Shangri-La part 2

Almost a year ago I read a freakonomics column about the Shangri La diet, decided to put Jimmy, Christopher & me on it, and then promptly forgot the whole thing. (Promptly forgot the whole thing after first making myself sick as a dog on the day of the U.S. Open, that is.)

Yesterday the diet popped back up on my radar screen, and I'm going for it!

This time will be different!

This time I will write myself Post-it notes!

ABSTRACT:

The theory described in this article assumes that the body-fat set point – how much body fat the brain tries to maintain – is controlled by flavor-calorie associations. Calorie-associated flavors raise the set point – the stronger the association, the greater the increase. In the absence of calorie-associated flavors, the set point declines. Given some plausible assumptions, the mechanism regulates body fat according to the availability of food, increasing body fat when food is abundant, decreasing body fat when food is scarce. The theory explains a wide range of human and animal data, including effects and correlations involving pre-exposure, pureeing, moistening food, bland food, glycemic index, supermarket food, junk food, fasting, intragastric feeding, and income. It also helped find a new way to lose weight.

source:
What Makes Food Fattening? A Pavlovian Theory of Weight Control by Seth Roberst (pdf file)


ABSTRACT:

Little is known about how to generate plausible new scientific ideas. So it is noteworthy that 12 years of self-experimentation led to the discovery of several surprising cause-effect relationships and suggested a new theory of weight control, an unusually high rate of new ideas. The cause-effect relationships were: (1) Seeing faces in the morning on television decreased mood in the evening (>10 hrs later) and improved mood the next day (>24 hrs later), yet had no detectable effect before that (0–10 hrs later). The effect was strongest if the faces were life-sized and at a conversational distance. Travel across time zones reduced the effect for a few weeks. (2) Standing 8 hours per day reduced early awakening and made sleep more restorative, even though more standing was associated with less sleep. (3) Morning light (1 hr/day) reduced early awakening and made sleep more restorative. (4) Breakfast increased early awakening. (5) Standing and morning light together eliminated colds (upper respiratory tract infections) for more than 5 years. (6) Drinking lots of water, eating low-glycemic-index foods, and eating sushi each caused a modest weight loss. (7) Drinking unflavored fructose water caused a large weight loss that has lasted more than 1 year. While losing weight, hunger was much less than usual. Unflavored sucrose water had a similar effect. The new theory of weight control, which helped discover this effect, assumes that flavors associated with calories raise the body-fat set point: The stronger the association, the greater the increase. Between meals the set point declines. Self-experimentation lasting months or years seems to be a good way to generate plausible new ideas.

Self-experimentation as a source of new ideas: Ten examples about sleep, mood, health, and weight
Seth Roberts, University of California, Berkeley
full text (pdf file)