Thread by @ncasenmare

Late to signal-boosting this, but I'm participating in @mold_time's Potato Diet citizen science experiment! Data will be open, 180+ test subjects so far!

Sign up to eat all the potatoes you want for 4 weeks (or find out what/why the heck this is):

🥔slimemoldtimemold.com/2022/04/29/pot… 🥔

(SMTM's warning for signups: “please consult with your doctor before trying this or any other weight loss regimen. We are not doctors. We are 20 rats in a trenchcoat. eee! eee! eee!”)

(My content note for this thread: dieting, eating disorders, that kind of touchy stuff 😬)

🥔1️⃣: First, the potato pitch.

You eat as many potatoes as you want for 4 weeks. But only potato, with seasonings/sauces/olive oil. No dairy.

Anecdotally, the diet has huge *sustainable* weight loss effects, and unlike every other diet, takes ~0 willpower. It's even *fun*!

(Anecdotally? There's lots of cool anecdotes for the 🥔 diet. For example, @PennJillette [the loud half of Penn & Teller] lost 100lbs off a diet that started with 2 weeks of just 🥔, and has kept it off. A couple others have replicated the 100+lb loss.)

What's more: potatoes are surprisingly nutritious & low-calorie! You can hit your "recommended" Daily Value of everything except vitamin A & B12 on just potato. (Potato has enough protein, but not complete protein) So as long as you cheat every few days, potato diet is fine.

However, no stuffy, serious grant agency's gonna fund something called "The Potato Diet", hence why SMTM's taken it upon themselves to run a citizen-science experiment. (Which, tbh, is looking to be more open & rigorous than most nutrition studies, or most *any* studies)

If it works, why does it work?

🚀no idea🚀

But hey, at first we didn't know *why* limes cure scurvy, just that they did. And Ignaz Semmelweis thought handwashing worked coz of "cadaverous particles".

There is (as yet) no potato theory. For now, let's just get potato data.

🥔2️⃣: My experience so far

I was already "normal BMI", but signed up coz fighting science's ivory tower with potato is funny

(Also the diet may help with anxiety/depression. And it's good to see if there's a "floor", i.e., it only works for "high" BMIs but not "normal" BMI)

I started 5'8", 137lb. Already middle-low range of "normal BMI".

I'm now on Day 19 of "try to eat only potato, but as much as you want" – and I've cheated on 8/19 (40%!) of the days – I'm *still* losing roughly 2.2lb/1kg a week(?!)

As you can see below, it's not just noise:

(& from SMTM's early data, "losing roughly 2.2lb/1kg a week" seems to be common for the volunteers so far:

https://mobile.twitter.com/mold_time/status/1530527527680327680

)

(It *is* really weird, tho, that I'm getting about the same effect size even when I already started "normal" BMI *and am cheating a lot*)

If you've tried dieting before, you know "1kg/week" is a big effect!

But to compare rigorously: on the low-carb/low-fat/Mediterranean diets, the avg subject loses the 1st kg slightly under a month, then plateaus/rebounds at 3–5kg after *two years*.

src: nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…

A closer comparison is the famed CALERIE study, where they got subjects to cut their daily calories by 25%: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

In that study, they also got avg 10lb loss at 4 weeks, but plateauing a year later at ~26lb loss

However! The CALERIE study had to do all kinds of intensive, intrusive shtuff to get people to actually comply. (see screenshot)

The Potato Diet is pretty much "lol just eat tato's, as many as u want."

🥔3️⃣: Ending thoughts so far (11 days left to go)

* It definitely causes fast weight loss, ~1kg/week. Somehow, the same effect even for "normal BMI" folks like me?

* Probably faster than low-carb/low-fat/Medit, probably same as 25% Caloric Restriction, but easier/cheaper.

* Concern about study design: SMTM's trial only goes up to 4 weeks, but the graphs above show plateaus after half a year. Then again, 1) the anecdotes including Penn Jillette's involve *sustained* 100+lb loss, and 2) I'm not eating only potato for half a year.

Where Potato Diet's not living up to hype (for me):

* No change in energy/mental health. Not improved, but not worse.

* It's surprisingly hard. Not as hard as low-carb/CR (which I've tried before), but still tough. I cheated 40% of days, mostly for social eats.

(And yet despite cheating 40% of days, I still got the ~2.2lb/1kg per week loss anyway? And I was *already* "normal BMI" when I started.)

What do I think's causing the weight loss? I'll have to wait for SMTM's full dataset, but (not mutually-exclusive) hypotheses:

1) It's "just" a caloric restriction diet, but made easier. Potatoes are nutritious+low-calorie but filling (you need 20 potatoes a day to get 2000cals)

2) Potatoes are affecting my resting metabolism. I noticed I'm fidgeting more, esp restless leg. (Tho maybe I've always been fidgety & am now only noticing)

I & others are also sleeping more, and, unsettingly, "Hunger literally feels different."

https://mobile.twitter.com/pwestling/status/1525509983273512963

3) It's a stupidly roundabout way to eliminate added-sugar/refined-flour yet still be tasty

4) The environmental contamination hypothesis of obesity is true – SMTM's most well-known paper-disguised-as-blog-series is on that:

https://mobile.twitter.com/mold_time/status/1412827749828513800

– & something about the diet reduces contaminants. Maybe the potatoes themselves, or using olive oil, or baking at home.

Final icky personal note: I was an overweight kid in Singapore (where fatshaming used to be the literal govt policy), then – perhaps not coincidentally – I was anorexic in my late teens.

The worry has popped in my head that this diet is me giving myself an eating disorder.

So, I want to reassure you (my myself), that I've set a hard limit: the moment I hit one pound above when I'd be considered "Underweight BMI" – which at my current weight loss rate, I might soon? – I *hard stop*. Then I'm treating myself to as much ramen & mochi as I want.

In conclusion, Potato Diet is weird & very promising, but we need hard data to back up the anecdotes, so, if you wanna eat mostly potato for 4 weeks, you can do it... for SCIENCE!

🥔 slimemoldtimemold.com/2022/04/29/pot…🥔

[end thread]

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