Potato diet community trial • Hacker News Board

Re: Potato diet community trial

#31

Post by adrianN » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:36 AM UTC

DeWilde wrote: post #4

> It sounds like a dumb gimmick that could never work, but there are a surprising number of people out there saying that they tried it, it worked for them, and they kept the weight off for months or even years after. Losing weight isn't causal to being healthy. In most cases it correlates because gaining weight is usually done through eating unhealthy (excess calories, refined sugars, etc.) so going on a healthy diet…

You can gain weight on a diet of "healthy" foods. It's the amount of calories. Being overweight is bad for your health even if you only eat healthy foods.

Re: Potato diet community trial

#32

Post by gjs278 » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:36 AM UTC

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #14

fredsted wrote: post #7

I don't doubt this works, but I'd rather do e.g. keto where I can eat delicious meals and still feel fully satiated.

I did this for a year. Its not sustainable, you'll loose muscle mass. I eat potatoes daily now, but not exclusively - complex carbs are harder to burn, so they are fattening, so I have gained some weight. Maybe I'll eliminate the rice and see how that goes. I'd recommend against olive oil and for coconut oil, frying potatoes needs a lot of heat. Add parsley, bacon, caraway, onions and serve with pickled white cabbage…

No post body was provided.

Re: Potato diet community trial

#33

Post by naraic0o » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:37 AM UTC

TJSomething wrote: post #25

DeWilde wrote: post #4

> It sounds like a dumb gimmick that could never work, but there are a surprising number of people out there saying that they tried it, it worked for them, and they kept the weight off for months or even years after. Losing weight isn't causal to being healthy. In most cases it correlates because gaining weight is usually done through eating unhealthy (excess calories, refined sugars, etc.) so going on a healthy diet…

> Losing weight isn't causal to being healthy. Except that's not how it works. An excess of fat can directly cause problems. Above a certain point, having too much fat causes chronic hypoxia in fatty tissue, leading to chronic inflammation, which can eventually lead to systemic problems like insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, kidney failure, liver disease, and cancer. Edit: I am specifically referring to abd…

Excess dietary fat or do you mean obesity?

Re: Potato diet community trial

#34

Post by iasay » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:37 AM UTC

DeWilde wrote: post #4

> It sounds like a dumb gimmick that could never work, but there are a surprising number of people out there saying that they tried it, it worked for them, and they kept the weight off for months or even years after. Losing weight isn't causal to being healthy. In most cases it correlates because gaining weight is usually done through eating unhealthy (excess calories, refined sugars, etc.) so going on a healthy diet…

Exactly this. I lost 34Kg without resorting to eating just potatoes or some other ridiculous fad. Just less input than output with a balanced diet.

Re: Potato diet community trial

#35

Post by aksss » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:37 AM UTC

sschueller wrote: post #13

potiuper wrote: post #5

"No dairy": would result in a Vitamin D deficit unless the some other food fortified with vitamin D is used, person is living in a tropical region with little clothing, or the multivitamin option is chosen over the emphasized B12 supplement. It also lacks fiber: https://spoonuniversity.com/lifestyle/potatoes-and-milk-is-t...

Isn't most Vitamin D "absorbed" (generated via sun light) via skin and only very little via diet?

Not necessarily. The best way to get it is arguably via the sun, but with caveats.

Because of the thickness of the atmosphere when the sun is at lower altitudes you will only start to get enough UV-B penetrating when the sun is at an angle of >=35 degrees. If you are within 35 degrees of equator you can get UV-B every day, but outside of these latitudes there are many months where there's just not enough solar hang time high enough in the sky to deliver any meaningful amount of UV-B.

The shitty part is, the whole time and more you're still getting UV-A, which is a known cancer risk. Depending on your clothing, skin pigment, weight, and age, UV-B uptake may be significantly reduced (up to 6x for dark skin pigment, 2x for age over 50).

So while you can get UV-B from the sun in mid-day at the right latitudes, most people benefit from supplementing.

Good info at the D-Minder app site: https://dminder.ontometrics.com/

I think what I've learned from this is supplement, supplement, supplement.

Re: Potato diet community trial

#36

Post by Smaug123 » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:38 AM UTC

vmladenov wrote: post #27

This title is fairly disingenuous considering the test subjects are using vitamin supplements to make up for the obvious deficiency. The weight loss bits are just silly. Any sustained caloric deficit will cause one to lose fat, regardless of the source. This just seems to be rediscovering the already well-known fact that complex carbohydrates (which potatoes provide) keep you better satiated than simple carbohydrates…

The purpose of this random Internet trial is to verify or disprove the assertion that this diet is easy to stick to for most people, which would be absolutely massive if true because no weight-loss diet ever has had this property. And it seems to have done very well at that purpose: four weeks later, only about 10% of the cohort were still doing it.

Re: Potato diet community trial

#37

Post by refurb » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:39 AM UTC

DeWilde wrote: post #4

> It sounds like a dumb gimmick that could never work, but there are a surprising number of people out there saying that they tried it, it worked for them, and they kept the weight off for months or even years after. Losing weight isn't causal to being healthy. In most cases it correlates because gaining weight is usually done through eating unhealthy (excess calories, refined sugars, etc.) so going on a healthy diet…

Losing weight isn't causal to being healthy.

Sure it is. I mean there are healthy ways to lose weight and less healthy ways, but losing weight if you're overweight is better for your health.

Re: Potato diet community trial

#38

Post by implements » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:39 AM UTC

“Potatoes, milk, butter and the occasional piece of meat” is apparently a nutritionally complete diet, but you need to be able to eat something like 10-lb of cooked potatoes a day, which is hard work and also not that inexpensive either.

Re: Potato diet community trial

#39

Post by YetAnotherNick » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:39 AM UTC

DeWilde wrote: post #4

> It sounds like a dumb gimmick that could never work, but there are a surprising number of people out there saying that they tried it, it worked for them, and they kept the weight off for months or even years after. Losing weight isn't causal to being healthy. In most cases it correlates because gaining weight is usually done through eating unhealthy (excess calories, refined sugars, etc.) so going on a healthy diet…

It is still causal. You can't add sum of components that "eating x is overall worse than y because it is better in one thing but worse in another". It's hard to compare two axis and specially if one axis is unscientific land of hormone disturbance.

Re: Potato diet community trial

#40

Post by arghwhat » Wed, Jun 22, 2022, 7:40 AM UTC

TJSomething wrote: post #25

DeWilde wrote: post #4

> It sounds like a dumb gimmick that could never work, but there are a surprising number of people out there saying that they tried it, it worked for them, and they kept the weight off for months or even years after. Losing weight isn't causal to being healthy. In most cases it correlates because gaining weight is usually done through eating unhealthy (excess calories, refined sugars, etc.) so going on a healthy diet…

> Losing weight isn't causal to being healthy. Except that's not how it works. An excess of fat can directly cause problems. Above a certain point, having too much fat causes chronic hypoxia in fatty tissue, leading to chronic inflammation, which can eventually lead to systemic problems like insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, kidney failure, liver disease, and cancer. Edit: I am specifically referring to abd…

I don't think OP was suggesting that being overweight was healthy or that losing weight was bad.

They merely suggested that weight loss does not occur as a result of a healthy diet, but rather as a result of an intentionally deficient diet (technically an "unhealthy" diet). That you can lose weight eating only potatoes is therefore not very interesting and does not imply that the diet is healthy.