The Potato Diet: Everything You Need To Know Here

Fad diets come and go, but this one just might stick around. An Australian has discovered how potatoes could actually help him lose weight--22 pounds of it, exactly.

People reports that Andrew Flinders Taylor created a "Spud Fit" diet in which he is hoping to defeat his addiction to food and eat nothing but potatoes for the next 344 days (he committed to this potato journey beginning January 1st).

"I wanted to change the way I thought about food so that it’s not controlling my life. When you’ve got an addiction, a drug addiction or an alcohol addiction, the best thing you can do is stop taking drugs or stop taking alcohol," Taylor admitted, as per Telegraph. "You can’t do that with food. So I thought, what else can I do? Perhaps I can choose one kind of food. Lots of people in the past have lived on nothing but potatoes."

Taylor, who keeps his followers updated via social media updates on Facebook and video blogs on YouTube, says that people think potatoes are "empty calories" and that he is determined to show that they are in fact, a health food. His diet is composed of 99% potatoes, while the 1% is dedicated to sauces and seasonings.

Taylor says that he's not in it to promote a fad diet or sell the idea. Instead, he wanted to "improve my own relationshop with food...It's as simple as improving my diet." However, some nutritionists are questioning his methods.

"You have probably heard the term ‘a balanced diet,’" Joseph Proietto, professor of medicine at Melbourne University, told BuzzFeed News. "What that means is you need a little of this and a little of that because we have a range of vitamins and minerals found in different concentrations in different foods. The problem with eating any single food is that you’re gonna definitely miss out on a whole lot of vitamins that are required."

Dietitians Association of Australia spokesperson Charlene Crosse agrees with Proietto. She believes that it would be difficult to get all the necessary vitamins and minerals found in various foods if a person is eating only one thing. She says that the body requires about 40 different nutrients, and unfortunately, "there isn’t one food that will give you all that."

Potatoes, however, are not entirely empty calories or not nutritious. In fact, nutritionist Fiona Hunter told Telegraph that aside from being carbohydrates that provide energy, it also contains good amounts of potassium, B vitamins, vitamin C and fiber. But that doesn't mean one should feast on potatoes alone. A balanced diet is highly recommended for optimal health and weight loss.