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[chowchow]

I ran into this diet last night on the internet. Today, I ordered the book, but figured there was enough information given that I could start it before I read the book.

I'm 5 foot 10, 221 pounds, smoke, and I drink either diet coke or tea continuously from the time I get up. After dinner, I switch to iced water, but I always have a glass of something sitting on my desk (at home or work). I also had a thyroidectomy and since then (over a decade ago), have not had much success with diets, but have maintained this weight for years. I'm really curious if this will work for me. I don't much care what I weigh as much as what my pant size is. I am currently in a size 16 and would like to get down to a size 12.

Today, I watched what I did (drinking and eating) through out the day to find out what would be the best time to take my 2 doses of oil. I drive an hour to work, so I gave up the "drive home diet coke" and took the oil right when I got home (GAG!). I didn't read about the smoking until after I had taken the oil. I had a cigarette on the way home, so I figure that I've already messed up.

After analyzing my day, I came up with the following. And this doesn’t really vary through out the week. I’m rather anal and very habitual. While habits themselves are not hard to break, I need to replace that habit with something else – the thought that I’ll be replacing it with oil gives me the shivers. My weekend schedule is different, so I’ll have to jot that down when it comes.

8:00 AM – Get up. Diet coke and a cigarette while I read my email
8:15 AM - Shower
8:30 AM – Cigarette and finish my diet coke and surf a bit online
8:45 AM – Get dressed
8:55 AM – Leave the house with a fresh diet coke for the drive to work.
9:55 AM – Get to work, grab a new diet coke and a pastry for breakfast.
12:00 PM – First break – new diet coke and a cigarette
2:00 PM – Lunch – New diet coke, 1 smoke, leftovers from the family’s dinner the night before, and another smoke
3:00 PM – Back at my desk with a new diet coke
5:00 PM – Second break – grab some chips, fresh diet coke and smoke a cigarette.
7:00 PM – Grab a diet coke and head home. A smoke or two on the way.
8:00 PM – Iced tea, a smoke, maybe a snack if I’m hungry, but most times not.
9:00 PM – I’m on water now, but I’m smoking.

Giving up smoking is not an option. I’ve tried and failed miserably. Setting a new routine and being stressed spells failure from the start. I would much rather try to give up some of my diet cokes. I didn’t realize how many of them I drank until I wrote it down.

I can’t eat for an hour after I wake up due to the synthroid that I take in the morning. Eating at home is not an option unless I get up an hour earlier, which can be an option if need be.

So, I have some questions so that I can figure this out:

1.   If I get up at 5 or 6 and chug some oil and then go back to bed, will this be beneficial at all, or am I defeating the purpose of this? I certainly won’t be smoking a cigarette or drinking a diet coke at that time.
2.   I need breakfast, but I don’t necessarily need the diet coke. If I eat breakfast before I sit down to the computer and drink water until 11:00 AM, it would be exactly an hour without food. I could chug the oil at 11 and be fine for a cigarette at noon break.
3.   Ditto number 2 at the 5 o’clock break. Skip the chips and diet coke, have water and take the oil at 6:15. Skip the 7 o’clock diet coke and have iced tea when I get home…
4.   Because the thyroid controls metabolism, and I don’t have a thyroid, is this not a good choice for me?
5.   When I took the oil tonight, I got a buzz or a tingling - not sure how to describe it. Is this normal and how long before the nausea goes away?

[Seth Roberts]

1. Waking up early to chug oil is exactly the way to start waking up too early (see Example 1 of my paper "Self-eperimentation as a source of new ideas").  But as far as the diet goes, it would work.

4. One of the first persons who tried fructose in a little study I did had some sort of thyroid problem and said the diet didn't work for her. Perhaps it won't work for you but I'm sure it's worth a try.

5. Maybe someone else can answer this question of yours. I can't.

 

[leloo]

Something that I found out when I first decided to drop soda from my diet:

Give up three daily 20-ounce bottles of soda, and at the end of the year you'll save...

* 273,000 calories
* 21,840 teaspoons of sugar
* Potentially lose up to 78 pounds of fat

At 1.25 per bottle, you’re also saving $1368.75 a year.

That’s just the quasi-immediate gratification.. the long term benefits include reduced cavities, better chances against developing Type2 diabetes, and stronger bones.

