Back to ELOO
OK, so I didn’t make my pre-vacation goal, I only got down to 253. But the good news is that despite not exercising much for two weeks and going off SLD for about a week and then spending 5 days in New Mexico, I didn’t gain anything either. It was surprising to me because I love the food there and often felt extremely full, like I was overeating After a few days I realized I wasn’t actually eating that much. I’d skip breakfast, order a lunch that I couldn’t finish and then feel stuffed until about 7. Same story with dinner; I’d order something and not come close to finishing it. Much like Seth Roberts’ Paris vacation I found myself wanting to eat more but just not able to.
Now that I’m back home I’m switching back to ELOO. The walnut oil went down easier but didn’t have the pronounced appetite suppresion I had with ELOO. I thought it didn’t have much effect at all until I realized I wasn’t able to finish any meals. So for me I give walnut oil a D for appetite suppresion and a B for satiety. ELOO was previously a B in both categories for me so I’ll try it again. I’m taking 3 Tbsp every night before bed.
One thing I’ve learned from my continued struggles is that the Shangri La Diet is no panacea for weight loss. Despite the claims of some people that they simply lost the desire to eat I’ve had a hard time staying on the plan. I think my difficulties are entirely psychological and I have a pretty good idea of why.
I’m going to continue with SLD and continue blogging here. Somehow knowing that I have to report my results makes me feel obligated to stick with the plan.
October 25th, 2006 at 8:47 pm
Let me suggest that at first you may very well feel hungry, but be unable to eat. My first couple of months, while I lost twenty-five pounds, I would wake up at night with hunger pains, I just did not feel like eating either.
I also found that if I drank water and waited, the desire to eat would often pass after that. I needed more fluid than I was getting.
Wish you luck with the emotions. I found an oa.org group (not very typical I’ve discovered since) that really helped. I sure had a lot of emotional turmoil and ended up having to deal with it all without food to bury it. Was a rough seven or eight months.
But I went from over 240 to under 170 in about ten months on the diet.
Do wish you well.
October 25th, 2006 at 8:49 pm
BTW, drop me a line if you would like to exchange links.
November 12th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
Hope all continues well with you.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:16 am
All the literature I’ve read on this, and what I’ve heard from Seth Roberts, is that you’re supposed to take the oil *between* meals (as opposed to everything before bed). The way it works is, you wait one hour after a meal and have a tablespoon of (tasteless) oil or so. It’s going to have the same weight loss effect of breaking up your large meals into a bunch of smaller ones, too.
There’s a quote that goes, “If you want to weigh less, you’ve got to eat more — more often that is, not more food.” In my estimation, that’s part of what makes the Shangri-La Diet effective — you are having small oil “snacks” throughout your day.
Additionally, if the purpose is to train your body to dissociate taste from calories, you’ll be much more effective at it if your body has multiple infusions of tasteless calories throughout the day than one before bedtime.
Cheers,
DCA