Thoughts on the "potato diet"?

I saw a couple on you tube explain it and they did it and lost. And I also watched Penn Jilette's video and he seemed excited about it and did lose weight. The couple said they lost all their food cravings.

150poundsofme wrote: »

I saw a couple on you tube explain it and they did it and lost. And I also watched Penn Jilette's video and he seemed excited about it and did lose weight. The couple said they lost all their food cravings.

Well, yes, people will lose on an all potato diet if they consume less calories than they burn.

or an all anything diet or a lots of different things diet - if they consume less calories than they burn.

Bolded is the key words, not potatoes.

Very old thread bumped up by a first time poster.

i don't eat potatoes (or at least VERY rarely). not a food i particularly cared for (I don't dislike them, i just don't LIKE them). I didn't when i was gaining the weight either though.

What foods lead to satiety vary by person, although plain potatoes score very well on average. I love potatoes and find even potatoes roasted with salt and a little olive oil to be extremely sating and satisfying parts of a meal (and I assume they'd be sufficiently sating on their own, in a pinch, but I prefer also eating something with protein and vegetables). But sure, if nothing else was available they'd be an okay meal for me.

But that is not what this thread is about. It's about the potato hack -- the idea of a longterm diet or, in some cases a "jump start" (which is one of the most irritating dieting terms) -- that involves eating ONLY potatoes. The prior posted asserted that you will lose on it, which is likely true for most, but does not make it magical as you lose for the same reasons you lose on any diet (calorie deficit) and it does not have superior weight loss properties over healthier and more sustainable ways to eat (none of which are monodiets).

As I understand it, the point of the potato hack is that for SOME people it helps them address eating addictions by making eating just a matter of fuel that they never have to think about. Among other things, if you eat ANY monodiet you are going to eat less because it gets boring and variety with food tends to lead to higher cal consumption. The argument (which is obviously disputed) is that the potato is a good food to choose for a monodiet vs the alternatives (the extreme carnivores would likely argue otherwise, as I think some of them eat only plain beef, which seems even more unbearable to me). In any case, I actually have real some of Penn Jillette's book, and I believe the eating addiction thing was why it was (in his view) beneficial for him, and that's also what the Australian guy who did it for a year (who was already vegan). But of course some people try to make it into a fad diet for all.

I am skeptical about it being the best choice even for someone struggling with eating addiction (although I'm not going to say it can't be part of the process). Monodiets are not all that healthy other than short term, and since eventually you have to eat other foods why not start that part from the beginning? But that's not really my concern, it's this idea that the potato hack that everyone should use to "jump start" or that it has some miraculous weightloss effect. It's the same thing as promoting other ridiculous diets like the cabbage soup diet or the GM or Mayo Clinic or Military Diets (none of which are related to GM, the Mayo Clinic, or the military), or the (blast from the past!) Beverly Hills Diet.

YES......
I think a potato diet would be great. As long as I can have sides of gravy, roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, corn, carrots, broccoli, Merlot, tequila, raspberries, cigarettes, hands-free driving, spaghetti and 420.
Come on, now.....
Why does anyone even need to ask questions like this??

nooboots wrote: »

I could do this. Lashings of butter and cheese are included yes?

apparently no

From a previous post:
"Source: https://visualimpactfitness.com/potato-hack-for-rapid-fat-loss/

Plan on eating just potatoes for 3-5 days.
Eat 2-5 pounds of potatoes each day.
No other foods allowed (this includes butter, sour cream, cheese, and bacon bits).
Salt is allowed, but not encouraged.
Drink when thirsty: coffee, tea, and water only.
Heavy exercise is discouraged; light exercise and walking are encouraged.
Take your normal medications, but dietary supplements will not be needed."

So motivated by this thread, boredom when in an airport/plane, and the fact I had the book on the kindle app on my phone, I reread the section of Penn Jillette's book about his experience with eating only potatoes (I think he had been mentioned earlier in the thread even before I brought him up). It was more interesting than I remembered.

His potatoes' only portion of his diet lasted only 2 weeks, it was potatoes cooked with no oil or butter (and nothing added). No salt or seasoning in the first week, only pepper if wanted in the second, and you always were to eat the skin and water (after normal cooking). So of course some water cooks out in any method but boiling and that was fine, but no making chips (as we Americans call them, crisps for the UK folks). (IMO, chips without salt aren't chips anyway.)

He was interested in this because of his own personality (explained in detail), and his understanding was that the concept was not that the potato was special, but because eating just a monomeal without salt or oil or other seasonings was supposed to change his relationship with food and create an ability to really appreciate food (meaning largely un or lightly processed produce) in general. (He suggested that it could have been done with other foods, but the potato was recommended as pretty nutritionally complete -- which is not entirely true but it is better than a number of other possible options -- and also he liked the idea of just the plain humble potato. He also said that he thought part of it was reaction to how much the potato has been vilified, which I kind of like.)

Part of the concept as he understood it was to mimic a winter where back in the day one would have less food and things that would store only, and so part of it was also creating a winter by spending time during the day in cold water/cold showers.

Anyway, he knew some others who did the 2 week thing, said most did well with it, but one had a really negative effect (felt terrible) and so stopped immediately.

He also said it was important to not exercise or be too active while doing it, and IMPORTANT, to be under a doctor's care, which he was. (The list posted by the person who restarted the thread says "take normal medicines" with no mention of doctor's care, and that's really irresponsible as one of the things Jillette mentioned was that the dosage of some of his medications changed. Absolutely talk to a doctor in advance. This should be stressed.)

Just some more context for people thinking about using this as just another fad diet "jump start" appropriate for anyone. That's not at all what he said.

For him there were benefits (he thought) largely based on his personality and that he was planning to go into a WFPB diet after.

I haven't noticed it, but any diet based on just one type of food is something I would stay away from. My goal is to eat healthy, nutritional balanced meals, I work on doing that better day by day. Eating just one thing, can't be healthy.