March 25, 2008
The "Too Simple to Write a Book About It" Diet
Bryan CaplanYesterday I did a 10-minute interview in my office with self-experimentalist and diet guru Seth Roberts. Today he blogged it:
My self-experimentation inspired Bryan Caplan to do his own self-experiment: Could he lose weight by eating less without discomfort? He did two things:If I were going to write a book about my diet, I'd call it Don't Clean That Plate! But my diet (or, as I prefer to call it, "lifestyle") is far too simple to fill a book. The upside, perhaps, is that my eating advice is unusually practical - it's not only painless; it's easy to remember.1. Stopped eating when he wasn’t hungry. During a meal he began to pay close attention to how hungry he was. When he stopped being hungry, he stopped eating, even if it meant leaving food on his plate. Before this he rarely left food on his plate. Now it was common.
2. Cut down on his soda consumption. Previously he was drinking at least two cans/day of Coke or IBC Root Beer (both non-diet). He reduced this to one can/day, which he found was enough to keep his energy up.
Bryan is 5′ 10″. When this started he weighed about 178 pounds. Over 9 months, his weight went down to 155, where it has remained for 9 months. “Is this something I’m willing to do for the rest of my life?” he asks. “Yes.”
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