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Thoughts on the potato diet

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Re: Thoughts on the potato diet

#271

Post by fleddr »

Potato diet sounds like the much acclaimed "dutch cuisine".

I'm exaggerating, but not by much. I grew up on tasteless boiled potatoes, at least 6 times per week. Supplemented with veggies boiled to pulp. Very fatty meat. And lots of milk.

It's laughed at in relation to the highly creative and tasty mediterranean cuisine, but I respect our bland food for other reasons. It's creative for being a nutrition/cost hack born out of necessity.

Potatoes are a nutritional super food but also cheap and you can store them for months even without refrigeration. Even the skin isn't wasted, it has several uses.

The veggies are boiled to pulp because unlike potatoes, those do go bad when stored longer. In modern times a needless precaution but the paranoia to eat rotten veggies has stuck around for a while in people's habits.

Milk, not part of an adult's normal diet, but a cheap source for protein regardless, so let's use it.

Altogether, it's a physical worker's ultra cheap yet highly nutritional meal. In that sense it's very creative. It's creative where it counts, not just for optics.

Re: Thoughts on the potato diet

#272

Post by petercooper »

jasonlotito wrote: post #142

The moment you start thinking of a diet as something that deprives you of something, you are on the road to failure. "Every diet restricts food choices." This is incorrect. Good diets do not restrict food choices. They usually limit overall intake. You can eat whatever you want. You only have a certain number of calories you can eat per day without gaining some weight. I'm defining "good diets" as a diet that helps y…

Good diets do not restrict food choices. They usually limit overall intake. You can eat whatever you want. You only have a certain number of calories you can eat per day without gaining some weight. [...] And that all revolves around changing your normal diet, or what you eat normally. All of that also means I know I can eat anything, but only so much.

There is another way to think about it that has helped me. It's not necessarily a good way, but.. I got to thinking, what can you do if you struggle to adjust the diet domain? Adjust the time domain!

So eat the same food, but just space it out more. I've found this a great way to start and while I am more gradually improving the food, it has been less psychologically jarring to adjust the timing of my existing food as a way to get going.

Re: Thoughts on the potato diet

#273

Post by CobaltFire »

My son is in treatment for Leukemia, and most patients lose large amounts of weight.

He's also autistic and has food texture issues.

Somehow he's good with potatoes (generally baked "fries") and milk with some infant formula mixed in. He's the only young (Anecdotal, but it's my experience.

Re: Thoughts on the potato diet

#274

Post by [deleted] »

ksenzee wrote: post #87

I spent a few weeks eating only potatoes and vegetable oil, several years ago. It wasn't for weight loss, it was because I was breastfeeding, and my baby had some kind of protein sensitivity we couldn't nail down. Potatoes turned out to be a safe food for him, so that's all I ate for a while. As it happens potatoes are my favorite food, and I had vegetable oil available so I could eat fries/chips/crisps, but even the…

[deleted]

Re: Thoughts on the potato diet

#275

Post by ksenzee »

yelnatz wrote: post #94
ksenzee wrote: post #87

I spent a few weeks eating only potatoes and vegetable oil, several years ago. It wasn't for weight loss, it was because I was breastfeeding, and my baby had some kind of protein sensitivity we couldn't nail down. Potatoes turned out to be a safe food for him, so that's all I ate for a while. As it happens potatoes are my favorite food, and I had vegetable oil available so I could eat fries/chips/crisps, but even the…

Did you lose weight while on it? Any benefits you noticed?

I lost 60 pounds of pregnancy weight that year, so it's hard to tell, but I didn't notice any particular change in my weight loss rate during the potato diet.

Re: Thoughts on the potato diet

#276

Post by lucideer »

zhynn wrote: post #179
captaincrunch wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that potatoes gave you every vitamin and mineral you needed (except b12 which you can get from butter).

I did the SMTM study and they prohibited dairy. So I got my B12 from sweet potato.

Sweet potato doesn't contain B12 - you're probably thinking of Vitamin A.

Dairy doesn't contain enough B12 to supplement you on it's own, which is why the study recommends against and instead suggests taking an actual B12 supplement (Puritan's Pride lozenges)

4 weeks shouldn't be enough time to develop a serious B12 deficiency but doing this for longer could impair you cognitively.

Re: Thoughts on the potato diet

#278

Post by idonotknowwhy »

jaggederest wrote: post #264
GordonS wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange, potatoes can spike and crash my blood sugar faster than anything else. I haven't eaten mashed potato in a decade or so, but IIRC it only took half an hour or so before I was trembling, sweating, feeling very anxious and fearful, and having a strong desire to eat sugar. Not long after I'd become progressively more confused, and sometimes aggressive. I know 2 T1 diabetics, and both never touch potatoes because…

Honestly it's still up in the air right now. I have glucose snacks on hand, I try to monitor how often I eat and not let it go too long, but my Hb a1c is still low and I'm still bothered once or twice a day at least. It's only maybe once a week that it gets bad enough to be super bothersome like you say, basically a panic attack. I tried keto but it was difficult to get the variety, especially (as you say) when you'r…

How long did you yet keto for, and how strict were you? I did it for 5 years and found that if you're strict, the carb cravings completely go away after a couple of weeks.

Re: Thoughts on the potato diet

#279

Post by jaggederest »

idonotknowwhy wrote: post #278
jaggederest wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly it's still up in the air right now. I have glucose snacks on hand, I try to monitor how often I eat and not let it go too long, but my Hb a1c is still low and I'm still bothered once or twice a day at least. It's only maybe once a week that it gets bad enough to be super bothersome like you say, basically a panic attack. I tried keto but it was difficult to get the variety, especially (as you say) when you'r…

How long did you yet keto for, and how strict were you? I did it for 5 years and found that if you're strict, the carb cravings completely go away after a couple of weeks.

I was in ketosis for 3 weeks, from a total of ~1 month eating a keto diet. I was super, super strict, which was probably part of the problem. I estimated <20g net carbs a day

Re: Thoughts on the potato diet

#280

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

safety1st wrote: post #30

There's actually some science behind this diet. Potatoes are the highest scoring food on the satiety index. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/15-incredibly-filling-f... Basically they're the most filling food per calorie. So if you subscribe to the idea that losing weight is mainly about how many calories you consume, a potato heavy diet should be effective. And an all potato diet, while monomaniacal, even more ef…

>There's actually some science behind this diet. Potatoes are the highest scoring food on the satiety index.

Never heard of this before, but I was surprised by the number of potatoes this person ate. I can eat like, 1.5 large potatoes max. Then I’m good. But this guy was quoting 18 med potatoes everyday!?!?

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