This morning’s weekly Self-Research chat inspired me to log my “oil in the morning” project here.
Protocol:
1 Tablespoon flax seed oil, rinse mouth, breath through mouth for 5 minutes to avoid smell.
2 Weight 1/week.
3 Record “atypical lack of hunger”
Inspired by Seth Robert’s “Shangri-La diet.”. I’m using less oil than recommended, just starting small and exploring whether I notice an effect.
I am not sure I am interested in eating less flavorful food to lose weight. (Do you live longer or do you just feel like it)
When I do time restricted eating I don’t notice that I haven’t eaten breakfast and sometimes don’t eat until 3 PM or later.
I do believe living above a bakery and the smells would probably raise my set point and I know places like Whole Foods have used smell to stimulate purchasing.
Maybe aroma therapy with non-food associated (pleasant) smells could also lower your set point.
Is there any good research on this diet?
Hi Maith, In my opinion this research falls into the category of “one of Seth’s crackpot ideas that is easy and harmless to try.” I use the word crackpot advisedly; that is, with love and respect. In the past I’ve tracked “episodes of urgent hunger” because, like many others, I’ve had a tendency to raid the pantry. Since I’m aware of this subjective phenomenon, I thought it would be interesting to use it’s “surprising non-occurrence” as a target. So far I’ve attempted to have morning oil on 8 days, succeeded on 7. I had 4 days of surprising “no hunger” episodes (the first 4). I missed the oil on day 3. I haven’t had any surprising “no hunger” days since.
My subjective experience so far is that there’s no effect on how I feel except for a slight stomach upset at the start that might have affected my appetite. But I’m going to keep doing it for a couple of months and just see what happens. Seth’s theory is explained in his book The Shangri-La Diet.
I don’t think it is taken very seriously by nutritionists. The question of whether we should take nutritionists seriously remains somewhat open, however.
If the smell of tasty food drives our set point higher, then there should be a large dataset in the Long-COVID population where those that lost their sense of smell/taste should have a greater weight loss than the group that did not lose their sense of smell!
Avoiding carbs at the same time as eating fat, could prolong your satiety !
This one turned out to be a non-starter for me. The oil-only regime gave me a slight stomach upset that became more and more irritating until I quit.
There’s always this: Potato Diet Community Trial: Sign up Now, lol – SLIME MOLD TIME MOLD
Ah awesome! Thank you for the explanation! Seem’s like it’s consuming any flavourless food like oil prior to eating “flavoured food”. I’ve never heard of that, but neverthless interesting
Avoid saturated fats, trans fats according to governments around the world. Everyone should probably also avoid processed fats and seed oils. Thoughts on seed oil — LessWrong
Ruined my morning due to inability to resist the Less Wrong link while having other things I’m supposed to be doing. Pretty great post though. Stopping now. Thank you?