It's Potato Time Again!

I last tried the potato diet in September 2022 and it worked great, losing ~23 pounds in 21 days. Here I go again.

For those not familiar, the diet was "formalized" in a sense by @mold_time on Twitter as a means to explore the causes of the obesity epidemic in Western countries. Sporadic reports of people who ate a diet consisting mostly or solely of potatoes indicated notable weight loss without ill health effects, and a number of possible causes have been hypothesized.

From my own experience, I strongly suspect this diet works entirely through calorie and salt restriction. Lower calorie burns fat, lower salt releases retained water, though most of the water weight changes seem to occur in the first week or so. I believe this diet is high satiation, low temptation, and low calorie, which is why it can work for many people. That said, it's probably not a sustainable diet in the long term.

My body:

My body plan is best described as heavy mesomorph. I'm 6'1", have broad shoulders, naturally retain muscle (a bit less so now that I'm in my 40s), and have more "trunk" to my height than you'd expect. As a full grown adult I've never weighed less than 210 lbs, and probably can't get much below 200 lbs without wasting away. In college I was 210 - 240 lbs, and as an adult I've ranged from 230 - 265 lbs.

My plan:

Three weeks potato diet starting 5/8/24. Eat and drink the following: Baked Russet potatoes (no skins, every meal), baked sweet potatoes (some meals), water, salt, protein shakes. I do have french fries and potato chips stocked in the house, but I'll only fall back on those sparingly. Zero calorie seasonings are allowed. I may also use salsa to spice up the potatoes from time to time, but only when I start getting bored. I also plan to drink miralax once per day because... well, yeah.

Now what about these protein shakes? Last time I went on this diet, I was not exercising at all. This time, I attend Taekwondo classes three days per week and lift weights at the gym three days per week. I expect this diet to stall out my weightlifting progression, but also don't want to lose much muscle mass, so I'll drink an average of 30g of protein per day, which adds ~130 calories per day to my diet. Plus, these shakes contain a good mix of essential vitamins that the potato diet might shortchange me on. I'm also switching my weightlifting routine to maintenance lifts and not progressing weights much or at all.

I'll edit this post with daily numbers below, and will note any deviations from the diet. My goal is to use the potato diet to shed some weight before summer, keep it off over summer, then use it again in the autumn to work down to 220 lbs, which is near my goal weight. Longer term, I can't keep doing this unless I want to develop gallstones due to rapid weight loss, but my exercise routine plus becoming more vigilant about my eating habits can hopefully keep me down near my goal weight.

Day 1: 257 lbs.

Day 2: 257 lbs. Hunger and cravings stronger than the last time. Having to fall back on fries and chips immediately.

Day 3: 255 lbs.

Day 4: 254 lbs.

Day 9: 249 lbs. Stopping diet.

Well, it was working, but something's a bit different this time. I'm constantly hungry. On Day 8 I had four potatoes in the mid-morning, then two more potatoes and two bowls of potato chips in the afternoon, then four more potatoes at dinner, then was hungry again just two hours later and had two more potatoes, then had a small bowl of potato chips before bed to stave off hunger. Last time I did this diet, about a week in, six potatoes in a day was enough to keep me satiated.

The likely difference here is the amount of physical activity I'm engaged in. Taekwondo three nights/week plus weightlifting three other nights/week. This last week has also been extremely busy both around the house and at work, with little rest. When I last ran the potato diet in Fall 2022, I was not exercising and was sedentary during the days.

And (TMI warning), on top of all that, the potato diet this time around has featured a lot more gastrointestinal distress than last time. My guess here is that I was eating a high protein diet prior to switching to potatoes and my intestines are not happy with the sudden switch to high carb/low protein. This, combined with the constant hunger, has made the diet much less appealing this time around.

During the last potato diet regimen, weight loss during the first week was closer to 1.5 lbs/day, though I assumed water weight was a significant portion of weight loss in that first week. Weeks 2 and 3 settled down to just under 1 lb/day, for a total of 23 lbs in 21 days.

My rate of weight loss this time was officially ~0.9 lbs/day in the first and only week. There's no way it was all water weight, given how hungry I was and my eating patterns, so I'd guess I was on track to 15 - 20 lbs in 21 days. Perhaps my exercise regimen has reduced my retained water so I mostly lost actual fat this time around.

And the role of the protein shakes, if any, remains a mystery.