Potatoes For Weight Loss and Health page 9

[Paleobird]

Quote Originally Posted by heatseeker View Post
d) As Matthew Berry would say, get off your high horse. Chill out. It's just a fun diet hack experiment. Nobody is killing themselves. You're certainly allowed to think it sounds stupid, and get all condescending and Poindextery about it. And then we as a collective are allowed to tell you you're acting like a douche.

I am NOT part of the collective of which you speak. pklopp is welcome and appreciated on my part.

Seconded. PK knows more about health and nutrition than your average MDA bear. He has a lot to contribute and I am glad for his voice saying, "Wait a minute, let's check this out", while everyone else rushes to try the next new fad.

Honestly I love a good experiment, but you really could chalk this up to "sensory-specific satiety" sensory specific satiety - Google Scholar and just call it a day.

The only way this becomes interesting to me is if we measure fat to lean mass and even throw in the glucose testing as otzi recommends (I actually disagree with him and believe the physiological resistance will reverse in a matter of 1-2 days, since it is a transient adaptation rather than pathological), but we have to leave out the protein.

Then we need to do the same with carrots (or whatever)....and of course we need to do the same thing with a specific animal (meat).
I think the satiety thing will work in all cases, but meat will provide the best results in terms of body composition. Just my thoughts.
Either way go for it Pklopp! I'll be checking in!

Exactly.

Well enough Heatseeker, but the douchbag stuff is adolescent and reinforces the critique of the almost religious fervor of these 2 threads about "tat/ers/ors"

Definitely not necessary (the fervor and the d-bag silliness).

I don't think it is different from fasting with respect to being protein deficient, given that fasting is completely devoid of all nutrients. The difference is obviously in the duration.

Someone on the monster thread posted that they were eating on the order of 700 calories of potatoes a day. That's 10g of protein. I could eat 9 large hardboiled eggs for dinner, which would give me 698 calories with 56 grams of protein and 48 grams of fat.

Now, how would this affect weightloss, since both diets are isocaloric? I would expect the potato "hack" to result in greater weight loss precisely because it is protein deficient. The body simply cannot synthesize protein from carbohydrates, at best, it needs to break down less essential protein containing tissues to synthesize more critical proteins. The longer you deprive the body of protein, the faster the weight loss due to increasing rates of protein cannibalization.

Ironically, this resembles stage three starvation. What is observed during long term fasts is first a period of glycogen depletion, followed by a period of increased gluconeogenesis, then a long term ketone adapted state that can last for weeks where the principal energy substrate is fat, and the brain is subsisting principally on ketones and some glucose produced from glycerol, pyruvate and lactate.

Eventually, however, the body runs out of fat stores, and turns to the only thing it has left to oxidize : protein. At this point, weight loss is extremely rapid and death shortly follows without immediate intervention.

The really interesting question here is with regards to rates of protein synthesis. When fasting, metabolism basically accommodates and your body goes into self-preservation mode, and you can endure prolonged periods of protein deprivation. If you are periodically spiking insulin with starches exclusively, you are also periodically spiking protein synthesis, although you are not providing the necessary substrate for it, which may result in increased catabolism. This is speculation on my part because I haven't seen any research in this direction yet.

It is for this reason that focusing on weight loss is grossly inadequate for judging the effectiveness of a dietary intervention.

I believe that the original potato diet proponent actually pulled the plug because he was losing weight at an accelerated rate towards the end of it!

Going back to the 9 egg diet, if you were accustomed to eating three meals a day, you might try having, say, two eggs for breakfast, three at lunch, and four at dinner time. I don't know how this would affect your satiety, but I think it might be worth a try. I think overall you would experience a better recomposition than by being protein deprived, albeit at a higher bodyweight.

-PK

This is what I mean folks. The guy actually knows what he is talking about as opposed to "Hey everybody, let's try this new hack. It might be fun", and everyone blindly going, "Yeah, I want to do that because all the cool kids are doing that".

