Published on March 24, 2025 3:01 PM GMT
Your beloved 34 year old author is never hungry
I often joke I’m the only traditional rationalist left. The original pitch was that you could radically improve your life by being more strategic. Huge piles of expected value were available. Everyone else seems to have given up, but I’m still a believer. For example in 2017 Scott Alexander explained how to effortlessly lose weight. All you have to do is eat a sufficiently simple diet and your body's natural feedback loop will keep you very lean. No need to be unpleasantly hungry. Nor drowsy from stuffing yourself. I was sold on the Boring Food Diet in 2017 and I remain sold today.
Here is another picture of me:
That’s pretty thin if you ask me. Im not getting on any bodybuilding stages but I’m very pleased with the results.
What Makes a Diet Simple
The TLDr of “The Hungry Brain” is that your body tries to maintain a healthy weight by releasing hormones that make you feel hungry or full. Your body is quite good at estimating the calories you eat. But even very small discrepancies add up over time; one hundred extra calories a day is about ten pounds of weight gained in a year! A modern diet messes up the process. Eating a rich, varied, processed diet makes you hungrier! To become lean, without fighting hunger, you simplify your diet until your bodies natural process once again functions well enough for your goals. This is highly unlikely to require eating solely tasteless nutrient paste. Stop simplifying once you are thin enough. What factors are involved?
Variety - By far the most important factor in my opinion. People have lost weight eating only McDonald burgers or even Twinkies. The more monotonous your diet the less hungry you will be. This trades off against nutritional goals. Luckily humans don’t need that much variety. Tribes have been healthy getting most of their calories from a single nut. The Inuit do well on a diet absurdly concentrated in Seal. And low calorie fruits and vegetables can be consumed freely. So you actively want to eat a variety of those! This principle also implies the more variety of tasty fruits and vegetables the more you will eat.
Taste - The more bland your diet the less you will eat. In my opinion its possible to eat solely tasty food. But you absolutely must avoid sweeting anything substantially caloric. Real sugar is of course dangerous. But I would be careful about adding zero calorie sweeteners to something like a “diy meal square” or protein pancake. Make sure you can afford it. Conversely I am much less worried about adding sweeteners, even real sugar, to coffee or protein shakes which are very low calorie.
Complex - Complex food makes you hungrier. In my opinion the mix of carbs AND fat makes the food much more fattening. For example I eat my Taco/Chili meat without any pasta/tortilla/bread. Processed “junk food” is the epitome of this.
Two Specific Versions:
A very cheap and simple version I used back in 2017-2018 was consuming mostly:
— Peanut Butter on Potato Buns
— Protein Powder mixed with Water
— Fresh Fruit
— Microwaved Frozen Vegetables
People commonly think I am contradicting myself when I say I often ate normal Skippy peanut butter. It has sugar! It is processed! I ate it with bread which mixes carbs and fat! It is correct all of those things increased my appetite and resulting weight. However I was thin enough using this diet. If I had further simplified I would have been even thinner, which was not desirable! The goal is not to starve yourself to the minimum sustainable weight nor to eat a diet so bland you have to exert willpower to keep your weight up.
In 2025 I am richer so I mostly eat the following diet:
— Delicious Boy Slop (Roughly Taco/Chili meat with lots of Vegetables)
— Chunky Salsa (Usually mango or pineapple based. Or both)
— Coffee with A Lot of Almond Milk (or similar coffee drinks)
— Protein Shakes
— Fresh Fruit
A few times a week I cook a different meal. I usually make something fairly healthy. Im relatively muscular so I can afford the decadent coffees. If I needed a lower bodyweight I would be stricter.
Exactly as predicted by rationality 101 this has worked great for me. Im a fan of the boy slop so I will describe it in more detail. But please remember rationality works great. You too can be effortlessly thin.
Delicious Boy Slop:
With Pineapple Mango Salsa
Ingredient ratios:
1 Pound Ground Beef 95% Lean / 5% Fat
1 Can San Marzano Tomatoes (28oz Can, but I discard a lot of the sauce)
0-1 Tb butter
Diced Vegetables:
Onions 7oz
Carrot 5oz
Peas 5oz
Celery 3.5oz
Bell Peppers 2oz
[By Volume the Tomatoes are by far the most numerous]
You can make the dish with no added butter/oil/spray, the 95/5 beef has enough fat for a non-stick pan.
Easy Mode Recipe:
0 - Use Frozen Vegetables. Thaw them. Break up the tomatoes a bit and drain off some of the sauce.
1 - Brown the beef over medium-high heat
2 - Add the tomatoes, stir, cook a bit more
3 - Add all the remaining vegetables. Add about 0.75 cups of water per pound of beef, just enough to cover everything.
4 - Stir in one pack of Old El Paso Taco seasoning per pound. Bring to a boil.
5 - Reduce heat to low/low-medium. Simmer for awhile. Season and continue simmering to taste
I caramelized the onions and celery, which involved some butter. But if you are willing to do that you don't need my advice on other ways to modify and try hard the recipe. It's quite flexible.
You can make Delicious Boy Slop in Huge Quantities.
Will Freeze the stuff left in pot. Yield is both pictures plus the bowl. Quite a bit.
Discuss
