Freakonomics and...Weight Loss?

I've been reading the Freakonomics blog on The New York Times website...yes, I read about economics, believe it or not. Granted, it's economics for the masses, but still. Until I started working for a publisher that produced economics textbooks, I had this idea it was all numbers and math...both of which I hate. But, there's a whole world that people like Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt have opened to people like me, who just want to know how economics can affect our daily lives.

One of the topics they recently covered is weight loss by means of bariatric surgery, which definitely isn't for me since I'm only about 10 pounds overweight. But I still found it interesting to read, and ended up clicking on a link that took me to an article they wrote in 2005 for The New York Times magazine covering the "Shangri-La" diet. A scientist experimented on himself to find out the best way to lose weight, and ended up concluding that when it comes to food, our body and brains don't know it's not the Stone Age. Your brain thinks it's not going to get much to eat all winter, so it better store up what it can to make it through the starvation period. Basically, our brains want us to weigh more than we should, just in case we should ever face starvation. Thus, we have a "set point" according to Seth Roberts, the author of The Shangri-La Diet (he's a professor emeritus at Berkley), and it can be controlled by diet.

What's the trick to doing that? According to Roberts, we have to break the taste-calorie association so that the set point is lowered. By breaking the link between taste and calorie consumption, the body will no longer crave calories due to a particular taste. He proposes two ways of doing this, consuming either sugar water over a period of no less than 30 minutes to avoid an insulin spike, or taking tasteless oil (light olive or canola oil) between meals, the serving size depending on your weight. You also cannot eat anything one hour before or after consuming the water or oil so there is no taste associated with this. This has apparently worked wonders for some people, who report having appetite suppression to the point of forgetting to eat.

So, I'm going to try this to see what happens. I tried the oil last night and felt totally nauseated. My touchy gall bladder didn't seem to like it, apparently. Today, I'm trying the sugar water. So far, so good. Now, I have read that "supertasters" have to do stuff like hold their nose and wash out their mouth after consuming oil, because they can actually taste it. I must confess, I think I'm a supertaster, because that oil tasted pretty good...and I can taste that bitter substance that supertasters can taste (everyone else either can't taste it, or they don't think it's that bitter...trust me, it is!) Felt nasty going down, but it tasted buttery to me. The sugar is not associated with any taste or aroma, so I'm hoping that it'll work for me. I'm drinking it right now, actually. And I'm not hungry or tired like I thought I might be after consuming 3 tablespoons of sugar in about 24 oz of water. We'll see what happens.

Tags: Freakonomics, Shangri-La diet, New York Times, Steven Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner, weight loss, supertasters