A professor at Kansas State University lost 27 pounds by eating processed snacks in place of meals.
Professor Mark Haub wanted to show that calorie counting was the key to weight loss, and he lost 27 pounds in the process. He restricted his diet to fewer than 1800 calories per day, which is quite low for most grown men.
Haub also ate a couple of servings of vegetables each day and took a multivitamin.
The really interesting thing? His HDL and LDL cholesterol counts improved significantly, as did his tryglycerides.
What Does This Mean?
The results from one person are certainly nothing to go on. While he may have seen some counter-intuitive results, there are other issues associated with long-term consumption of processed foods.
Most of the processed foods on the market today contain GMO’s, which some studies suggest aren’t great for us or for the environment.
There’s also the issue of packaging. Every snacky cake and bag of chips he ate came in a single use, disposable bag. He was eating a snack every 3 hours. That’s going to very quickly add up to a lot of waste!
Even setting the GMO and waste issues aside, I have a hard time believing that a junk food diet plus a multivitamin and some celery is healthy long-term, whether you restrict calories or not. What do you guys think?
via CNN.
Image Credit: Creative Commons photo by Bill Stevenson
The Twinkie Diet is not a realistic nutrition option. A full understanding of the factors involved and the long-term effects can be found on Holosfitness.com: http://www.holosfitness.com/blog/view/1/322/The-Twinkie-Diet—Proof-Calorie-Counting-Works?/
I definitely agree. Thanks for the link to your website!