The Twinkie Diet: Would you try this junk-food way to lose weight?
After ditching the gushy white bread for whole grains, meticulously stripping your kitchen cabinets of anything with high-fructose corn syrup, minding your portions, gulping down gallons of water, and eating superfoods like antioxidants could soon be extinct, wouldn't it just piss you off to hear that some guy in the middle of the country lost a whole bunch of weight on a diet of Twinkies, Doritos, and Mountain Dew?
Would it irk you even more to know that, in the process of consuming Corn Pops and packaged brownies, his good cholesterol (HDL) went up, his bad cholesterol (LDL) went down, his triglycerides decreased, and his BMI got to a happy place? And that he did it all as an experiment?
Oh, yes. That's right. Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University spent ten weeks on a junk-food diet to see if simply reducing caloric intake would lead to weight-loss, even if the food is not nutritious. After Haub dropped 27 pounds, it seems the conclusion -- no matter how much it may make you want to pummel him or your Weight Watchers Points book with a case of Little Debbie Star Crunch desserts -- is yes, it works.
Haub cut back his intake to 1,800 calories, about half of what he consumed before this experiment. Two-thirds of the food he ate could be purchased at a convenience store -- most notably, Hostess Twinkies, Cool Ranch Doritos, and Little Debbie Zebra Cakes. He peppered the treat-eating with baby carrots, stalks of celery, and a multivitamin, but consciously avoided meat, whole grains, and fruit due to their higher calorie count.
A moderate exerciser before and throughout the experiment, Haub told CNN.com that he also chose to eat vegetables in front of his kids and saved the foods he had to unwrap for other times so he'd continue to be a good example.
His success is simple science -- Haub took in fewer calories than he burned. Sure, they were crap calories, but they were not nearly as many as he'd been consuming. He says it is too soon to draw any big conclusions and he can't yet recommend snacking your way slimmer.
"I'm not geared to say this is a good thing to do. "I'm stuck in the middle. I guess that's the frustrating part. I can't give a concrete answer. There's not enough information to do that," he told CNN.com.
Dawn Jackson Blatner, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association said it's no surprise that Haub lost weight and improved health scores. Being overweight, as 41-year old Haub was, is the prime reason many people have complications like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes. Blatner also warns that we may not have yet seen all of the implications of this diet on Haub's health, like what the impact of removing adequate fruits and vegetables could be over the long term.
This academic experiment in which Haub invested his body and health seems to have some kind of grip on him. Originally scheduled to last only a month, he continued the diet once he saw the pounds drop. And although he's easing meat and calories back into his diet, he says he's not ditching the snack cakes altogether.
"These foods are consumed by lots of people. It may be an issue of portion size and moderation rather than total removal. I just think it's unrealistic to expect people to totally drop these foods for vegetables and fruits. It may be healthy, but not realistic," Haub said.
It frustrates some people, and others say he's being unhealthy. But Haub insists his data doesn't prove it's the wrong way to go.
Would you be willing to put all that junk food into your body just to see if you could elicit the same results on the scale?
Is unwrapping your "meals" and eating like a 12-year old boy worth it just to weigh less?
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