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Does it now make sense in light of the recent discussions on food reward, set points, and fat loss? Here is a link

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I think it does, though incidentally. I started there btw - it had the geeky self-experimentation attraction I needed, and it definitely had some results. Gets top marks in the 'worst name for a diet, ever' category though.

The most valuable aspect of it for me were the forums. People did a lot of self-experimentation that went way outside the borders of 'true' Shangri-La. You could just read the forums for days and weeks and learn an incredible amount.

One explanation was that it worked by separating calories from flavor (and scent) - it's the latter which actually tells the body to generate insulin. The carbs themselves have little impact without flavor to 'identify' them.

That was were I first heard about Good Calories Bad Calories btw, from Todd Becker who now has a very interesting blog called Getting Stronger: http://gettingstronger.org/ And from GCBC I went low/zero carb and then found paleo...

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The Jaminents just posted a great write up on this yesterday. Here is a link link text

What I took from it is that Food Reward, as presented by Stephen, does play a role, but it is part of a larger system, and may only impact those whose are already obese.

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This doesn't really answer your exact question, but in case it is useful to anyone: I followed the Shangri La Diet quite strictly for a while a couple years back, and it had absolutely no effect whatsoever. It seems to work for some people but I wasn't among them. I was on the SAD back then fwiw.

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From what I gather the Shangri-La diet breaks down to...

  • Step 1 - Eat bland tasteless foods in order to lose weight-
  • Step 2 - Write a book about eating bland tasteless foods-
  • Step 3 - Profit!
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You could break down any diet the same way if you go at it with little information, including paleo. – Brad Jun 4 2011 at 12:40
The underpants gnomes would agree. – FED at LiveCaveman.com Jun 4 2011 at 14:40
Haha - no kidding! I just wish I had thought of it first :-) – CaveRat Jun 5 2011 at 4:27
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It worked well and quickly for me. 60 pound in four months.

The problem was it was not sustainable. For me it also seemed to cause fatigue, depression and ahedonia.

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natural food reward is good for you, artificially induced (processed/flavored food) food reward drives obesity and modern disease. I dislike Shangri La diet because I hate consuming oils by themselves. However, I follow Stephan guyenet's low reward guide (with a Paleo template of foods) + sometimes I even do a nose clip to further lower the taste of the already plain diet I'm eating. I kid you not, I dropped 60lbs on Paleo alone but had 40lbs that I couldn't budge. I'm now starting to see my abs, it's ridiculous. All my life I've been morbidly obese and at the age of 25 I'm starting to be as lean and fit as a fitness model.

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Wow, well done! – sarah-ann Feb 4 2012 at 11:24

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