

The Accidental Diet - tyn
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/magazine/11FREAK.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

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zacharypinter
I don't care so much about dieting, but I'm very interested in finding foods
that are healthy and easy to make. I find I'm much more productive when I have
a premade or easily prepared meal. I like having an obvious choice for a meal
that I don't have to think about.

So far I've found:

* Non-fat Cottage Cheese and Apples/Applesauce

* Bean Burritos with a light amount of sharp cheddar (the sharper the cheddar the less you need to use), making about 5-6 in a batch.

* Rice-A-Roni Red Beans and Rice

If I could skip a meal each day without screwing up my metabolism or energy
level (which this article seems to suggest), that could be useful.

~~~
rms
I like eating very large salads. 750-1000 calorie salads. It's extremely
satisfying and it's very easy to change aspects of it to keep up variety.
Here's how I do it.

Half of a bag of cut and washed lettuce. I usually go with Trader Joe's mixed
greens. Bonus points if it doesn't come from a bag.

More vegetables, whatever you have around. I like carrots, green onions, and
all kinds of peppers.

8-12 ounces of chicken cooked and seasoned to taste, pre-cooked frozen chicken
is fine as long as it is actual non-nugget type chicken.

Cheese. I like Jarlsberg.

Croutons or any other type of crunchy carbohydrate. I like bagel chips.

Homemade Italian dressing. Google up some different recipes and keep playing
until you get it perfect. But any dressing you make yourself with olive oil
will beat the mass produced Italian dressing with sugar needlessly added.

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tyn
I think the point of the article is more about the idea of self-
experimentation than the diet itself.

~~~
tricky
"psychologist Robert Rosenthal, who has praised Roberts for 'approaching data
in an exploratory spirit more than, or at least in addition to, a confirmatory
spirit' and for seeing data analysis 'as the opportunity to confront a
surprise.'"

I think it is a shame so many people frown upon this. I say that because I
fiddled around with my diet for years and found out all kinds of things about
how I work. It's interesting and I think i'm a better person for it.

For example, whole milk, greasy beef, and certain cheeses give me zits. Every
single person I've told calls bullshit and says I'm making it up because
"studies prove that what you eat doesn't affect your skin."

Well, that's great, I guess I could eat this greasy cheeseburger and show you
what happens in 2 days, but... you wouldn't believe it, anyway.

What's my point? I think a lot of people would be better off if they took an
active role in their health like this guy instead of relying 100% on "experts"
and studies.

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jlees
I don't really get the logic of this part of the article:

* Eating a food that's flavourful and familiar => your body says 'stock up' => you eat more.

* Swallowing unflavoured oil between meals => you gain calories but do not trip the 'stock up' trigger

* Roberts could eat whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and felt less hungry.

Yet, if he's eating the same familiar, flavourful foods, surely he's tripping
the mechanism at mealtimes _and_ ingesting extra calories between meals,
meaning he should gain weight? If there's an additional logical step in the
reasoning, i.e. eating oil makes your stomach full so you eat less, it should
really have been mentioned.

(Before I'm told to Google it, I'm sure further literature on the diet
explains the full logic; my point is that the article doesn't.)

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jackmoore
I assume this does not work because the article was written nearly 4 years
ago. Where are the results?

~~~
Sujan
Well, it was enough for a New York Times Bestseller:
<http://www.sethroberts.net/>

~~~
rewind
With the lazy "big results with no work" attitude of so many people when it
comes to exercise and eating healty, you could could put that same "The No
Hunger Eat Anything Weight Loss Plan" on the cover of a Cobol manual and still
sell thousands of copies ;-)

I don't think the fact that a diet book is a best-seller says a whole lot,
especially when you consider that the same people who bought this book
probably helped to make the Atkins, South Beach, etc. diet books the best
sellers they were.

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rms
I wish I could tell other people how to gain control over their food-willpower
so I could write a bestseller. I think I'll give it a try. [http://www.diet-
blog.com/archives/2006/09/15/how_to_write_a_...](http://www.diet-
blog.com/archives/2006/09/15/how_to_write_a_diet_book.php)

Somehow, I did gain control over my food-willpower. I absolutely love food,
healthy or otherwise, and I basically eat whatever I want, more protein than
anything else. I've taken to drinking large amounts of fruit juice to make up
a caloric deficit if I haven't eaten much. I figure fruit juice is the
healthiest source of empty calories.

~~~
Tichy
By now I have read a lot of criticism of fruit juice, though. Basically it
just contains a lot of sugar, not that much better than drinking soda drinks
(what are they called? coke and lemonade?).

There also seem to be a lot of cases were people just eat insane amounts of
fruits to still get their sugar shock. I'd be wary of the fruits.

~~~
dmfdmf
I was at a client's once and their young daughter around 5 or 6 was having a
fit in the late afternoon, wanted some candy and the mom said no that it will
ruin her dinner. She kept pouting and whining... then said mom can I have some
OJ? Of course, mom said yes. I didn't have the heart to tell her she just got
played by her daughter who needed a sugar fix.

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jstevens85
not really a diet, more like a method for suppressing appetite.

