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The Convenient Store Diet?
Health | June 23, 2015
Strange as it sounds, not only did someone actually attempt to go on a diet that consisted of mainly Twinkies, Oreos and Doritos, it actually worked! Okay, well sort of. In 2010 Mark Haub, a professor of nutrition out of Kansas State University, committed to this convenient store diet to demonstrate that, ultimately, weight loss is about limiting one’s caloric intake. Not that caloric intake is the only factor that matters in weight loss, but that it’s the main one.
Haub measured his Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) to be about 2600 calories and then limited himself to only 1800 calories a day in order to lose weight. His experiment lasted roughly two months and, lo and behold, he lost 27lbs! Even crazier than the actual weight loss was the fact that other indicators of health actually improved! He lowered his bad cholesterol as well as his overall body fat.
However, Haub did tell CNN in an interview that he had to supplement his diet with a multi-vitamin, a protein shake and an assortment of vegetables. Nonetheless, the majority of his calories (more than two-thirds according to Haub) came from cupcakes, donuts, chips and whatever else he could find in convenient stores. In the same interview, Haub was strangely surprised by the results of his convenient store diet. He said:
“I wish I could say the outcomes are unhealthy. I wish I could say it’s healthy. I’m not confident enough in doing that. That frustrates a lot of people. One side says it’s irresponsible. It is unhealthy, but the data doesn’t say that.”
This, of course, is not an invitation for any of us to start snacking on junk food like a bunch of rabid chipmunks in the hopes of losing weight. And certainly Professor Haub doesn’t recommend his dietary experiments, he is simply trying to prove an essential and very simply point that is often lost at sea in the world of weight loss and fitness. For better or for worse, calories count and we need to have a good awareness of how much or how little we are consuming to reach our fitness and weight loss goals. It’s also important to note that had Haub continued this diet long-term as many people currently do there is always the very real risk of developing a whole host of health risks including diabetes.
What crazy diets have you heard about or even tried?
Private Member |
seattle, washington
There are people who for various reasons eat this diet. Often they are coming from a poor and uneducated background. They raise kids who have never seen the inside of a grocery store and when the go into one chose the chips and cookies over the veggies and other long term healthier foods.
Something to remember is: Calories are first and foremost a unit of energy output. Twenty calories of sugar are the same as twenty calories of egg just as ten pounds of fat is ten pounds.
Private Member |
Sounds like he was just starving himself. 1800 calories a day for a grown man is just dangerous and stupid.
Private Member |
This is interesting. For a long time I had the, “It’s not about calories, it’s about what you eat” mantra in my head, and so I’ve never been a big calorie counter. I worry that I might not be eating enough to put on muscle, though, and may consider being a little more mindful of it.
Private Member |
santa cruz, ca
This is a very short term experiment that probably did not account for many other factors in his lifestyle or his body type/genetics/predispositions. I also feel that a diet like that can cause so many other problems that are not related to weight. I would want to see a longer term study, and perhaps on people who choose to eat this way, on the long term. There is so much more research on the relationship between processed and junk foods and health problems. I feel that a two month “experiment” won’t show much. I’ve known many very thin people who ate this way by choice, who end up with chronic fatigue, diabetes, allergies, sleep problems, organ problems, etc. And yet they are thin. Weight and health do not equate.
Private Member |
santa cruz, ca
I’d like to share this article from Scientific American called “Science Reveals Why Calorie Counts Are All Wrong”. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-reveals-why-calorie-counts-are-all-wrong/
I’m sorry, but human metabolism is so, so, so much more complex than simple calorie input and output! All foods are nutritionally unique and chemically different, and affect our bodies in complex ways! A calorie is not a calorie is not a calorie. This is a relatively new invention that attempts to simply the physiology of our digestion and assimilation and metabolism. This mechanism is not necessarily the solution for people.
Private Member |
This is sort of like how people use the IIFYM diet! Haha!
Private Member |
There are so many crazy diets out there. I don’t join the bandwagon but there is always something to learn. I recently heard of the MILF diet and bought the cookbook because it would at least be a fun conversation piece in the kitchen! It’s basically a guide to eating whole foods, not packaged or processed and is a vegan cookbook (macrobiotic influenced), but for the diet, encourages all MILF’s to explore their own body’s relationship with foods, but gives the authors suggestions for optimum health. Given how many cookbooks I have (I read them like regular books), and ones similar to these types of recipes, this book wasn’t anything that new to me, but it could be very educational to others, and it’s organized and easy to understand. I’m not vegan but I explore everything and I have other vegan cookbooks which I personally like the recipes better, just my taste. I find eating vegan a couple days a week helps cleanse my body, but I am meant to eat animal products, making high quality, responsible choices, and also helping the environment by cutting back and not eating them every day. You couldn’t pay me to eat the convenient store diet……I ate crap growing up an I want to keep my body clean. I can only imagine what that did to his digestive track!
Private Member |
This article is crap! Not only is this guy stupid and insane by eating all that processed crap he’s totally wrong about calories in/calories out. Losing weight is very complicated and complex and it’s not about the calorie count but about your nutrition, hormones, stress factors, etc. If you are eating REAL whole foods you don’t need to count calories! And where is his data to back up his article and show proof of his weight loss? He didn’t share his vitals, measurements, and any proof to back up his claim. Anyone that eats processed food is crazy and I would never believe any truth in what he’s saying.
Private Member |
lake tahoe, nv, usa
He’s not claiming his diet was healthy and neither do I. He also deosn’t recommend this diet to anyone, it was simply an experiment out of curiosity, and he shared the data with the world. This guys is a diet experimentalist – that’s his job. Here’s an article from CNN about Haub’s experiment: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/
I mean, you have to take it for what it is, just an experiment, not a diet recommendation.
Private Member |
An interesting read! It definitely makes me feel ill to think the guy ate all that processed food for two months, yuck! I’ve been eating clean for so long now that that stuff tastes like poison to me. I’ve had a lot of success eating low GI (common sense on whole, natural foods really) and carb cycling. I lost 20 pounds last year with manipulating my macros from day to day on a carb cycling diet…. It is truly the only scientific way to manipulate your metabolism. There are lots of good books on the subject and Chris Powell is the ‘celebrity trainer’ who promotes it the most. Good clean food, easy to do. Not so different from how Zuzka eats! I HIGHLY recommend it for anyone who is feeling frustrated with their diet!
Private Member |
Craziest diet I ever tried was The Paleo one 🙂 But hearing of, I’m sure I heard of other crazy ones, just that I never tried those 😎