Well, I had to count on the calendar to figure it out, but today is day 23 of my (Michael) experiment with the Shangri-La Diet. This morning I weighed 197.5 (though the scale was threatening 198.0), which means I’ve lost 6 pounds over the past 23 days. Not too shabby, and about the maximum safe pace for weight loss in my opinion. A lot of that loss was in the first week, so I expect to slow to something closer to one pound per week in the coming weeks.
I’ve observed a couple of interesting things since my last update here. First off, I was stuck at ~199 pounds for a long time, which is interesting because I weighed 199 for a long period of time prior to the recent gains that brought me to 203.5. I felt the appetite suppression effect wane in strength during the time I was stuck at 199, and then return stronger before I started losing again. Not only does this align with the experiences of others on the official SLD forums, but it supports the set point theory of weight loss — there was a long period of time many months ago during which I was 199 pounds, and there was a corresponding plateau for me on the way down.
I’ve been disappointed with the appetite suppression at times, but I think a lot of that has to do with the various reasons why I eat. I’ve felt very little bona fide hunger over the past three weeks, but if that directly translated to me eating less — well, I wouldn’t be fat in the first place. The benefit for me has been that the appetite suppression has put my willful desire to eat and my hunger at odds with each other. I can no longer justify habitual eating on the basis of some slight hunger that’s present in the background; rather, I’m forced to acknowledge the irrationality of my desire to eat when I’m not hungry. This strikes me as being a very healthy thing.
Portion sizes have also given me some trouble; I’m very much accustomed to eating a certain amount of food, and it’s been tricky to break those habits — especially because, no matter how suppressed my appetite may be, I’m still likely to clean my plate. But there have been changes. I eat small bowls of pasta instead of huge ones, three slices of a medium pizza (630 Calories) instead of four slices of a large one (1160 Calories), and so on. Snacking between meals has been — well, nonexistent. There’s just no appeal there anymore. I’ll still often graze a little after dinner, but in much smaller quantities than I used to.
Two days ago, I increased my oil dose to 3 tablespoons of extra-light olive oil per day. I think that may have helped break me through the plateau I was experiencing. It also puts me closer to the dose that SLD folk wisdom suggests: twice my weight in oil Calories.
Speaking of oil, I’ve seen some unexpected benefits that I can only attribute to the oil. Specifically, I’ve seen a dramatic reduction in my symptoms of eczema and asthma. Both are constant annoyances to me, and both are atopic inflammatory conditions. I might attribute the asthma to seasonal variations, but the eczema has been a constant problem for the last two years, so seeing it suddenly abate was pretty surprising.
At first I considered the possibility that the weight loss or reduction in my caloric intake was responsible, but I decided that couldn’t be the case, because I saw no significant reduction in my eczema or asthma symptoms when I previously lost weight on a reduced-calorie diet. So I’ve determined that the olive oil, being the only significant change to my diet or lifestyle, must be involved. Interestingly enough, I’ve experienced two major eczema breakouts over the past three weeks, and they correspond exactly to the two days on which I’ve eaten significant amounts of fatty/fried food. The rest of the time, the eczema has been uncharacteristically quiet.
I think it’s omega-6 fatty acids. There’s been a lot of talk recently about omega-3 fats reducing inflammation and omega-6 fats exacerbating it. The olive oil has had the result of decreasing my intake of other fats (through appetite suppression, and also through making fat less appealing in general), and since olive oil is mostly omega-9, it seems likely that omega-6 fats now make up a much smaller portion of my total fat intake than they did before I started SLD. There’s been no change in my intake of omega-3 fats.
At any rate, the eczema is basically gone since the last breakout, but the asthma is still mostly present. I’m going to try taking concentrated EPA/DHA fish oil capsules (omega-3 fats) along with my SLD oil, and see if there’s any additional effect on the asthma. Whee, self-experimentation!
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