Professor Loses Weight on Twinkie Diet
For 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate [a Twinkie, a Nutty bar or a powdered donut] every three hours, instead of meals. To add variety in his steady stream of Hostess and Little Debbie snacks, Haub munched on Doritos chips, sugary cereals and Oreos, too.
His premise: That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most — not the nutritional value of the food.
The premise held up: On his “convenience store diet,” he shed 27 pounds in two months.
Full article on one man’s success with the “Twinkie Diet.”
And, my guess is, his shelf life after burial will be a good 30-40 years. Twinkies are forever.
Professor Haub’s research sounds nutty but raises an important point. Fad diets that consist of eating all you want of one type of food (regardless of caloric content) are just that — nutty! What has always worked for me is to count calories and substitute bulky foods with lower caloric content for ones that are calorie dense. You cannot eat all the pure lard you want (and lose weight) by eating it with grapefruit or avoiding potatoes and rice with your lard.
Like Twinkies, humans have an ever increasing lifespan. We outlive any of our ancestors who ate a steady diet of free-range game and organic plants and vegetables.
Why would anyone research such a diet? It’s a actually somewhat grotesque to do so, because the “Twinkie defense” figured in the defense’s argument for Dan White, who murdered San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978. (The notion was that the sugary high made White lose his mind. Although, the claim did not figure as large as popular myth holds: http://tinyurl.com/y8gloox.)
Did the taxpayers fund this research?
Except the protein deficiency mandates that his body merely cannibalized his muscle tissue and his body fat %, the primary target for weight loss. He lost 27 lbs, is weaker and fatter than before.
@ Marc, You make an important point. Slim Jim Beef Jerky Strips are sold at convenience stores. Maybe people wanting to duplicate the professor’s experiment should add beef jerky to their diets.
You all are missing the bottom line: You can eat any thing you want so long as you keep total calories under control.