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The Shangri-La Diet

The Shangri-La Diet: What It Is

Advertised as the ''no hunger, eat anything weight loss plan,'' The Shangri-La Diet proposes to curb your appetite and lower your body's ''set point'' (the weight at which it naturally wants to settle) with concoctions of sugar water or extra-light olive oil consumed between meals.

The Shangri-La Diet acknowledges how difficult it is to lose weight using the typical formula of eating less and exercising more. Anyone who has ever been on a restrictive diet knows that feeling hungry all the time is what ultimately makes diets fail.

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The Shangri-La Diet author Seth Roberts, PhD, a professor of psychology, theorizes that you can teach yourself to want less food by regulating your body's set point.

The diet is based on the premise of taste association. His theory: If you eat a variety of familiar foods that are rich in flavor, the brain stimulates hunger, raising the set point and causing weight gain. But if you consume foods with little taste, or that taste unfamiliar, the brain thinks the body must be starving (why else would one eat tasteless food?), thus lowering the set point and causing weight loss.

The "better food tastes, the more fattening it is,'' Roberts says.

The Shangri-La Diet: What You Can Eat

Dieters can eat whatever foods they like, but are advised to stay away from processed foods, refined grains, and foods containing high-fructose corn syrup, and to choose more wholesome foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and foods high in fiber.

The key to The Shangri-La Diet, according to Roberts, is to have 1-3 tablespoons of fructose water and/or 1-2 tablespoons of extra-light olive oil twice daily between meals. Roberts says sugar water and oil provide calories but little taste, which teaches your body to stop associating taste with calories. So you'll want less of whatever foods you're eating.

''Most [people on The Shangri-La Diet] eat two small meals per day plus 2-4 tablespoons of the liquid, depending on their weight and effect on appetite,'' says Roberts.

For an extra set point-lowering boost, eat foods with unfamiliar flavors.

''Change the flavor of a food using different spices, or making a tiny alteration so that there is an unfamiliar association with the food, and that will lower the set point,'' says Roberts.

''Foods you eat raise your set point only when they are familiar foods," he says. "If you skip meals or eat flavorless or unfamiliar foods, the set point is lowered.''

The Shangri-La Diet: How It Works

Historically, the set point has been viewed as a relatively fixed number, not easily changed. But Roberts disagrees.

''Feedback regulation from food that you eat is capable of changing the set point," he says.

Roberts tested his theory on himself. He drank a couple hundred flavorless calories every day and almost instantly, he says, he lost his hunger and began eating only one meal every other day. He says he exercised and felt great while losing 35 pounds over 3 months. He has kept the weight off for 5 years.

''People who are on the diet are less hungry, have fewer cravings, and their food choices change, with a preference for healthier foods,'' says Roberts.

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