in that they are calorie dense | foods, and thus it's easy to add more calories than you | should to food with them. | | It's significantly harder to be fat eating nothing but | broccoli, but I could continuously gain weight eating | only 250g of vegetable oil per day. | | Sugar is bad for exactly the same reason IMO | seadan83 wrote: | My unsupported personal belief is that the human body | processes different carbohydrates in very different ways. | Carbs that come from starch are not equivalent to carbs from | cane sugar, and yet again not equivalent to honey, and again | not equivalent to high fructose corn sryup, and again | different from breads & pasta. | | Ratio of fiber to carbohydrate and how that carbohydrate is | processed by the body is also important as well. | | Hence, french fries are not good, they have added sugar, the | skin is removed, and they have a lot of added fats from the | fried oils. That strikes me as a world of difference compared | to a whole baked potato consumed with a sauteed broccolli | with a side salad (plenty of fiber). | | Unrelated, and unsolicited 2 cents, IMO it's all about eating | as many fibrous and leafy greens as possible. At that point, | a moderate side of lean meat, potato, carb, practially | whatever - does not matter so long as the fibrous and leafy | greens are the majority source of calories. | autoexec wrote: | > Unrelated, and unsolicited 2 cents, IMO it's all about | eating as many fibrous and leafy greens as possible. At | that point, a moderate side of lean meat, potato, carb, | practially whatever - does not matter so long as the | fibrous and leafy greens are the majority source of | calories. | | If you eat a meal with a small steak and a baked potato, | how many pounds of salad would you need to consume to get | the majority of your calories from eating those leaves? | goodpoint wrote: | > personal belief is that the human body processes | different carbohydrates in very different ways | | This is nutritional science 101. | | Slow-digesting carbohydrates like big-flake oats are really | good. | | Fast-digesting things like sugars, processed foods, fast | food and meat products are bad as they create spikes in the | glycemic index. | autoexec wrote: | > Slow-digesting carbohydrates like big-flake oats are | really good. | | if only they tasted that way! | rootusrootus wrote: | With enough brown sugar and butter they sure do. But I | suppose that defeats the point... | mpalczewski wrote: | > Indeed it is, and the solution to managing hunger (i.e. | returning your whole insulin and leptin system to a more | optimal baseline) is NOT going for a 90% carbohydrate diet. | | Leptin system returns to a more optimal baseline with weight | loss. | | Insulin returns to a more optimal baseline by increasing | insulin sensitivity. Exercise does this most effectively, | loosing weight also does this. Low carb diets don't do this | directly, only through weight loss. | | Managing hunger is managing your dopamine response. Eating | nothing but one food, will make you very bored of your food. | You won't be looking for food as entertainment, stress | relief, or a cure for boredom(dopamine). You will only eat | for true hunger(lack of dopamine can feel similar). | bumby wrote: | > _Exercise does this most effectively_ | | Curious, does it depend on the type of exercise and, if so, | do we know what mechanisms cause some types to have a | disproportionate impact? | nostrebored wrote: | CGMs should disillusion people of this pretty quickly. I | really wish more people would try them for a month just to | see how they respond to certain foods. | jrvarela56 wrote: | I did and would recommend. It shows you the impact of foods | in your blood glucose and made it easier to convince myself | and change my behavior. | | Some lessons I got from using it for 2 months (these are | personal, some should apply to most people): | | - Plantains cause a BIG glucose spike (I thought they | didnt; in my case even more than pasta or rice) | | - Walking ~10min after a meal removes the glucose spike of | even pretty large meals | | - Intense exercise before (duh) removes the glucose spike | of any meal, even with big desert/ice cream | | - Eating veggies (or taking fiber pills) before a meal | removes the glucose spike of most meals | | Some of these things I had read about online, but seeing | the impact live on my own blood glucose made the lessons | stick. | code_duck wrote: | Why do you feel you need to change your food intake, and | how do you interpret your CGM results? If you don't have | a form of diabetes it doesn't really make a difference. | Your glucose will go back down to 85 fairly soon. | dubswithus wrote: | Correct me if I'm wrong but I feel that your comment is | trying to connect a "big glucose spike" with the cause of | diabetes. They are not connected. Millions of people are | eating apples, grapes, plantains, strawberries, | raspberries, etc every year without issue. | | To tell people to avoid these healthy foods is not backed | by the science. And so what if it raises your levels | temporarily? Running raises my heart rate and blood | pressure. Does that mean I'm about to die? | pcorsaro wrote: | That's not what this person is saying. "Big glucose | spike(s)" actually are the cause of diabetes. The more | regular spikes a person has, the more resistant to | insulin they become, which is where type 2 diabetes | starts. The point of the comments I believe was just to | say that certain foods cause different responses in | different people. If plantains cause a large spike in a | person, I would say that person should probably not eat | them every day all the time. | dubswithus wrote: | > "Big glucose