Shangri-la Diet -- Best Practices

I've been reading and talking with Seth Roberts, and the following is my simplified list of best practices. Most of these ideas are not mine, but come from the experiences of other people.

1. Start with extra light olive oil (because it reduces cholesterol. "Extra Light" not "Extra Virgin"). Buy it at SAMS or COSTCO -- ten dollars worth will last you half a year or so.
2. Pour four tablespoons of oil into a glass with about 2 inches of water. Put it on your counter in the bath room.
3. Drink some water before you go to bed. When you wake up in the middle of the night, swirl the oil and water together and drink them (the oil and water mix makes it go down a lot easier -- just like water alone). Go back to sleep. Don't brush your teeth (oil is harmless) or have any food at this time.

• Warning: for some people (including me) this doesn't work, and some start gaining weight again if they take oil in the middle of the night instead of during the day. 10:00 a.m. works best for me, for others 6:30 a.m., for others 3:00 p.m., for others taking the oil one tablespoon at a time. You will need to experiment. See my update notes for more.
• Caveat: many people do best if they drink the oil and follow it up with a "chaser" (a tablespoon of sugar in a cup of water).
  

1. Expect to lose 2-3 pounds a month.
2. Expect plateaus, they are normal, and eventually you will spend a lot of time where the general trend is for your weight to go down, but about half of the time it will stay the same.
3. Keep track -- while you may want to weigh yourself every day, do an "official" weigh-in that you write down once a week (Sunday mornings are good) to keep track. Slow weight loss is easy to lose track of over time.
4. If it works (you will know after 2-3 weeks if it is working or not), just keep doing it until you get close to your ideal weight, then start using less oil until you quit losing weight.
5. Look for Updates (e.g. here and here)
6. Finally, see Starting (or starting over) the SLD method.

There is a lot more. That is why I advise people to buy the book. Shangri-la Diet at Amazon.com

But this is pretty much the collection of best practices, as they stand now. For more:

• http://ethesis.blogspot.com/2006/05/diet-index.html (links)
• 62 pounds lost on the Shangri-la Diet (63.5 as of June 25, 2006).
  
• http://boards.sethroberts.net/
• http://ethesis.blogspot.com/2006/07/shangri-la-diet-update.html
• Interview with Seth Roberts
  

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Caveats? Of course. Don't start without your doctor's approval, make sure you get enough protien and vitamins, if you find yourself just not eating, cut back on the oil -- you want to lose weight but not starve yourself. The same if you start losing weight too fast, cut back.

As you get closer to your ideal weight, cut back so you don't lose too much weight. Be careful, pay attention, read the book, listen to your health care provider. Not everyone is "generic" so generic advice doesn't fit everyone.

For oil and protien powder from Amazon.com (if you don't have it easy to find locally):

• Olive Oil (one of my favorite brands)
  
• Protien Powder (neutral whey)
  
• Grapeseed Oil (lighter, high in Omega 6)
  
• Walnut Oil (high in Omega 3)
  

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I welcome comments, questions, ideas and thoughts in the comments to this post. Always remember, the diet is a work in progress, you don't have to agree with me and the best guesses may well change. Tailor the diet to fit your own body and your own needs. For my current thoughts on tailoring the diet to myself: http://ethesis. . .update.html.

Also, I have a post that collects links to all of my Shangri-la diet posts. See also: blogger key word collection for Shangri-law Diet Posts.