Eating a diet of nothing but potatoes (or almost nothing but potatoes) causes quick, effortless weight loss for many people. It’s not a matter of white-knuckling through a boring diet — people eat as much (potato) as they want, and at the end of a month of spuds they say things like, “I was quite surprised that I didn’t get tired of potatoes. I still love them, maybe even more so than usual?!” (Actual quote from a participant!) And some people lose a similar amount even when eating only 50% potato.

Why the hell does this happen? Well, there are many theories. To help get a sense of which theories are plausible, try to find some boundary conditions, or just more randomly explore the diet-space, we decided to run a Potato Diet Riff Trial. In this study, people volunteer to try different variations on the potato diet for at least one month and let us know how it goes. For example, they might eat nothing but potatoes and always cook their potatoes in olive oil. Or they might eat nothing but potatoes and leafy greens. Or they might eat nothing but potatoes and always eat their potatoes with ketchup. 

The hope is that this will help us figure out if there are other factors that slow, stop, or perhaps accelerate the rate of weight loss we saw on the full potato diet. This will get us closer to figuring out why potatoes cause weight loss in the first place, and might get us closer to curing obesity. We might also discover a new version of the diet that is easier to stick to or causes even more weight loss, or both. 

In the first two months after launching the riff trial, we heard back from ten riffs. Those results are described in the First Potato Riffs Report. Generally speaking, we learned that Potatoes + Dairy seems to work just fine, at least for some people, and we saw more evidence against the mono-diet and palatability hypotheses. 

Since then, we’ve heard back from seventeen new riffs. (Specifically, these are the riffs we heard back from between January 5th and March 18th, 2024.) We will describe these findings in a minute.

More people have their riffs underway or are planning to start soon, so there are more riff trial results in your future. And signups are still open if you want to get involved. But let’s see what we’ve learned so far. 

First we’ll review the overall results, and talk about our interpretation. Then, at the end we’ve included the actual riff proposals and reports from all seventeen participants in an appendix, if you want to read about them in more detail.

Unless otherwise indicated, weight loss numbers are over a period of about 28 days, comparable to the original Potato Diet Community Trial. 

Potatoes + Dairy

Potatoes + Dairy continues to be the most popular riff. Let’s get right to it.

82546219 ate Potatoes + Milk, specifically “because I wanted to prove whoever said ‘no dairy’ wrong”, and lost 19.8 lbs. 

(As before, all these plots have a span of 24 lbs on the y-axis so they can be compared directly.)

32223622 ate Potatoes + Dairy, always potatoes but “dairy … perhaps not every meal but when the mood strikes me!” Results: “Though I struggled to keep a long stretch without cheat days I do not attribute this to the diet itself, rather my work-life balance went to crap and I hardly had the wherewithal to prepare food. This is not typical and was just unfortunate timing for it to happen during this study. In any case, I am happy with the resulting ~5 lbs lost.” This person’s partner also tried the riff and while she did not feel comfortable recording her data, experienced a somewhat stronger effect (see the many interesting details in appendix).

84290728 ate Potato + Dairy, “mainly butter, soured cream, cream; some yoghurt, milk) + ocassional wine”. However, they felt very ill and had to stop after a couple of weeks, and they were not able to record any data. This is an important reminder that some people can’t stand eating this many potatoes, and naturally the potato diet does not work at all for them, even with dairy.

79886833 ate Potatoes + Yoghurt. The verdict? “I really enjoyed it.” See plot:  

37809513 ate Potatoes + “Butter (lots of it)”. A few interesting details here. This participant had previously tried an all-potato diet and wasn’t able to stick with it, but was able to make it through on this riff, though still found it a bit unpleasant. He mostly ate his potatoes steamed, which is notable. In the end he lost 5.3 lbs. 

Potatoes + Dairy + Others

Some people also tried versions of Potatoes + Dairy plus some other stuff, usually vegetables. 

90594710 said, “I’m planning to do the (understandably popular) potato+dairy diet for the first two weeks, and then add in leafy greens for the following two weeks, crossover study style.” This participant had previous success on the potato diet, and notes that while they did lose weight, there was “clearly lost less weight in this riff trial than in my original trial.”

81281674 ate Potatoes + Carrots + Dairy + some other foods, see the appendix for full detail. But safe to say, it was mostly potatoes. They lost 6 lbs in total.

10455414 was an interesting one: Potatoes + Dairy + “Three Sisters”. This participant explains, “I’d like to do the pure potato+dairy for two weeks to see what happens.  One cheat day per week.  Then add in corn.  If that seems to work, I’ll add in the other two of the three sisters: squash and beans.  I’m a member of the Cherokee Nation and think that ‘New World’ grains and veggies are better for you, and that the European additions like beef, chicken, wheat, etc. have screwed up our digestive systems.” He did lose some weight, but he had to deviate from his plan (“I never added the corn. I had some digestive issues so added broccoli, carrots, green beans, and cauliflower.”) and overall this protocol didn’t seem to cause much weight loss:

Potatoes + Protein(s)

Many people have been interested in getting more protein, or concerned about its absence, so we were happy to see several riffs testing the inclusion of various kinds of protein. 

12582676 ate Potatoes + Chicken + White Wine according to a defined protocol (see appendix). He experienced some swings in overall weight but no consistent weight loss, and had problems with energy. “As much as I tried to like this approach, I felt pretty low energy and this is probably not sustainable for me long-term … I need to have energy during the day, and somehow I didn’t end up feeling like I could sustain the required energy level.”

04194992 ate Potato + Red Meat + Dairy. Unfortunately they had to stop after only two weeks, from running out of willpower. This may not reflect on the riff, as this participant is unusually hungry. “I haven’t felt satiety since puberty, e.g. I always want to eat more (I had normal satiety reaction as a child, but this was suddenly lost). … To be honest, I don’t think I would’ve done better with just potato and dairy, I’m too hungry by nature. The amounts of potato and dairy I could consume if allowed to do so ad libitum, are large.”

37791108 ate Potato + Vegan Protein, “either a protein shake or a protein bar with each potato meal… My preferred protein powder is pea protein.” She reports: “I would consider the potato + plant protein a success. I lost 10 lbs/month on full tato but I suspect that I lost muscle during this as well. On potato riff I lost 6 lbs at day 24 but I did not feel like I lost muscle.” She says she might continue this riff so maybe we will hear from her again in a few months! :‎) 

41470698 ate Potatoes + Eggs, though he says, “in hindsight I believe it’s more fair to say I ate three things: Potatoes, Eggs and Olive Oil.” While there was some movement, he generally maintained his starting weight. 

