FWIW, one of the reasons Shangri-la didn’t quite work for me at first is that I had acid reflux issues. My reflux belches apparently count as “a taste” and after I started taking Zantac to control them—and also drinking less carbonated soda—it worked much better. Another problem I had is an issue S-L has in common with some other diet systems such as Eat-Stop-Eat—any encouragement to “eat whatever you want” when on the diet/regimen is counterproductive if you’re eating for any reason other than hunger. I sometimes eat due to boredom or stress or habit; S-L won’t stop me from doing that. And it definitely doesn’t help to be parsimonious about the sugar or oil because you’re afraid of calorie consumption—small amounts just don’t work.
What did sort of work for me was to combine S-L with a certain amount of calorie counting—trying to make a conscious effort to cut back net calorie consumption a little, but not too much. To the degree that even that didn’t work, it was mostly a matter of akrasy—the oil is nauseating and unsatisfying in the moment I take it so I often didn’t feel like taking it.
It’s especially hard to come to grips with the idea that even if it works, SL is something you pretty much have to keep doing for the rest of your life. It’s the same problem many people have with antidepressants. You take a treatment and if the treatment works it seems like you’re getting better and then that you’ve gotten better, so you start wondering if you really need to keep taking it. Eventually you fall off the treatment...and lose all the previous gains.
FWIW, one of the reasons Shangri-la didn’t quite work for me at first is that I had acid reflux issues. My reflux belches apparently count as “a taste” and after I started taking Zantac to control them—and also drinking less carbonated soda—it worked much better. Another problem I had is an issue S-L has in common with some other diet systems such as Eat-Stop-Eat—any encouragement to “eat whatever you want” when on the diet/regimen is counterproductive if you’re eating for any reason other than hunger. I sometimes eat due to boredom or stress or habit; S-L won’t stop me from doing that. And it definitely doesn’t help to be parsimonious about the sugar or oil because you’re afraid of calorie consumption—small amounts just don’t work.
What did sort of work for me was to combine S-L with a certain amount of calorie counting—trying to make a conscious effort to cut back net calorie consumption a little, but not too much. To the degree that even that didn’t work, it was mostly a matter of akrasy—the oil is nauseating and unsatisfying in the moment I take it so I often didn’t feel like taking it.
It’s especially hard to come to grips with the idea that even if it works, SL is something you pretty much have to keep doing for the rest of your life. It’s the same problem many people have with antidepressants. You take a treatment and if the treatment works it seems like you’re getting better and then that you’ve gotten better, so you start wondering if you really need to keep taking it. Eventually you fall off the treatment...and lose all the previous gains.