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Thoughts on the potato diet
- worker_person 4y agoI 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.)
- dangus 4y agoI gotta ask: why no spices?
- 55555 4y agoIt’s a diet for autoimmune disorders.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- stu2b50 4y agoGenuinely I’m not quite sure I get the connection. Would spices in general cause issues with autoimmune diseases? Specific spices?
- worker_person 4y agoFrom. https://thrivingonpaleo.com/aip-spices-and-herbs/ 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
- weberer 4y agoThe idea is that the disorders may not actually be autoimmune, but reactions to certain foods.
- sudden_dystopia 4y agoI 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 4y agoHerbs 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.
- ufo 4y agoDeep 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.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jillesvangurp 4y agoExactly, 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 4y ago> 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
- braingenious 4y agoMore than one cuisine can successfully use spices at a time. “Indian food is good” is not the same as “food other than Indian food is bad.”
- jillesvangurp 4y agoOf course there are other styles of cooking. Indian cuisine excels at just the complexity of the spice blends they use. Completely the opposite of Italian cuisine which tends to be minimalist in terms of numbers of ingredients. Just a handful of ingredients typically. As a Dutch person where salt & pepper are considered excessive in some places, quite a contrast. Let's just say I know what unseasoned vegetables and potatoes taste like after they've been boiled to death. Not great.
- silicon2401 4y agoThe comment I responded to didn't mention complexity, only the spicing up bland food. Also sorry to hear that - boiled vegetables taste amazing to me. Cabbage, onions, broccoli, etc have amazing flavors when you learn to appreciate them. I can enjoy food drowned in spices and sauces, but in my experience "blandness" is often an indication of desensitization rather than an actual lack of flavor, like how people who excessively consume sugar may have trouble appreciating the sweetness in fruits.
- worker_person 4y agoIt 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 4y agoGreat that it helped. I was also on AIP for some periods, long ago now though (maybe because it's so hard)
- manmal 4y agoBasil, oregano, thyme, ginger and some other spices are allowed according to AIP though?
- kzrdude 4y agoThey are herbs and not necessarily called spices
- shipman05 4y agoSamwise Gamgee approves.
- soared 4y agoThis 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 4y ago[deleted]
- voganmother42 4y agoTo chip in, I agree the author has a great eye. Other articles just mash the information together, but I found this to be very appealing.
- zoover2020 4y agoWould'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 4y agopotatoes have protein.
- layer8 4y ago> 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 4y agoAren't potatoes high starch which is generally avoided with keto-type diets?
- fknorangesite 4y agoYes, but this isn't keto.
- dmix 4y agoSo 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 4y agoYes, 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 4y agoIn 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'.
- TehCorwiz 4y agoDo yams and sweet potatoes count even though they're not "technically" potatoes?
- renewiltord 4y agoThere'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.
- psb 4y agoremember 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.
- dusted 4y agoSeems to mention very little about nutritional value.. I mean, I don't imagine the potato contains every type of fatty acid, protein and vitamin we need..
- polynomial 4y agoSeems more like an experiment than a diet.
- occz 4y agoWhat's your reasoning behind this thought?
- sebg 4y agoAlso checkout the original twitter thread results: https://twitter.com/mold_time/status/1521237143515013120 https://twitter.com/mold_time/status/1521237143515013120
- draw_down 4y ago
- mikkergp 4y agoIs 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)
- go_elmo 4y agoEndurance training on an empty stomach is a great ketone pathways excercise, the first few times are hard but get easier afterwards!
- riekus 4y agoRuns 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 4y agoI 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.
- mikepurvis 4y agoI 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.
- _c3ag 4y agoi 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 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/108/6/1183/5153293
- adam_arthur 4y agoIntermittent 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!
- joshgroban 4y ago[dead]
- wpietri 4y agoHaving 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.
