The Shangri-la Diet: The No-hunger Eat-anything Weight-loss Plan

by Seth Roberts

Seth Roberts describes a diet that works well and takes the least amount of effort without deprivation. Based on the principle that you have a weight set-point, which you eat to until you no longer feel hungry, Seth recommends that you have a tablespoonful of light olive oil between meals to lower your set point and hunger.

Genres: Health, Nonfiction, Food, Nutrition, Diets, Self Help, Psychology

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned about this book from reading Freakonomics. The author, Seth Roberts, is a Berkeley psychologist who has his own ideas about why we gain weight. It's a quick read and worth a couple of hours if you are interested in different approaches to controlling your weight. Based on my experience, Roberts' setpoint theory is right on target. As a practical diet regimen, though, the advice is hard to follow. I tried ingesting flax oil for a couple of days. My appetite went to zero immediately, but I developed an overwhelming dislike for the taste of flax. I will probably try a different oil at some point in the future, but this weekend I have to go to a BBQ!

[Alicia Bayer · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author died of a heart attack after writing this book. He was only 61 and his cause of death was heart disease.

Ironically, he had recently blogged: "I eat a half stick (60 g) of butter daily. It improves my brain speed. After I gave a talk about this, a cardiologist in the audience said I was killing myself. I said I thought my experimental data was more persuasive than epidemiology, with its many questionable assumptions. The new data suggests I was right — butter does not increase heart attacks. It also supports my belief that by learning what makes my brain work best, I will improve my health in other ways (such as reduce heart attack risk)."

This is obviously not safe dietary advice. Try Dr. Fuhrman's Eat to Live for better advice that's actually grounded in science and long-term studies.

[Joshua Pitzalis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the quirkiest books about fat loss I've read. I thoroughly enjoyed it because I didn't expect the author to be so involved. Most books in the genre follow a predictable format. Less than 10 pages in and I'm reading about mice getting their brains sliced open, how brushing your teeth at the wrong time makes you fat and drinking oil won't. The most worrying part is that it all made perfect sense once you acclimate to it.

This book is a wonderful adventure into the thrill of self-experimentation. Whether the whole drinking oil thing works for you or not is irrelevant. The author's relentless pursuit of self-evident learning is what this book is all about. The book makes me want to track everything about my life in the nerdiest way possible.

If I had to fault it, I would say that it could have explored the social implications of removing the need to eat from your lifestyle a little more. Eating is a highly social activity. Remove the need to eat had serious social implications for me and that took me by complete surprise. I guess that is the topic of a different book though.

To be perfectly clear, every claim this book made held water. It took about 5 days to work when I started but it worked phenomenally well. A radical book and I wholeheartedly recommend reading it.

[Season Cluff · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has an interesting concept, but really could have been just 3 pages (if that). The rest is really just fluff. But I guess no one would pay for a 3 page book, so he had to add extra to fill it up. Here's the secret, 1 tablespoon of sugar mixed with water and 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil every day at least one hour after and before a meal if you are trying to lose under 20 pounds, add one tablespoon of each to lose 20-40 pounds and 1 more of each to lose over 60 pounds. Read the book if you want to read the science behind it, but in my opinion,all you need to know is right there.

[Janine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started this very simple diet immediately and can only say one thing - it works.
I already have a healthy lifestyle and follow a strict diet. But I needed an answer to my cravings. No matter how healthy I was, I could not avoid these extreme sugar cravings that would overcome my from time to time and ruin everything. Knowing I was cheating anyway I would stuff myself endless with bad stuff.
With this diet, I feel full so quickly. So while I still cheat from time to time, I can restrict it to small amounts. I simply feel full quicker. Amazing!

[Aashish Rathi · Rating 2 out of 5]

The idea of the diet is intriguing. This is unlike the other diets which restrict a bunch of things, or the total calorie intake against the will of the person. If you follow it, you'll eat less, on your own. And the scientific basis behind the diet seems sound.

I've just started with it, but I have a feeling it should work. My final review will ofcourse depend on that.

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this quite a while ago--and used it, too. I had lost 20 pounds on the Atkins diet and, after going to maintenance, the weight started coming right back. I tried this approach (using light olive oil) and it stopped the weight gain. Kind of yucky, but it appeared to work for me.

[Lisa Greer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wacky stuff, but you gotta love an innovative guy who invents this kind of diet: drink oil or sugar water to stave off hunger. :) And it worked for a lot of people...

[Chris Boutté · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book. I usually roll my eyes at anything called “the _____ diet” but decided to give it a try after reading a Freakonomics book.

I’ve struggled with weight my whole life, and I put on over 100 lbs during my drug addiction. I’ve been clean 7.5 years, and it’s still been hard to shed the weight.

After a day, I’ve noticed my appetite is lower, so now it’s time to see the long-term results

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good lord! The best book I’ve ever read on weight loss. The method is easy, cheap, incredibly effective and painless. I’m sleeping better as well. Eat anything you want and feel satisfied earlier by lowering your set point with a simple technique. Not sure why everyone’s not on this.

