Melbourne father plans to eat nothing but potatoes for an entire year



February 3, 20166:09am



Carbed up ... Melbourne’s Andrew Taylor has embarked on a year of eating nothing but potatoes. Picture: Facebook/Spud Fit



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A MELBOURNE dad has vowed to eat nothing but potatoes this year — and he says he’s already lost 10kg.


Self-proclaimed food addict Andrew Taylor embarked on the 366-day “potato only” diet on January 1 in a bid to shed unwanted weight and improve his health.

“I wanted to change the way I thought about food so that it’s not really controlling my life. Food is fuel kinda thing,” he told 9news.com.au.

The 36-year-old is documenting his unusual experiment online, posting to a YouTube channel and Facebook page, both called “Spud Fit”.

Potato challenge: Day 1




The father-of-one from Elwood said he was inspired to try the diet after a lifelong struggle with food. He tipped the scales at 151kg at his first weigh-in.

“When you’ve got an addiction, let’s say a drug addiction or an alcohol addiction, the best thing you can do is stop taking drugs or stop taking alcohol,” he said in his first video.

“Unfortunately you can’t do that with food, you gotta eat. So I thought what else can I do? Perhaps I can choose one kind of food and just stick with it ... So I decided on the potato. Lots of people in the past have lived on nothing but potatoes.

“I guess potatoes are a much-maligned food, people tend to think of them as empty calories. I’m hoping to show that potatoes are a health food.”

He has already whipped up potato pancakes using paleo sweet potato flour and spuds with BBQ sauce.


Trying new things ... Andrew Taylor made potato pancakes for the first time. Picture: Facebook/Spud FitSource:Supplied





Mixing ingredients ... Andrew Taylor used paleo sweet potato flour to bind his potato pancake. Picture: Facebook/Spud FitSource:Supplied





Epic challenge ... Andrew Taylor prepared potatoes with BBQ sauce for breakfast on day 2. Picture: Facebook/Spud FitSource:Supplied




Mr Taylor said the “bulk 99 per cent” of his daily calorie count will come from potatoes, with the rest from flavour-enhancing sauces and seasonings.

However he has promised to not use oil in meal preparations and will eat as much as he wants to avoid hunger pains.

“I’ve enjoyed it, much to my surprise,” he said.

“I’m feeling amazing — really, really good. I’ve been exercising more, I’m full of energy.”

Mr Taylor said he shed about 10kgs in the first month and blood tests taken six days into the challenge have been “pretty good”.



http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/he...724ff96917af0ef

Perhaps it will work for him. I wish him the best!

Other news sources here have cited dieticians telling him that he will be lacking in essential nutrients - which he will, of course. Protein, for one. And since when is BBQ sauce made of potato?

He claims to be being supervised by a doctor, which makes me wonder about the ethics of said doctor...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35505140

Well.

It's an idea.

Not one I'll be trying anytime soon.

Stella

Not appealing.

Hilarious! I watched some of his youtube videos. I think that would be incredibly difficult to maintain over long-term and mr. potato head could lose weight much more enjoyably on LCHF.

Is that low carb BBQ sauce?

Not that the potato doesn't break down to plenty of sugar. I think I invented the Tab & Figurines diet, but it didn't catch on.

Alright, so he believes he's addicted to food. Well, we're all addicted to food, otherwise we wouldn't be here. So that's not the problem. He decided to eat just one kind of food, that's my kind of guy. But then he chose potatoes. That's the problem. He doesn't know what food is.

If he eats something else too, like that sweet potato flour or the BBQ sauce, he won't be able to show anything about potatoes. He's gonna have to go with plain potatoes. That's it. I'll allow salt but otherwise nothing, no sauce, binding agents, nothing. Here's how it works. Some essential elements form a tiny iota of total weight/volume, yet they remain essential. So, even if he says he's gonna eat 99% potatoes, there's still the potential for that 1% to provide him with stuff that ain't in potatoes, enough of it to compensate. Just one multi is gonna be less than 1%.

But never mind that for the moment. For sure he's gonna become deficient in fat-solubles cuz his diet has no fat in it. So, vitamin A, D, E, K. So, energy, immune functions, bones, red blood cells, central nervous system, nerves, eyes, muscles, coagulation, and a bunch more things.

