AlexU comments on The Unfinished Mystery of the Shangri-La Diet - Less Wrong

22 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 April 2009 08:30PM

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Comment author: AlexU 10 April 2009 09:31:35PM *  0 points [-]

Diet (singular) does work in the sense of consistently, indefinitely eating healthier foods.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 April 2009 09:37:50PM 12 points [-]

No... it... DOESN'T. I tried that. I ate a simple Paleo diet which consists of nothing except healthy foods; my staples were home-cooked turkey and bananas. I did it for months. I lost not a single pound.

You CANNOT BEGIN TO IMAGINE how much stuff that really truly seems like it ought to work simply DOES NOT WORK when you are metabolically disprivileged.

Comment author: mattnewport 10 April 2009 09:50:22PM 3 points [-]

Bananas are flagged as a risky item by a number of paleo-type diet authors, though not by 'The Paleo Diet'. They have a fairly high glycemic index. Not that it invalidates your point.

I lost 45lbs on the Paleo Diet and have kept most of it off 2 years later (I've crept up by about 8-10lbs and I'm trying to be a bit stricter to bring that back down). I didn't avoid bananas completely but I'd read enough to be wary of them. I'm sure it doesn't work for everybody but I find it persuasive and effective.

IF the theory that sugar and refined carbohydrates are the biggest risk factors for weight gain is true THEN learning enough to become convinced of just how bad they are, to the point that you develop a strong negative emotional response to foods containing them, is an effective technique of applying initially conscious rationality to create new habits. Of course it may not work for everybody. Variations in individual metabolism seem to be an understudied aspect of diet research.

Comment author: AlexU 10 April 2009 09:40:38PM 2 points [-]

Are you saying it didn't work because it didn't curb your hunger or your desire for other, less healthy foods? Or it didn't work because you stuck to the diet of healthy foods and gained weight nonetheless? The latter seems hard to believe, though I suppose it's technically possible to accumulate an excess of calories via turkey and bananas...

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 April 2009 09:42:34PM 3 points [-]

The latter.

Comment author: arfle 10 November 2010 10:23:23AM -1 points [-]

So are you claiming to be a counterexample to 'weight change=calories in - calories out'?

Comment author: Jonnan 11 April 2009 02:18:56AM 1 point [-]

I can honestly say, I actually have healthy tastes - I actually like salad (I have a salad garden for exactly that reason), and do work on a small (3 acres) property when I'm not at my day job.

Although I do like most traditional deserts, they are not a typical portion of the meal, barring holidays. I do tend to eat 'candy' when it's around . . . which is one reason I don't keep it around.

So I sympathize entirely with the original poster when he says eating nothing but healthy foods doesn't help. My 'Vitamin Pill' version of the Shangra-la diet lost me 30 pounds straight through the holidays when I was eating deserts . . . and stopped.

So there are definitely other factors that are being missed.

Jonnan

Comment author: JulianMorrison 10 April 2009 09:35:59PM -2 points [-]

The above is equivalent to saying "being in state S1 works".

S3 is characterized by not being able to consistently, indefinitely eat healthier foods.

IOW: the above is a dodge.