The Potato Diet....criticisms and metabolic theory page 15

[cori93437]

You may be confusing claims that potatoes are a complete protein, meaning that they are not deficient in any of the essential amino acids, with meaning that potatoes provide adequate levels of protein. While potatoes may very well be a source of complete protein, you have to eat onerous amounts of potatoes in order to eek out any semblance of a reasonable amount of protein.

According to the USDA, 1.5 kg of raw red potatoes is 1000 kcal with a pittance of 28g of protein for your trouble. Nearly 3.5 lbs. of food to yield 30g of protein? I cannot fathom the dietary contortions I would have to undergo in order to get 60g of protein while somehow stuffing myself with 7 lbs. of potatoes. Let's say I were to go crazy and think that 100g of protein might be appropriate for a 185 lb. reasonably active male to ingest ... that would imply eating 10 lbs. of potatoes, which I would more than likely not do due to sheer physical limitations. The net result of that is that I would be getting woefully inadequate protein.

-PK

Potatoes = a technically complete protein... some of the essential amino acids in potatoes are only found in pittance amounts.
And since the protein is in the form of vegetable matter it is not fully utilized by the body... really only count about half of it.

Eating an all potato diet is no different than becoming vegan (the kind that really eats mostly just vegetables/fruit)... they feel great for a while too, and lose weight, etc... their bodies are cannibalizing their muscles and organs due to the lack of protein and fat. That's just how it works.

How tall is this 185lb active dude? Like 3' or like 6'? If he is closer to a 6' dude it doesnt sound like this dude needs to worry about tators for weight loss in the first place. Problem solved. Now if he is short and fat, he might be on the verge of a few more obesity related disease worries greater than a little deficient protein for a few days at a time. (2 weeks tops)

Quite odd then that most of the posts in the "potato diet" threads are not from people who are significantly obese with bigger worries... but from people who seem more concerned with the last few vanity pounds or meeting a specific number on a scale.
Just an observation.

[otzi]

Potatoes = a technically complete protein... some of the essential amino acids in potatoes are only found in pittance amounts.
And since the protein is in the form of vegetable matter it is not fully utilized by the body... really only count about half of it.

Eating an all potato diet is no different than becoming vegan (the kind that really eats mostly just vegetables/fruit)... they feel great for a while too, and lose weight, etc... their bodies are cannibalizing their muscles and organs due to the lack of protein and fat. That's just how it works.



Quite odd then that most of the posts in the "potato diet" threads are not from people who are significantly obese with bigger worries... but from people who seem more concerned with the last few vanity pounds or meeting a specific number on a scale.
Just an observation.

Long stretches of potatoes would be disastrous for sure. Short term results in rapid fat loss. I've seen it work equally well on last 10 for me and some others and first 10 for a morbidly obese man. Satiation while on calorie deficit is hard to come by--that's why HCG is so popular. Potatoes are nature's HCG!

[cori93437]

I would have to see actual reliable measurements (either hydro or DEXA) to believe that it was primarily FAT loss...

I do not believe that any crash diet results in fat loss at the rates you and others are describing. I believe that there is a small amount of fat loss along with muscle loss. This is pretty well documented in crash diet scenarios.

Potatoes are not HCG. That is a certifiably ridiculous statement.

[jojohaligo]

No matter what I can't eat 10 days of potatoes with no fat on them. Borrrriiiing!


This is said by someone who has access to a variety of good foods.

[AlanC]

One point worth considering is homeostasis.

If you're just going about your normal activities then once protein resumes there's no logical reason why your body won't swiftly pack muscle back on again to return where you were muscle-wise. In the meantime, you've burnt fat.

So why not do the potato thing, then boost protein later?

Of course you can also ask 'why not just do extra protein now?' but that ruins part of the strength of the thing, which is the simplicity and appetite-killing effect.

My point is that muscle loss, IF it's occurring and my measurements don't seem to support that to any significant extent, is hardly some permanent tragedy. In bodybuilding it's well-accepted that you'll lose some muscle mass while cutting. So?

Fact is, we're seeing tummy measurements going down. Works for me.



AC

[gopintos]

Quite odd then that most of the posts in the "potato diet" threads are not from people who are significantly obese with bigger worries... but from people who seem more concerned with the last few vanity pounds or meeting a specific number on a scale.
Just an observation.

True true, I guess my point was so long as they have 'something' to lose. And maybe the more you have to lose the more you do in fact lose. Someone who is pretty much there, or someone doing drastic variations, may not see the same results. But they might see some other kind of results, so it's all good to know

[pklopp]

One point worth considering is homeostasis.

If you're just going about your normal activities then once protein resumes there's no logical reason why your body won't swiftly pack muscle back on again to return where you were muscle-wise. In the meantime, you've burnt fat.

That is an interesting speculation, but you do realize that "pack muscle back on again" reflects itself as the needle on the scale moving "in the wrong direction" for people who are monitoring weight rather than body composition? Assuming that your idea regarding homeostasis is correct, then this whole potato diet thing becomes the poster child for yo-yo dieting. Further, people report that the weight stays off ... yaiii! Unless, of course, this is simply a reflection of the fact that it is difficult to regain lost muscle mass.

So why not do the potato thing, then boost protein later?

You're an adult, do what you want to do as long as you don't harm others. If you want to eat only potatoes, then no one has any right to try and stop you.

