Tell HN: I ate only food in pill format for 3 months and lost 65 lbs

For full disclosure, OP has an indigogo project they are trying to raise money on.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/food-pill-diet#/

And now it seems like we know why OP isn't really answering any questions or interacting in any way.

Indeed. This should be 'Scam HN: Pre-order my fad diet pills'.

One bit of highly unusual anecdata here:

I lost my sense of taste for starch after an auto accident last year, or more accurately, after 6 Toradol shots in the neck.

Off like a light switch. It was like not being able to see red anymore, though purple and orange show up just fine.

And I gained weight, in part because I was trying everything to see what foods I could taste. Certain starchy foods like potato chips? No difference. Foods you don't think of as starchy, like pumpkin cheesecake? Tasted like pumpkin pie filling straight out of the can. I only cried once: Fettucini Stroganoff had literally no taste. You could feel there were noodles, but it was flavorless.

I also had an inexplicable craving for fruit. Those $4.99 tiny cartons containing $0.50 worth of cut fruit at the supermarket? Couldn't get enough of them.

After getting my neck cracked at the chiropractor two months later, it was back on like a light switch. Almost went to participate in a study at Oregon State University, the foremost institution in starch-taste research, but no point after it came back.

Pinched nerve, more likely than the Toradol.

That's what I thought, but messing up one's sense of taste is a known (if not widely known) side effect of Toradol, and the nerve had had plenty of time to get unpinched.

In the end it won't ever be certain. I'm just glad to taste things normally again.

I can't even imagine swallowing food pills all day.

320 pills/day seems outrageous.

Sounds like it overlaps with "The Shangri-La Diet":

"The consumption of flavorless calories supposedly lowers the set point, and therefore, lowers weight."[1]

"AMA" Are you going to be answering questions? What are "food pills"? What is in them?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shangri-La_Diet

Did you make it yourself? If not, where did you buy it and how much does it cost?

I'd love it if I had a food pill printing machine.

I am reminded of the scene in the movie Fifth Element where Leileu puts a pill in a bowl, pops it into the microwave and 3 seconds later pulls it out full of fried chicken.

He lost 65lbs (starting from 240lbs looking at the indiegogo page) on a very high caloric deficit diet of 1000kcal/day, loosing an increasing 10%+ of his body weight every month. Way higher than the usual 1,5-2% recommended to maintain most of your muscle mass.

But I'm not even sure if the math makes sense here, using the bro-science 3500kcal/lb of fat ratio we get a required 2500kcal daily deficit. This kind of deficit seems really hard to reach (even factoring for some water/muscle loss that would reduce the required daily deficit), considering that no additional physical activities where added (again, recommended to maintain muscle mass when you are loosing weight).

Need more details.

I'd try it but only if it had good macros like some meal replacement drinks, my diet is like 80% Huel currently, with the rest being free lunch / snacks at work and snacks on the weekend. Originally started on these type of drinks because I was so depressed at one point I could barely motivate myself to eat any more. Ended up staying on them because not only do you save a ton of time but they are good source of protein and calories (I lift) and I've never been one to eat a lot so its helped tremendously. Pill form would be even better just from a time saving perspective.

I would be interested, what are these "food pills" (what do I google to learn more?)

Currently doing 100% soylent bottled cacao, I am not looking to lose weight, just maintain it.

How many pills would I need per day for 2000 kcals?

> feed yourself 40 food pills every 2 hours (8 times/meals a day) then the hunger hormone ghrelin is kept in check and you can get all your daily recommended vitamins and minerals, be on a 1,000-calorie daily diet

40 * 8 = 320 for 1,000 calorie/day diet, so if my math checks out, that'd be 640 pills a day for a 2,000 calorie diet. At which point you're taking a pill every 1.5 minutes you're awake (assuming your awake 16 hours a day) if you event space them, or 80 per "sitting".

This seems consistent with personal anecdotal evidence.

Whenever I start eating "too clean", which for me consists of mostly bland foods and protein shakes, my appetite for calorie-dense snacks/meals tapers off and eventually results in me losing weight.

This usually happens over the course of a 7 - 12 days at which point I catch myself, overeat for a couple of days while going a bit harder at the gym, and bring myself back to baseline weight.

I'm 5'11", 172 - 178 lbs with an average TDEE of ~2800 and change.

Yes, I even lift, bro. And climb. And run. etc.

> (40 food pills per meal x 8 meals = 320 food pills a day)

That's quite a large amount of pills to take everyday. Did you manufacture these pills? If not, where did you buy them or acquire them?

Did you think about doing an analysis based on the time you spent cooking before + cost of food vs cost of the pills?

I actually wouldn't hesitate to give this a shot. I am trying to lose weight and don't have time in the day to meal-prep, workout etc and I would try this, see what the results are.

Maybe. I love Huel, and been using it for about 4 years now but I'm not enjoying the direction they have been going. Far too much sweetener, I have to make sure to go with the original, and not their new regular vanilla and even then it seems a bit too sweet at times. I almost want a savory version, but that's probably an unpopular opinion with everything trying to be cake and chocolate flavoured.

Calories taken in is far more significant to weight loss than calories burnt.

I had never had a meal substitute before a few weeks ago when a coworker offered me Soylent. To me, it was incredibly sweet. I'm sure it's to mask some unpleasant tastes, but wow.

Huel has an unflavoured version. It isn't that bad, just really plain.

iirc one purpose of food cravings is that the body knows, to a good extent, which foods contain which critical/currently-lacking nutrients, and that taste is one way for it to sense that. I wonder how reducing the role of taste will affect that. It might still be possible for the nutrients to be determined via the stomach, I guess, but taste/smell are good sensory pathways for quick chemical composition analysis (if I understand that correctly).

I feel like I read somewhere that there are actually taste receptors in your digestive system that work just like the ones in your mouth; it's just that they don't feed back to your conscious mind.