I won't bother to tell you to quit smoking, you already know what it does to you

[Denise]

I do #1.  I am not an early waker, I'm a can't get me out of bed with a spatula person, so it hasn't bothered me at all and I find it a great way to take the oil.  Take it, forget it, go back to sleep for an hour.

#5 - I got nausea from ELOO but not grapeseed, or grapeseed with ELOO.  You may have a sensitivity to ELOO or your oil may be rancid.

[chowchow]

Thanks for the comments. I have decided to try to see if this will work for me, even without a thyroid. The reason being is that I noticed that I was not really hungry today. I had to force myself to eat breakfast and lunch (had to wait to eat lunch after an hour of fasting after some oil, but again, ate because I should, not because I was hungry). I figure that I am probably ingesting fewer calories with the oil than my bag of afternoon chips.

I bought a new bottle of oil in case the one I had was rancid. Ewww at the thought of drinking rancid oil. This time I got the clear kind instead of the green tinged kind. It went down easier.

I have some more questions and my book hasn't gotten here yet....

1.   I can taste the oil, or maybe the residue, even after a bottle of water and the hour has passed. Do I need to brush my teeth or something? Or is an hour sufficient time so that my body is not associating the taste with anything else?
2.   I decided to limit myself to 1 diet coke in the morning and an iced tea at night. Don’t know what I’ll do over the weekend, but giving up my diet coke wasn’t as painful as I thought. I’m a little draggy and have a mild headache, but nothing that I can’t handle.

I will try to post at least once a week on my progress. I figure that there are probably other hypothyroid people out there who are wondering if this could work for them….

[chowchow]

Oh yea... there are 3 other people at work who have jumped on the bandwagon. We're doing this together. The looks on their faces when I told them that I downed a medicine cup of olive oil the night before was hysterical. When I said that I had to make myself eat breakfast, the interest perked up. 

I think the fact that I had a bottle of water in my hand instead of the perverbial diet coke attested to the fact that I was really willing to give this a shot. When I came back with my fresh bottle of oil, I graciously shared it with my coworkers. We're gonna make this a group thing...

[Denise]

Yay Team chowchow!

1. Yes, it isn't totally tasteless.  Wash it out with water.  I think the mouth feel lingers more.

[chowchow]

5/17 - 212 lbs
5/18 - 209 lbs
5/19 - 207 lbs

I'm taking oil 3 times a day (2 tablespoons each time), and I think that it might be working. Could be the new diet thing, but will continue to post what is happening.

[jzkc]

Chowchow, I had my thyroid out about 4 years ago, so I am doing the Synthroid thing too.  So far the diet seems to be working for me, although I had a really unexplainable (to me, at least) weight gain the second week.  This, my third week, I am down almost another pound (I post my progress on Mondays) and I still have no problems with hunger or cravings or unwarranted snacking.  If your Synthroid is at the right level, your body should be operating just as if you had a thyroid, and so hopefully won't have any influence on whether SLD works for you.  I see by some of your posts it does seem to be working.  Good for you on cutting the diet Cokes!  Even without the sugar, all the phosphoric acid is not good for your bones!

[mjohnson121]

chowchow,

Thats good progress. Keep in mind you're taking 6 tblspoons of oil per day (720 calories -- don't want to even know how many fat grams that is), which is well above what the book recommends as a max (400 cal.). If it's working, fine...but if you notice you stop losing, you should try reducing your dose to 3.5 tbls or thereabouts. Or at least slowly lower the dose from 6 per day.

-Mark

[Will]

Yikes, I have to re-emphasize what Mark said.  720 calories just from oil is HUGE.  The general recommendation of the diet is not to get more than 20% of your daily calories from the oil or sugar water.  You would have to be taking in 3600 calories a day to do that, which is possible but unlikely if you are losing weight.  Additionally, as Mark mentioned other people have found that they stop losing weight sometimes because they are taking too much oil (and thus calories from the oil).  I would highly recommend you drop down to only about 4 tbsp a day and see if that doesn't work for you still.

Also are you using a measuring spoon to determine your tablespoon or are you using a regular tablespoon from your silverware?  If you are using just regular silverware you might not be using a "real tablespoon" which is about 15 milliliters and that might be why it seems like too much oil to Mark and I.