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Thoughts on the potato diet

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Re: Thoughts on the potato diet

#351

Post by moron4hire »

> Which of these would you rather have to sustain you for a day?

Definitely the 5 bacon cheeseburgers. That's one for breakfast, two for lunch, and two for dinner. I could definitely eat like that.

The picture OP shows looks like a typical fast food joint burger. And if we look at McDonald's own self-reporting of calorie content, they list a bacon cheeseburger as 330 calories. So the math of "5 bacon cheeseburgers = ~1750 calories" checks out.

The problem is, I think McDonald's is lying. 1800 calories is about my break-even rate. I don't lose or gain weight at 1800. But--though I'm a little ashamed to admit--I have eaten 5 such cheeseburgers a day (and really just the cheeseburgers, no fries and soda, I actually find them gross), and I gained weight rapidly.

That suggests to me that each of those cheeseburgers is much more than 330 calories. I'd not be surprised if--without bacon--they were actually 500 calories. 2500 calories a day, minus 1800 basal metabolic rate equals 4900 extra calories a week. If we go with the received wisdom of 3600 calories per pound of weight, that's gaining 5 pounds every 3 weeks.

And that tracks with my experience. My slovenly experience of eating nothing but McDonald's cheeseburgers for two months straight.

Re: Thoughts on the potato diet

#352

Post by [deleted] »

com2kid wrote: post #152
mminer237 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. There really is something special about potatoes that just makes them far more filling than they "should be": https://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/fullness-factor

That list is ... suspect? > Lowfat yogurt I've never been satiated eating lowfat yogurt. I actually recently started buying high fat yogurt (10g+ of fat) and it is super satiating. Given I can eat 3x the amount of lowfat yogurt and still not be full, I'm not buying it. > Watermelon Maybe due to bloating from water? > Bean sprouts I challenge anyone to get full eating just bean sprouts. Again, they are more akin to dr…

[deleted]

Re: Thoughts on the potato diet

#354

Post by throwaway787544 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #263

Apart from the nutritional concerns, two other huge problems with the potato diet are: 1 - If you want your meal to be healthy you'll have to avoid many (most?) tasty toppings. 2 - The diet is incredibly monotonous and boring. Hats off to people who can stomach it for an extended period of time, but I would be willing to wager that the vast majority of people who try it won't be able to stick with it for long.

I never understood why people think unhealthy food has all the flavor. Most unhealthy food is just sugar, salt, fat, and a tiny pinch of flavor. Just get the flavor without the other crap and it's much more intense.

Most vegetables, fruit, beans, legumes, and grains have lots of great flavor and are low in calories. Fermented foods have tons of flavor and extra health benefits. There's a gigantic range of herbs, spices, extracts. It would take a million years before you exhaust all the possible combinations.

Imagine any non-animal flavor and it's probably not unhealthy. If all you can think of is meat or oil, you just need to expose yourself to new cuisines.

Re: Thoughts on the potato diet

#355

Post by monktastic1 »

chihuahua wrote: post #350
monktastic1 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> eat 2 eggs for breakfast and I guarantee you won't even think a out food again until lunch time, if not dinner time. I don't understand the motivation to make such a guarantee. It's as though you assume there are many people on HN who have never tried eating two eggs in the same meal. Do you maybe live in a place where eggs are rare (or not commonly eaten)? (For what it's worth, my personal experience matches that…

If "2 eggs for breakfast and you won't think about food again until hours later" were true, it would be the world's easiest and most effective diet: eat 2 eggs (2x75 calories), the next time you feel hungry (afternoon), eat another 2 eggs, then have a MASSIVE 1200 calorie dinner. Total = 1500 calories for the day - substantial weight loss would be guaranteed. In practice, this doesn't work because eggs are not hugely…

I agree it's not true for most people -- though for someone who has trained themselves to eat a small breakfast, it surely can be. Plenty of people eat nothing for breakfast, and are satiated til lunchtime, but aren't losing weight from it.

More interesting to me is why someone would phrase it as a guarantee even if it were true. It suggests that the reader likely hasn't tried it, and would be surprised to discover the result.

Re: Thoughts on the potato diet

#356

Post by bergenty »

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…

When I went to the Irish potato famine museum in Ireland they said the average person needed a basketful of potatoes per day.

That doesn’t seem like it’s high in the satiety index.

Re: Thoughts on the potato diet

#357

Post by bergenty »

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?

It was all deep fried. It wasn’t just potatoes but a lot of fat.

Re: Thoughts on the potato diet

#358

Post by voganmother42 »

soared wrote: post #21

This is really well written and easily digestible. It’s rare that content about diet is lighthearted and fun! No outlandish claims, very little misconstrued science, but tons of funny fads. Usually you’d have to dig deep to find the root of the authors point in articles like this, but the simplicity is baked in from the start.

To chip in, I agree the author has a great eye. Other articles just mash the information together, but I found this to be very appealing.

Re: Thoughts on the potato diet

#359

Post by rootusrootus »

bergenty wrote: post #356
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…

When I went to the Irish potato famine museum in Ireland they said the average person needed a basketful of potatoes per day . That doesn’t seem like it’s high in the satiety index.

I can find claims that people were eating 14 pounds a day. That seems implausible. They'd have been really fat on nearly 5000 Calories per day.

Re: Thoughts on the potato diet

#360

Post by danielheath »

bergenty wrote: post #356
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…

When I went to the Irish potato famine museum in Ireland they said the average person needed a basketful of potatoes per day . That doesn’t seem like it’s high in the satiety index.

Satiety index is per calorie. Needing a large volume per day indicates it’s low calorie per volume, which would support that claim.
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