Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Shangri-la
My rapidly becoming favorite bloggerette in the universe over at Headrush has posted an entry on the so-called "Shangri-La" diet, which I've been investigating for some time. It seems the anecdotal evidence is starting to pile up in favor of it, so I'm going to go ahead and give it the plunge. Yet another triumph for Dennett and the school of "mind is what brains do"?
10 comments:
Jim-
I'd suggest if you want to embark on this path first read the book as it talks about what foods are good and what are bad... It's funny, outside of the sugar/oil thing, I was doing this for years...I always have at least three hours a day when all I do is drink water and not eating...I think this diet plan is specifically for US (maybe Canadian) consumers who are accustomed to 'continuous munching'?
'continuous munching' is a big, big reason why we're so fat; I don't munch, but I do drink copious amounts of black caffeinated beverage. From the other more detailed articles I've read, the suger/oil thing is key, though, because receiving calories without any flavor signals is supposedly what makes the lizard-brain thinks there's a famine going on.
Hmmm...weird. But maybe I am just naturally weak in the lizard-brain department... :-)
Wait just a sec...lizard brain thinks it's a famine coming? That does not make too much sense...would the lizard brain then rather start to instruct your body to pack on every available calorie as fat because you need to conserve?
According to the guy behind the theory, your lizard brain assumes there's another famine coming; that's its default setting. Which makes sense given our history. The idea is to trick the lizard brain into thinking there's already a famine going on, so it shouldn't waste its energy running around after food that "isn't there".
The reason it makes sense to me is that, from a biochemical point of view, there's no way of knowing about "famine on its way", there's only "yay, there's food!" or "uh-oh, I'm not eating well any more".
Hey Jim,
Thanks for summing up the whole lizard brain thing, making the distinction between a famine that's *coming* vs. one that's already here.
And you know, this is the first time anyone has called me a "bloggerette"-- you made my day ; )
This is interesting as it flies in the face of what I have heard many nutrionists say (and what has worked well for friends of mine).. Namely that you're better off eating 5-6 small meals a day so that your body is not worried about food and keeps your metabolism nice and high.
They both sound effective but looking at the descriptions, the latter just feels healthier to me..
I think there's some inherent variance... because if I do 5-6 meals per day, I feel AWFUL. Whereas my natural inclination is to pack in one or two big meals, and then not even think about the existence of food until I'm really run way, way down.
Well, proof's in the pudding. I'm going to give it a shot, b/c I definitely adhere to the "setpoint" notion... just have to get a different mug, as mine's not large enough to take that much sugar and still be unable to taste the sweet...
/if there were no laughter, there would be no Tao...
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