If you are at all familiar with the Low Carb, LCHF, or Keto Communities, you know that potatoes are, pretty much, universally on the not recommended list.  For many people, this seems strange.  I mean it is a vegetable.  It is low in calories, moderate fiber, low fat, and high in potassium, and Vitamin C.  Why would you want to avoid it?  It seems absurd from an outsider’s point of view.

If you are on Team Potato, this information may excite you

The boiled potato is also listed #1 on the short-term satiety index, meaning that they did some tests with people eating a variety of 38 different foods (240 Kcal of each) and measured over a 2 hour period on how hungry they were.  Plain, boiled potatoes came out on top. Boiled potatoes also outperformed their expected calculated fullness factor. Way to go Team Potato.

Amazing Weight Loss on the Potato Diet

After being hospitalized with a 90% blockage, magician and entertainer Penn Jillette decided to embark on a potato-only diet to achieve his goal of losing 100 pounds.  In 3 months he lost 75 pounds on a diet of cooked potatoes with no butter, salt, or topping of any kind.  He also only drank water or black coffee during this period.  As the satiety study showed, cooked, plain potatoes do provide a sense of fullness and Jillette was eating a mere 1,000 calories/day.  With his 6 foot seven inch frame that could equate to about a 1,500 calorie/day deficit.  In other words, it was an extreme, crash diet.  But potatoes are very high in carbohydrates, so take that you low carb zealots.  Could potatoes be the magic bullet for weight loss?

So, for those keeping score, here are the attributes of the potato.

A whole food (in its most basic form)

Potassium (with skin on)

Vitamin C (Reduced by cooking)

Low Calorie

A complex carbohydrate (in its most basic form, with skin on)

Low Fat

Moderate fiber (with skin on)

Contains Folate (with skin on)

High on the short-term satiety index (When plain, boiled, and skin on)

Very little protein In fact, compared to other common food crops — such as wheat, rice, and corn — potatoes have the lowest amount of protein.

High Glycemic Index

High in Starch

Let’s Revisit the Satiety Index

As you remember, plain, boiled potatoes outperformed every other food tested.  But there are some points to consider (and they are mentioned in the study). “A 220-Calorie serving of plain potatoes is larger and much less palatable than the other foods studied. The size of this serving may have influenced a repulsion to this test food that goes beyond the normal satiating response.”  Because the potato is very low in calories, it takes up more space in the stomach, resulting in a more intense feeling of fullness compared to the other foods.  This also highlights the difference between satiety and fullness.  The feeling of satiety occurs due to a number of bodily signals that begin when a food or drink is consumed and continues as it enters the gut and is digested and absorbed.  The feeling of satiety, in a person with a healthy metabolism, occurs when the hormone Leptin signals the brain that it has reached nutritional satisfaction.  Fullness, on the other hand, is the physical sensation of how full the stomach is.

The other factor of plain, boiled potato short-term satiety is the dry texture and bland, unpalatable taste.  With a belly full of potato, that the subject just choked down, they would probably not be excited about consuming more in 30 minutes and hour, or even 2 hours later.  Eating more dry potatoes might even seem like punishment.  Be honest, when you eat potatoes, you are not eating them plain.  Most people add salt, butter, sour cream, or some sort of sauce.  The addition of these flavors will negatively impact satiety.

Two Hour Satiety

If you normally follow a higher carb diet and your metabolism generally runs on glucose, you actually might be thrilled to not be hungry for 2 whole hours. However, the vast majority of people that I know who follow a Ketogenic or Ketogenic adjacent protocol would say, “2-hour satiety? How cute.” Most of them don’t eat for extended periods of time every day, generally 12 – 16 hours.

… the vast majority of people that I know who follow a Ketogenic or Ketogenic adjacent protocol would say, “2-hour satiety? How cute.

About That Amazing Potato Weight Loss

Most people would agree that it is beneficial for morbidly obese individuals to safely and gradually lose weight. However, few would recommend a method of weight loss that featured poor nutrition, especially one that is nearly devoid of protein.

