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Shangri-La Diet - The Craziest yet the Most Doable Diet in the World

October 29th, 2007

About the Shangri-La diet

The Shangri-La diet is the consequence of fifteen years of self-experimentation by the well known professor Seth Roberts. Losing weight by merely consuming little amounts of oil and drinking sugared water may perhaps sound too superior to be true, but this is precisely how Roberts lost a remarkable 35 pounds in just three months. The Shangri-La supposition was derived from a study of our ancestors that showed that eating lots of flavors signaled an abundance of food, sending a message to the body to store more calories in preparation for scarcity. This is what Roberts terms as ‘taste-association’, and he claims that there is a direct correlation between the abundance of flavors in modern foods and fat storage. His Shangri-La strategy of eating bland foods aims to reduce food compulsions such as snacking between meals and eating late at night. In the Shangri-La method, eating tasteless food will send a powerful signaling mechanism to the body to reduce calorie intake.

The Shangri-La Theory

The Shangri-La method of ‘taste-association’ works with the ’set point’ theory of weight control, which contends that your body is pre-disposed to a set weight (this is why it is often difficult to maintain weight loss). In the Shangri-La you are not only reducing calorie intake, you also influencing your ’set point’ and increasing your metabolic rate to aid your body’s ability to burn more calories. In the Shangri-La diet, you eat ‘bland’ food in order to lower your set point, and cut down on tastier foods as they increase your set point, making your body store fat. The Shangri-La diet works well with non-processed foods and foods which contain a low glycemic index (GI). These foods release carbohydrates slowly into the bloodstream giving you a more sustained feeling of fullness. Roberts also suggests drinking large amounts of a tasteless substance such as water to help contribute to manipulating your body’s set point.

The Shangri-La Method

Consuming calories that have an unfamiliar taste or eating foods that contain calories that are only detected by the body after a delay (in order to disassociate the initial taste from the later calorie hit) is the underlying assumption of the Shangri-La method. The Shangri-La strategy attempts to disassociate calories from taste. In his self-experimentation, Roberts found it worked to take small amounts of (tasteless) daily calories between meals, giving the body the illusion of being full. Eventually Roberts arrived at the most quirky feature of the Shangri-La study: drinking one or two tablespoons of tasteless oil (canola oil or light olive oil) an hour before meals and drinking six tablespoons diluted in one litre of water a day – helped him lose weight.

The Shangri-La diet

The Shangri-La sounds like the ideal alternative to those who are seeking an uncomplicated weight loss program and Roberts is living proof that the method has worked. However, it is far too early to tell whether it will work for the rest of us or whether it is even safe (at the time of this report, the Shangri-La diet book was scheduled for release in April). There is still no clear method and far too many variations exist. The Shangri-La’s unnatural calorie restriction means you eat only one full meal a day and like many other diets may ultimately affect your metabolism in a negative way. Furthermore, Shangri-La also fails to acknowledge those who eat food for other reasons such as boredom or comfort eating. For most of us, recognizing when our body is full is far too difficult and the Shangri-La will also be too challenging for those who simply enjoy the taste of food.

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Entry Filed under: Diet & Exercise, Weight Loss