Man eats nothing but potatoes for a year
New York Post By Olivia Lambert,December 14, 2016
This year, Andrew Taylor ate nothing but potatoes.
It was an extreme diet that at first was criticized. Some said it was an unhealthy approach to weight loss; others believed there was no way he’d last 12 months. But almost one year later, the Australian has proved you can survive on nothing but potatoes.
He vowed on Jan. 1 he would touch nothing but the starchy vegetable, and Taylor has lost more than 100 pounds and says he is a completely changed man.
“I was clinically depressed last year and eating potatoes has really helped me with that,” he told news.com.au.
“I am not taking any antidepressants and I feel like I’m completely over that and I’m sleeping better, too.
“Over the past 10 years, I’ve had joint pain from football injuries, but that’s gone away. Eating only potatoes has improved my life in more ways than I could ever imagine.”
Taylor, a Melbourne resident, confessed at the beginning of the year he had an addiction to food.
He would spend his days drinking soft drinks and eating deep-fried food, ice cream, cake, chocolate and a lot of pizza.
“I had a realization I was a food addict and it got me thinking about how if you’re an alcoholic, you quit alcohol, or a drug addict, you quit drugs,” he said.
“You can’t quit food, but I wanted to get as close as possible and wondered if there was one particular food I could eat, and potatoes came up best.
“You literally get everything you need from potatoes. Everybody knows they’ve got lots of carbs, but they have enough protein and fat and potatoes are really good for fiber, vitamin C and iron.”
Taylor, who has posted his year-long journey on social media, said the first two weeks of his potato diet were torture, but after that, his food cravings stopped.
He eats about 3 to 4 kilograms (6 to 9 pounds) of potatoes each day, and does not allow himself to become hungry and turn to other foods.
He’s also managed to keep his social life, and takes his own potatoes to friends’ dinner parties.
He will also call up restaurants he’s going to in advance to make sure they can cook up some potatoes for him.
He even managed to stick to his potato diet during a trip to Los Angeles.
“Across the road from the hotel I stayed in was a restaurant that baked potatoes, so every morning I went across the road and picked up heaps of them,” he said.
“I only realized it was there after a day or two, so before that I was going to the supermarket and asked my hotel to put a microwave in my room,” he said.
Taylor eats potatoes in every way, from boiled to mashed to baked. He even made potato pancakes.
On Jan. 1, Taylor is hosting a catered party for his first real meal since starting the spud diet, but there’s nothing he’s particularly keen to eat.
He said he’d be happy to even just eat potatoes again.
“I do think the majority of what I eat will still be potatoes. I will have some more interesting toppings, I might make a bean chili or some coleslaw to put on top of the potatoes,” he said.
“Potatoes have been really good to me this year and I plan to continue eating them.”
Taylor started the year weighing 151.7 kilograms (335 pounds) and now weighs about 99 kilograms (218 pounds).
“At first lots of people made fun of me, but we’re Australian, that’s what happens,” he said.
“But as the year went on, people started realizing what sort of relationship I had with food and how much pain and suffering it was causing and they supported me and helped me do it.”
He’s even had regular visits to his doctor, who didn’t recommend the diet, but was supportive of Taylor’s decision when he promised to have checkups throughout the year.
“My health just continues to improve. I had high cholesterol but now it’s low, my blood pressure has dropped and my sugar level has dropped,” he said.
“Every time I get a new blood test, it just gets better.”
While Taylor struggled with his potato diet at first, he said he was determined to never give up.
“My outlook on life was really bleak before I started, so it was just really important to get through this challenge and change my outlook on life. I was going down a steep slope before the year started and this was about a lot more than losing weight for me. It was about me not being at all happy with the direction I was going in and where my life was headed. I’m really glad I stuck to my guns and did it. I’ve never stuck to anything in my life,” he said.
“I’m a much happier, more positive person. I have a lot more energy and am more creative.”
Dietitians have previously criticized Taylor’s potato diet, saying he would miss out on a range of vitamins and minerals.
But Taylor slams any disparagement of his year on potatoes.
“One thing that always comes up is people think what I’ve done is really extreme. I’d like to point out weighing 151.7 kilograms (335 pounds) is pretty extreme. Being overweight, sick and depressed, that’s an extreme situation to be in and I think desperate times call for desperate measures,” he said.
“If you want extreme results, you have to do extreme things. Yes, it’s extreme, but what’s wrong with that?”
(I don't know if this diet will work but I want to try it.
Unfortunately the wife said noway. Crap.)
20 comments:
“At first lots of people made fun of me, but we’re Australian, that’s what happens,”
Dude had clinical depression, but no snowflake was he.