Esoteric Riffs / Other

Finally, there were a few riffs that are hard to categorize or are on a theme all their own.

In the announcement post for this riff trial, we said:

If the whole food hypothesis is correct, eating these processed foods should make the potato diet much less effective. But if you lose weight on potatoes + gummy worms, that’s evidence against the whole foods hypothesis.

22293376 took us up on this with the Potatoes + Skittles riff. “I intend to follow this for a month and see what happens,” he said at the start. “My reasoning is that I believe adherence will be easier when allowing occasional treats, and because I don’t think that refined sugar has a moral valence.” He was right. In fact, “I was astonished at just how well it went.” The last few cheat days here were simply a poorly-timed vacation, but as you can see it didn’t really matter. Check it out:

32602136 went back to that standard potato diet, “plain potato diet, salt, black pepper, nothing else.” As you can see, there were some breaks, but there was also mostly steady weight loss while on the diet: 

75452454 tried a “Whole Foods” + Chocolate diet. This is not really a potato diet, though she did say about 10% of her diet each day was potatoes. In her report she says, “To be honest that was pretty bad, I couldn’t stick to the diet I’d planned for the life of me and definitely gained some weight. If it’s all good I’m going to try a different tact and see how that goes.”

She then did another riff, under the ID 75462073. This was a complex riff, “potatoes + other vegetables + fruit + limited proteins (soy, eggs, fish) + limited dairy (butter)”. She did lose some weight but overall describes the experience as “middling results!”

98821299 ate a diet of fried potatoes supplemented with other foods (e.g. breadrolls, pasta, rice, gingerbread, mayo, soy skyr, toast, etc.). This was more like a half-tato diet as far as we can tell. On this protocol they gained weight pretty consistently: 

Interpretation

Potatoes + Dairy continues to work for many people. However, it doesn’t work for everyone. Adding other ingredients, even fruits and vegetables, seems like it may be enough to interfere, though this is based on just a few cases. 

So far we don’t see a big winner on adding protein, though vegan protein does seem to do better. The egg riff and the meat riffs didn’t work, at least not for these people. This is pretty interesting given that meat and eggs are probably both high in lithium, though in such a small sample size there are many complicating factors. It would be good to see more protein riffs, especially riffs where someone starts off on the all-potato diet (to show that it works for them) and then adds a protein halfway through. We’d also like to see someone else try lentils, since they are high in protein and there was a big Potatoes + Lentils success in the first round of riffs.  

Potatoes + Skittles has a proof of concept. It works just fine, at least for this one participant. More evidence against “mono” and “palatability” as well as “potatoes are a whole food” explanations. We’d love to see more processed sweets riffs, maybe even a Potatoes + 1 Cup Sugar/Day riff!

We’re not entirely sure what to make of the other riffs.

So far it looks like dairy is compatible with the potato diet, or at least some forms of dairy. Vegan protein and sweets, or at least skittles, may be compatible as well. 

Going forward, we are most interested in the following kinds of riffs.

The first is a riff where you add just one thing to the potato diet, and show that you still lose weight. This shows that the new ingredient can be compatible with the potato diet, and if we get a couple of riffs like that, like we have with dairy, it suggests that the new ingredient is broadly compatible. We’d love to do a random walk towards the efficient frontier of fat loss, and maybe there is some super version of the potato diet that has yet to be discovered. (Perhaps Potatoes + 1 Cup Sugar/Day 👀)

The second is a riff that clearly shows that some ingredient stops the potato diet. To do this convincingly, you need to first show that you lose weight on the potato diet (since some people simply don’t), and that you stop losing weight when you add this new ingredient. The most interesting riffs going forward might start with 1 or 2 weeks of the classic potato diet as baseline, so it’s clear that the original version works for you. Then you can add one or two ingredients and see if they stop the effect. 

However, ruling foods in or out isn’t our main interest. What we really want is to make theoretical progress towards the question, why does the potato diet work (and sometimes not work)? Similarly, we would love to know why the half-tato diet works great for a few people but has a tiny effect on average. Maybe it has to do with what you’re eating in the other half?

We feel that the riffs so far have ruled out explanations like “the potato diet is a mono diet (and those work for some reason)”, “the potato diet is low-palatability, ignore the people who say how delicious it is”, and “on the potato diet you are eating nothing but whole foods.” However, if you disagree and feel that you can make a coherent case for why, we’d love to hear from you. Same if you have other explanations that might be tested by some new riff(s).

Sign Up Now

Signups for the potato riff trial are still open, and will probably stay open for all of 2024. You can read the original blog post here and sign up at the bottom. Feel free to replicate one of the riffs described above, try an extension, or invent your own riff. It’s up to you!

We’ll be back in a couple months when we have a new batch of riff trials big enough to report. For now, enjoy the full riff reports below.‎ ‎:‎) 

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82546219 – Potatoes + Milk

Riff 

I plan to eat only potatoes and drink one cup of milk per day. CuoreDiVetro mixed dark chocolate with 250ml of milk in their trial. While it’s highly possible the dark chocolate is the active ingredient, I want to isolate the milk as a variable. Milk also contains Stearic Acid so it will be interesting to see whether it’s enough on its own. Europeans have been drinking milk far longer than they’ve been eating chocolate so I’m also curious about that component. Also by drinking milk I won’t have to supplement as much b12.

Report

Thanks for this! I’ve been following you from the very early days. I watched the original potato diet with much fascination and so it was great fun to be involved in this round. 

Here’s my report as such, it’s more just a rambling account on how I went rather than anything resembling scientific rigour. I’m quite interested in the science of it all but content to be a data point this time around.

I’m a pretty stubborn person. These kinds of extreme diets seem to suit me as I’m largely incapable of moderation or calorie restriction but very good and really firm rules. I’m also the designated waste disposal unit at any dinner table. A feature which is used by every friend group I’m in. I’m always the residual consumer who finishes all the food at the table. Partly because I hate to see anything go to waste, partly because I like it, and partly because that is the role I’ve come to assume in these friendship groups.

I chose potato and milk because I wanted to prove whoever said “no dairy” wrong. It just didn’t make sense to me why dairy would negate any effect the potatoes had. I liked the various theories about stearic acid and given milk is a good source of it thought that would put it to the test. I didn’t know that pretty much all your other participants were going to try something similar. I also very much thought the Riff trials were about isolating a single particular item. So when the first batch of Riff trials were released a few days into my experiment I was shocked to see others had done dairy as an entire category, what I would have done for a little cheese.

