The Shangri-La Diet encourages drinking sugar water or bland oil between meals to lower the dieter’s set point and reduce the desire for high-calorie foods. Critics argue that it is dangerous and lacks scientific evidence, but its non-restrictive nature appeals to some. Developed by Seth Roberts, it aims to break the addictive association between taste and calorie intake.
While many diet plans limit total calorie intake or emphasize certain types of food over others, one radical food plan called the Shangri-La Diet places no such restrictions on a dieter’s daily meals. Instead, people on the Shangri-La diet can eat pretty much as much as they want at regular meals, but are encouraged to drink a mixture of sugar water or bland edible oil between meals. This is supposed to affect the dieter’s connection between the taste of food and the calories it contains. Eventually, a faithful adherent to the Shangri-La Diet should lose weight, along with the desire to enjoy large amounts of high-calorie foods.
The Shangri-La diet was developed by an assistant professor of psychology at UC-Berkeley named Seth Roberts. Roberts theorized that our metabolic rates were set during a time of feast or famine during the time of the cavemen. When food was plentiful, cavemen ate as much food as possible, most likely gaining significant weight in the process. When food became scarce, the cavemen’s bodies adapted to the thin offerings and became less hungry. Roberts calls this variable level of hunger and satiety the set point. Many modern dieticians believe that there is a set point that the body seeks to maintain, but Roberts believes that this set point can be increased or decreased through diet.
Under his Shangri-La diet plan, dieters are urged to stop associating tasty foods with the need for sustenance. If someone really enjoys the taste of pizza, for example, that person is likely to indulge a lot at mealtimes, which in turn will raise their set point. Roberts believes that by consuming a mild but satisfying sugar water solution or bland oil such as canola or extra light olive oil before or after meals, the dieter will eventually lose the desire to indulge in tasty but fattening foods in others. moments. Roberts himself claims that he only eats one small meal a day, as the Shangri-La Diet plan has lowered his own set point to a minimal maintenance level.
Critics of the Shangri-La diet suggest that ingesting fructose-based sweetened water between meals is a dangerous practice. Fructose is a sweetener derived from corn, not fruit. The liver has a hard time metabolizing fructose properly, so any diet that requires daily doses could lead to serious health problems. Furthermore, there is little scientific evidence that a person’s set point, as long as it actually exists, can be affected by a simple change in diet. The Shangri-La diet, like other so-called “fad diets,” calls for a lifelong change in a person’s eating habits, which can lead to yo-yo dieting and an artificial dependency on sugar water or oil flavorless to maintain weight. .
The main appeal of the Shangri-La diet lies in its non-restrictive nature. Dieters on the Shangri-La plan are encouraged to follow a low-glycemic diet similar to the South Beach diet plan, but the ultimate goal is to steer people away from the addictive association between taste and ingestion. caloric. Roberts suggests that when the dieter’s brain experiences unusual or bland tastes, it doesn’t have a frame of reference with which to connect those tastes. Without that mental association, a Shangri-La dieter won’t be as tempted to indulge in sugar water or flavorless oil. Ultimately, this disconnect should extend to other foods as well. This stage is one of the key steps in the Shangri-La Diet plan.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
