What We Learned From Penn Jillette’s Two Week Potato Diet 🥔

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NOTE: We are not doctors or nutrition experts. We started our diet this way and wanted to share our story and the knowledge we gained from it, but you should consult your doctor before making any changes to your diet. (Read More)

MEET THE KROCKS: We are a married couple who started on a life-changing whole food, plant-based weight loss journey in June 2018. To date, we have lost over 240 pounds combined and we aren’t done yet! Read Our Story

Written by Jessica Krock

If you watched our first YouTube video, you know that Brian and I started our “diet” with two weeks of eating nothing but potatoes. We took this “mono-diet” approach after reading Penn Jillette’s book Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales. For two entire weeks, we ate nothing but completely PLAIN baked potatoes with nothing added. It sounds simple enough… but trust us, it is not fun!

We have received a lot of questions about our two weeks of potatoes. We wanted to start our YouTube channel with a video about our “potato time” because it is a part of our story and has forever changed us. We are not in any way recommending that anyone eat two weeks of potatoes. This just happens to be how we got our start, and we owe Penn Jillette a great deal of gratitude for sharing his story and sending us on this journey.

Eating two weeks of potatoes was the beginning of our journey and we want to share with you what we learned from doing it. Our hope is that you can learn the knowledge we gained without going through the pain yourself! Check out the video above for a more in-depth look at our two week potato journey. We came out on the other side of it relatively unscathed, but more importantly, these last 10 months have been eye opening. We have learned so much about how to sustain a healthy lifestyle.

A lot of you might be curious how we actually lost 240 pounds combined (as of 4/14/19) following the two weeks of potatoes. One hint: We actually don’t really eat many potatoes anymore. 😅 I can’t really stand to look at them, but I’m warming up to the idea. Brian definitely still wants potatoes, and while starchy vegetables are restricted in the particular plan we are currently following, a lot of people have been very successful on a heavily starch-based whole food diet.

We are currently putting together videos featuring our favorite recipes, tips and strategies we have learned while following a whole food, plant-based diet. You do NOT need something like two weeks of potatoes to get started. You just need to WANT to do something to change your life.

The most important lesson we learned was that you should always, ALWAYS involve your doctor in any major diet change. We did not consult our doctors before eating two weeks of potatoes, but shortly after we went in for blood work and have kept an open dialogue with our doctors during the past 10 months of weight loss. We get regular blood work done to test for any deficiencies and adjust our diet and supplements accordingly based on their recommendations.

If you decide to consult with your doctor and change your diet, keep in mind that for most people, this isn’t going to be an instant, overnight change. If you keep making enough small, healthy choices over time, you can make a BIG impact on your health and your quality of life.

Our hope is that maybe you will learn a thing or two from our videos and start on your own journey.

After our two weeks of potatoes, we decided to follow mostly a “nutritarian” diet as outlined in the book Eat To Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. Since then, we have adjusted our diet to fit our lifestyle and needs. There are a ton of really good plant-based doctors who all have their own books and version of this lifestyle. You can pick any of them as a starting point (Dr. McDougall, Dr. Esselstyn, Dr. Greger, etc). In our experience, it helps to read the perspectives of a few different doctors and then see what works for you and your lifestyle.

We are here to inspire others – to show people who feel like they are “too far gone” that there is hope and a possibility for change. For us, we went crazy and ate two weeks of potatoes to kick this off. We needed something between our “Standard American Diet” and our new way of eating. We don’t do well with “moderation” and making small changes. We find we are more successful making BIG changes very quickly.

In truth, I am not even sure if the potatoes “reset” our pallette or gut or whatever they say it should do. I honestly think it was more of a mental reset. It honestly felt like we were punishing ourselves for allowing ourselves to get this fat. I’m not sure if that is a healthy thing to do, but as it turned out, that two weeks was more about proving we have the will power to do anything. After that, there was no turning back for us.

We are not here to solve all of your problems overnight or tell you the exact formula to lose weight. We are here to tell you what works for us and what we learn along the way. Some of our videos will be fun and lighthearted and others will address serious topics like anxiety and what it feels like to weigh over 500 pounds. But mostly, we hope we can share a lot of great recipes and food products with you to show you that following a plant-based diet can be both healthy and tasty!

If you are thinking about eating potatoes for two weeks, we want to point out that there are many other more practical (and perhaps healthier) ways to transition yourself to a new lifestyle. If you are really stuck on potatoes, check out this info about Mary’s Mini, a 10-day potato-based diet that Dr. McDougall and his wife Mary came up with. Or check out this Potato Reset guide we recently found. If we ever need another “reset” down the line, we plan to follow one of those instead of the completely plain potatoes for two weeks.

The first step to starting your journey is being READY for change. Stop telling yourself that you will change tomorrow, on Monday, next month or next year. Don’t be like us and let years and years of your life slip by. You can gain control back if you decide to.

The second step is accepting that this change is not temporary. You aren’t going to lose the weight and then go back to eating cheeseburgers and pizza. It took us a few months of doing this before we realized that we couldn’t ever go back to our old ways. It took a few more months to realize we didn’t actually WANT to go back anyway.

Find something that works for you, stick to it, and see it through. Even when you think you can’t do it another day… just do it. Eventually over time, it will get better. Your taste buds will adjust and you’ll start to enjoy food again and feel better about yourself in the process.

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