Potato diet day 4

I am feeling a lot of mental and emotional clarity, which may be coincidental but also may be digestive in origin.

Today I steamed a bag of white potatoes and they were really very disappointing. I think my favorites to steam are yellow, followed by red, and white so far behind they don't even place. They're probably good baked or boiled. I haven't made any mashed potatoes yet but I may do so tomorrow to mix things up, since I have a bag of Russets to be used.

I have been really pushing to get more calories than I did last time around. I find it simply impossible to eat 2000 calories per day of plain potatoes, from a hunger/palatability standpoint, so I'm garnishing significantly. My main other source of calories is olive oil, which might be as high as 400 calories some days, though I haven't measured very carefully. I guess we'll find out soon if this hinders my success. For me this is very much linked to the meta project of understanding what makes this diet work. Last time I did it, I basically didn't feel hungry, didn't eat, starved, lost weight, and then got sick. This time I likewise don't feel hungry, so to avoid starving and getting sick I'm supplementing the plain potatoes with which I start the day with potatoes cooked with oil. Intuitively, it seems like less oil should always be better, but starving is also very undesirable. More research required.

Yesterday, my roommate turned me on to the really awesome Mina brand harissa sauce. Like ketchup it's very low calorie for the flavor you get, but also like ketchup I'm not clear on how much you can consume before the presence of garlic, peppers, etc. starts to interfere with the digestive benefits of mainlining potatoes. As with oil I am going to try and prioritize eating less of it. Plain potatoes first and foremost, and bring in the palatability enhancers only as necessary to avoid starvation.

If you're reading a blog post about diets you should be prepared for TMI so I want to say that my poop hasn't changed as much as I expected yet. Last time I did this the amount and frequency I was pooping fell dramatically. So far that hasn't happened, but I'm also only four days in. Check back in a week.

Lastly, I'm not going to report my weight changes in detail here (at least until I have like a month of data points), but anecdotally I'm down a couple pounds. While I do have a goal weight, I think a better indicator of short term progress will be how I feel day to day, and especially how my clothes fit. We're in this for the long haul so there's no reason to look for any dramatic changes on the scale, as long as things are trending the right way.