From a recent Newsweek Article:

“Just eating potatoes is not a balanced intake of nutrition for the body and followed long term would leave you at risk of nutritional deficiencies,” Priya Tew, a qualified dietitian and spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association (BDA)

“However you will not meet your protein or vitamin and or mineral requirements through potato intake alone, which increases risk of vitamin and or mineral deficiency. As with anything, there is certainly not a magic answer in terms of weight loss, and while potatoes have great nutritional value, they are not and will never be nutritionally complete.”

To put it another way, a potato-only diet is essentially a malnourishment/starvation diet. People that use this method may even feel full, but internally may be sacrificing lean muscle mass along with fat loss. Penn Jillette’s health markers did improve as he lost weight, but I do hope that he has upped his protein intake since then. My opinion is that weight loss should be a beneficial side-effect of improved health, not the other way around. Did I experience rapid weight loss? Yes, I lost over 100 pounds, but I did that over the course of 14 months, not 3 months. My health markers improved in advance of my weight loss.

Now, I don’t know what Mr. Jillette’s blood glucose or insulin levels were during this period, but they may have all been within normal parameters. At 1,000 calories per day, he might as well have been fasting. He might have even been in Ketosis for all we know. But, this is such an edge case, it isn’t even worth extrapolating at this point.

What about people that use the 2-week boiled potato hack to overcome a weight-loss stall? I am of the opinion that a starvation diet is not a great idea, but if you choose to take that on, it should be probably be done under medical supervision. The idea is to be healthier throughout your weight management journey. It isn’t always about the pounds or inches lost. It feels great to see steady progress, but taking extreme efforts to make the scale move is ill-advised from my point of view.

From Complex to Simple

Thus far, my coverage of the potato has been as a plain, boiled rather unappetizing, but still whole food. In this form, it is pretty benign for a person with a healthy metabolism. As we have seen people can maintain a healthy weight on a High Carbohydrate/Low Fat Diet and they can maintain a healthy weight on a Low Carbohydrate/High Fat diet. But, when people consume a High Carbohydrate/High Fat Diet for any length of time, the direction of the scale is more likely to head northward. This is the problem with the potato that is normally consumed by the average person. Think of one of my past favorites, the baked potato. No, I would never dream of eating a plain baked potato. I would drench that potato in butter, sour cream, bacon bits, cheese, chili, ranch dressing, you get the drift. I would take the fairly innocent potato and turn it into a carb/fat calorie bomb. And just like the low carb crowd will complain about the hamburger being ruined by the bun, the same can be said about the potato. In this case, it isn’t the potato’s fault. Well, it kind of is since it is so unappetizing all by itself, but I digress.

The boiled or baked potato is fairly innocent in its humble form, but what about when we mash it. Well, the act of whipping the potato up releases the starches (essentially predigesting the potato). Now it is a processed, simple carbohydrate. Your body will now find it much quicker to convert that starch to glucose and send your blood sugar on a roller coaster run. Don’t forget, you will probably add butter or (gasp) margarine to that potato raising its fat profile as well.

What about the French Fry? Well, if you are lucky enough to visit a restaurant that cuts their potatoes fresh (Five Guys, for example), you are starting with a pretty good food. But, then they decide to soak those potatoes in many times reheated, extremely hot industrial seed oil. Now those potato pieces have soaked up highly oxidized fats. So, once again, you have a high carb/high fat calorie bomb. Not only that, they are delicious and you just can’t limit yourself to a couple of pieces.

You see, from my perspective, whole food, complex carbohydrates are not BAD. However, they can be unappetizing. As a result, people will often add fats (usually unhealthy fats) and create a toxic/unhealthy combination.

