The Shangri-la Diet and Caloric Restriction

For those of you who know me, none of you would call me fat. I am not. I am in decent shape. My legs and arms are all muscle and there a-little-bit-extra forming over my midsection and you wouldn't notice unless I wore a tight-fitting shirt. I am 5'11" tall and 164lbs - an average American male.

My life is pretty sedentary. I spend most of my days sitting behind a computer screen typing a way or staying at home with my beautiful wife. I am not so active now. There was a time when I was working out and going to Karate 3-4 times a week. That was great and I enjoyed it, but now my life has me with things that are more important than taking the time to work out.

So, now I found myself yearning for a way to keep the excess pounds off without killing myself (figuratively or literally) or my budget. I had heard of Calorie Restricted Dieting, but from what I have read about "them" in the news amounted to emaciated starvation cultists. I was not so interested in that. I am an avid D&D player and adding calorie restriction to my life would be one cult to many. (That is said in humor - Don't take it serious people. Come on!)

The Shangri-la Diet

So I was just surfing around the internet and encountered mention of the book 'The Shangri-la Diet' by Dr. Seth Roberts which details a pretty simple plan to loose weight. OK, I do not mean pretty simple, I mean really simple. The program boils down to taking a few table spoons a day of an oil or sugar water within a prescribed period each day and 'whammo' your hunger and food cravings are repressed; and then the fat starts to melt away.

I started on this a few weeks ago it has been an interesting ride. I started out taking Flax Seed Oil which is a nasty tasting yellow oil that on occasion invokes my gag reflex, so I gotta be careful. Of the oils listed in his book this was the healthiest, being that it is high in Omega-3's (which I sorely lack due to not eating a lot of seafood). I will probably end up switching to Extra Light Olive Oil (ELOO) once I am done with the bottle of Flax Seed Oil.

The first week I basically substituted my lunch with the oil. I noticed that my food cravings basically vanished, which is a big thing. At work there is always some sort of chocolate, pastry, or something else laden with High Fructose Corn-Syrup (HFC), Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), or Partially Hydrogenated Oils (PHO) being brought in from Walmart. Not only that, but my when I am hungry at night I find myself being just a little bit hungry. When I first started I found myself getting hungry towards lunch, but at about 2 weeks into it I eat breakfast and then eat a little for supper and I am done for the day. I can go most of the day without eating and then eat only one meal in there, and I am fine.

This is such a strange feeling to not need to eat more than once a day. I eat because I need to and not because I feel the urge. I am eating to live and not living to eat as some would say it. I have not noticed any side-affects like being tired, or lacking energy, or anything like that. =)

So, if I am eating less then I need to make sure that what I am eating is good for me; that I am getting enough vitamins, minerals, and protein and so on. I will be even more concerned once I start being more active such as when I start playing tennis with my Dad now that spring is here.

Calorie Restricted Diets

One thing that was mentioned, almost in passing, in the Shangri-la Diet book is that even if you are eating less, if you are still eating crap, then you are still eating crap - crap is still bad for you. I wish that he would have given more information on this. This dearth of dietary information in the book had me thinking about these starvation cultists of the Calorie Restricted Diet (CRD).

I have long heard of and known of the the supposed health benefits of a CRD so I thought that this would be the best place to look to for dietary information on the foods with the maximum bang for the buck. Since I am eating less I need to eat better.

So, now I start to research the foods that are really healthy and that I will, hopefully, find palatable enough to eat.

Links

• The Shangri-la Diet
• Wikipedia: Shangri-la Diet
• Calorie Restricted
• Wikipedia: Calorie Restricted