These are the results from the third week of my experiment on the Shangri-La Diet. If you are curious, you can take a look at the first and second weeks’ results and read the introduction for the explanation of why I was doing it and how I think it works. Also note that I was doing it simultaneously with low-carb maintenance.
I believe this is the last entry I will be making for the Shangri-la diet. Please see the summary comments below for more info.
Saturday (Day 15 | 15 from goal)
Gained a 2 pounds but not too unexpected since Friday is my cheat day. A pretty average day as far as appetite goes.
Sunday (Day 16 | 15 from goal)
Weight unchanged. I wasn’t starving for breakfast but ate my typical amount. I didn’t get to take the oil in mid morning like I normally do but was only a little hungry for lunch after Aikido class. I still ate all of my lunch and a couple of pieces of low-carb chocolate for desert. Switched to grapeseed oil instead of olive oil to see if it makes a difference and also decided to take 1.5 tblsp instead of just one for my doses. I have been reading on several other people’s logs that taking more oil seems to make a difference so I will try it out. Only upping it a little since TAD is worried about me taking too much. For dinner had pizza toppings (the things you do for low-carb) and one small “full” slice. Probably more than I should have had. Felt a bit full afterwards.
Monday (Day 17 | 14.5 from goal)
Down by half a pound. Surprised that I lost anything considering my dinner, but it was probably because of Aikido class yesterday. Not too hungry for breakfast but felt full after I finished (more than usual). I upped my dosage of the oil to about 1.5 tblsp. Lunch was definitely a different experience! I wasn’t hungry at all and we didn’t leave until 12:30. At the salad bar I had a very strong urge NOT to get as much as I usually do. I built my salad about 2/3 as big as I usually do and I had a hard time finishing it. I felt more full than usual for the rest of the afternoon as well. This was definitely a different feeling from not being hungry… I honestly did not want to eat as much. That’s basically what I was expecting most of my experience on Shangri-La to have been like. So I wonder if it is changing the oil from olive to grapeseed or the increased dosage that made the difference. Dinner I ate less than usual as well, but it was more of a concious effort. I didn’t feel full after dinner but I wasn’t hungry either. That’s more what I’m used to. I would rather have my lunch experience be the norm.
Tuesday (Day 18 | 14.5 from goal)
Weight unchanged. Breakfast was nothing unusual. Lunch we had earlier than I was hungry (still around 12:30) but I didn’t feel the urge to eat less like on Monday and finished what I ordered. Felt hungry enough for a snack before Aikido class and had my typical light dinner afterwards.
Wednesday (Day 19 | 12.5 from goal)
Down 2lbs. Not too unexpected for the day after class. Usual breakfast (I am such a creature of habit). Lunch might have been a problem because one of our managers came to town and took us to lunch early and I think I still had about 10 minutes to go before the hour was up since my dose. I didn’t really want to go into detail about why I was just sitting there while everyone else was eating so I went ahead and ate anyway. Dinner wasn’t anything special either… didn’t particularly feel any less hungry or full faster.
Thursday (Day 20 | 14 from goal)
Up 1.5 pounds, but not unusual. Typical breakfast, typical lunch… I forgot to take my second dose of oil until 4:30pm though and had a bad reaction to it. I remembered I needed to take it when I realized I was hungry. It is apparently not a good idea to take the oil when you’re hungry. I started feeling very nauseauted about an hour after I took the oil. We had to attend an orientation meeting for parents at the place my son will be attending camp this summer before we could go to dinner and I ended up having to excuse myself and go lay down in the car to avoid throwing up. Fortunately I felt better after another half hour but it was not a fun experience.
Friday (Day 21 | 14.5 from goal)
Gained half a pound. Since I didn’t get to attend Aikido on Thursday evening, not too surprising, but a bit disappointing. There was a lot going on that day so I ended up missing my morning dose. Our schedule was off that evening as well and after Thursday’s experience I didn’t want to take the dose before I went to bed. For a Friday, my normal low-carb “cheat” day, I was pretty restrained. I was “good” all day, though I did have a small desert after dinner.
Summary of Week and Thoughts:
I’m pretty disappointed with my weight loss results. After 3 weeks now, I haven’t lost a significant amount of weight. After thinking about it for the long Memorial Day weekend, I think I’m not going to go the 4th week. If I had lost even a pound then I might have considered it, but I haven’t.