For me, it’s all about the starch, baby

For most of my adult life, I have suffered from an autoimmune disease called Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) along with Rheumatoid Arthritis. Now, AS has a genetic marker HLA-B27. Not everyone that has this gene has AS and not everyone that Has AS has this genetic marker, but it is a pretty strong correlation. If you have the genetic marker and your lower back makes you scream out in pain when you lay down, chances are you have AS. Over time, it is a debilitating disease. By the time I was 50, I was starting to require a cane to walk and was headed for a wheelchair.

There have now been a few studies, dating back to 1996 that link the HLA-B27 marker and starch consumption to the autoimmune response of Ankylosing Spondylitis and Crohn’s disease. The relationship between starch and AS was unknown to me prior to October of 2018. I began my current Ketogenic protocol on August 1, 2018. That prototocol is as follows:

• Consume
• Eat meat and non-starchy vegetables until satiated
• Do not eat when not hungry

One page food list/protocol

I began this protocol at 287 pounds as a just diagnosed Type 2 Diabetic looking to lose weight and reduce my dependence on Diabetic medication. Three weeks into this new way of eating, I could not help but notice that my posture had changed and I was able to lie down in the bed with little to no pain. All of a sudden, I was sleeping through the night. But, I was still on Humira and Methotrexate. In November of 2018, I began have negative reactions (that I had never experienced before) to Humira. I asked my doctor if I could stop the medications and perhaps search for a new one with less side effects. She agreed.

As I was coming off of this medication that had successfully minimized my symptoms for 15 years and slowed its progression, I was expecting for my body to slam me hard with more inflammation and pain. It didn’t happen. At the time, I didn’t connect my dietary change to the change in my inflammatory condition. That was when I checked into some Facebook groups and noticed, anecdotally, that there were many examples of people whose autoimmune symptoms improved after consistently sticking to a Ketogenic protocol. I do realize that this is an example of confirmation bias, but I don’t know of any peer-reviewed studies. So, I will need to rely on other peoples’ N=1 and my own experience until it is such studies can be funded.

The places on my spine that are already fused, will never become unfused. The damage is done. But, I have been able to remain Autoimmune medicine-free for nearly 2 1/2 years. I do periodically get x-rays and exams. Thus far, the disease/damage has not progressed any further. That is not something that I can say for my many years using the standard treatment for Ankylosing Spondylitis. For me, the reduced inflammation and pain became even more important than my weight loss progress. All of a sudden, the “sacrifice” of not eating starchy foods seemed trivial to the benefit of not losing my mobility.

***Disclaimer: This is my N=1 experience. Your mileage may vary. I am not making any general health claims in regards to any disease related to diet.

It remains important to keep your medical providers advised of your conditions. I am not advocating for anyone to stop taking medications or treat a disease with diet alone.

Are you saying potatoes caused your Ankylosing Spondylitis?

I am not making that claim, whatsoever. What I am suggesting is that some people may be starch intolerant and the reaction from the body is autoimmune in nature. My prior diet included many starches, not just potatoes. I consumed vast amounts of pasta and rice along with plenty of sugars and grains. As a result, I have adopted a starch-free, sugar-free, grain-free dietary protocol. I still derive plenty of dietary nutrition from meat, non-starchy vegetables, and low-sugar fruits. But, eliminating the foods that seem to trigger AI response, does allow me to experiment and re-introduce certain foods. I suspect that an occasional potato is not going to result in a major autoimmune flare, but I do not know what that tolerance limit is. Is it 1 potato, 5 potatoes? Potatoes plus rice? Rice plus pasta? I don’t know the answer to that. But, to be honest, I would rather not travel down that road of crippling pain any longer, so starches will probably remain absent from my diet for the foreseeable future.

The Potato Verdict

• A plain potato is a whole food
• A medium potato has about 26 carbohydrates, you may be able to even enjoy them in a low carb lifestyle in small amounts
• If you are starch-intolerant, it may be a good idea to limit or avoid potato consumption and starches in general
• Most of the benefits/nutrients of the potato are in the skin
• Most people rarely consume a potato in its healthy form, but transform it into something unhealthy

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