- rootusrootus 4y agoYou sound like me. I can't do a morning fast. It kinda sucks, as you notice, because it screws around with your ability to have a social dinner. But if I don't have breakfast, I'm not someone to be around before lunch.
- OrangeMonkey 4y agoIntermittent 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.
- bejelentkezni 4y agoThis sounds like a great way to quickly deplete most of your vitamins and minerals.
- malikNF 4y agoThere was a British teen who went blind eating only fries and chips. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/british-teenager-went-blind-from-eating-only-fries-and-chips-doctors-say-warning-over-junk-food-caused-malnutrition/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/british-teenager-went-blind-fro...
- captaincrunch 4y agoCorrect 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).
- zhynn 4y agoI did the SMTM study and they prohibited dairy. So I got my B12 from sweet potato.
- lucideer 4y agoSweet 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.
- lucideer 4y agofwiw, I wouldn't personally be a massive advocate of supplements - dietary sources are usually better if possible - so not sure whether the study's supplement recommendation here is a good one. Just quoting the instructions given to participants
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- ramesh31 4y agoEat 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.
- nsxwolf 4y agoThis 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.
- avgcorrection 4y agoSure there’s more to it unless you’re a chronic bonehead.
- toolz 4y agoSimple is not always easy. I think it's important that we find easier ways to help alleviate this obesity epidemic.
- ranger207 4y agoenforcing individual responsibilities as a solution to systemic problems rarely works in the absence of changes to the system
- AndrewVos 4y agoIt's not always as simple as this.
- neilk 4y agoYou'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-part-i-mysteries/ https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-hunger-p...
- pengaru 4y agoExcluding all other fruits and vegetables in favor of potatoes seems obviously misguided.
- hombre_fatal 4y agoWhat comes to mind is that (A) there's value to ultra-simple single-food diets when it comes to adherence and (B) potatoes are something people are actually willing to eat compared to other veg, especially as their only option.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- duffyjp 4y agoPenn Jillette somewhat famously did this and lost 100+ pounds.
- BudaDude 4y agoKevin Smith also did a form of this diet after his heart attack and lost a lot of weight
- ribosometronome 4y agoQuickly 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 4y agoThere 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.
- travisjungroth 4y agoIf you lose 75 pounds in 3 months, it's certainly not all fat. He lost water weight, muscle, even skin. This drops the calories required. His "no exercise" also wasn't the same as sedentary. He does shows in Vegas six days a week.
- moses-palmer 4y agoMy 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 4y agoNothing. It's meant to be an absurdist joke meant to leave the person wondering exactly what you were wondering.
- harpersealtako 4y agoI think the (humorous) implication is that you would use them as bait for traps. I don't think potatoes would be that effective as raccoon bait (maybe?), but I do know that bear trappers use all sorts of weird stuff, usually food waste of some kind, and it wouldn't surprise me if potatoes would work. I've heard of people using everything from rotten corn to frosted donuts, usually in ridiculous quantities (like an entire 10-gallon drum full). Put it in the middle of the woods, wait for the smell to permeate the entire forest, and then watch the bears come in. Of course the goal is to get the bear to come back the next week, where you'll be waiting in a treestand with a bow or a rifle.
- safety1st 4y agoThere'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-foods 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.
- flobosg 4y agoWhen 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-taking-a-different-tack-on-fish-and-chips.html https://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/18/dining/the-minimalist-tak...
- browningstreet 4y agoAlso, 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 4y agoPotatoes 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 4y agoFish 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.
- csours 4y agoIf 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).
- JamesBarney 4y agoSecond this, Stephan Guyenet is a brilliant guy.
- sph 4y ago> 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.
- nostrebored 4y agoCGMs 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.
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- JamesBarney 4y agoAnyone 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.
- sph 4y agoFor those with no money to spend on expensive medication, just go on a low(er) carb diet.
- maerF0x0 4y agoor the elimination diet that they can best adhere to. Adherence is the biggest issue in diets, not efficacy (whilst adhered to).
