The Hacker's Hangout

PBS: What’s Living Inside You A couple items caught my eye recently. First, a video that aired on PBS last week about the gut. Here’s the full video, and a related article from PBS.  Essentially they lay out the story of the human gut, discuss fecal transplants, and describe the importance of a healthy microbiome. […]

Karl Seddon, CEO of Elixa, has been busy making new videos!  If you are interested in probiotics, have a look at his video library.  I love that his videos are very informative and not just a straight-up sales pitch.  Good job explaining this topic, Karl! Click here to watch   Hello! This video answers one […]

Every day I see science and health article discussing probiotics and their effect on inflammation and the immune system. Why gut bacteria are essential for a healthy immune system Probiotics for respiratory illness could save millions The only probiotic I recommend, and take myself, is Elixa. I took a couple rounds recently after a routine […]

I finished up the last of my potatoes on Friday at lunch, then went on to a weekend of frivolity. My first “real meal” was a 10oz prime rib with baby Yukon gold potatoes.  They were delicious (but a bit oily). I never get tired of spuds! I ate “normally,” if there is such a […]

This is it for me!  I’ll be eating the leftover, cold spuds for lunch, but then we’re off to Denali National Park for the weekend, meeting friends, and hopefully having a Big Dipa and a steak. My dinner last night was a giant bowl full of boiled, cooled, then fried potatoes. We call these “homefries” […]

Yesterday went well for me. I’m down 6.1 pounds on the scale! Feeling energetic and all systems are “go.” I went for a 3 mile jog last night, felt great the whole way. Dinner last night Yesterday was the same as all week: plain cold potato for breakfast and lunch, then a more substantial dinner. […]

What a week!  Getting tons of #potatohack love on the internet. Did you guys see some of my favorite blogger’s posts about us? Michael Allen Smith of Critical MAS has written two awesome blog posts this week: Calories are for Closers Most people laugh when I tell them about The Potato Hack. It is a […]

How are you all doing?  I’m feeling great despite eating nothing but potatoes since Monday morning.  I’ve had absolutely no trouble with wanting to eat “off-hack,” and I’d kind of forgotten how filled I actually feel when Potato Hacking. So, for breakfast yesterday I had a single, cold, pre-boiled potato. No salt, just spud. Munched […]

Over the weekend I went to my personal potato stash and extracted 20 pounds of beautiful Klondike Red potatoes. I’m also going to eat the last of a bag of Alaska-grown organic Russets. I washed and boiled 5 pounds of reds and roasted the Russets in the barbecue grill. I work 7-4:30 all week, so […]

Tomorrow we start the potato hack, that means today is boiling day! Your life next week will be immensely easier if you boil about 10-12 pounds (precooked weight) of potatoes today. Use the biggest pot you have, fill it 1/2-2/3s full of water and place it on a burner on “high.” While the water is […]

The Potato Hack book has a couple recipes for each basic cooking method (baking, boiling, frying). Along the way, I’ve learned a couple more!  Here are some of my favorite recipes that did not get into the book. Potato Soup 12 oz chicken broth 1-2 lbs potatoes 1/4 tsp onion salt 1 tsp fresh parsley […]

We’re getting closer and closer to our group potato hack!  Have you all been shopping yet? Here’s what you need to buy to make next week’s potato hack a success: Potatoes Try to get the best potatoes you can find. Perhaps there’s a farmer’s market nearby where you can find locally grown organic potatoes. It […]

Amaze your friends with these facts and nomenclature stolen from around the worldwide web.   The potato is a herbaceous plant of the Solanaceae, or nightshade family, which contains several other well known cultivated crops such as tomato, eggplant, tobacco and pepper. The cultivated Solanum tuberosum subsp. tuberosum is considered to be originated from Andean […]

Do calories matter? Yes and no. The potato hack, an all-potato diet, is calorie restricted by its nature. The goal is to eat [just enough] potatoes to induce feelings of satiety. It’s nearly impossible to eat enough potatoes to gain weight, but it would be possible. CICO stands for “calories in/calories out,” long used as […]

In the book I mention several times that we should not exercise rigorously while potato hacking. I think it’s important to give our body some time off to heal, and that’s an important part of nearly all exercise programs from Cross-Fit to Insanity. Here are some alternatives to pumping iron and running marathons while you […]

The potato hack is especially useful for “older” folks who’ve slowly gained weight over the past 10, 20, 30 years to a point where their weight is effecting their overall health and well-being. Until recently everyone thought that middle-aged people got fat because they did not move around as much as youngsters and ate too […]

Today we’ll talk a little bit about hormones and how they relate to the potato hack and weight loss. When most people discuss hormones, estrogen and testosterone take center stage. But there’s a whole host of other hormones produced in the human body that effect nearly every single thing about us. Here’s a great primer […]

The hCG Diet is a very low calorie diet that uses human chorionic gonadotropin—a hormone produced during pregnancy. Taken by injection, drops, or pills, hCG is a powerful appetite suppressant. The problem is that the FDA has not approved hCG to be used for weight loss. Perhaps due to the side effects of “fatigue, irritability, […]