High Starch Diet

Diet Rationale

One core principle of the Patchwork System is matching your diet to what works best for your body. One major part of this is which foods do you extract the most energy from in a usable form for the rest of your body. Based on your current answers, we have determined that your body most likely works best with starch as a primary source of energy in it’s current state.

You have also said you want something that is a bit more flexible and fits with your lifestyle, so we have created this diet for you to help you achieve your goals in the way you want. If you want to get results more quickly or if your are not sure this is working properly, you can try the Potato Diet Experiment instead or later on.

In this diet, we are using the principle that people tend to lose fat on high carbohydrate, low protein, low fat diets. Some lose weight well on high fat, low protein, and low carbohydrate ketogenic diets, but others do not. The general principle is to restrict protein while using one macronutrient as their primary source of energy. Mix fat and carbs and you do not get weight loss. Based on your current body state, we also guess you will probably not lose muscle mass while on this diet.

Another benefit of this diet compared to the ketogenic diet is it can handle days or meals that do not go as planned without needing to suffer “keto flu” again.

Sometimes, people do not lose fat or weight with this diet, because some specific set of vegetables, fruits or starches block their weight loss. Or they have other issues with hormones or inflammation, especially women. You can try the Potato Diet Experiment to isolate things that could be causing this. Or you can try it manually by excluding certain food categories highlighted in the Carb Issues section.

As Much Starchy Carbs as Possible

Essentially, the goal is to eat as much of your food in the form of starches and carbohydrates, targeting +75% of your calories from these sources. These can come from starchy foods such as:

  • Rice
  • Potatoes
  • Bread
  • Quinoa
  • Oats
  • Sweet Potatoes
  • Yams
  • etc.

You can also eat as many non-fatty vegetables as you want, since they consist of mostly carbohydrates and are low in fat or protein. They count as “starchy” carbs, so they are included in the +75% target. Beans and legumes are also included in this category, as long as they are not fatty. Nuts and seeds are very high in fat and protein, so they are not included in this category.

Potential Problem Carbs

Each of these categories of carbs can cause issues for some people, and for others it doesn’t, so you will need to experiment with it. If you are not losing fat with this diet, then you can try experimenting with excluding one of or multiple of these categories. Using peeled potatoes as your main starch avoids all of these potential problem categories, which is why we recommend trying it first in the Potato Diet Experiment. Potatoes also contain a lot of micronutrients compared to other starches and are high in potassium. Potatoes are not perfect, but they are a good starting point.

Cartenoids: For some, starches & vegetables with cartinoids such as sweet potatoes, yams, yellow yukon potatoes, squashes, etc cause issues when eaten in large quanties, so if this diet is not agreeing with you and you are eating a lot of those, you can try avoiding any red, yellow, purple, or orange vegetables and starches, or keep the amounts of them to be a small part of your diet. Blue fruits and vegetables do not have cartenoids, so you can have blueberries.

Fruit & Fructose: Generally fruit on this diet blocks weight loss for some, and for others it doesn’t, so you will need to experiment with it. If you want a higher chance of success, you can try to avoid fruit and high fructose foods. Don’t freak out if have some fruits and fructose in your diet, but try to keep them to a minimum. You also might be one of the uncommon amount of people who have no problem with large amounts of fruit to lose weight, and if you are, congrats!

Legumes and Beans: Some people have issues with legumes and beans causing gas, bloating, or other issues, or they can be provding too much protein or causing some other factor to block weight loss. If this diet is not working for you, then legumes could be a category to avoid.

“Brown”, Whole Grain or “Skin Included”: Although “brown” or “whole” versions generally have more micronutrients on the surface, they also contain more specific antinutrients that can block weight loss if they disagree with your body or are a significant amount of your diet. If you are not succssful yet with the diet and you are eating a lot of these, you can try replacing them with “white” versions such as white rice, peeled potatoes, sourdough white bread, etc.

Wheat and store bought bread: Wheat or store bought bread can cause issues for some people, and if you are not successful yet with the diet, you can try replacing them with other starches. For some, additives in commerical bread could be causing issues, or fortified wheat from the USA or non-glypphosphate free or brominated flour could be causing issues. If you still want to eat bread, making your own bread with a bread maker could be a first step to finding a bread that agrees with you, which lets you avoid many additives that are in commerical bread. If that doesn’t work, you can try buying organic glyphosphate free flour. If that doesn’t work, then you can try importing flour from Europe, that was originally made in europe and sold in europe. You can find some on amazon.com . Also for some, eating most of your carbs from wheat or bread causes magenisum issues, so supplementing with magnesium glycinate could help.

Avoiding Gluten: You might actually have celiac or a gluten intolerance, so avoiding wheat or other foods with gluten could solve your issue. Many people who think they have a gluten intolerance might actually have an ‘additive’ intolerance to a common additive in flour or bread. If the wheat paragraph above is too much work or too complicated, you can just try avoiding anything with gluten as a simple solution.

Simple Sugars: Some people work well with starch, others with simple sugars. If you are having a lot of simple sugars, common in honey, syrup, table sugar, corn syrup, or anything made from that such as gummy candies, you can try avoiding them to see if that helps.

Rice: Some people have issues with rice, since some sources of rice can be grown in areas with heavy metals in the soil or from nearby heavy industry.

Adding the Micronutrient Core

Since you are eating mostly vegetables and starches, and need to keep most of your calories from these sources, it is important to develop a ‘core’ set of foods that are micronutrient dense, easy to prepare and not too high in fat and protein. One of our favorite sources of micronutrients is eggs, since they contain so much, are affordable and easy to prepare. One example set of 400 calories of small extras with potatoes as your main starch is:

  1. 🥚 3 eggs, poached in the microwave with runny yolks to have more nutrition from runny vs. hard yolks. (choline and many other micronutrients, 250 cal)
  2. 🫐 100-120g of frozen acai berry and a optional 10-15g of honey or maple syrup for taste (vitamin E + minerals and others) (120 cal)
  3. 🥕 1 large carrot (vitamin A, 50 cal)
  4. 🍙 Plain nori seaweed sheets (for iodine + flavor) (2 cal)
  5. 💊 Supplements: Methylfolate, Zinc (25mg), selenium (100mg), and a vitamin K MK-7 supplement. Vitamin D is another supplement, but you also can get that from sun exposure.
  6. (Optionally) 🍫 20g of 80% dark chocolate as a treat

If any of the above foods do not agree with you, or are not easily available, you can use an app like Cronometer to calculate what would cover your micronutritional needs, or potentially subsitute it with a supplement. Make sure to track all of the food you eat typically in a day, including your main starches and vegetables to know how much micronutrition you need to get an idea of what you need micronutrients to be.

If you want help doing this, please feel free to contact us!

Fat loss acceleration

If you want to lose fat faster on this diet, one trick you can use is to make sure half of the starch & vegetable part of your diet is vegetables and the other half is starches instead of majority starches and to definately avoid fruit.

Food Prep Guides