So for me the Shangri-la diet has not been a successful way to lose weight. I have to admit that it frustrates me after having read so many other accounts from people that it is working for. I followed the simple instructions defined in the book as closely as possible. Having lost as much weight as I have on the significantly more complicated low-carb lifestyle, I am no stranger to being strict and precise in following directions. I believe if every day had been like Monday of this week, then I would have ended up losing weight. But that was the only day that really had the “I’m not hungry and get full quickly” effect that I had been expecting from reading other people’s results. Shangri-la still didn’t work for me and I would like to know the reasons. I wish I knew why I didn’t have Monday’s experience every day. Here are some ideas why I didn’t:
I would like to know if anyone else has had some of the same factors to deal with and similar experiences on Shangri-la. I’d love to hear from other low-carb people who’ve tried it and see if they ended up with the same results, or, if not, what the differences were.
On the positive side, Shangri-la has been a very effective way for me to control when I am hungry. I may not have eaten less, but I was able to pretty easily control the times of day when I was eating. This came in handy for eating lunch with co-workers who don’t like to get out as early as I typically did. And I may use it in conjunction with Induction (the most restrictive phase of Atkins where you “jump start” your weight loss) soon as a method of controlling my hunger, to finally get rid of those last 15 lbs.
I’m disappointed that the Shangri-la diet didn’t work for me, but I hope it continues to work for many other people and I will keep an eye on the developments to see if someone discovers what the key is for people like me who haven’t seen success. I think there’s probably just something else “missing”, and someone will stumble on the answer just like Seth Roberts did in accidentally discovering the key to the diet in the first place. Congrats to those of you lucky enough to have bodies that respond to the diet, I envy you.
Yesterday a friend of mine coined a new term that will be one of my favorite words for a while. I was doing some testing of a functional area of the website we’re working on and found some unexpected behavior that at first I thought was a bug but on more thought, and realizing that it had some benefits, determined it might actually be a feature that we just didn’t document very well for the user.
I IMed my friend who’s managing the project and explained my thoughts…
Friend: interesting… what’s the cross between a bug and a feature? beature? fugture?
Lindsay: heh.
Lindsay: I like fugture
Lindsay: or fug for short
Lindsay: beature is too much like beautiful… and a fugture is anything but beautiful!!
So it’s all Fugtures now, baby!
New terminology can make old problems into their own solutions! Instead of spending hours working out the fixes for the mile long list of change requests you inherited with maintaining someone else’s old code, just tell the client that it’s fine the way it is…call it Fugture-Rich!
Too bad it doesn’t really work that way… oh well, back to searching for some more fugs to squash.
These are the results from the second week of my experiment on the Shangri-La Diet. If you are curious, you can take a look at the first week’s results and read the introduction for the explanation of why I’m doing it and how I think it works. Also note that I’m doing it simultaneously with low-carb maintenance.
Saturday (Day 8 | 14.5 from goal)
Gained back the two lbs I lost on Friday, but I was pretty much expecting it since Friday is my low-carb “cheat” day. I only ate half of my typical breakfast. I wasn’t hungry for lunch and waited almost an hour and a half beyond when I normally eat, but I wasn’t compelled to eat much less than usual when I did eat. I was a bit hungry by dinner time, but I didn’t finish my salad like I normally would. I took my second dose late that night and found that I was nauseated 10 minutes after until I fell asleep, which is something that hasn’t happened to me before. Also noticed something strange: plain water tasted sweet, something that I haven’t experienced since some heavy ketosis phases on Atkins. I am pretty sure I’m not in ketosis, so that wasn’t expected.
Sunday (Day 9 | 14.5 from goal)
Stable weight. Small breakfast again. Went to Aikido and wasn’t hungry afterwards when we got lunch, but again, wasn’t compelled to eat any less than usual. Got treated to dinner for Mother’s Day at our favorite Mexican place and couldn’t resist having a margarita and a few chips, but I didn’t clean my plate. My second dose of oil nauseated me a bit again but not for very long as I tried to drink a good bit of water afterwards. Water didn’t taste sweet today.
