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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   1886 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for May 15, 2024

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

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What do you think causes people on the Shangri-La diet to lose weight? I'll present a few possibilities.

  1. The mechanism explained in the Less Wrong article is correct
  2. Something else we don't understand
  3. No one actually loses weight, they are lying
  4. Simply watching one's weight is sufficient to lose weight
  5. Survivorship bias: only the people who lost weight report it

In any case, there don't seem to be any downsides and the anecdotal evidence is strong. I don't need a causal mechanism as long as it's safe which this diet obviously is.

I think it's a combination of 4 and 5.

  • Survivorship bias applies not only to reporting, but to continuing with the diet at all. If you give up then you're not going to report that it didn't work.
  • Simply watching one's weight is often enough to lose weight due to correlation if not causation. Those who press forward and continue to watch their weight and follow any diet are likely making other lifestyle changes too.
  • A 2 hour window where you eat very little is probably a big improvement on its own for most people. You need to plan out your meals much better and cannot mindlessly snack (you at least need to check you're not within the window first).

Only downside is wasting time and effort and (as with EY) potentially convincing yourself that dieting doesn't work.

I think it's worth trying, but improving physical health is really a lifelong goal. These gimmick diets might work for losing the initial weight, but you need to be willing to keep the diet up forever or learn the fundamental skills involved if you don't want the weight to come right back.

A 2 hour window where you eat very little is probably a big improvement on its own for most people. You need to plan out your meals much better and cannot mindlessly snack (you at least need to check you're not within the window first).

Forgot to add that one! Rules make it harder to consume calories. But... I don't think that explains it. Even intermittent fasting is not a particularly effective strategy. The problem is that fasting now just makes you hungry later.

I think it's worth trying, but improving physical health is really a lifelong goal. These gimmick diets might work for losing the initial weight, but you need to be willing to keep the diet up forever or learn the fundamental skills involved if you don't want the weight to come right back.

Funny how modern humans need "fundamental skills" but people 50 years ago just lived their normal lives and stayed skinny. This strikes me as Usain Bolt saying "you need to develop the skills to run fast" as if 99% of it wasn't God-given.

Funny how modern humans need "fundamental skills" but people 50 years ago just lived their normal lives and stayed skinny. This strikes me as Usain Bolt saying "you need to develop the skills to run fast" as if 99% of it wasn't God-given.

This doesn't contradict my point. These fundamental skills may not have been necessary in the past, but environmental factors have made them necessary nowadays. If people in the 70's time-travelled to today they'd need to develop those skills too.

Food today is cheaper, more plentiful, more tasty, and less healthy than your average king would have had access to in the past. Exercise is also much less important; you can get anywhere by car, and most modern entertainment is available right from the comfort of your home.

I'm not blaming you for needing to lose weight. I probably need to lose more weight than you do. But no diet is a silver bullet, especially if you don't intend to follow it forever.

I'm not blaming you for needing to lose weight. I probably need to lose more weight than you do. But no diet is a silver bullet, especially if you don't intend to follow it forever.

For the record, I don't expect the Shangri-La diet to work. I just hope it does. If it does, I probably will follow it forever.

Exercise is also much less important; you can get anywhere by car, and most modern entertainment is available right from the comfort of your home.

This is a red herring, IMO. Activity is not the problem. In fact, it has been reported that Americans are MORE active than they were in the 1970s when things like yoga and jogging were virtually unheard of.

It's common knowledge that you get fit in the gym but you lose weight in the kitchen. I am above the 90th percentile for activity. I can run circles around most people my age. My resting heart rate is in the 40s. And I lift. But I am still over 20% body fat according to scans. If you're focused on activity, you're barking up the wrong tree.

  1. Simply watching one's weight is sufficient to lose weight
  2. Survivorship bias: only the people who lost weight report it

Pretty much these two things. Most diets fail because the diet-er just stops.

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