Hope springs eternal in all of us looking for the easy road, but this diet seems to make some sense from a psychological point of view and it's being discussed/promoted on the internet by people who aren't trying to sell it - such as wunderkind Aaron Swartz.
It really isn't a diet but a way to reprogram your brain to stop the feast or famine routine. The theory is that when we have an abundance of tasty food our primitive brain functions cause us to overeat to store up fat for the coming famine. In times of famine our brain tells us to eat less to conserve available food. Problem is there is always an abundance of tasty food and there is no famine.
By drinking a cup of water with a teaspoon of sugar, or a teaspoon of olive oil each day, and then not eating anything else for two hours, we begin to reprogram our brain to think there is a famine - and thereby decrease our apetites. That's the theory anyway, and people claim it works.
I'm not so sure it's a new idea. If you observe some thin people they sometimes eat very small portions of something and then stop. Doh!
The one difference in the Shangri La diet is that we aren't eating small portions of tasty foods to retrain our habits, since the brain is programmed to tell us that if we've eaten something before and it tastes good, then we should fill up while there's time.
I haven't read the book (it just came out last month) but it's point seems to be - consume some flavorless calories each day and train yourself to want to eat less.
I don't know how drinking a cup of water with some sugar in it works in that regard, other than it wouldn't be something you'd want more of unless it had some flavor and maybe some carbonation in it. That brings us back to the question - is this really a new idea? I'm relatively sure there are quite a few people who drink a cup of tea with a teaspoon of sugar and then go for a couple of hours without eating. On the other hand, for us fatties, a little reprogramming might be just the ticket.
Here's an link to Amazon for the book (there were only a couple of reviewer comments at the time I created this link but they both give it 5 stars).