The Irish had the same experience as Taylor with the potato diet: on the one hand they lost the clinical depression; on the other hand they got up each morning mad as hell and ready to bash each others brains in.
Actually, if the truth be known they were both clinically depressed and mad as hell.
Only Troop would know whether that's changed since meat became available to the poor divels.
I did the potato diet a few years ago. I lost 30 lbs in a little over a month and then another 10 lbs, but those came off slowly. I also stopped all alchohol. After the holidays I'll try it again. My doctor was extremely skeptical, but all my number were good. I followed the diet from the Washington State Potato Commission member. The potatoes are very filling so I wasn't hungry and I sometimes had to force myself to eat enough to maintain nutrition levels.
I understand loyalty and commitment, and even superstition, but he still should have changed his underwear at some point.
Potatoes are rather dry, actually, which is why we load them up with butter and sour cream and the like,
Much like pasta, which is buried under thick sauces, they get a bad rap as fattening.
Complex carbs.
I can't think of anything better than a potato diet.
Roast potato with oregano and salt in olive oil.
Baked potato with sour cream and chives.
French Fries.
Hash Browns.
Potato latkes.
Potato and leek soup.
Mashed.
What could be better?
I avoided French fries and sour cream and butter are out.
If it works, it works.
Jared ate subway but also liked to fiddle kids.
Without sour cream or butter that potato diet would suck
Jared ate Subway but reportedly also liked potatoes... but as suppositories.
Waffled hashed browns is one of the popular hacks.
Waffled sweet potatoes would be good too.
Tonight I made potato bread buns for grilled cheese sandwiches. The cheese is pan-fried directly, to change it, and the buns are toasted too. Softest buns in the world. I mean it. Sweet potato makes good bread too.
Now see? That right there is gnocchi in an altered form and baked instead of boiled.
But when making the bread there is no measurements. I just wing it each time. And some boiled potato cubes are left over. Eating straight boiled potato cubes is very satisfying when you're starving, and I'm always starving, because I cannot be arsed until I'm actually hungry. Then my thoughts become dominated by food and everything is good.
Even peanuts in shells. I cannot keep off those things. I break open a few salted peanuts every time I pass by the opened bag. While the bags of shelled peanuts are not nearly so interesting.
I wonder what would happen if I took my bread dough and boiled it by the spoonful. I bet it would be great. Like gnocchi except with more flour.
That does it!
I'm going to try that tomorrow.
He could lose another pound or two by just shaving all of that hair off his bod.
Meh. He doesn't look any more healthy in the 'after' photo than he did in the 'before' photo. He sure as heck didn't get any exercise. Look at the loss of muscle. Going a year without protein will do that. He should have at least done some weight lifting or some simple body-weight exercises.
AllenS, there are lots of people in Australia who know how to shear. I am sure they charge less than a barber.
I saw this in the Martian. The potato diet is ok provided you have Tabasco.
LOL bago and Evi.
Yeah, the problem with this is the loss of muscle mass. Something similar
happens with the Atkins meat-and-fat diet...the storage of muscle starch (glycogen) really depletes, which leaves you unable to to strenuous work.
Also, this is like the juicer diet, where you only drink juiced fruits(?) and vegetables. Wreaks havoc with your blood sugar. It has to be spiked every time you eat, with not fat or protein to curb the effects of the sugar, which the potato immediately turns into.
Well...good for him for losing some of his weight. LOL at bags regarding the underwear.
I prefer to eat a more balanced and interesting diet instead of one thing over and over and over. A little meat (mix it up pork beef, chicken), fish, various vegetables, potatoes, rice, fruit. Mix it up. You NEED fat in your diet. You don't need to eat a pound of butter or giant slabs of fatty meat on a regular basis but you DO need to eat fats. Portion control and restraint.
You also need to indulge yourself once in a while with something sweet, tasty and that which is a treat. Not a regular thing. A treat. We just bought hundreds of dollars of See's Candy for our annual gift giving to the banks, our suppliers for parts and auto maintenance parts, a few good clients. We also, of course bought ourselves a nice box. We eat ONE piece a day. No more even though I could down a whole pound of those divinity puffs if I wanted to and go into a sugar shock. It is a treat.
Eating one thing may work for a while, but like any fad type of diet, once you are off of it, you WILL backslide into the old ways. You need to have variety in food and variety in tastes meals not be bored to death. Gah....potatoes again!!? This is the best way to permanently change your eating habits.
The potato diet sure beats starvation, Tabasco or not.
Haters gonna hate, potatoes gonna potate.
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