- JamesBarney 4y agoIs there good evidence a low carb diet is close to as effective?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- itstomkent 4y agoI 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 4y agoMounjaro (tirzepatide) has also now been approved. And it works slightly better than semaglutide.
- avgcorrection 4y agoShort-term weightloss is a very low bar. Losing weight long-term is much more worthwhile and might not go well with “all (restrictive) diets”.
- sph 4y agoLow protein and low fat, super carb heavy diet, what can go wrong?
- reddit_clone 4y agoI wouldn't judge quickly. For several decades, fat was considered bad in all forms. Now views are changing..
- dmix 4y agoit 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.
- nvahalik 4y agoIn 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.
- sph 4y agoThat'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 4y agoPotatoes 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.
- steve_adams_86 4y agoThe 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 4y agoWhere 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 4y ago> 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.
- manmal 4y agoCan recommend. We went for a vertical one (Bosch GSN33VWEP) because we didn’t have enough room for a chest, plus we thought that the UX is better - and I still think it is.
- steve_adams_86 4y agoWow, thanks for the tip! I had no idea that's even a thing, and I have the perfect spot to put one. I can't believe I didn't think to even look these up. Part of my hesitation with a chest freezer was where I'd put it, because I'd almost certainly need to keep it outside (which means building an enclosure, getting power to it, etc). Thanks!
- avodonosov 4y agoOne my friend once had to stay on a diet of only green tea and salo (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salo_(food) 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.
- germandiago 4y agoI 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.
- ksenzee 4y agoI 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 4y agoDid you lose weight while on it? Any benefits you noticed?
- bergenty 4y agoIt was all deep fried. It wasn’t just potatoes but a lot of fat.
- ksenzee 4y agoIt was certainly not all deep fried. Gross. I'd have been sick the whole time.
- bbertelsen 4y agoEven 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 4y agoHaving recently given birth, and breast-feeding, is (Ahem) the mother of all confounding factors
- ksenzee 4y agoI 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.
- Macha 4y agoI 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 4y agoBelarusian people are the original inventors of Potato Diet - highest consumption in the world.
- zoover2020 4y agoI though Dutch people eat more of them annually
- x86_64Ubuntu 4y agoMaybe today, but potatoes are a new world food. So I think the award for originality goes to someone in South America.
- maerF0x0 4y agoAs 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 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 4y ago> 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 4y ago> 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.
- papito 4y agoPotato, 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.
- hirundo 4y agoI 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 4y agoThey'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 4y agoIt 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 4y agoLearned 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.
- billjings 4y agoThe only reason the potato diet is interesting to me (and presumably the reason it's interesting to the https://slimemoldtimemold.com/ 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/ 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!
- exolymph 4y agohttps://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7iAABhWpcGeP5e6SB/it-s-probably-not-lithium https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7iAABhWpcGeP5e6SB/it-s-proba...
- billjings 4y agoThanks! 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-and-the-mystery-of-icp-ms/ https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2022/07/05/total-diet-studies-...
- TedShiller 4y agoThis is actually great if your goal is to lose muscle
- layer8 4y agoRight, potatoes and vegetable oil is basically a very-low-protein diet.
- darkhorse222 4y agoI 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.
- _0w8t 4y agoI 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.
- jasonlotito 4y agoThe 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 4y agoGood 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.
- justphil 4y ago
- mylons 4y agoi'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 4y agoThe 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.
- thehias 4y ago"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 4y agoI 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.
- scythe 4y agoPotentially related: the Twinkie diet https://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor...
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- karol 4y agoAll crazy elimination diets work short term. The true measure of a diet is the one you can live on for years and be healthy.
- fnordpiglet 4y agoI 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.
- whoomp12342 4y agopotato 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?
- Handytinge 4y agoExcept that's not what this is, and the diet has existed longer than economic downturn in whatever country you're in.
- alanthonyc 4y agoI 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.