In saying that the first few weeks of the potato and milk diet were enjoyable. In a weird way there was a freedom in knowing I couldn’t eat anything else. I actually love both milk and potatoes and eating them exclusively almost wasn’t a challenge. At least not for the first few weeks. Experimenting with different ways of doing potatoes was fun and knowing I could eat as much as I wanted didn’t make it a chore. I’m a reasonably active person and my biggest worry was that this would effect my energy levels or performance in training, fears that were largely misguided. Towards the end I had one day where I felt incredibly faint after exercise but this may be more likely down to dehydration. I definitely had a bit of trouble with dehydration early in the diet, my urine was incredibly dark, I assume that’s from a drop in water content from what I was eating. I just doubled the amount of water I was drinking until I felt I was back to my baseline level of hydration.

I got many incredulous looks when telling people I was only eating potatoes. Most people were excited to see how it would pan out, many however didn’t believe it was “possible”. I deliberately kept it from my immediate family because they would think it was stupid. This was borne out when they did find out at the end of the 4th week and told me as much. Once I got known as the potato guy things also got easier because people stopped pushing me to eat other things or putting me through the Spanish Inquisition.

Probably the hardest part of the diet was prepping enough potatoes to take to work and for after work events. I play trivia several times a week, go to a weekly dinner at a friend’s place, and do a couple of group exercise things at night. Not having anything prepped meant it would be fries or packets of chips for dinner, both I grew quite sick of. In saying that I treated myself to some KFC chips on 3 different occasions. Something I normally reserve for when the State of Origin and NRL Grand Final are on.

The routine I came up with was to roast about 8kg of potatoes on the Sunday evening and box them up to be reheated through the week. I also boiled some potatoes on Sunday and boxed them, they could then be cut into discs and fried (my favourite format) or just eaten whole in a pinch. On top of this I tried hasselbacks, mash, baked, chips, and rosti’s. You’d think I would have eaten a lot of mash given my milk allowance but I actually wanted to drink the milk separately. Partly because it was often the highlight of my day, partly because I wanted to keep the variables as low as possible, and partly because I only actually felt like mash a couple of times. I originally planned to drink exactly 250ml of milk but that proved too difficult to measure when not in my own kitchen. So some days I was having about a litre and some days a small cup. All the milk I drank was full cream, I find skim too watery.

In terms of how many potatoes I ended up eating I wish I’d been able to count each one and weigh them all. I’d say my biggest day I had around 5kg of potatoes and my smallest around 200g. One thing I definitely think happened for me is I actually just ate less calories. As I could no longer provide clean-up service at dinners with other people, particularly my partner, that was a massive drop in consumption. I also have a big sweet tooth and the removal of refined sugars probably could have made me lose weight on its own. I definitely felt full more easily from straight potatoes. I guess I was also in diet mode and therefore was watching my consumption quite closely.

Towards the end of the diet I was quite keen for it to end. Mainly because I was really starting to crave fresh fruit and vegetables. I couldn’t stop thinking about fresh granny smith apples. I was also craving citrus. My partner started joking I had scurvy given how much I was talking about grapefruit, limes, and lemons. I did notice in the last two weeks I started to develop mouth ulcers, something that I don’t normally experience. By the end they were quite bad. I was taking a B multivitamin and as one of my friend’s loved to say the potato is nearly nutritionally complete so I’m not completely sure what the cause of that could have been. I wondered if it was a change in the bacteria in my mouth. I often thought about my gut biome and the starving little guys who feasted on my usually very diverse diet having only potatoes to eat.

Overall I lost 19.8 Pounds or 9kg. The first 10 pounds were easy and I knew I’d plateau for a bit and then I tend to have a few weeks lag before my body realises it’s a new regime and then it starts responding. So I wasn’t surprised when I lost the rest of the weight in that final week. I’m really happy with that and it’s a great start to the year. I should mention that going into this I’d had a huge Christmas. Every year I put on around 5kg over the Christmas holidays. That weight always seems to come off quite rapidly regardless of the approach because it’s just freshly put on and my sort of resting bitch weight seems to be 110kg. I also decided to do the potato diet about two weeks out and basically gave myself a hall pass to eat however poorly I wanted to in the lead-in. My main task was trying to chop through all the chocolate I got for Christmas so it wasn’t in the house come potato time. This meant I rolled up to the start line at 115kg and I lost that 5kg in the first week alone.

It was tempting on day 29 to keep going but I need at least a week to reset. It’s certainly nice to poop properly again. The social component of it was actually the hardest part, going out to dinner or to friend’s places and only being able to eat potatoes is not easy after the novelty wears off. It is however a good diet trick to have up my sleeve given I’m getting married at the end of the year and I’ve still got a bit to lose before I get to a weight I’d be comfortable waiting at the end of the aisle with.

Regards, 

82546219

32223622 – Potatoes + Dairy

Riff 

I will be having dairy with my potatoes. Perhaps not every meal but when the mood strikes me! I am open to suggestions however. I want to do potatoes for 28 days regardless, figure I could collect some data along the way :‎) 

I would like to start as soon as possible so please let me know!

Report

Hello,

I am writing to inform you that I have completed 28 days of the potato diet (and a final weigh-in on day 29). Overall, this diet was a great experience and while I don’t think I will be as strict going forward, I will definitely continue to eat more potatoes than I used to. Though I struggled to keep a long stretch without cheat days I do not attribute this to the diet itself, rather my work-life balance went to crap and I hardly had the wherewithal to prepare food. This is not typical and was just unfortunate timing for it to happen during this study. In any case, I am happy with the resulting ~5 lbs lost.

As for going “potato mode” like previous subjects have described, I do think I experienced it a little bit. Days where I was not hungry at all but had to remind myself to eat were common, especially in the beginning. As much as I love(d) cheese and sour cream, these honestly weren’t that enticing on this diet, so personally the added dairy component of this riff didn’t do much for me. Aside from butter, still love butter! And I am so happy living in Canada where I can get poutine just about anywhere. Feels more like a “meal” than just a large order of fries.

