Potato diet - Epic Fail, Glorious Victory page 7

[sbhikes]

Did you ever answer the question of measurements? Did you take any measurements and did they change? Was there any body composition change (even though your body comp measurement is with a crappy scale)?

It would be interesting to see what would happen WITHOUT the additional protein, just the potatoes and nothing else. Would you lose lean body mass? Would your body hold on to it for a while? How long?

I think the interesting thing for me was to see how the whole water retention thing really messes with the clarity of the results. The low carb diet has a nice clean result because that confounding water retention issue is gone.

[Paleobird]

Perhaps an indefinite article would have absolved me of any guilt by association : "A Potato diet - .... "?
Notice I didn't make it "Eat MOAR TATERS, Gain MOAR WEIGHT" which might justify the implication.

So until someone from the church of the magic potato trademarks the English words "Potato" and "Diet" when they occur together as in "Potato Diet (TM)" I think we can safely use them to refer to a selection of food ( a diet ) comprised principally of starchy plant tubers ( potatoes ). I intend to do that until I receive the cease and desist letter from the IP lawyers.

Hehehe........

Also, I again, voice the agreement with the BMR over-estimates; particular the modifiers for activity. One of the questions I have for you, what's your BMR if you estimate it by Mifflin with a completely sedentary lifestyle? That's the only BMR estimate that is anywhere close to the truth for me (and the one that is very hard to sustain in the long run). I believe that adding a modifier for activity only works if you do not then add in the exercise separately.

There are a lot of things that can influence TDEE. One is the medications I take for a neurological disorder being a metabolism suppressant. So, I take all the BMR calculators and their modifiers and chuck them and sy, "At what level of calories do I maintain weight and where do I start losing?"

I think the same is true of the original "potato diet" as well. Just sayin'

Pssst.. It was a joke.

Hey, I am still doing my egg diet and cycling them with potatoes on three of the weekdays for glycogen refill! Still two more weeks to go with the eggs and no problems with gasses. I haven’t updated the thread because people seemed to be more interested in the “all potato cult”, but yes I am leaning out, and I now seem to be below 10% of body fat and recomposing around 203 pound. Before I started this diet I did different diets to lose weight and gain some muscle, started at 246 lbs. and around 30% body fat one year ago, so this egg diet is a finisher so to say! At the age of fifthy I am now leaner and with better body composition than ever…

Cool. Fifty here too and back to my high school bod.

I suspect you are right, but essentially, the reason for that is that the frittata is double the mass of ingested food, and that's where we come full ( pun kinda sorta intended ) circle to understanding the mechanism behind the potato diet.

My thinking is that it is mostly due to involuntary caloric restriction as a result of the lack of nutritional density of potatoes, coupled with the satiety effects of a truly monotonous diet. You just get fed up with potatoes so the mere thought of eating more is enough to turn you off eating.

Now if this is the case, that the satiety comes from adding bulk, not anything magical having to do with potatoes. But all of this presupposes that one is willing to let go of the potato dogma.

This. Just this.

Did you ever answer the question of measurements? Did you take any measurements and did they change? Was there any body composition change (even though your body comp measurement is with a crappy scale)?

What I think would be interesting is more shirtless pics of PK

[Leida]

Funnily, I actually prefer higher end lower-carbohydrate diets to sustained ketosis because the continuous water depletion messes up the moment you touch the starch, and changes are so dramatic.

Oh and Leida, be careful with the 18 squares of chocolate, you could have theobromine toxicity. I'm very sensitive to caffeine and I know that if I eat too much chocolate I get dizzy.

(Nod) I was thinking the same thing. I am very sensitive to caffeine, and I don't remember the last time I would have had that much chocolate in one day (4 squares is the max I can think of).

I goit even better numbers with 85% Lindt excellence.
2 cans of tuna + 13 squares lindt 85% excellence (130 g, ~ 4 oz, I guess)
gives 922 calories, 60 g fat, 49 g carbs (19.5 g fibre) and 76 g protein (52:19:29 % ratios)

Insanely, chocolate and tuna gives you enough protein, keep you low carb and meets fibre requirement and keeps you under 20% carbs + gives a good amount of fat.

Plus, you probably get charged with energy on all the caffeine.

