Will over 25% of participants in the SMTM potato study who start with a BMI > 30 lose more that 20lbs over 4 weeks?

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On the 29th of April 2022, Slime Mold Time Mold (SMTM) announced a study to investigate the effects of a potato only diet, where volunteers eat nothing but potatoes (and a small amount of oil and seasoning). Anecdotal evidence suggests that the all potato diet can cause huge amounts of easy, sustainable weight loss. This study aims to test these claims more rigorously. This study will be conducted online. SMTM write "the only prerequisite for signing up is being willing to eat nothing but potatoes for at least four weeks, and being willing to share your weight data with us." Participants will weigh themselves and enter this data into a spreadsheet. When enough data has been collected, SMTM will publish the results. This question will resolve according to the first analysis SMTM publish on their blog. May 10, 4:05pm: Full details of the study can be found here: https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2022/04/29/potato-diet-community-trial-sign-up-now-lol/ May 10, 6:01pm: Clarifications: (1) This question will resolve according to the percentage of the participants who lose 20lbs having COMPLETED 4 weeks of the diet. (2) The population in question will be the first 150 participants who ATTEMPT the diet. Close date updated to 2022-07-11 12:00 pm

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List of Other Similar Markets: - Will over 25% of participants who start with a BMI > 25 lose more than 10lbs? https://manifold.markets/JonathanNankivell/will-over-25-of-participants-in-the-c7c8ce595448 - Will over 25% of participants who start with a BMI > 30 lose more than 10lbs? https://manifold.markets/JonathanNankivell/will-over-25-of-participants-in-the-664a17ef82fc - Will over 25% of participants who start with a BMI > 25 lose more than 20lbs? https://manifold.markets/JonathanNankivell/will-over-25-of-participants-in-the

I have created a new market, this one on whether people with BMI > 30 will lose over 10lbs. This can be found here: https://manifold.markets/JonathanNankivell/will-over-25-of-participants-in-the-664a17ef82fc

looks like this market wants to move down so I'm helping it along :)

Substantially over 150 participants have signed up - we should get the data needed to resolve this market

This market has so much liquidity that the small bets haven't moved the price at all

@Rachel Shu How can you infer anything about true belief from the liquidity:volume ratio? And what does that mean in practice for traders?

I feel like the liquidity:volume ratio here is so skewed that the probability isn't really reflecting true belief

20 lbs in 4 weeks is a 2400 kcal deficit, roughly, and pretty hard to achieve for even pretty overweight people. even if we figure the diet change will result in a loss of 5 lbs of water weight, the remaining 15 is still ~1800 kcal, which is _a lot_.

predicted YES

It has since been pointed out to me that even Chris Voigt didn't include ketchup in his version of the diet, so I guess I'm going a bit off-reservation......

predicted YES

@SirSalty I strongly suspect it's not healthy to do this long-term, but imo you can get away with almost anything if it's just for a month

predicted YES

@Lucent participating in the study is enough of a hassle that I wouldn't worry too much about this -- you have to fill out the form and manually punch in your weight every day for a month. Imo no one's going to bother faking all that for a play money PM

predicted YES

Prob should add that I recently gained about 10 pounds (gained some weight when I had omicron) and was expecting that to come off naturally anyway, so that's a confounding factor in my case. But SMTM says that a lot of people are reporting weight loss of about a pound per day, so idk. I'm not sure if most people are doing the "strict" version of the diet, or the looser Chris Voigt version tho

predicted YES

Idk, if you read Chris Voigt's account, it seems like he pretty much was eating whatever he wanted as long as it was made mostly from potatoes -- like he talks about going out and getting fries at a restaurant, about the weird potato-based dishes and "ice cream" his wife made him from potatoes, etc. I think the way SMTM wrote it, you're supposed to mostly eat roasted/boiled/mashed potatoes, but I've been eating a bunch of potato chips and fries too and I still seem to be dropping a pound per day or so.

predicted NO

Wait, you can do potato chips and french fries with all the sauce you want and it still works? I assumed it was all roasted, boiled, mashed

Hmmm... this diet's getting more tempting by the minute

Yeah, it's kinda nuts because I'm eating ad lib, stuffing my face with potatoes, potato chips, fries, loaded with hot sauce, ketchup, spices, etc. I had 2x large fries from five guys last night for dinner, and woke up this morning a pound lighter. Kinda mind blowing tbh lol

@Jack Peterson A pound per day? Incredible!

I signed up for this trial! Currently on day 5, losing about a pound per day. Going all in on Yes

I'm worried this'll encourage sham entrants into the study to manipulate the outcome. Can the market be amended to only include participants already enrolled when the question was asked?

Betting no based on trial dropouts. I already know 3 people who dropped out because it was miserable, contra claims in study enrollment post.

So anyone from the Manifold community want to sign up LOL? I think the majority will lose some weight, partly because they will have less of an appetite and cut out bad snacking habits when all they can eat is potatoes. But I'm not convinced it is healthy nor do I think it will be 20lbs in 4 weeks. It reminds me of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFGH0hBVaU0

Adding M$5000 of liquidity, because I (Austin) think this is a really important question!

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