- aantix 4y agoJust 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.
- siliconc0w 4y agoA 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.
- novok 4y agoMy 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.
- pmoriarty 4y agoApart 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.
- throwaway787544 4y agoI never understood why people think unhealthy food has all the flavor. Most unhealthy food is just sugar, salt, fat, and a tiny pinch of flavor. Just get the flavor without the other crap and it's much more intense. Most vegetables, fruit, beans, legumes, and grains have lots of great flavor and are low in calories. Fermented foods have tons of flavor and extra health benefits. There's a gigantic range of herbs, spices, extracts. It would take a million years before you exhaust all the possible combinations. Imagine any non-animal flavor and it's probably not unhealthy. If all you can think of is meat or oil, you just need to expose yourself to new cuisines.
- fleddr 4y agoPotato 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.
- CobaltFire 4y agoMy 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.
- gautamcgoel 4y agoHope your son makes a full recovery.
- EddieDante 4y agoThis 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.
- screamingpotat 4y agoPotato 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.
- akudha 4y agoI 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
- jiggywiggy 4y agoPatotoes 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.
- 0x53 4y agoIn regards to the first point. For the year of 2021 I did not eat any added sugar. If the label said any grams of added sugar I just didn’t eat it. Super easy diet and it worked really well for me.
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- moron4hire 4y ago> Which of these would you rather have to sustain you for a day? Definitely the 5 bacon cheeseburgers. That's one for breakfast, two for lunch, and two for dinner. I could definitely eat like that. The picture OP shows looks like a typical fast food joint burger. And if we look at McDonald's own self-reporting of calorie content, they list a bacon cheeseburger as 330 calories. So the math of "5 bacon cheeseburgers = ~1750 calories" checks out. The problem is, I think McDonald's is lying. 1800 calories is about my break-even rate. I don't lose or gain weight at 1800. But--though I'm a little ashamed to admit--I have eaten 5 such cheeseburgers a day (and really just the cheeseburgers, no fries and soda, I actually find them gross), and I gained weight rapidly. That suggests to me that each of those cheeseburgers is much more than 330 calories. I'd not be surprised if--without bacon--they were actually 500 calories. 2500 calories a day, minus 1800 basal metabolic rate equals 4900 extra calories a week. If we go with the received wisdom of 3600 calories per pound of weight, that's gaining 5 pounds every 3 weeks. And that tracks with my experience. My slovenly experience of eating nothing but McDonald's cheeseburgers for two months straight.
- alexitorg 4y agoI remember a joke that is something like this. The local pastor is talking to young poor child Timmy asking about his life. P: So Timmy what do you have for breakfast? T: Potatoes. P: How about Lunch? T: Potatoes. The Pastor is getting concerned and asks how about dinner? T: Potatoes as well. P: So all you have to eat is potatoes? T: Oh no Pastor: P: Oh, that is good, what else do you have. T: Well I've also got my spoon.
- dangarbri3 4y agoThe problem is that no one food, including potatoes, has all the vitamins our bodies need. If you do this diet, make sure you're taking a multivitamins and supplements for the vitamins and minerals not present in potatoes
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y agoWhile I love the idea of only eating one food for money and practical reasons... Potatoes are so utterly boring. Diets only work if you can stay on them without being miserable, and I know if all I could eat was potatoes I would be pretty miserable about that. Also, any diet that requires supplements(Vitamin B12, probably some other vitamins that are fairly low in potatoes, and whatever essential amino acids are missing from potato protein. That's just off the top of my head) to be complete is a bad diet in my book.
- itake 4y ago> Potatoes are so utterly boring. That is exactly the point. Dieting should be boring: Figure out what your nutrition your body needs and move on with your life to spend time thinking about other things.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y agoI completely disagree. Boring diets only increase the chance of relapse. It's perfectly possible to diet on enjoyable food if you do some research. And it will be much easier to stick to it.
