Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Additional Links on The Shangri-La Diet By Seth Roberts Ph.D.

Additional Links on The Shangri-La Diet By Seth Roberts Ph.D.
Feel free to add more links in the comments. I've linked to the notable blogs that hit the topic in my main entry on the diet.

While many who grieve gain weight "there is great solace in food" a friend told me, there is more to surviving grief than eventually finding a way to lose the weight again. I've probably finished with blogging about the diet for a while after this burst in April (much of which I backdated, so it was never the current blog post on my blog and did not show up in the accumulators. I want the information where people can find it, but I don't want it overwhelming other things).

2 comments:

Stephen said...

Great quote on the "just cut calories and exercise" meme:

"I for one feel underwhelmed.

2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10 can be summed up as "eat more fruit and veggies, and cut your calorie intake." (Number 9 doesn't appear at first glance to be a calorie-cutting tip, but when you read the details it turns out they think that people who eat in front of the TV eat more). 3 and 7 can be summed up as "exercise more." So 9 of the Top Ten Tips are the two most commonplace and well-known weight loss strategies known to humankind.

Do they honestly think that the 75% of fat people (80% of obese people) who want to lose weight have never thought of eating less and exercising more? That notion has just never been presented to them before January 2006, and that's why they're fat?

Good lord, how can these people look at themselves in the mirror? (Answer: they're thin, and to them that's the only criteria that matters.) What kind of brainless moron of a researcher brightly chirps to newspapers that fat people should try and lose weight by eating less and walking more, as if this is news?

J---s C----t! (And I say that as an atheist Jew.)
"

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2006/02/03/anti-fat-science-uk-edition/

Stephen said...

http://www.dietdetective.com/articles/diet_detective_interviews/q__a_with_dr_seth_roberts.html

Another link, great stuff. An excerpt or two:

Question: How do you stick to your diet on days when you really don’t want to? What are techniques you use to stay on track?

There aren’t any days like that. No kidding. My diet doesn’t involve trying to eating less of anything. No calorie counting, no calorie limits. The crucial change is to eat more of certain foods, in particular unflavored sugar water and/or flavorless oils. You become less hungry than usual and, when you eat, feel full more quickly. Because you’re less hungry, you eat less and lose weight. I’ve followed it without difficulty for almost six years.

Question: If you could eat one forbidden food whenever you wanted without gaining weight, what would it be?

There are no forbidden foods on the Shangri-La diet. Since I started the diet I have eaten more of the foods that other diets forbid – more bread and chocolate, for example.
Question: What dessert do you dream about?

None. I eat whatever I want. After I started the diet, it became so easy to weigh whatever I wanted that I started eating more dessert. I’d pretty much avoided desserts for years. My favorite desserts resemble taste tests: four kinds of blue cheese with honey and walnuts, three brands of vanilla ice cream with crunchy cookies, three orange marmalades with three dark chocolates.

Q: If there were one healthy food item that you had to eat every day, which would you choose?

I eat lots of baked/roasted vegetables. I spice and salt them, wrap them in foil, and cook them in my toaster oven. The theory behind my diet says that the less familiar the flavor, the less fattening the food, so I vary the spices each time I make them. I have lots of spice blends and I sprinkle on more than one. Adding different spices each time keeps the flavor from becoming familiar.
Question: Define failure.

Hmm. Is this a trick question? Failure on a diet is not losing weight.
Question: What do you think is the most important thing that makes or breaks a diet for someone?

I can’t answer that question for other diets. For the Shangri-La diet, it helps to have a routine that connects with drinking the oil or sugar water. For example, you drink the oil just before you leave for work. Or before you walk your dog. Or during your morning break. Or before you go to bed. You need to drink the oil or sugar water between meals.
Question: How did you come to your conclusions about weight loss and dieting?

My conclusions come from a big dose of science and a big dose of self-experimentation. The most important science came from the labs of Michel Cabanac, a Canadian physiologist, and Israel Ramirez and Anthony Sclafani, two American psychologists. I tested and extended their ideas with 15 years of self-experimentation. I came up with a new theory of weight control. My theory led me to surprising new ways of losing weight.
Question: Do you think that failed attempts have influenced your approach to dieting? How have past struggles helped you find a system that works for you?

Yes. During my self-experimentation, I tried many things that didn’t work. I wouldn’t say I struggled, but I would say I often failed. When I finally discovered the weight-loss methods that are behind the Shangri-La diet, I knew they were far better than other methods because I had tried many other methods – including other methods that are now popular, such as eating food with a low glycemic index.
Question: Have you dealt with weight issues personally?

Not really. I was slim until my twenties. Eventually I reached 200 pounds, which was a bit much. At that point I tried to lose weight. Using my early weight-loss ideas, I got down to 185 pretty easily, but couldn’t go much further. I was at 185 for many years. That’s not slim, but it’s not a serious problem, either.