On the whole, it is not my impression that people are trying to stop others from eating potatoes, it certainly isn't my intent. I'm merely trying to understand what is going on. It is precisely this desire for comprehension that led to my potato fast experiment. The results of my self-experimentation categorically tell me that the claims being made for the potato fast are greatly exaggerated.

Of course you can also ask 'why not just do extra protein now?' but that ruins part of the strength of the thing, which is the simplicity and appetite-killing effect.

Yes, it is brain dead simple, that is a "strength." I am a little leery of people for whom brain-dead simple is such a selling point.

If you have the stomach for it, go back to the monster tator thread, and find one particular post that in essence said "I don't want to hear any counter opinion or evidence. Potatoes work and that's the end of it. If you don't like it, go somewhere else." I'm paraphrasing, but that is the mentality that is prevalent there.

I am a perfect example of that dynamic. I did the potato fast for a week at a 1500 kcal. intake with results on the order of what I would expect on _any_ diet at that caloric deficit. I did not observe miraculous weight loss and I fastidiously measured various parameters. When I put out that information, the pushback is nearly overwhelming and of two forms : either I broke the diet by including protein ( egg whites, possibly the worlds most innocous substance ) or I am myself broken.

The zeal with which people defend the potato diet even in the face of contradicting evidence is disturbing and borders on the cult-like. Now, before anyone takes offense, consider this: studies show that the beliefs of doomsday cults are actually reinforced and become stronger when their doomsday predictions turn out to be false. The mechanism by which this happens is that those members of the cult that are influenced by evidence, you know, trivial empirical things like there still being a world left to inhabit, internalize that evidence and self-select out of the group. They leave. The ones that are left are the dyed in the wool dogmatists ... "I don't care what you have to say, the world is surely ending, but tomorrow, not yesterday as I initially said." These folks live in an echo chamber, where they only admit evidence to feed their confirmation bias.

For my part, if I have to choose between evidence, and belief, I am going to go for the evidence.

Fact is, we're seeing tummy measurements going down. Works for me.

Et tu, Alan?

-PK

[Timthetaco]

The corollary to the argument is that if your miraculous weightloss is due largely to protein losses, then you may actually be gaining relative fat mass, i.e. you are losing protein at a faster rate than you are losing fat.

I'm quoting this again because it's what prompted my comment. Now the burden of proof is on me? Like I said, I've never heard of that happening on any diet, ever. Show me one example of a person losing more lean mass than fat during the course of a diet.

If people are seeing a significant amount of fat loss after the potato fast, or have broken through a plateau when all the things that should be working haven't been, I'm not going to begrudge them loss of lean tissue along with it. Lean mass lost isn't gone forever, this doesn't crash metabolisms, and from the anecdotal reports it seems to help some people with fat loss.

I'm not convinced that negative nitrogen balance for a week or two is the issue you're making it out to be.

[Owly]

Loss of lean muscle mass is a notable effect of dieting and is particularly of concern in crash diets and in people who experience weight cycling. People can actually end up their weight loss with worse bodyfat percentages than before they started.

Lean mass loss is associated with low protei... [J Am Diet Assoc. 2008] - PubMed - NCBI

It's far easier to gain fat than muscle, and people tend to gain back more fat than muscle after dieting. This is one of the potential causes for people who are metabolically obese but of normal weight and one of the reasons that weight stable overweight people tend to have better long-term health outcomes than people who have been through multiple weight cycles. Repeated weight loss tends to involve repeated loss of muscle mass with the regain consisting primarily of fat, so each time someone diets down and then regains, she is likely to end up fatter by percentage than when she began.

The way to prevent this is to ensure that you don't lose your muscle mass by consuming sufficient protein while dieting. If you are losing significant muscle and bone mass, even if you are also losing fat, you are burning up your health along with your fat.

[gopintos]

The results of my self-experimentation categorically tell me that the claims being made for the potato fast are greatly exaggerated.

Ok, I get what your saying. But I just think that just because it did not work the same for you, does not mean that everyone else is exaggerating anything. That is like saying that ppl that try primal and dont reap any benefits, then the rest of us must be full of BS. That would be like those of us that did not have good results on HF/LC in terms of weight loss & low energy, saying that everyone else that is losing weight and so full of energy is full of BS. I had terribly results and felt like crap, yet I dont feel like they are all just full of crap. I feel like it worked for them, that is great, but was not working for me, so I had to continue trying to figure out something that would. It would have been fine for maintenance but that is not my goal at the moment.

What the experiment showed me, my experiment, was that my original way of eating, though primal, is what was messed up. I could lose weight fasting - no protein, not much in the way of calories, and yet when I was finished fasting, I would gain it back when I returned back to normal primal eating. And that normal eating was high fat and low carbs. For me, fasting was my yo-yo dieting. I would lose the same 2 or 3 pounds. I probably lost 12 or more pounds in any given month, but by the end of the summer, only about 2lbs of it was new loss.

I found the tator thread about the same time of realizing that I needed to shift my macros away from so much fat and include a few more carbs and maybe even up the protein slightly. The shake up might have been what I needed more than anything, and maybe that is why we found success and you didnt. The plateau buster ppl just needed a little carby shake up to get things moving again. Maybe you were already where you needed to be, which is a good thing for you. It is possible that maybe one of the groups is exaggerating, and it's possible that maybe no one is. Without being in a controlled environment with the exact same body composition, same amount of fat, same this same that, it is difficult to compare one to the other.

That is not to say that one is right and one is wrong. Not in terms of results. Now if there is science that shows that eating tators in this fashion is bad for us, and this fashion being for a few days to a few weeks, then that is something else.