I will preface this by saying I have not read the book, but I plan to, but I did read the original paper on self-experimentation back when it first came out, and I have read a lot of the tips on this forum and elsewhere.
That said, when the original paper came out, I tried the sugar water for about two weeks with no appetite suppression. Recently, I tried again with the oil, starting with two tablespoons of ELOO, then gradually working up to 6 tablespoons of flax oil plus a tablespoon worth of fish oil pills, both taken with noseclips. By the time I was at 6 tablespoons, I think I may have felt very minor appetite supression, but it certainly did not come anywhere near making up for the calories from the oil.
Back when I tried the sugar water, however, I learned that fructose has the same amount of calories as regular sugar, and is, supposedly twice as sweet. This gave me the idea to replace all the sodas I was drinking with KoolAid made using half as much pure fructose instead of the recommended amount of regular sugar. I lost a TON of weight doing this, which, at the time, I attributed to the reduction in calories from not drinking sodas anymore. Looking back, however, I realize that my meal portions during that time were also a lot smaller, and I did not have a lot of cravings. Eventually I stopped doing it, because I just didn't feel like making KoolAid all the time, and I've come back up from my low point, but I am still 25 pounds lighter than when I started with the Kool Aid.
That brings me to the new application. The Shangri La theory seems to be based on the notion of a learned calorie-flavor association. From what I've read about conditioning, flavor would be considered a secondary or conditioned reinforcer, while the calories consumed would be the primary reinforcer. Shangri La, then, attempts to weaken the conditioned reinforcer (flavor) by presenting the primary reinforcer without also presenting the conditioned reinforcer.
This may have some extinguishing effect, but theoretically its backwards. Again, from what I've read about conditioning, the best way to extinguish a conditioned reinforcer is to do the opposite--repeatedly present the conditioned reinforcer (flavor) without presenting the primary reinforcer (calories). Thus to get the most advantage from the Shangri La theory, you should not be focusing so much on flavorless calories, as calorie-less flavor. Perhaps Dr. Roberts or someone else with more training than me in behavioral psychology can confirm or deny this.
Back to the Kool-Aid. I made it with the individual, unsweetened flavor packets that require you to add your own sugar. I used the ENTIRE flavor packet, but instead of adding the recommended 1 cup of sugar, I added about 1/3 cup of pure fructose. So it had just as intense a flavor as regular koolaid (which is pretty intense), but 1/3 the calories (which is, I think about 1/6 the calories in a soda). At first it seemed sour, but eventually it was absolutely addicting.
Anyway, the low-calorie Kool-Aid worked great for me, while the flavorless calories have not done anything, so some of you others might want to give it a try, especially if you're one of those who is not experiencing appetite suppression. I haven't and won't try it with sucralose, only because it gives me horrible headaches.
The other side of this, though, is that diet sodas don't seem to work for too many people, and I can't really reconcile that with my experience with the low-cal koolaid. I imagine the sweetness might play some factor. Also, people generally drink diet drinks when they are also consuming a lot of food calories. They might actually work if one drank them without consuming any calories from food at the same time.
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Topic: New Application of Theory -- Extinguishing Conditioned Reinforcer (flavor) (Read 49691 times)