PK, I adore you and your blog. Thank you for your insights and remaining as calm as humanly possible while getting flamed. I haven't been around the boards much lately due to my Dad being in the hospital and then convalescing and I was dismayed to return to find the great potato madness standing with nary a questioning voice.

[otzi]

I was dismayed to return to find the great potato madness standing with nary a questioning voice.

and there she is....somebody go get chocotaco and we'll have a real party!

[Daydreamer]

In my opinion, this is what gives this forum its interest, seriously.
Of course people here like ChocoTaco, PaleoBird, or pklopp may have very lively ways to express their beliefs, but they're not uninteresting at all and they all give something to the knowledge of posters. And it's often backed by very documented pieces of stuff...etc

I, too, had a bit of difficulties to appreciate Choco's posts for what they're worth at the beginning, when I first arrived on the forum, however, you should place all of that in its actual context. These people are like you, humble posters and they don't think they have the absolute truth. However they're convinced by things and I think it's the most important motor of life. (EDIT: When it's not total bullcrap and dangerous for your health i.e.: silly veganism.)

[Paleobird]

and there she is....somebody go get chocotaco and we'll have a real party!

Sorry, I've been a bit busy lately. My Dad had a stroke.
About Choco. We have crossed swords a few times but there have been several times when we have been on the same side of things. Even when I disagree with him I respect that he has done his homework. PK is someone else whom I respect greatly. And don't get your panties in wad about the great potato madness comment. It was meant as light hearted rhetoric.

[otzi]

Sorry, I've been a bit busy lately. My Dad had a stroke.
About Choco. We have crossed swords a few times but there have been several times when we have been on the same side of things. Even when I disagree with him I respect that he has done his homework. PK is someone else whom I respect greatly. And don't get your panties in wad about the great potato madness comment. It was meant as light hearted rhetoric.

Sorry to hear about your Dad. Hope he has a speedy recovery. If figured you were off somewhere--hoped it was climbing a mountain or something fun.

I started the "MOAR taters" thread in homage to your "MOAR fat" thread. I came across this hack for weightloss last summer and tried it on myself and close friends to great success before posting it on MDA.

I'm not the mastermind of the 'Potato Diet' but I have invited him to come and talk about it. You will be surprised when you learn who it is. If I can talk him into posting here, I'll start a new thread so you guys can get all your questions answered by a real expert in nutrition.

I implore you to read through the tater thread and look at the results. This is nothing more than a well-designed, short-term fat-busting hack. It's not a life-long diet plan. It is repeatable and predictable.

I love it because it's as ancestral as anything we do. Most, if not all, cultures since the beginning had access to starchy tubers. Undoubtedly there were certain times when they had to rely on these tubers as a sole source of food. I really like that this is coming out now, in the Fall, because this is the perfect time to add a short-term starch feast into your life.

Be kind.

[Graycat]

Otzi, while I'm currently not even considering trying your potato experiment, I want to thank you for taking the time to post about it here. This is what this place should be about.

[Miss Understood]

PKLOPP, in the original thread I mentioned that in my teens and 20s I used to do a one week weight loss hack that typically resulted in a loss of 7-10 pounds. The "diet" was all lean protein. No carbs. You got minimal fat along with the protein, so that may have spared protein being broken down for energy needs. In your opinion, does this protein diet hack seem to work on a similar principle as the potato hack? I plan to end the potato project with two of three days of the lean protein regimen as a transition to my normal Primal diet.

[pklopp]

PKLOPP, in the original thread I mentioned that in my teens and 20s I used to do a one week weight loss hack that typically resulted in a loss of 7-10 pounds. The "diet" was all lean protein. No carbs. You got minimal fat along with the protein, so that may have spared protein being broken down for energy needs. In your opinion, does this protein diet hack seem to work on a similar principle as the potato hack? I plan to end the potato project with two of three days of the lean protein regimen as a transition to my normal Primal diet.

I think the underlying mechanism is the same ... caloric restriction. I do, however, expect that the satiation response from protein might be different, and most likely significantly different, because protein sources tend to be much denser, so you need to eat far less of them to get in your calories.

