In case anyone's interested: I did a 4 day potato hack a couple weeks ago.
I lost between 4-8 pounds in the four days. I wanted to do a complete five day but the night before day 5 I began dreaming of fried chicken, which I took as a sign I needed some protein.
So I started eating again when I woke up.
First batch of potatoes I didn't have time to peel them, and since I don't react noticeably to nightshades I figured it would be okay. Not! After the first day of eating only unpeeled potatoes, I woke up the next morning with pain in my wrist from an old injury. Haven't been bothered with that for years and years. So the solanine or whatever in the peels definitely got some kind of inflammatory reaction going.
After I started on the next batch of peeled potatoes, the pain went away within 24 hours. Hasn't come back. I think Tim Steele went through something similar. Point being, if you want to try this, definitely peel the potatoes if you think you might be sensitive to nightshades.
I have blood sugar control issues, and while doing the hack my blood sugar did spike. But a short burst of not-too-strenuous activity about an hour or 1.5 hours eating would bring it down between 30 and 50 points. Completely normal at the 4 hour post prandial mark and normal (around 85-90mg/dl) in the morning. Worth noting is that when eating regularly (basically, the Perfect Health Diet), my sugars are still a bit high in the morning. Almost normal, but most of the time not quite there yet. So the potato hack actually normalized them above a regular diet, even if my 1 hour post-prandial was higher than is normal or desirable.
The hack did provide a kind of "reset" of the appetite as
@ariel described. Since then I've been able to eat a lot less butter on my starches, and I actually find I like them better now. I have also garnered an appreciation for the taste of cold boiled potatoes, lightly salted. Maybe the hack helped me activate my genetic Irish.
I am satisfied with less food in general, particularly if it's really flavorful, tasty (non-bland) food. I just don't want to eat as much.
Finally...to the point of this thread...I can't tell any difference in my gut health from the hack. But I was doing pretty good before it, so perhaps that is not surprising. And I'm beginning to realize that the remaining issues I have with my gut are in all likelihood not caused by bad gut flora, but instead by problems with nearby organs. I may have some adhesions or other stuff going on. I'm going to get it checked out.
All in all, I think the potato hack is worth doing for people who don't have trouble tolerating nightshades. Just make sure you peel the potatoes.
But if you have high blood sugar issues but can't tolerate a little exercise, be wary. It only took me about five minutes of slow walking up and down stairs to normalize my post-prandial sugar, but it was definitely more strenuous than a slow walk on a flat surface, and it was five solid minutes of activity.
However, if you're hypoglycemic the hack might help in that regard. I don't know.
BTW, did anyone ever try the Turkey Tail mushroom that was discussed much earlier in this ginormous thread?
Or... does anyone have a beta glucan supplement that they are doing well on?
I did pretty good on the NOW beta glucans. It's not a whole product but they seemed to help me. I started taking those right at the beginning of my experimentation with prebiotics, and kept up with them for several months. I recommend them.
I also tried turkey tail and think it may have helped me reach my current level of health. It's hard to say, though. I also got chaga, reishi, and beet root powder at the same time, and was taking all of that together for a while, so what really did the most good is debatable. Plus I haven't been really sensitive to any supplement for some months now, and by the time I started messing with my gut I was already starting to get truly better. But since taking those things I did seem to move up to yet another level of health. Feeling a little bit better than before I took them, little bit more stamina, etc. I've been exercising regularly and also lifting weights again, and unless my memory is failing me miserably right now I haven't crashed since last December. Which is remarkable because lifting weights ALWAYS would crash me. I'd get acutely ill with a cold or flu the next day and then have PEM for weeks. If I tried squats or lunges it would be at least a week before I could bend my legs again.
This enhanced exercise tolerance didn't really start until I began gut therapy, and seemed to improve still more with the mushrooms and beet root powder. For whatever that's worth.