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting concept, I don’t understand why there aren’t stronger convictions of its effectiveness with all the time that’s past since it’s publishing. The book itself is very repetitive and full of redundant points.

[Yose Dominguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has a lot of common sense, but at the same time, it seems to easy to be true. I will continue reading more on the subject to become more educated on better eating habits help to reduce sugar cravings. Also, on how to eat less.

[Tim Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting. I'll see if it works.

[Two Readers in Love]

I was intrigued by the description of Mr. Robert's project in Slate's article on "How We Can Use Data Sets to Improve Our Lives." This book did not disappoint in that regard: the author performed a self-experiment with tasteless oil and flavorless sugar water to reset his metabolism, and this book shares his results. Anyone who has unthinkingly lost weight while their sense of taste was compromised by a bad cold will have had personal experience with the author's premise: the association between flavor and calories that drives appetite. The author takes it a step further by hypothesizing that this association between flavor and calories can reset your body weight "set point." Summaries of the studies on rats that helped lead the author to his hypothesis are also included.

Self-experimentation would seem to face the double whammy both the placebo effect and confirmation bias. You believe something to be true, you study yourself, and to no one's surprise - except perhaps your own - your data proves your hypothesis to be true (e.g. If you believe wearing a rubber band around your left wrist increases your balance, it does.) I suppose this may seem nitpicky to those who find success with such methods: if taking a sugar pill (or in this case, literally drinking sugar water) leads you to success, then who cares if the outcome is due to the placebo effect? It worked for you, and while sugar water has few health benefits the side effects are certainly likely to be less dangerous than that of many other diet drugs.

The author's evidence that these results translate more broadly across the human populace is even less convincing. Again, this is not to say his theory is incorrect, it is just difficult to judge from the scattershot comments from the (mostly pseudonymous) blog participants that had followed the diet at the time the book was published. The descriptive chapters of this slim book are interspersed with such 'user testimonials'; these sections seemed like redundant filler, and were mostly anecdotal. There was a bit of a mismatch between more circumspect claims of the author interspersed with the old-school fad diet style of the testimonial sections. However, I don't need to diet and so perhaps I'm not the target audience for those sections; if I was about to embark on a diet and was looking for a little blind hope in addition to the facts, perhaps I would have found all the blogosphere commentary more heartening (albeit still scientifically unconvincing.)

It would be nice if the graphs of his and other's weight loss against his consumption of the oil/sugar water were printed larger so that readers could analyze the data a bit more closely for themselves.

Gripes like these aside, this was a good, quick introduction to an intriguing, counter-intuitive concept.

[DK Simoneau · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Shangri-La Diet: The No Hunger Eat Anything Weight-Loss Plan
by Seth Roberts

This was an easy read. And though I'm not sure I'm in agreement with the "science" behind it, I do believe Mr. Roberts may be onto something. I think our society has given sugar a bad rap. And yet when we are put into a hospital, one of the first things they often do is put us on an IV of salt and/or sugar water solution. I think our bodies need sugar. I think they need water. I think they need salt. And I think they need fat. So I'm interested in exploring his ideas- though I think they are discovering that some of these oils that he said would work fine as a substitute may not be so good. (I personally wouldn't use Canola, Sunflower etc. as I think they may do more harm than good!) And after a lot of other reading, I think maybe you have to be careful which brand of olive oil you might use. I'm thinking even coconut oil might be an even better choice. I like the ideas presented. I like the idea of adding something rather than depriving ourselves. So many people have had good luck with it, I would think it might be worth taking a whirl. Much of it matches up so many of the conclusions I had already come to in much of my other research. I just don't quite buy the "flavor" part of it...........but then again, maybe he really was onto something.

[Kathy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I gave this four stars, but I guess I should wait until I see if this really works. The author's premise is that there is a strong connection in our bodies between good tasting food and calories, that our bodies learn to associate strong, good tastes with calories that the body wants to conserve, making us fat. He experimented on himself to find ways to add calories without taste, thereby lowering his body's set point and causing one to lose weight. He finally hit upon ingesting plain sugar water or flavorless oils a couple of times a day. He found that his appetite decreased and that he effortlessly lost weight, going from 200 pounds to 160 pounds, and staying there. I'm going to give it a try!

Update: So, I tried the method. But it really didn't decrease my appetite. Didn't seem to "reset" my metabolism. Didn't work for me. So I stopped.

[Jerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a lot of people mentioned, you don't need to buy the book to get the diet plan. It's pretty simple and explained on the author's website. The book was mostly background on how Roberts got the idea, what he did to test it, and dieter testimonials. All in all, it was an interesting read. I admire Roberts' ability to think outside the box. If the testimonials are to be believed, this diet could be a magic bullet.

