The Potato Diet: what is it and does it work for weight loss?
A weight-loss regime that consisted of one potato two potato three potato four, five potato six potato seven potato more? Shut the front door.
Nobody could make a raspberry filled Krispy Kreme Donut disappear faster than magician, Penn Jillette.
Now you see it, now you don’t!
But not because of a very impressive sleight of hand. Said donut was now in Penn’s stomach.
Penn, for those who don’t know, is one half of the comedy magic act, Penn & Teller (the clue’s in the name). If you’ve never come across their magic, check them out on YouTube because they are definitely worth a few minutes of anyone’s day. Penn is the big loud guy (“the half of Penn & Teller that’s detained at airports”), Teller the small silent one.
Anyway, like so many of us, Penn piled on the pounds as he made his way through adult life, and by the times he was in his fifties, he was 45kg overweight. That's 100lb or just over seven stone of flab. Thanks to suits, he carried that weight well, or at least hid it well from public view, but by the time he started filming the black black comedy horror film, Director’s Cut, in 2014, Penn was at his fattest best thanks to a diet of juicy steaks, pizza, grilled cheese, bacon, bread and butter, candy (sweeties), and raspberry filled Krispy Kreme Donuts.
By this time he was weighing in somewhere slightly north of 150kg (330lb), what the champ himself calls one sixth of a ton in his book, Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales.
When filming ended, Penn went for his annual medical and discovered his blood pressure was through the roof. It had been a concern for quite some time, but now it had reached critical levels. Long story short, Penn ended up in hospital and had a stent put in a key artery that was 90% blocked and on the verge of living up to its reputation as the widow maker. Not only that, but the doctors were so concerned about his sky-high blood pressure, they wanted to book him straight back in to do stomach reduction surgery in a bid to force big guy Penn to stop eating his way to an early grave.
Penn wasn’t too keen on more surgery so struck a deal with the doctors: he would return for surgery in sixth months if he hadn’t lost at least 50lb in the meantime.
Making 50lb disappear in six months is a tall order, even for a magician of Penn’s stature, but shortly after his life-saving op he had the good fortune to bump into Ray Cronise, a former NASA scientist who was now something of a nutrition and weight-loss specialist.
Ray turned out to be as much of a magician as Penn. He said he could put Penn on the road to salvation in THREE months, not six, and the journey was to begin with two weeks of eating nothing but potatoes (salad greens were an optional extra that Penn gallantly refused).
A potato diet for weight loss?
A weight-loss regime that consisted of one potato two potato three potato four, five potato six potato seven potato more? Shut the front door.
Did Cronise and Penn not get the memo that too many potatoes are bad for your health?
In 2016, scientists at Harvard analysed data from three large population studies and found that higher consumption of potatoes (including baked, boiled, mashed and fried) was associated with an increased risk of developing hypertension. Penn already had hypertension with bells on and was taking six different meds to control it.
The same scientists found that eating all those potatoes were also “significantly associated with an elevated risk for Type 2 Diabetes”. Other studies have pointed the finger at potatoes in relation to cardio-vascular disease and obesity. In other words, anything but a recipe for weight loss.
So what chance of the Penn & Cronise diet helping anyone dodge the stomach-reduction-surgery bullet?
The potato is so poorly thought of in nutritional circles, it doesn’t even count towards your five portions of fruit and veg Nanny State says you should eat a day. Its bad rep is largely down to its carb content and its starch content in particular. Potato starch is easily digested by the body, meaning it is quickly converted into sugar. So quick in fact that you might as well be eating a handful of Smarties or drinking a can of full-sugar Coke. Seriously.
The glycemic index (GI) rates foods containing carbohydrates by how quickly each food affects your blood sugar level when that food is eaten on its own. Carbs with a high GI score are digested quickly by your body, causing blood sugar and insulin levels to spike. The GI yardstick is pure glucose with a score of 100. Russet Burbank potatoes, baked without fat, have a GI score of 111.
to be continued....
REFERENCES
- Potato intake and incidence of hypertension: results from three prospective US cohort studies .pdf (British Medical Journal: BMJ 2016;353:i2351)
- Crapo PA, Reaven G, Olefsky J. Postprandial plasma-glucose and -insulin responses to different complex carbohydrates. Diabetes 1977; 26(12): 1178-83. (American Diabetes Association)
- The glycemic index (University of Sydney)
Article last updated: 22nd January 2021
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