Monday (Day 10 | 15 from goal)
Gained half a pound. Not sure if it’s from the margarita or what. Craved my whole breakfast (bar and cup of yogurt) today so I ate it all. Wasn’t hungry for lunch and actually ate a small one for me. But I was hungry for dinner and probably had a bit more than I should have. Switched brands of oil. The new one has less flavor for me, but that also makes it taste “better”. The old one had a little bit of bitter flavor. I’ve noticed that I don’t gag at all anymore taking the oil or immediately try to wash it down with water. I’m wondering if I’m starting to make a flavor association. It tastes a little buttery.
Tuesday (Day 11 | 15 from goal)
No weight change. Ate my typical breakfast but was distracted at work by a fire drill and wasn’t able to take my oil in the morning like I have been. Still didn’t get hungry for lunch until about 12:30. Ate my typical salad for lunch. Took the oil about an hour later than I usually do in the afternoon (around 3:30) and noticed that I didn’t get the hunger pang I usually have around 4:45. Went to Aikido class and ate my typical small dinner when I come home. But I also had some low-carb ice cream. I’m trying not to artificially eat less just to see what happens… if I’m craving something I will eat it.
Wednesday (Day 12 | 13 from goal)
Lost 2lbs, but it is the day after Aikido class. Was hungry for breakfast and ate the whole thing. Wasn’t able to take the oil between breakfast and morning like I have been but still wasn’t starving for lunch and ate it a late but not a lot less food than typical. I left a lot on my plate at dinner, but most of it was the extra large portion of vegetables that came as a side dish, and we had an appetizer, so I probably didn’t eat less over all.
Thursday (Day 13 | 14.5 from goal)
Gained 1.5 lbs. No change in the amount I ate for breakfast, though I wasn’t as hungry this morning. Had my customary salad for lunch. Though I didn’t have the snack before Aikido class that I usually do (a breakfast bar). I took my afternoon dose of oil at about 4:30 so I wasn’t hungry before class. Had my typical light dinner when I got home and some low-carb ice cream for desert.
Friday (Day 14 | 13.5 from goal)
Lost a pound. Again typical from the day after Aikido class. I was pretty hungry for breakfast and ate the whole thing. I was also a bit hungry for lunch, which we had close to 11:30 instead of waiting till after noon. Cheated on my low-carb regimen for dinner since it was Friday, having some bread and a desert. But I didn’t clean my plate like I usually do.
Summary of Week and Thoughts:
I’m starting to lose faith that Shangri-La is going to be effective for me, but in the spirit of the experiment I’m going to keep it up for the next two weeks as long as I don’t gain any significant weight.
I’ve lost less than half a pound comparing the averages of the two weeks, but it’s better than not losing anything at all. I’m finding it interesting to watch the cycle of my weight change throughout the week. There’s definitely a pattern.
I wonder if I’m doing something wrong to not have lost more by now, but I have been very careful about making sure that I followed the simple directions. Possibly it could have something to do with the oil that I’m using. I no longer find it unpleasant to take the dose and I’ve noticed that I have the thought of it tasting buttery. Perhaps that means that I’m making a flavor association with the oil. I am going to try Grape-seed oil (another oil that I’ve read has very little flavor) next week to see if it makes a difference.
I have always been very sensitive to the tastes of things so I wonder if that could be a factor against my success in the diet. I avoid food that’s extremely hot and spicy because I don’t like being “assaulted” by my food. I don’t add salt or other flavorings to food and I sparingly add sauces if offered because I enjoy tasting the flavor of food as it is given. I also can taste the difference in different brands of bottled water which some people tell me is silly, but I distinctly dislike most “natural spring water” because I can taste the minerals. Could that make me unsuitable for the Shangri-La diet? Will I be unable to avoid the flavor/calorie connection?
Another problem may be that I also truly enjoy the food that I eat and hardly feel full at a meal. Stopping eating is mainly a matter of no longer having food on my plate to eat. It’s almost never an issue of feeling uncomfortably full. Even eating slowly doesn’t seem to have an effect on the amount I eat. This isn’t a problem with the low-carb lifestyle because you can eat as much as you like as long as it’s low-carb. But since the ultimate effect of Shangri-La seems to be voluntary calorie restriction, I may be out of luck.
Update: Week 3, I’m done.