No, dude, you can't see why people think it's a potential health risk. You haven't done enough research. Just 30 seconds on google gives me plenty to worry about. You've done 1 blood test 6 days in, but you plan on doing it for 366 days. Your doc is an idjit, especially because he's a qualified dietician, who, even if he only knew about official guidelines, would certainly know about the obvious deficiencies.

He said "Lots of people in the past have lived on nothing but potatoes." I can't find lots of people. I found a couple experiments shorter than this one so I can't extrapolate directly. And in one of them, fat was added. Who are these lots of people in the past? I think it's a myth. Maybe it's just how the article was written, but I get the impression the guy didn't really think this through. Feltham's experiment is quite a contrast in this respect.

On his yooboot channel, he wrote a comment that he takes B12 supplement. That reminds me of another famous yoobooter who was filmed injecting a dose of B12 in his thigh, all the while claiming he ate fruits and that it was a perfectly healthy diet. OK, so he's not actually doing what he claims. I mean, he obviously cares about his health, but then why does he keep up with the lie? Doesn't he care about other people who might be gullible enough to try it for themselves, but somehow miss that tiny bit about taking a B12 supplement? Say it like it is, dude. This ain't a potato-only diet, you're taking supplements to compensate for obvious deficiencies of such a diet.

- Lol. I just noticed I wrote "yooboot" instead of "yootoob". Ah, whatever, I've boycotted that stuff a while ago. Enjoy the pun.

In another of his comments he says 10% of his potato pancakes are sweet potato flour (200g of sweet potato flour per 2kg of potatoes). So I guess he's lying about that 99% too. I mean, he did say he wasn't gonna measure very accurately, but he did say "99%, maybe more", so he's showing a certain bias in his guessing. OK, so I can't rely on anything the guy says, cuz he says all kinds of things that don't agree with each other. Maybe he's eating zero-carb most of the time, and eating only potatoes when he does his vid clips. Who knows.

This is the 1927 experiment I mentioned, I just found it: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1252113/
OK, now read this part very carefully:

And they call this "supplemented with"? Without the butter and lard, the total amount of fat in there for 2,000 kcals is not even 10g. It's now so acutely obvious that the guy didn't do his research. I mean, maybe he read all the potato and starch blogs, but there's no fact in any of them. And even if they cite this piece of research, it's a sure bet they never mention the 150g of butter. This isn't just a potato diet, it's a potato-and-butter diet.

I was gonna say..this guy doesnt have a leg to stand on... Sauces and flavorings are allowed..then how is that a "potatoe only diet"? It isnt. Its likely a potatoe-sugar-fat diet. Most sauces contain sugar and fat in the form of oils. The only thing lost besides weight is clearly his sanity.

Putting aside the fat... the claim made in the study is that by the end of the study period, both participants achieved nitrogen balance. That's okay for subject A, because balance was achieved in all of the periods looked at. For subject B--there's only a positive balance shown in the last four-day study period.

Nitrogen balance was checked in four days each of December, January, February, and May.

Average nitrogen balance was -1.89, -0.14, -0.91 and +0.09.




This is the conclusion, but it's really not true. Out of two subjects, one was likely not losing lean mass, but one was, except for the very last days of measurement. She may have eventually attained nitrogen equilibrium, but only after some losses. Impossible to know what those losses were. But if she'd lost as little as 0.9 grams of nitrogen over the first three months daily, that would give

0.9 x 6.25 x 90=506 grams of protein, translating to about 2 kilograms or 4.4 pounds of lean mass.

Another thing I'd throw in is that we don't know where these two people were in comparison to their potential lean mass, it does take a little less protein to defend a lower lean mass.

It appears to me he is eating a "potato-based diet" as opposed to an all-potato diet. An important distinction, I'd guess.

I always wonder about people who do it with all the fanfare and publicity. Why not just quietly go about your business without making a big dealio out of it? That type of thing makes me question motives.

I remember a time when my income was at an all-time low. Potatoes & butter were were the main part of my diet. I gained a lot of weight. (Tho to be honest, I don't remember what else I ate, so maybe I shouldn't blame the potatoes too much.)

People take away different messages from what they read & hear. I read a criticism of the paleo diet a few days ago. The writer thought that meant no carbs at all. I don't eat a paleo diet because there are too many carbs.

And why does the headline say "father?" Why not man? What does being a father have to do with his diet?