I can't try it tomorrow, as I have a pound of liver thawed, but Wednesday I will give it a shot. I am very curious to see if the high reward food will make an under BMR day more tolerable and also the satiety (I assume not so hot, due to sugar in chocolate).

[primalasfuck]

i came here to make fun of these stupid diet hacks, again. but i can't think of anything funny. but i would like my asshole-ish intentions to be noted, cause these threads are all really, really stupid.

are any of you people happier doing one of these 'hacks' where you eat only potatoes, or only potatoes, tuna & egg whites? it's way more fun to eat food, you know, like different types of food... or to be able to go out and eat with other people. try it.

Agreed.
Couldn't have said it better myself!

[Leida]

Actually, monotony of food and limiting food choices has long been proven a successful strategy for weight loss. People tend to eat far more with the variety (just think a buffet or pot luck).

It makes calculating macros a snap. Compared to a special leftovers stew with 3 kinds of meat and 12 different vegetables, adding a couple cans of tuna to 500 g potatoes... so makes the limited food selection approach super good for weekdays.

It also takes choice away so you do not get caught in the mind games and you do not wear down your mind with endlessly making choices. Hungry? Eat a potato. Full? Leave the rest of the potato alone. It really helps people with screwed up satiety mechanism.

Finally, low variety diet helps shut down the 'drill sergeant' that is an enemy of so many dieters: "Don't eat this!" "You can't have that", that eventually leads to the:" I can't deal with it right now." response. You don't have to drill yourself if you make a convent with yourself to eat potatoes and nothing else. Well, maybe you can, but i find it is easier for me personally to adhere when choices are limited (Tim Ferris notes the same thing).

[ChocoTaco369]

I didn't bulk anything with protein, rather, the bulk came from nutrient devoid things like rice and potatoes.

The "All Potato Diet" is just that - an all potato diet. You did not eat just potatoes. You didn't even come close. You bulked it with protein.

Study after study shows that in order to ensure protein retention while in a significant caloric deficit you need approximately 1.5 - 1.7 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight . High protein / high calorie is a completely different beast from high protein / caloric deficit. If you hold protein intake constant _and_ caloric intake constant, you must trade CHO for fat. That is the only thing possible. If you know of another way to do that within those constraints, I'd be curious to hear it.

But you wouldn't know if the all potato diet will result in muscle loss because you didn't do it. You simply ate a reduced calorie, low-fat diet rich in complex carbohydrate. Basically, you followed the dated advice of cardiologists everywhere.

This explanation conveniently ignores the results with rice CHO and it also begs the question as to what exactly I was oxidizing for energy while storing all of this glucose as glycogen? Again, I'm open to your suggestions.

Compare the nutrient content of 1,000 calories of potatoes vs 1,000 calories of white rice.

Potatoes have 29g of fiber. White rice has 8g of fiber.

Fiber is notorious for water retention, and you are getting nearly 4 times the fiber eating potatoes than white rice. You are also getting an order of magnitude more vitamins and minerals, any of which could account for more water retention. White rice is a much more "pure" food than potatoes. Potatoes are fairly nutrient-dense.

What is interesting is Lyle McDonald stated his best massive carb-loads were on skim milk and white flour bagels. The reason was it was all glucose and lactose with virtually no fiber, so he wouldn't shake and jiggle like if he ate...things like potatoes and whole grains.

1000g of carbs over how many days? A weekend, most likely. If that's the case, you were putting away 2000 kcal of CHO a day, and probably more calories than that overall since I doubt you were just eating carbs. The CHO alone already puts you 33% more in terms of calories as compared to my approach and a whopping 250% more in terms of the CHO consumed per day. I have no doubt that you were a walking water balloon.

It would be over 20-24 hours. Protein remained about 1.5g/lb, the same as any other day. Fat <40g. 4,000 calories of carbs in a day or less is nothing to sneer at. And yes, it was virtually all water and glycogen weight. Glycogen weight is often underrepresented. When you eat carbohydrate and gain weight, around 25% of that weight is simply glycogen storage.

[ChocoTaco369]

For those trying this "experiment," did anyone read this post at Hyperlipid that got this whole ball rolling to begin with?