As an example, consider the 700 daily calorie potato diet I referred to earlier, which would require you to eat 720g of baked Russet potatoes and get you 18g of protein in the process. Were you to eat 700 calories worth of a sirloin steak, that would work out to be 290g and that gets you nearly 80g of protein for your trouble!

So you would need to eat nearly 2.5x the weight of baked potatoes to get the same same amount of calories from beef. But that is not nearly the entire story. The next question is, what volume of potatoes would you need? Well, the density of potatoes is roughly 0.769 grams per cubic centimeter, and for beef, about 1.042 grams per cubic centimeter. That is, beef is about 1.4x more dense than potatoes, which means that you would need to eat 2.5 x 1.4 or 3.5 times as much volume in potatoes as you would in beef to get the equivalent calories.

The volume of ingested food is important, because insulin production is governed to some extent by stretch receptors in the upper portion of the small intestine, and as the intestine stretches more, more insulin production results, and this is important because the beta cells of the pancreas don't just secrete insulin, they also secrete another hormone in tandem with insulin : amylin.

Amylin is rather interesting because it results in the slowing down of gastric emptying, inhibition of digestive secretion [gastric acid, pancreatic enzymes, and bile ejection], and a resulting reduction in food intake (i.e. it suppresses appetite! )

So, all else being equal, of two isocaloric meals, the one resulting in the higher insulin release would result in the higher satiety, and slower gastric emptying.

The more I think about, the more likely it seems that amylin is probably a good candidate for being the mechanism by which potato diets are so satiating. Interestingly, amylin secretion is also stimulated by fatty acids.

Fundamentally, I think if the satiety aspect is equivalent, then a protein feast is far superior to a potato feast. It is not apparent to me, however, that equivalent satiety would result from an isocaloric lean protein diet relative to a potato only diet. You are probably better off, from a satiety standpoint, to select fattier cuts of meat.

-PK

[Miss Understood]

As I recall, the idea of the lean protein was that it was supposed to ramp up your metabolism and you'd burn fat. I don't think it was intended to be calorie restriction, although I'm sure I tried to take it easy on the portions. Oddly enough I think I used to be hungry moreso than on this crazy potato diet, but it may be due to the fact that I am currently very adept at burning fat off my body as fuel.

[gopintos]

The more I think about, the more likely it seems that amylin is probably a good candidate for being the mechanism by which potato diets are so satiating. Interestingly, amylin secretion is also stimulated by fatty acids.

Fundamentally, I think if the satiety aspect is equivalent, then a protein feast is far superior to a potato feast. It is not apparent to me, however, that equivalent satiety would result from an isocaloric lean protein diet relative to a potato only diet. You are probably better off, from a satiety standpoint, to select fattier cuts of meat.

-PK

Today, I tried the steak and eggs. So not all steak so maybe not fair to reply. It said 2 meals of up to 3lbs of meat and up to 12 eggs. No way I could eat that much, and last night I figured about half of that, or maybe it was a third, it would have been well over 2000 calories, much more than I have per day.

So I was hungry first thing, so I at this morning. 3.5 oz steak. 3 eggs, little CO. It said 2 meals, but I knew I would have 3 probably. Well by noon, I was already at 1000 calories. And I was hungry again at supper time. Now my calories are coming in on the high side of what I am use to, still under BMR but barely. And I am probably the 700 tator calories you are referring to, as there are some days that 700 calories of tators is all it takes. Some days 1000 some days 1200. But point is, I get full fast for longer, on tators. Or it would seem so based on just one day today so that probably isnt fair either, especially since i just had 3 low cal days. But no doubt, it would probably take longer to get sick of steak and eggs. And again it was eggs also, not just all steak so maybe not apples to apples.

And I know that you are using 700 calories was just for example purposes, and we are not tripping on 700 calories now and then because when I IF, it is far fewer calories than that for a few days in a row.

Anyways, I did like the steak and eggs. Not much thought goes into that either. I could do that for quite some time if I can see results. I just know the tator is about .5-1lb loss per day. (One day I actually had 2lbs) So it is nice to have these little tricks up my sleeve based on what I need to accomplish.