My partner, who decided to tag along for this diet (but absolutely hates data collection and diets so did not want to record anything for this study haha), definitely experienced more of the “potato mode” than I did. Any comfort foods she ate, she says the flavour was enhanced by a thousand. Despite that, she still had trouble finishing these cheat meals. Interestingly, she does not like her favourite chocolates that much anymore, as now the chocolate tastes off, and the fillings are too heavy (O’ Henry’s with reese’s peanut butter). I had the same thought, and I enjoyed these chocolates previously as well! Note that she didn’t know about this “effect” of the diet until she experienced it and I told her about it. She is 5’0″ and started at 156 lbs and ended at 149.

What’s most shocking to me in all this is how my perception of food has changed. I would actively avoid potatoes at most fast food places, instead opting to get, for example a chicken sandwich and nuggets. Because “common sense” was that potatoes have too many carbs and carbs = bad and protein = good.

84290728 – Potato + Dairy

Riff 

30 days, potato + diary (any – but mainly butter, soured cream, cream; some yoghurt, milk)+ocassional wine. 

Thinking: satiety effect due to proteinase inhibitors, v high in potatoes. I have previously noticed high satiety when eating significant amounts of whole wheat (also high in proteinase inhibitors) + soured cream. Expect normal protein levels to moderate the effect – hence low protein. High fat diary is in there to make the carbs palatable. Wine to maintain social life whilst doing it. 

Would like to run 30 days, whole wheat + diary and  30 days oats + diary, on same principle. 

Report

Just an update – I am afraid after trying various things over the past two weeks or so I have given up on eating potato + diary .

Reason is feeling ill on it – eating anywhere over half kg potato per day would make me nauseous, extremely thirsty, mildly dizzy, within 2/3 hrs of eating. My digestion also went from perfect to diarrhea every couple of days and cramps. Looks like potatoes do not agree with me if eaten every day in substantial amounts. I don’t have any explanations for this – maybe my ancestors did not evolve to eat potato? 

I have tried having salty water & eating pickles as I thought electrolite imbalance may be the problem – this resulted in a slight improvement, but not substantial enough to make  it manageable. Peeling the potatoes did not help much either.

Have not put anything on spreadsheet as I basically ‘cheated’ every day due to potato ‘side effects’. On average I ate about 400-500g potato / day with some days of no potato due to feeling unwell. More than one meal of potato per day was not manageable for me.  When not eating potato, I have reverted to eating wholewheat. I have lost 2.6kg over 2 weeks, mostly within the first few days presumably water weight? My appetite was relatively low throughout, eating around 1600-1700kcal on average. 

What’s next? Probably doing this with wholewheat + diary instead of potato, as I know I can tolerate it?

79886833 – Potatoes + Yoghurt 

Riff

Potatos + cream/yoghurt / I think that’s a marvelous combination and I know I may not have enough of it thus it will help me to keep it up to the very end of the experiment.

Report

Hi!

I have finished my four weeks. My riff was only yoghurt eventually. I really enjoyed it. My sheet is ready for you.

I hope it will help you!

37809513 – Potatoes + Butter (lots of it)

Riff 

I’ll be doing potatoes + butter, for 4 weeks.

I’ve tried a potato diet before, and lasted about a week as I found pure potatoes too unpalatable, and too much work to peel all that everyday.

My rationale is that I’m pretty sold on the low PUFA + low BCAA idea, even though I didn’t lose weight on a rice-based high-carb low-fat low-protein supplemented with bone broth diet and all kind of pills before.

I wanted to do another trial, without supplement this time, just in case one of them sabotaged my weight loss, but I don’t feel comfortable doing that on mostly nutrient-devoid white rice. I also wanted to try high fat instead of low fat, as I experienced some increased inflammation during the low-fat diet, which I blame on the PUFA released from my body fat (the symptoms I experienced went away when I went PUFA-free, and made a come back on a low-fat diet).

Also, potatoes cooked in butter are delicious!

Report

Hi!

Just updating you about my potato riff trial! It went well! I lost 5.3 lbs, which isn’t as much as many others, but I’m still pretty happy with it given that I’ve tried and fail to lose weight with keto, the emergence diet and intermittent fasting this last year, without success.

So what did I do? My riff was potatoes + butter (lots of it).

My typical meal would be steamed potatoes, slathered with butter, seasoned with salt, pepper, and either dijon’s mustard or apple cider vinegar.

I tried other ways to cook potatoes for variety (over roasted, sauteed, …), but in the end the steamed ones were the ones that felt the most satisfying. I didn’t grow tired of them, and still found this meal delicious at the end of the trial. Mid-trial I started to add 15g of fire in a bottle’s stearic a day, melted in the butter, which I replaced with a couple squares of dark chocolate a day for the few last days. I also had some alcohol throughout the trial, mostly bailey’s and vodka mixers (technically, it’s dairyfat and potatoes, right?).

How did I feel? Honestly, not too great. I was a bit bloated at the beginning, but that faded quickly.  I tried eating baby potatoes with the skin once, which is a mistake I never did again as it gave me horrible bloating all night, and a bad aftertaste that’d come back anytime I thought about them. Mid-trial, I started to have some mild feeling of nausea and distaste for potatoes between meals, which weirdly disappeared completely once I started eating (potatoes…). I went from feeling like I was sick of potatoes while I had an empty stomach to loving them once the first bite was in my mouth. During the last week, I had a headache pretty much every day, and the thought of any protein-rich meal would be extremely appetizing, even things I don’t particularly like (like lentils). So when the 4 weeks were over, I broke the diet immediately.

In conclusion? There is definitely something magic about the potato diet, which isn’t impaired by butter. But based on my symptoms, and cravings on the last week, I think this version was too low in protein for me (after all, the butter is diluting the potatoes’ protein). Maybe in some other nutrients too. I might also be reactive to the solanine or other nightshade compound. I tried a full-potato diet before, and I lasted less than a week. The butter allowed me to do this one for the full 4 weeks.

I’m a bit tired of weird restrictive diets at this point, so I’m back on my usual one, but I’ll probably try other riffs in the future, this time focused on trying to reap the weight loss benefit while still feeling good.

Thanks a lot for organizing this, this was a lot of fun to do, and I love reading about people’s various attempts at solving the puzzle that is metabolic disease!

90594710 – Potato + Dairy, then Potato + Dairy + Greens

Riff 

I’m planning to do the (understandably popular) potato+dairy diet for the first two weeks, and then add in leafy greens for the following two weeks, crossover study style.

Report

My 4 weeks of data are in! Was, of course, fun as always. … I didn’t do any precise measurement for the leafy greens, but can weigh a sample of spinach and then back-estimate how much of that I ate during a given day with spinach indicated. I also have weight data for the 12 days before I started if that would be of any use. (Interesting note: I dropped more weight in this period, Jan 1st to Jan 13th, than I did during my actual trial, without doing anything special. Just holiday weight going away? Unsure.)  

