I have to admit that I’ve become addicted to watching vegan YouTube’rs like High Carb Hannah and her Life Inside A Box daily vlog.  I don’t know if I’m ahead of the curve, or if YouTube is so 2015.  All I know is that it’s a pretty suitable substitute for a real life, and that you can find lots of people that will reinforce your exact world view, in fun-to-watch daily doses.  It’s all-day-long mental candy on Apple TV.

At this point I’m over my obsession of trying to figure out the low-carb mindset, and specifically, how Gary Taubes can say with a straight face that “Carbs literally make you fat.”  I figure people just get obsessed with their mono-mania, and become for all intent and purposes, cranks.  Of course, I’m excused from the latter category, because I’m aware of my mono-mania.

Speaking of mono-mania, did I tell you I’m on the Potato Diet?  First off, diets that are perfectly described with one word + “diet” are the best.  They’re ridiculous and restrictive, and are probably even effective for a few days.  So, yes, the Potato Diet is meant to be comical, but hypothetically intriguing. It’s actually long-term healthy, appetizing, and effective.  It generally works because of it’s lowered palatability and reward (terms specific to the science of overeating) relative to other diets.  Potatoes are nutritionally complete (check cronometer if you don’t believe me).  And it’s a low fat diet (minimal added oils and fats, if any), which can be supplemented with non-starchy veggies.

I otherwise won’t go into the history of the Potato Diet.  It’s surprisingly short, as it’s never enjoyed any fad following.  (Which is totally strange, since there’s libraries of books for every other possible magical diet.)  But that might change, as High Carb Hannah currently has 3k+ Facebook members trying it out right now.  I decided to try it, mostly because it’s silly, and also because I believe in the food-reward model, and was pretty sure I’d finally lose “the last 5 kg” on this diet.  So far, I’m getting faster results than I expected.  I’d been stuck at 80 kg for over a year, eating high-carb, low-fat whole plant based foods that I cooked myself.  I’ve been super healthy and active, cycling 200+ km/week.  But I should weigh 75 kg or less.

I’m documenting my entire Potato Diet experience on my YouTube channel.  On those vlogs, I ramble on about the value of daily weigh-ins and accountability.  I’m eating a lot of roasted potatoes, baked potato fries, hash browns, and Thai potato curries.  I’m eating a bit of fruit, and maybe 10% of my calories from non-potato sources.  It’s still only Day 11 as I write this, but I hope to get down to my goal weight of 75 kg, and to keep it there by closely monitoring and posting my weight in the follow-up.