spike(s)" actually are the cause of | diabetes. The more regular spikes a person has, the more | resistant to insulin they become, which is where type 2 | diabetes starts. | | People who don't have diabetes or pre-diabetes spike. But | I hardly see a body of work that suggests that everyone | is at risk of diabetes. | | > If plantains cause a large spike in a person, I would | say that person should probably not eat them every day | all the time. | | People from South America eat them every day and they | aren't linked to diabetes as far as I know. | autoexec wrote: | I'd do it if they had one that didn't involve needles. | dubswithus wrote: | So I think this is an attempt to link a random result to a | metabolic disease? This goes against the advice of pretty | much every health doctor, nutritionist, and scientist. | ericb wrote: | CGM ? | [deleted] | csours wrote: | Continuous Glucose Monitor. | | Related topic: Glycogen storage in the liver and muscles | and glycogen depletion | PuppyTailWags wrote: | By this logic, the obesity epidemic should've happened in the | 17th century when the potato was introduced to the rest of | the world and became the staple crop of poor farmers | everywhere. | sph wrote: | They did not eat a potato only diet, however poor they | were. | | I actually have relatives in a third world country that | however poor they were they'd have a diet of mostly | starches but including decent protein, even if it's just | fish, literal bugs, small rodents and other subpar meat. | | They'd laugh you out the village if you'd tell them they | can live on yams and tapioca alone. | | Staple doesn't mean one food diet. | fauigerzigerk wrote: | _> Obesity is not a disease of over-eating, it is a disease of | managing hunger._ | | If that is so, why is obesity so much worse in some countries | than in others? Are Italians really so much better at managing | hunger than Americans? | | It seems far more plausible to me that the differences in | obesity between countries are caused by simple cultural habits | than by some complex psychological task called managing hunger, | which seems less likely to be cultural. | csours wrote: | > It seems far more plausible to me that the differences in | obesity between countries are caused by simple cultural | habits than by some complex psychological task called | managing hunger, which seems less likely to be cultural. | | I don't see a clear point here. Culture has a HUGE impact on | psychology. | | Also, managing hunger is Psychological AND Physiological. | fauigerzigerk wrote: | _> Culture has a HUGE impact on psychology._ | | I would agree with that in general, but hunger seems like | such an incredibly old issue to deal with from evolutionary | perspective. Managing hunger is something "we" have been | doing for millions of years and it has always been at the | very center of our survival as a species. | | The idea that a cultural group could lose its ability to | deal with such a key psychological and biological necessity | in a short period of time just seems far less likely to me | than a change in habits brought about by far more recent | industrial and socioeconomic circumstances. | | Take that from yet another pseudonymous internet autodidact | ;-) | csours wrote: | > The idea that a cultural group could lose its ability | to deal with such a key psychological and biological | necessity in a short period of time just seems far less | likely to me than a change in habits brought about by | industrial and socio-economic circumstances. | | But those industrial and socio-economic circumstances | also had a huge impact on culture! It's super | complicated! | | I am not strongly anti-capitalist, but consider the | impact of capitalism on food: | | Take low cost ingredients. Put them together in an | appealing way. Sell the product at a relatively low price | (higher than the ingredients, but not much). Advertise | the product widely in such a way to condition people to | desire your product. | | I am describing junk food of course. Walk into a | convenience store or look at the checkout lines of a | grocery store. Look at all the food you are conditioned | to desire. | | edit: I am not blaming capitalism as the single cause of | obesity. There is much more to it than that. | fauigerzigerk wrote: | Well, exactly, but would you really describe these | cultural changes as a disease of managing hunger on an | individual psychological level (which is how I understood | the term)? | | If something like what you're describing is going on then | our psychological ability to manage hunger hasn't changed | at all. Other things have changed, which is my whole | point. | csours wrote: | Yes, the conditions we live under have changed; the big | question is "Why are some individuals so much more | affected by the new environmental effects than others and | what should we do about it" | | When we gain weight, we understand we need to eat less to | lose weight. But that obviously does not work for many | many people. | | I'm carrying excess fat right now. Abolishing capitalism | or taxing soda (or whatever other social, political, or | cultural changes you would make) won't get rid of that | fat. It is commendable to work on the social causes of | obesity. I frame it as an individual psychological issue | because it is an individual experience. If it was a | matter of finding "the right foods to eat and avoid" or | any particular set of facts that could convey how to | actually lose weight, then the problem would be solved. | | In other words, you can't tell someone to be hungry. Or | at least, that doesn't sell any books or diet plans. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-07-11 23:00 UTC)