For context, I did the original potato diet (though I allowed myself dairy during that time) and went from ~165lbs to ~158lbs–in other words, it worked pretty alright for me. (I’m on the taller side, so reminder, lower starting BMI -> lower expected % weight loss.) I’ve mostly fluctuated around the midpoint of that range since then. My starting weight for this riff trial was near the lower end of that, at ~159lbs.

Ok, with that out of the way, my riff was that dairy was once again fair game, but this time, I would also allow green leafy vegetables for the last two weeks. No particular reason for this, beyond that I had started craving them during my original trial–a bit of an odd craving, as I’m usually not as good about getting my greens as I should be, though I do also get that craving sometimes even when I’m not thinking about what I eat. Well, that and that leafy greens are “healthy”, so… something something, should make the diet work better, maybe? Turns out my answer to that is “Ehh, looks inconclusive to me.” I did lose weight overall during both the (potato+dairy) and the (potato+dairy+greens) periods: 1.1lbs and 0.4lbs, respectively. Losing less weight while eating greens doesn’t score a ton of points for that approach. However, those numbers can be a bit misleading, as they’re sensitive to local noise at the endpoints of the time periods. The slope of the trendline was more negative when I did have greens: -.0146 without greens vs -.0538 with them.

So I clearly lost less weight in this riff trial than in my original trial. Why? Well, it wasn’t the greens; even if I had lost 1.1lbs in the second half of my riff trial like I did in the first half, that still only gets me to about a third of what I lost in my original trial. One answer might lie in the types of potato preparation I did. In my original trial, my usual diet was hash browns for breakfast, and baked potatoes with a bit of cheese and/or sour cream for lunch and dinner. During my riff trial, I had way more of what people usually consider unhealthy potatoes: hash browns for breakfast, frozen -> oven-baked fries for lunch, and often milk-and-butter-heavy mashed potatoes for dinner; also, about one bowl (like, cereal bowl sized, not popcorn bowl sized) of potato chips a day. I also had way more dairy than in my original trial, snacking on cheese, putting cheese in my hash browns, putting whole milk in my coffee (which I always drank black during my original trial), and so forth. My deviations from these typical meals in the original diet were also fewer and less drastic; I’d occasionally have fries for dinner, but then be back to 2 meals a day of baked potato, whereas during my riff, the exceptions were more along the lines of “cook some potatoes and spinach in a boatload of heavy cream” and then that would be what I ate for the next couple days. Lastly, my vegetables when I had them were–while I did stick entirely to leafy greens–underwhelming from an “eating healthy veggies” perspective. I went through about a pound of spinach, a little over 4lbs of Brussels sprouts (some steamed, but mostly roasted with oil), and one 12oz bag of romaine lettuce. Not too terribly much healthy greenery for a 2-week span where greenery is one of the 3 types of food I can eat. I don’t think exercise was a factor; the only real exercise I did during either trial was go for the occasional walk, and I strongly suspect I got more walking in during my riff than my first trial.

Anyway, first and foremost, this was delicious and fun (and very easy). If you’re still thinking about doing a riff trial and don’t feel strongly about which one to do, I endorse this one as being enjoyable. (Probably less so than potatoes and chocolate, but hey.) If I were to do it again, the changes I would make are:

– Measure more stuff. In my original trial I tracked about a dozen variables and eventually found it a bit tedious. I overcorrected in my riff trial though, only really tracking my weight and a freeform notes field. I definitely wish I’d done more quantitative measurements, such as precise amounts of dairy and greens.

– Lean harder into the greens as a source of fresh, leafy joy rather than just yet another thing to be fried (I often threw spinach in the pan with my hash browns) or cooked with oil. I think I’d’ve had a more enjoyable time and gotten more interesting data if I’d cut out most of my roasted sprouts and instead gone through like 10 bags of romaine.

– Higher starting weight? Is that a thing I’m allowed to say I’d change? I don’t exactly have full control over it (I’ve never tried to gain weight and don’t know if I could intentionally do so–nor have I really tried to lose it outside of mad potato science) and it feels sort of dishonest to try to juice up your weight–either artificially or by waiting for a natural high point in your fluctuation–before starting a diet, even if you have a maybe-somewhat-valid reason to think it makes scientific sense to do so.

81281674 – Potatoes + Carrots + Dairy + Misc.

Riff 

Nearly all potatoes, carrots, some dairy. Allow ketchup, seasoning, and oil without restriction. However, I work somewhere that provides free lunch, so if they happen not to have potatoes, I’m going to just eat a light vegetarian+chicken lunch of whatever’s available. This time around my primary goal is to lose weight, so I’m going to be conservative and stick mostly to potatoes apart from the convenience of free lunches. After I reach my goal of -15 lbs, I may try adding bread to get more data into the hypothesis that bread halts weight loss from the potato diet.

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Hey, I finally got around to filling in the spreadsheet (I had been tracking in a weight app and personal notes until then) and noticed I’m already four weeks in, so here’s that email.

Things seem to be going well, and I’m going to continue until I get to my goal of 155 lb, then add bread and keep going, as planned.

Eyeballing my data, it looks like I was stagnant Feb 7-12, though I can’t think of a reason for that.

FYI I’ve been subtracting the weight of my poop every morning to reduce variance. Hope that doesn’t mess you up.

Let me know if you have any questions.

10455414 – Potatoes + Dairy + “Three Sisters”

Riff 

I’d like to do the pure potato+dairy for two weeks to see what happens.  One cheat day per week.  Then add in corn.  If that seems to work, I’ll add in the other two of the three sisters: squash and beans.  I’m a member of the Cherokee Nation and think that “New World” grains and veggies are better for you, and that the European additions like beef, chicken, wheat, etc. have screwed up our digestive systems.  

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I was initially planning on doing the potato diet for a few weeks, then adding corn, squash and beans.  This is a Native diet – it uses nothing from the “old world” but only what Native Americans ate before the Europeans arrived.

I never added the corn.  I had some digestive issues so added broccoli, carrots, green beans, and cauliflower.  I had a glass of wine most nights, and a cheat night every Friday.

Here’s what went wrong:  I REALLY like potatoes.  I wolfed down bag after bag of Cape Cod Kettle Cooked chips for two weeks, along with a few visits to Five Guys.  I was in heaven.  But I didn’t lose weight for the first two weeks.  What’s amazing is that I didn’t gain any!

