SD Blogger

One of the most popular and controversial developments in weight loss over the last few years has been gastric bypass surgery.  There’s no doubt it works, several people in my office have had it and they’ve all lost a lot of weight and look much healthier and happier.  But it’s not without risks, one co-worker nearly died from an infection and other complications.  And once you have the surgery you’re faced with a lifetime of small meals, it’s not reversible.

I’ve often thought that if someone could somehow come up with a non-surgical method that replicates the effects of gastric bypass surgery, that someone would become very rich indeed.  Well it seems like Seth Roberts has come up with something very close.  For myself and many others the so-called Shangri-La Diet has greatly reduced our food cravings, we feel full on less food and don’t experience the sort of cravings we used to.  The method is completely reversible, if you want to go back to your old eating habits just stop taking the ELOO. 

The Shangri-La get rich quick plan:
Step 1: Discover an easy and inexpensive way to lose weight.
Step 2: ????
Step 3: Profit

The only problem with the Shangri-La Diet, from a business standpoint, is there’s no way to make money off it.  Sure there’s a book but it’s only 11 bucks and the method is so simple you can learn everything you need in a few minutes.  The only special food you need is Extra Light Olive Oil, available in any supermarket.  It would have been very easy for Seth Roberts to concoct some special blend of oils and push that as the official Shangri-La Diet oil, maybe a blend of ELOO and flaxseed oil.  He could have pushed it in the book, claimed the added health benefits made it more effective than straight ELOO and sold it through a website for $20 a bottle and had plenty of takers.  But he didn’t do that, he simply explained his ideas behind the diet and presented his own experience with it. 

Perhaps there’s a business opportunity here.  Someone could produce such a blend of oils, fund a clinical trial to prove the effectiveness and start selling it.  I think a lot of people look for that kind of official imprimatur, it makes them feel like they’re part of the group. 

We’ll know the Shangri-La Diet has hit the mainstream when we start seeing SLD branded oils and cans of sugar water at the supermarket and commercials with before and after pictures on TV.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 24th, 2006 at 10:58 am and is filed under Shangri-La Diet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.