I don't believe in magic, unfortunately. I will try out the ideas and see what happens. It's not risky and the premise appeals to my supremely lazy attitude. I can't rate the book higher than three stars until I know if it actually delivers on its claim. The three stars reflect an easy to read book that clearly leads you through its ideas. Whether or not you believe any of it along the way is another thing.

[Benjamin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think Seth Roberts is on to something, but I feel like he undermines his credibility with the way he describes the diet. Calling it "The Shangri-La Diet" sounds silly to me. It's not even really a diet; it's a strategy to reduce your appetite. He writes sentences like "eating more food will cause you to lose weight" which make it sound like a scam; what he technically means is that eating more calories without flavor will reduce your appetite, allowing you to eat less overall.

If you like diet books by psychologists then I highly recommend Mindless Eating. If you prefer an engineer's perspective, I recommend The Hacker's Diet.

[David Failing · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mildly informative - the author advances the theory that eating small quantities of foods (ELOO and fructose) with low "flavor-calorie association" will lower the body's set-point, which is the weight your brain WANTS you to be. In his view, backed by a few studies, weight which is above the set point will cause you to be less hungry (and hence lose weight), while a weight below your set point will increase hunger (and hence you will gain weight). This, he says, is why restrictive diets ultimately do not work - they lower weight while failing to lower the set-point. Interesting theory, perhaps worth a try.

[L.L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

No więc bardzo ciekawa książka.
To właściwie nie jest dieta tylko sposób oszukania organizmu tak żeby czuł się syty, więc nie domagał się jedzenia i dzięki temu spalał rezerwy (czyli zbędne kilogramy). Ma to wszystko sens i w ogóle. No bo kiedy się nie czuje głodu, to nie trzeba tyle jeść - to nie jest męczące. Oprócz tego autor podaje kilka innych ciekawych sposobów "wspomagania". Podobno też z czasem przechodzi apetyt na rzeczy kaloryczne - co do tego, to przekonam się za jakiś czas ;) a na razie mogę powiedzieć, że apetyt faktycznie spada.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read a ton of diet and nutrition books and have learned to be disappointed with most of them. So I didn't come into this one with high expectations. But Roberts blew me away. Now whether the Shangri-La Diet is the cure-all for the global obesity epidemic, I don't know. But I do know this, it fundamentally changed how I feel diet and nutrition. Although I'm not convinced that Seth's diet is the healthiest option out there I think it's a fantastic way to help transition someone to more sustainable diet and I'm glad to have stumbled upon this one.

[William R. J. Ribeiro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I read Freakonomics earlier this year and it mentions the Sangri-La Diet so I looked up the book. It was very cheap and under 200 pages so I added to my to-read list.
Basically, you can learn everything from the diet on a dozen of blog posts on the web. The book doesn't add THAT much. To be fair, I give it 3 stars just because it's not a bad book and it's definitely not a bad one either. The diet and the theories were very appealing, and amusing, to me. after all, you are drinking olive oil and sugar water to lose weight.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book (ebook) was short, but a bit repetitive. That said, I appreciate his background, how he came up with the diet and the science behind it. The forums on his website are more helpful in following the diet than the book itself. And his blog, which has very little to do with the diet, has a wealth of information on various subjects. Seth Roberts inspires me to be more proactive about my own health.

[Paloma]

educational read

This tweak just makes sense. I've tried it successfully in the past and plan on adding and keeping this tweak for good. There is no denying that the appetite suppression is there. And for ME, that is what I need to make better food choices. I remember my problem being that it worked a little too well, and I'd end up not eating enough. This time, I'll adjust the oil accordingly.

[Megan · Rating 1 out of 5]

As much as I believe psychology and weight loss are inextricably linked, this PhD level psychologist proposes metabolic conclusions (set point) based on an epiphany after appetite loss following drinking different flavored sodas in Paris. Ok. If it works for some folks - great. Like I said there is a lot of do understand about psychology and weight loss.

[Bonnie Magar · Rating 3 out of 5]

This diet was mentioned in the book Freakanomics and sparked my interest. It is a whole new concept of how to get rid of those extra pounds by resetting your "set-point" to a lower level. I read the book in a hour or so last night and I started the diet this morning. I'll see how it goes:)

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great concepts and ideas. Hope it works for me. Tried weight watcher's but I started gaining weight again. Hopefully this will get and keep the weight off. I'll keep this review updated on the progress.

[L · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this because of Freakonomics. The concept sounds like a fad diet, but the sections on taste, diet and eating patterns are interesting.

Mr. Roberts is not a dietician, so it's difficult to take into account the science behind it all.

[Mike Klein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bottom line--I'm going to try this diet. The psychology of dieting is an important and often overlooked part, in addition people have had some success with this. Well written and always careful not to over promise. We'll see how it goes.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Something you sort of have to check out for yourself. I heard about it from the Ada's Rules book. If works, I think it could make dieting and following other plans a lot easier, if it doesn't work then no harm no foul as long as your are using healthy oils, like flax or walnut.