When I cut back on the chips and fries, and substituted more baked potatoes, my weight started dropping.  I also started lifting weights, so my fat loss is probably greater than my weight loss.

The net is that I lost about 5 pounds in five weeks.  

Quitting now.  May go back on it later.

12582676 – Potatoes + Chicken + White Wine

Riff 

My riff (description I sent in the beginning): 

1. unlimited whole potato, maximum source of calories possible 
2. measured doses of chicken meat (probably 20-40g of extra protein/day) in addition to potatoes because i worry that potatoes don’t give me enough protein -> muscle loss (i need ~70g pure protein according to online calculators) – might substitute for ~30g of protein from canned sardines when out of chicken (easier) 
3. 3 bottles of white wine on the weekends (fri sat sun) 
4. likely to completely fast on Monday because it makes me feel better  

Cooking: 

• * simply pan-fried with a bit of olive oil, OR baked in oven, OR boiled in a chicken soup (for soup will eat all of it so no minerals/nutrients are wasted) 
• * when eating out with friends, may eat fries to keep company but nothing else. Also may eat frozen hash browns when in super-hurry at home, but still potatoes. 
• * regular dried spices (salt, pepper, dried dill weed, cumin, etc.) 
• * will do my best to take the potato skins off because you told me that lots of skins lead to indigestion, but that’s a lot of work, so sometimes just cut up whole 
• * no dairy, tomatoes, etc. – just maximum potatoes, supplemented with 20-40g of chicken protein, with measured wine on the weekends.

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just wanted to share some notes on my recently completed riff (12582676):

* I stuck to the rules as described in that doc pretty well, cheated only for two days or so during the holidays, as marked in there.

* There are pretty big day-to-day variations, at first because I weighed at different times, later not entirely sure why, but I diligently weighed multiple times each time and recorded everything as is.

* I can think of a few factors: some days I was too lazy to cook enough potatoes so didn’t get nearly enough calories, a few other days ate too much junk potatoes like frozen tater tots or french fries when eating out, maybe that contributed to ups/downs in the numbers

* Overall, as much as I tried to like this approach, I felt pretty low energy and this is probably not sustainable for me long-term. That’s probably the biggest problem for me, I can deal with routine and cooking, but I need to have energy during the day, and somehow I didn’t end up feeling like I could sustain the required energy level.

Fun experiment and I’m looking forward to more experiments in the future!

04194992 – Potato + Red Meat + Dairy

Riff 

Potato+fatty dairy+red meat. I have chronically lowish ferritin levels so I don’t want to skip meat; I like my coffee with milk/creme, so I won’t skip dairy. Therefore, this seems to be the only potato riff diet available to me.

I’ve kept myself at normal weight my whole life with great effort; I haven’t felt satiety since puberty, e.g. I always want to eat more (I had normal satiety reaction as a child, but this was suddenly lost). When eating moderately so that I keep stable normal weight my homeostasis mechanism figures there’s a famine and downregulates heat production and immune response etc, which is not healthy. A month ago I went through a 6-week “keto-diet” (in quotation marks because I ate so much keto-food that I never really reached ketosis) and slowly lost some weight without going into famine mode. However, keto diet is awfully expensive, especially when cooking for a family of four, and also I was badly craving for starchy foods. Yet the high amount of fat may have allowed me to lose weight without physiologically starving, for the first time in my life. So I’ll try potatoes (cheap) with fat (prevents starvation), maybe this works. 

I’ll try to eat meat regularly but not too much (in case high protein makes people fat*). I’ll use heavy cream in coffee, butter in food, and sometimes maybe eat peaces of pure butter from the fridge, in case I get too hungry. Potatoes either mushed, baked or fried. I’ll supplement iron, B12 (and some other Bs), C and D vitamin, that’s my usual.

Will start on 8th January, I’ll try to stay on the diet for 4 weeks, but there’s a high chance that I’ll stop earlier if it turns out to be unbearable. 

___

* It looks like the human diet science has made an almost full circle, starting with blaming fat intake, then sugar and starch, and now it has reached proteins at last. I’m waiting for the blame to fall on fats again, just to be sure it goes in circles. 

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Dear SMTM,

I’m reporting the results of my diet trial (number 04194992, potato+redmeat+dairy).

I quit my trial after two weeks, sorry. Mainly I just ran out of willpower and also I didn’t see any difference from a garden-variety calorie-counting diet. Which may be expected, as potatoes, red meat plus fatty dairy together are a diverse kind of diet, with all the usual macronutrients nicely present.

General information: I decided to keep meat consumption at around 100g a day, which is quite moderate, I thought. I also restricted dairy to reasonable amounts and ate potatoes by far the most. I started out counting calories every day just to know how much I eat and always stopped eating at around 2000 kcal. For context, online calculators tell me to consume 1800 kcal per day to stay at a constant weight. I wanted to eat much more, of course. So I never ate potatoes ad libitum. Should I eat potatoes ad libitum, I’d get very fat very soon. (I once tried to start the potato-only diet, but couldn’t last more than a week, cravings for other foods got too strong.)

This diet started with a nice clear water loss in 2-4 days, then a plateau, some more weight loss after I further reduced the intake of calories a week in (deliberately but against my will as usual). Then another plateau, an inevitable cheat day at my child’s birthday followed by weight gain, and soon after that I gave in. Started with BMI at 24.6 and ended up at 23.7.

I wasn’t horribly hungry or horribly cold, but I thought about food all the time and wanted to eat much more than I did. Also craved for fresh fruits.  

So I would call this diet not working. That supports the conclusions of previous trials by other people who combined potatoes with red meat. Maybe fatty dairy and any other fat would be okay but the protein in even a small amount of meat ruins everything? To be honest, I don’t think I would’ve done better with just potato and dairy, I’m too hungry by nature. The amounts of potato and dairy I could consume if allowed to do so ad libitum, are large.

I don’t know if this is any use but it’s still a non-zero amount of information.

Cheers,

T

37791108 – Potato + Vegan Protein

Riff 

I want to do potato with vegan protein. So either a protein shake or a protein bar with each potato meal. I estimate the breakdown would be 25% calories from protein, 5-10% oil or seasoning for potatoes and 65-70% potato. No restrictions on preparation of potato. My preferred protein powder is is pea protein. I also eat protein bars with peanut and soy and wheat gluten. My plan is to try it for January then re-assess.