Hyperlipid: Protons: Zero fat

The theory why people are calling this a "diet hack" isn't because of calories. That would just be normal dieting. The reason why potatoes are the chosen food is because they're basically zero fat and come with high quality protein, something very rare in a vegetarian protein source, and a lot of nutrients. The theory is because your body needs fat to manufacture insulin, if you are eating ZERO fat, it has to pull fat out of storage to manufacture insulin. Because white potatoes are so highly insulogenic and create such a massive, high GI response, it needs A LOT of insulin - which requires a significant portion of fat. Since you aren't eating fat along with it, it is forced to go to adipose tissue as a source - and needs quite a bit - to make all that insulin.

So when you start combining potatoes with outside sources of protein and fiber - like egg whites, fish or vegetables - you are destroying the "hack." You are greatly reducing the insulin spike you're supposed to get, which lessens the immediate fat need from your fat cells to manufacture insulin. The whole point is because potatoes are so massively insulinogenic. If you add stuff, it doesn't work. It has to be all potatoes.

You could surely do it with white rice too, but it's not recommended because there's virtually no protein (certainly no high quality protein) and far less nutrients. Potatoes were chosen because of the very high quality protein, the nutrient density, the high glycemix index and the fact that someone can survive a very long time eating simply potatoes - it is nearly a complete food - you will become ill much faster eating just white rice than eating just white potatoes.

This thread addresses none of this, which is why it's completely invalid. Ignoring this means you've turned it from a "diet hack" into typical CICO, or in this case due to the very short term application, just an exercise in water retention.

[gopintos]

The theory why people are calling this a "diet hack" isn't because of calories. That would just be normal dieting. The reason why potatoes are the chosen food is because they're basically zero fat and come with high quality protein, something very rare in a vegetarian protein source, and a lot of nutrients. The theory is because your body needs fat to manufacture insulin, if you are eating ZERO fat, it has to pull fat out of storage to manufacture insulin. Because white potatoes are so highly insulogenic and create such a massive, high GI response, it needs A LOT of insulin - which requires a significant portion of fat. Since you aren't eating fat along with it, it is forced to go to adipose tissue as a source - and needs quite a bit - to make all that insulin.

OMGosh!! English that I can understand!! I completely understand that and it makes total sense to me!! I knew I loved the tator hack from the beginning, and I knew it worked for me, & now I know why!!!! Thank you for the interpretation!

[otzi]

For those trying this "experiment," did anyone read this post at Hyperlipid that got this whole ball rolling to begin with?

Hyperlipid: Protons: Zero fat

We've been all through that rabbit-hole, but most just hear "Eat Potatoes forever and ever and you will get skinny and die from malnourishment". My favorite quote from Peter, and what got me really interested in all this is (from your link):

“Once you get FFA levels low enough to inhibit insulin secretion you will start to move in to the sort of territory where insulin secretion might be blunted enough to allow hyperglycaemia. But the feedback effect of reduced insulin levels is also the re commencement of lipolysis. This will restore enough FFAs to maintain functional insulin secretion and so avoid potential hyperglycaemia, which the body tries to avoid. Of course you have to throw in the increased insulin sensitivity of muscles deprived of exogenously supplied FFAs too.”

[Paleobird]

Also from the Hyperlipid site

"So you have to ask whether an almost all potato diet genuinely leads low fasting insulin and subsequent weight loss. For my perspective the answer is yes.
The next question is whether anyone could do this. That, I suspect, depends on how broken your liver is. The more of a problem you have with obesity the less likely you are to lose weight or experience appetite normalization.

Is it healthy for someone with a functional liver to live on potatoes? It is clearly possible in the medium term. Cooked tubers have a respectable history of human usage. If you are not broken it might be a reasonable diet. There are no trans fats in spuds. There are minimal omega 6 fats. There is no gluten. There is just enough fructose to activate hepatic glucokinase without generating de novo lipogenesis. There is adequate high quality protein. On the down side there are a stack of vitamin and mineral deficiencies waiting in the wings.

I have no doubt that Chris Voight lost weight on an all potato diet. I also have no doubt that he was neither chronically hyperglycaemic nor hyperinsulinaemic."

This I think, all kidding about potato heads aside, is the danger involved in threads such as the Moar Potatoes one. What might be perfectly do-able as a short term weight loss hack for a fit person with no liver or metabolism issues might be very unhealthy for the metabolically or hepatic-ly "broken" as Peter puts it.
And then there are the vitamin deficiencies. Again, not a big deal to the already fit.