Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyLC
If it's a silly, ridiculous gimmick, how do you explain the people who have lost 25, 30, and 50+ pounds on this regime?
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The theories are silly.
The rules are gimmicky.
I did not, however, say it wouldn't produce weight loss.
I do believe it works. It works because the more flavors you eat, the more you over eat. Over eating is not bad because over eating makes you fat (it doesn't, healthy people control weight and feeding on a continuum of time). Over eating is bad because over eating destroys metabolism by spiking sugar & insulin. Anything that reduces how much you eat at meals automatically will lead to better metabolic functioning.
Another reason it works is because the "magic foods" all favorably modulate metabolism over a continuum of time. The metabolic effects of drinking oil before a meal, and fructose in water, all eventually lead to the end point of lower blood sugar, lower insulin, and less eating.
The shangri-la diet works not because of conditioning the body to "forget" food is nutritious; it works because, indirectly, you are orienting your metabolism toward fat burning by following the rules.
If I believe the diet works, why am I bashing it? I'll tell you. It is because, like all fads, it doesn't encourage understanding and instead leads to more confusion and frustration in the end. In the end, you will not lose weight with this diet, and in the end, you will only be more confused than you were before.
That is the nature of a gimmick: you get swindled.
For something to qualify as being a gimmick, it must rest on a foundation of lies, thus not delivering what was promised
at all. Therefore, a true gimmick always has an outrageous, scientifically invalid claim propping it up in the spotlight. In the case of the shangri-la diet, it is that you can manipulate the body psychologically. This is beyond ridiculous. There is zero merit to the notion you can "unlearn" the association between flavor and nutrition. The body is not dynamic the way a mind is. The body is preprogrammed throughout evolution - genes are the biological equivilent of computer code. Based on this preprogrammed knowledge, the body can deal with a variety of circumstances you throw at it... but
only the ones that it has the programs, or genes, to deal with.
It seems as if the body is capable of true learning, but this is deceptive. What the body is capable of is very different from true psychological learning, which is a transforming event. When the mind learns, it is changed
forever. The body, on the other hand, never learns or unlearns anything: anything it is capable or not capable of has always existed in genetic code. You can damage your body with unfavorable environment, but this is different from learning (or unlearning) a physiological response.
Therefore, you cannot ever possibly "teach" a body to forget flavor means nutrition in the way you can teach an infant, through conditioning, to be afraid of a white mouse.
Like I said earlier, the TRUE mechanisms this works are hidden from the dieter. Fat with a meal reduces blood sugar response/insulin. Drinking fructose in water induces a metabolic fed state rapidly (thus decreasing hunger) without the consequences of spiking insulin and blood sugar, leading to less feeding at a meal. Eating less often decreases appetite, and increases the efficacy of your fat metabolism.
Because none of this is ever explained to the dieter at all, the diet cannot possibly lead to a greater understanding of the nature of his or her obesity (entirely metabolic and neurophyisological in nature BTW). Therefore, it won't ever lead to long term, constructive solutions. How can you apply workable solutions that will fit into your life
if you don't even understand the nature of the problem? No one who is normal is going to follow these silly gimmicky rules forever.... but if one understands the metabolic truths that make this fad diet work, they actually have a SHOT at favorably altering their metabolism and thus health/weight forever.