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Hello Slime Molds,

I would consider the potato + plant protein a success. I lost 10 lbs/month on full tato but I suspect that I lost muscle during this as well. On potato riff I lost 6 lbs at day 24 but I did not feel like I lost muscle.

I actually screwed up the protocol on day 25 and 26 because I went on a vacation and ate like a pig. This was a really bad month for me to do this experiment. Earlier, I had 3 days where I was trapped at work and had to eat their non-potato catering. I had several social events where I ate things like birthday cake to be a part of the group. However, I did not find myself craving these “forbidden” foods so much as I wanted to participate in the gatherings.

Overall I am very happy and am going to continue the protocol, with breaks for social situations. I think even more than the weight loss, it is a huge quality of life boost to feel satiety. It sucks being hungry all the time. Even if I am not dieting, there is a constant gnawing hunger. 

With bread, pasta, rice, and even salad I can go from completely full to starving in 45-60 min. With potatoes I have a more lasting satiety that can go for 2-4 hours depending on various factors.

I seasoned my potatoes so boringness was not really a factor in my diet. Eating beans or tofu for protein did not really seem to effect my results vs a straight protein bar or shake. Ketchup did not seem to effect my results but I also use a no sugar added ketchup. I used some oils and margarine to cook with but tried to use them sparingly and keep it under 5% of my total daily caloric intake.

Also I found out that I have anemia and have probably had it for years. And that I have had shitty doctors who ignored my bloodwork that whole time. I started IV iron treatments for malabsorption in the middle of the potato riff diet. But the doctor said it would take 21-28 days for new blood cells to grow, so I wouldn’t see the results of the iron treatments yet.

41470698 – Potatoes + Eggs

Riff 

I want to try potato + eggs, both ad libitum. 

Reasoning: I’ve previously had great success with the slow carb diet from the book the “four hour body”. Eggs were a staple breakfast item there. Because I had success I believe potato plus eggs should also work. Furthermore eggs are super tasty and contain a ton of nutrients which seems good.

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Hello SMTM,

I have completed the potato riff trial 4 weeks. You can publish this text anonymously in any way you see fit.

I was planning to make a detailed description of my experience, but I’m unsure how to make coherent thoughts about this experience. So I have just written down some tidbits. Make of them what you will.

This was truly novel and weird. I have never done an experiment like this.

Beforehand I set myself to only eat Potatoes and Eggs. In hindsight I believe it’s more fair to say I ate three things: Potatoes, Eggs and Olive Oil. I’m a huge olive oil enjoyer and that’s also how I like my eggs. Adding to that the oven fried potatoes to that results in a good quantity of olive oil. So I think it would be fair to say I ate a lot of olive oil. I have stayed tot the protocol almost every day of the 4 weeks.

I think I marked 3 cheat days. Probably it’s like 4, as one evening I just wanted something different.

I probably ate more eggs than my bodies was telling me to eat. At certain points during the 4 weeks I didn’t really want to eat eggs, but I also didn’t want to peel & prepare potatoes. Sometimes I then did indeed make potatoes, but sometimes I still ate some eggs instead. I should probably have eaten potatoes instead, but I didn’t have the willpower. 

That was one thing that I was surprised by. The sheer amount of potatoes I had to peel. Finding the time in my schedule to do that was interesting. After a while I just started peeling 3 kilos of potatoes in one sitting. I feel like meal prep is very important for following any of these experiments. 

I started trying to mark different things on the sheet, but the effort of even doing the experiment won in the end.

Recipe discovery: Spanish omelets, It’s basically eggs, potato and olive oil, perfect! Hard to make well though, I had mixed results keeping the kitchen and the floor clean.

Tidbit about eggs: In “4 Hour Body” Tim Ferriss recommends eating eggs without yolks or organic eggs. Not sure if this matters, but perhaps there is some substantial difference between organic and non-organic eggs. I stuck to organic eggs for the whole experiment. For the Netherlands, this article lists the different between our “Scharreleieren”, “Vrije uitloopeieren” and “Biologische eieren”: https://www.bnnvara.nl/kassa/artikelen/scharrel-biologisch-of-vrije-uitloopei-wat-is-nou-het-verschil. I only ate “Biologische eieren”.

Bowel movements were truly weird for the first 4-5 days. I had some weird diarrhea, that’s different from the diarrhea I regularly get with heavily processed food. I usually have it the day after when I ordered a pizza for example. With this experiment it was weird though. After eating the sweet potatoes it seems like they just passed through me with no ‘processing’ by my body. It seems that my body adjusted afterward though, because I had no issues the rest of the time. Even though I also tried sweet potatoes again later, those were completely fine.

I felt fine other than the diarrhea. I find these things hard to compare over time, because my remembering self seems so different from my experiencing self. But it seems that I wasn’t feeling much better or worse during the trial.

As for conclusions, the only one I am drawing from this experience is: When I eat only potatoes and eggs ad libitum, I will generally maintain my current weight.

Which is a little disappointing because I was hoping to lose a little. But also it’s different from the status quo, because before the trial I was eating anything a libitum and was gaining weight. So it’s a change from the mean.

22293376 – Potatoes + Skittles

Riff 

Potatoes (fat and salt allowed) + skittles candies. I intend to follow this for a month and see what happens. My reasoning is that I believe adherence will be easier when allowing occasional treats, and because I don’t think that refined sugar has a moral valence. 

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Hi there,

My riff is now complete. I was astonished at just how well it went, thanks for doing all this work!

32602136 – Standard Potato Diet

Riff

Plain potato diet, salt, black pepper, nothing else. I have already prepared an assload of potatoes for the fridge (russet, salad, baby, baking)

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Hi, I have some weeks of data complete, but took a break over Christmas period and taking another break now. I hope it is useful.

UPDATE

Hi, I think I will take a semi-break and cease recording data for now – overall I’ve been really pleased with the results. Added some thoughts below:

I read about Penn Jillette’s potato diet and then found SMTM and thought it sounded too good to be true, so I figured it would be worth a shot to lose some excess weight. My potato riff was to include some pepperoni, salami, chorizo and other cured meats to see if they would help with any anticipated cravings for other food and to break up the monotony of only eating potatoes. This turned out to be unnecessary, to my surprise at no point did I become bored of or frustrated with potatoes. They were delicious to start with and remained satisfying the entire time.

I chose a mix of baking, baby, sweet, and red potatoes, always with the skin left on, mostly boiled or baked. I did not use oil or butter, and usually only salt and pepper as seasonings.

