I have on three occasions lost over 20 pounds, only to gain them back.
The real problem I have had with diets has not been a lack of information on diet. I knew how to lose weight. I just didn’t know how to keep it off.
Enter Stephan Guyenet and this review of his work by Scott Alexander of Slate Star Codex.
A key quote
Modern food isn’t just unusually rewarding, it’s also unusually bad at making us full. The brain has some pretty sophisticated mechanisms to determine when we’ve eaten enough; these usually involve estimating food’s calorie load from its mass and fiber level. But modern food is calorically dense – it contains many more calories than predicted per unit mass – and fiber-poor. This fools the brain into thinking that we’re eating less than we really are, and shuts down the system that would normally make us feel full once we’ve had enough. Simultaneously, the extremely high level of food reward tricks the brain into thinking that this food is especially nutritionally valuable and that it should relax its normal constraints.
The kind of super tasty -- at least super addictive food -- we have available to us change our brain, which in turn changes our internal perception (or “set point”) of what we should weigh.
So to change my perception of hunger itself, I have set up a challenge to go 100 days eating bland food (the set of rules are below).
To try to engineer adherence I took two steps 1) I joined beeminder. 2) I have also set up a bet with my best friend with the following rules:
- We are betting to lose 5 pounds by August 1st, $20 a pound.
- In September, another 5 pounds (or 10 pounds total), for another $20 a pound.
- In October, we have to keep the 10 pounds off -- you guessed it, $20 a pound.
So, theoretically, we are betting $300 dollars on this. With that said, we only have to pay up the difference between our goals. In other words, if we my best friend loses 5 pounds the first month and I only lose 4, then I will pay the $20. If we both lose the full amount, then we do not have to pay.
This should be very much possible with the rules I have set up. But more than just losing weight, I believe that after 100 days my tastes and hungers will have changed down to the substrate of my brain itself.
The Rules
[Update, I did not follow these rules for 100 days, more like 15. Also, I abandoned beeminder. In retrospect, this is probably the inevitable product of the incentive structure I put in place: the bet with my best friend was just so much of a bigger deal than beeminder. With that said, I am over 15 pounds down from where I started the diet, 30 pounds from my highest. I still follow these rules quite often, just not every day.]
I’ll admit that the rules I have set up for myself are too complex and that this is one problem with this diet. I am not expecting anyone to follow what I am doing here. Work on the problem of adherence.
In reality, though, the core rule is to eat from a set of very simple meals at home, and then have other rules to do my best in other situations.
Home-cooked meals
Only the following meals:
- Lentils and rice -- here meaning the specific recipe below.
- Stir Fried vegetables
- Salads, following the rules below
- Steamed Cabbage (curry, salt and/or chili powder is acceptable)
- CRON Anti-oxidant special
Lentils and rice-- either onion or garlic sauteed in olive oil. Then lentils, rice and water are added.
CRON Anti-oxidant special -- Berries, with a maximum of five nuts. Apple (but skin only) may be added.
Homemade Salad rules.
- Olive oil or vinegar only acceptable dressings
- So . . . No ranch dressing.
- A crumbling of a smelly cheese (ex feta or blue) is acceptable
- Salsa is acceptable
Restaurant Rules
I must order from this list, if available:
- Salad.
- Veggie Sandwhich/pita/wrap.
- Low Calorie soup (under 400 calories a serving).
These rules are very important in being able to live a flexible life in the modern world. I want to be able to meet up with people and live a properly social life. And one level, yes this lifestyle is absurdly privileged, and destined to go away (almost certainly in my lifetime) but it the social system I currently live in.
Acceptable snacks
- Coleslaw with vinegar base
- Potato (boiled or baked only -- salt as only seasoning).
- Oatmeal
The two oatmeal recipes:
- Savory oatmeal. Cook the oatmeal. Add about a tablespoon of olive oil and salt. Add herbs and/or green onions. Or herbs.
- Plum oatmeal. Cook oatmeal. Halfway through, add a frozen plum. After that is done, mix the plum in. Add cinnamon.
Acceptable drinks
- Water
- Mint Tea
- Tea, no additions
- Coffee, black
Visit mom/Festival Rules.
Eat a good deal of fiber before going.
Keep any portion very small. Think French people.
I see my mother about once a week, and she often cooks for us. Also, around the holidays people gather to eat. I really don’t want to be a pain to other people, telling them I need special dishes made. A true modern pathology is making the exercise of freedom everyone else’s problem.
As you can see, if you read through what must have been a tedious list of all of my diet rules, you will see that I am basically going vegetarian home. This means that I am a social meat eater.
I am requiring the eating of fiber before I go so I don’t even risk making a mistake.