- Handytinge 4y agoI think it very much depends on the purpose of the diet. For me, two weeks of plain potatoes, a little oil, and one piccolo per day was to reset my unhealthy relationship with food. I avoided common toppings (sour cream, bacon, cheese) and anything to flavour them up (salt, rosemary, thyme). After a couple of weeks, I found I was no longer desperately craving the flavours I previously did. I attribute this solely to the blandness of the food - potatoes being the delivery method is just incidental.
- TillE 4y ago> only eating one food for money and practical reasons "One food" is a little silly, but "one meal" is something I've always been trying to achieve on a low carb / keto diet. My latest thing: chicken wings. They're something I can buy in small quantities for fairly cheap, and they taste great completely unseasoned, which makes limiting my sodium intake far easier.
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- thoughtexprmnt 4y agoI think just making any significant change to one's diet can, in the short term anyway, have noticable positive effects, especially depending on what the previous diet looked like. But over time those effects tend to level off and eventually into net-negative consequences from whatever's being restricted out. I can definitely see that being the case for a prolonged potato only diet. I also think the best long term strategy is to focus first on eating plenty of nutrient dense, minimally processed foods which will naturally tend to crowd out the junk. Junk being anything consisting mostly of the cheap subsidized ingredients like wheat, corn, and soy.
- idontwantthis 4y ago> But I felt something—I wanted to eat other foods, to jump onto a higher curve on the above graph. I don’t think this feeling has a good name, but it’s basically what you feel when you have trouble turning down that after-meal iced cream. English doesn't have a specific names for this, but in Khmer there is a related word: "tralowahn". It means the feeling of being full of whatever you are currently eating. Usually used to describe the feeling after eating creamy/buttery western food. Cambodian people use it all the time, and being aware of that feeling seems to go a long way to prevent overeating.
- theptip 4y agoThis reminds me of a SSC article reviewing of a book by Guyenet[1], which describes the “buffet diet” vs what I’ll summarize as the “Soylent diet” (nutrient sludge). The finding was that giving people unlimited boring nutrient sludge on tap, they consumed way fewer calories while still reporting satiety (not feeling hungry). The basic idea being if you restrict yourself to boring food, then your appetite is lower. And the inverse; if you eat at a buffet and can have any number of diverse flavors, then your appetite (and “fullness threshold”) is higher. Any diet where you just eat one thing is therefore going to equilibrate at a lower caloric intake than a diet where you are allowed to eat multiple flavors. I’m a bit skeptical about glycemic load (I had potatoes down as by far the worst vegetable of them all) but perhaps that isn’t the current understanding of things. Any diet of one-thing is going to have strong appetite suppressing effects. I suspect there are more nutritious options, like “only eat salad with no dressing” which might be boring enough to suppress appetite, while also being nutritious enough to sustain longer-term. You don’t want to be the first case of scurvy in your town this century. 1: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/25/book-review-the-hungry-brain/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/25/book-review-the-hungry...
- dr_dshiv 4y agoI love the cybernetic potato diet mentioned at the end: if weight is over target, then eat only potatoes for a week; else eat whatever you want. What could go wrong?
- isitmadeofglass 4y ago> EVERYTHING WORKS (at least in this short term). > How to explain this? Well, what does everything have in common? Every diet restricts food choices. Or some variant of the Hawthorne effect, and the change has nothing to do with the specific change and everything to do with your conciseness about there being a change and it being for the purpose of weight loss.
- scotty79 4y agoWhen I stocked up for covid I restricted myself from ordering meals or any shopping an I ate only what I had. Which was mostly green lentils with butter and salt. Plus some rice and dried vegetables, peas and buckwheet for a bit of variety. In few weeks of eating that I started unintentionally loosing weight. I didn't feel hungry. The food was tasty just a little bit boring. I was taking some vitamins just in case. Weightloss stopped when I decided to start doing shopping again and bought higher variety if food including sweets.