I enjoyed knowing that once I had prepared the next batch of potatoes there was no meal prep left to do and nothing to fuss about. The cost of preparing weekly meals was incredibly cheap. If I wanted a snack, the potatoes were ready, if I wanted a larger meal, I would just take more potatoes. I experienced no cravings for any other type of food the entire time and would’ve been just as content with solely potatoes.

The main downside I experienced throughout the last few weeks was taking the time to prepare all the potatoes – baking especially. It often felt like a chore. Storing the cooked potatoes in suitable containers meant that I only had around 2 days worth ready to eat at any time, and I felt a slight resentment that I had to prepare more when they were running low.

I chose to pause the diet over the Christmas period as it wouldn’t be feasible with family meals and such, though after it had ended my weight had not shot back up which was a pleasant surprise.

I saw an immediate drop in weight that leveled off but has stayed off (around 6 lbs) and seemed to fluctuate at random. My lowest weight was reached on the 19th of January despite not doing anything differently, not noticeably eating less or exercising more, and taking several breaks from the diet. Going forward I think I will incorporate far more potatoes into my daily diet, knowing that I can snack on something filling and pleasant that doesn’t seem to have any negative effect on my weight is great. I think if I had solely stuck to potatoes and had no breaks I would’ve lost maybe double the amount of weight, but even though it isn’t a huge amount I am still really impressed with the whole idea. I’ve recommended it to one of my friends and he has begun his own potato diet after reading the blog, so it is pretty convincing.

75452454 – “Whole Foods” + Chocolate

Riff

I’m gonna stick to whole foods and chocolate. I originally lost a lot of weight years ago eating basically cabbage and brussels sprouts every day but during covid I gained some of that back due to stress. I want to commit to a diet of primarily roasted or raw vegetables. I’ll allow mustard, hot sauce, almost no dairy, and only chocolate when necessary.

I should’ve tracked [potatoes] independently but looking back [they] worked out to about 10% of my diet each day.

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Technically completed back in December but then the holidays happened and I forgot to finish the last days of the diary.

To be honest that was pretty bad, I couldn’t stick to the diet I’d planned for the life of me and definitely gained some weight. If it’s all good I’m going to try a different tact and see how that goes.

75462073 – Potatoes + Other Vegetables + Fruit + Limited Proteins (Soy, Eggs, Fish) + Limited Dairy (Butter)

Riff 

I had done one before focusing on “whole foods and chocolate” but I want to narrow that down. I’m doing potatoes + other vegetables + fruit + limited proteins (soy, eggs, fish) + limited dairy (butter). I’m also going to focus on incorporating exercise since I think that helps not with hitting specific caloric goals but creating a widen margin of error for hitting caloric goals. I also think exercise’s affect on mood helps with making better food choices and sticking to a stricter diet. I’m really angling to recreate previous success I’d had losing weight with a more varied diet than just potatoes and that had involved a lot of cole crops, tofu, and avoiding grains and sweets. I intend to submit results at 4 weeks and then continue if I’m having success.

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Hey besties,

I just wrapped week 4 of my potato riff to some, spoiler alert, middling results!

I’ll probably keep tracking for a week or two longer but we’ll see! I don’t think at any point did I feel like I was in the potato zone. I did make a little progress, I’m 7 lbs down from when I initially filled out the form but that’s still less than the 2/week industry standard and came with a lot of ups and downs.

98821299 – Fried Potatoes

Riff

I want to try a Fried potato riff. I think fries and such are delicious. As I’ve been eating rice and pasta for the last few weeks, it’s time for a change. 

I would also like to know if the amount of PUFA is more important than the amount of BCAA. 

This time last year I had lost about 10kg using a table that calculates real calorie consumption based on intake and weight loss. I’ve since gained it back again, but it was stable for quite a long time. It was only when I doubled my BCAA intake from around 10g to 20g that I became heavier. However, this could also be due to strength training or an increase in my vegan butter consumption. I wasn’t aware of the concept of BCAA restriction at the time and I didn’t have much success with PUFA avoidance before. 

I took part in the potassium experiment back then but didn’t stick with it. This stuff is pretty disgusting and after 1-2 weeks I lost all motivation. 

I hope I can hold out this time! 

• I want to know i the amount of PUFA or BCAA has a bigger impact on bodyweight. 
• There will be some Potatoes, but also other low BCAA foods like Rice.  
• “However, for now it wont limit the amount of PUFA. I will use a reasonabel amount of it to cook my food.  Not drink oil straigt from the jug.” 
• Calories aren´t counted to keep the data somewhat unbiased. 
• If there is something, it should work ad lib.  
• If BCAA´s are such important signal molecules it will be refelctet in the data. 
• If its neither BCAA or PUFA it shoud also show. 
• A multivitamin suplement is taken every day. 
• I´m Vegan, so if i write things like “Butter” or “Cheese” its always a Vegan version of it

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Hey There, i fucked around and found (something, maybe) out!

My goal with this messy riff was to find data on the relationship between BCAA, PUFA and body weight.

I recorded protein, BCAAs, fat, PUFAs, carbohydrates and fiber in addition to food eaten for 30 days. Unfortunately, it only occurred to me in the last few days that carbohydrates might also be important. I have therefore only been able to collect 2 data points from them so far. So I will continue my riff for another 30 days to get meaningful data.

I have started to analyze all the data. I may have damaged your summary. I am sorry.

Let’s start with calculated correlations of the individual macros and body data for my weight.

Protein – 0.009195770085

The amount of protein does not seem to be particularly important in my quantities. The trend line is also almost horizontal.

BCAA – 0.0171401008

The amount of BCAA per kg body weight seems to be a bit more important. In the diagram, however, the trend line is completely horizontal.

Fat – -0.5219424632

More fat made me quite reliably heavier the next day.

PUFA – -0.3515048417

The same goes for PUFA. Interestingly, the less fat and the higher the PUFA content, the less weight gain.

Steps – 0.4659220545

More weight = more energy = more exercise.

Calories – 0.3381898136

I’m not surprised either. I have to get rid of the energy somehow.

In the next step I compared the macros I ate the day before with the change in weight overnight.

As already mentioned, the amount of protein seems to have little or no relevance. Both trend lines are almost horizontal. Fats on the other hand seem to make me heavier. However, data on carbohydrates is missing for the comparison.

So what happens next?

I will also record carbohydrates and keep the amount of fat down. I may increase the amount of protein when I see results. I have put on 4 kg for science and I don’t like that.