Seth’s blog

Someone named August posted today on the SLD forums that he’d lost 100 pounds:

The scale dipped to 185 a bit unexpectedly this weekend. [He is 6′ 3″.] Well, that was my target.  Now what?

100lbs down.

Anticlimatic really.  The last three pounds just disappeared overnight.

And I can still stand to lose more, despite having people telling me I shouldn’t lose anymore since last year.

Since he has posted many times, and has been so successful, I think there is a lot to be learned here. Here is some of what he learned along the way.

Are your habits getting in the way?

I had a similar slow start with SLD too.  It wasn’t until I realized my habits kept me eating far more than I needed to that I started losing significant amounts of weight.

Bananas: good or bad?

I used to eat bananas everyday for potassium, but within an hour, I’d be really hungry.  One day I brought brisket I cooked overnight and I didn’t want to put it in the fridge, so I had it when I usually had my banana.  I didn’t think about food again until it was almost time to go home and I realized I hadn’t eaten anything else!

What about sweeteners?

I drink a lot of coffee, and when I decided to drop the sweeteners and take it black, the temptation to eat wheat products practically disappeared.

What about patience?

I began in a very low key way.  I simply started trying sugar water, then different oils, and for a while it didn’t seem like it would work.  Then one day Seth linked to the guy who ate protein nose clipped.  I decided to get a nose clip and try that for a while.  It worked in a borderline way, in other words it was effective enough to keep me doing it, but I wasn’t losing very much weight at the time.  Eventually, I ended up taking two tablespoons of walnut oil in the morning everyday.

The AS was enough for me to realize I was always eating more than I needed.  I’d dig into something and then realize I didn’t need to finish it.  My life was built around food.  I love to cook and I live by myself, so that means way too many calories in one place.  As I started to recognize this, I began to wonder how to change this.

Then on Good Friday I did a fast.  I decided that if I started to feel bad, I’d just take some oil.  It worked very well.  I realized I could get by with very little food.

Thanks to Heidi.

In March, Century posted this on the SLD forums:

I’d like to put my dog on SLD by giving him his calories through sugar cubes. Would that work?

The dog will whine constantly when he’s hungry. He’s pretty old, and at this point, we don’t have the heart to put him on a strict diet. The hope is that with SLD, we won’t have to choose between a happy dog and a healthy dog. If it works, he won’t whine after he’s been fed his normal serving.

Today he posted this:

It’s worked incredibly well. It’s gotten to the point where he won’t whine at all. If I don’t remember to feed him, he won’t eat anything. I haven’t been able to weigh him, so I don’t really know how much weight he has lost, but a number of people have commented on how much thinner he looks. I’ve started to cut back on the sugar.

Any doubt I’ve had that SLD is for real has been erased. It’s unreal how well it’s worked for the dog.

Thanks to Heidi.

This, from the SLD forums, made me laugh:

Ya know its probably NOT placebo. . . . First time I ever did it I could not finish my bowl of oatmeal. Before SLD I had never, not ever, been able to not finish anything.

After reading my post about Reed College’s horrible treatment of Chris Langan, a friend of mine who is a student at Tsinghua University wrote this:

I feel so lucky that we have lots of brilliant scholars who are at the same time good teachers. Many of them do care about undergraduates and give good advice. I don’t know which education system for undergrads [Tsinghua’s or Reed’s] is best, for colleges that do poorly in educating undergrads [like Reed] may produce students who are more independent. But being educated here, I have to say I love Tsinghua and its teachers a lot.

Why does she love Tsinghua? I asked.

I think it is very tolerant.  I made many mistakes while I was growing up, but just like my parents, my school didn’t forced me to do anything to correct my mistakes. It gave me freedom to choose, to live my own life. I’m glad it didn’t interrupt my life and gave me the chance to see my mistakes and to correct them by myself. And when I did want to correct them, it allowed me to. I realize that there won’t be many chances to make mistakes and to correct them by myself after I leave school so I value the time in the school. So I guess the best thing about Tsinghua is its freedom and tolerance.

My friend started as a math major. Then she became an English major. Now she is taking economics classes because she wants to study economics in graduate school. That’s what she means by “mistakes”: choosing the wrong major.

Tsinghua versus Reed.

Roberto Medri, a 27-year-old who works in Italy for Bain & Company, a consulting firm, writes:

I have had bad shaving problems since I started working three years ago. I tried pretty much everything: multiple blades, old-time safety razors, expensive British shaving soaps, silvertip brushes, pre-shaving oil and creams, abstruse shaving methods and blade techniques: all to almost no avail. Instead, my face would bleed more and more every day, making it frustrating and time-expensive to shave, only to get results which ranged from laughable to frightening.

I noticed two patterns:

• Once in a couple of months, I used to have a perfect shave: fast, enjoyable, baby-butt smooth with no irritation. I was not, however, capable of isolating the deciding variable, as those epiphanies seemed to be completely random.
• When I took up a new remedy (another pre-shave cream, steamed towels, etc.) things got better for 2-3 shaves, then back to normal horror.

A fortnight ago, I began having perfect shaves. Consistently. I am simplifying my routine because all toners and moisturizers now seem useless. My towels are not stained, I am on time, I actually look forward to shaving every morning (with but only a slight fear of it all ending).

The only explanation I can think of is that, following your advice, I started taking four softgels/day of flax oil about a month ago.

It’s very difficult to get flaxseed oil in Europe (bottled oil simply is not available). I have recommended flax to my colleagues also plagued by red necks to no avail: they are elite in two ways, white collar elite (working for Bain) and dietary elite (as Italians, which supposedly have the best and healthiest food ever), so it fits with your reasoning that they are very change-averse. In fact, a manager told me that my taking softgels during the day is “inappropriate” and “disturbing” colleagues.