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Twinkie Diet Helps Nutrition Professor Lose 27 Pounds 35

Professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University Mark Haub has managed to lose 27 pounds in 10 weeks eating only junk food available at a convenience store. Haub wanted to prove that when it came to dieting calorie counting mattered much more than the nutritional value of food. From the article: "For a class project, Haub limited himself to less than 1,800 calories a day. A man of Haub's pre-dieting size usually consumes about 2,600 calories daily. So he followed a basic principle of weight loss: He consumed significantly fewer calories than he burned."

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Twinkie Diet Helps Nutrition Professor Lose 27 Pounds

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  • Well of course (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wisnoskij ( 1206448 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2010 @02:03PM (#34176170) Homepage

    Nutrition is for heath, and having more or less should not significantly effect weight (but is very important for overall heath).
    So eating a small amount of twinkles a day will cause you to lose weight, but that does not mean you would not die of malnutrition if you continued to only eat junk food for a long time (no matter how much of it you were eating).

    • Re:Well of course (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Monkeedude1212 ( 1560403 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2010 @02:45PM (#34176904) Journal

      Yeah.

      I'd like to know how many pushups he can do now that he's lost all that weight.

      It's not so much that people should be trying to lose weight as it is they should be trying to lose fat

      After all, equal volumes of fat and muscle: muscle weighs more.

      • That's why I never liked the joke in the Simpsons where one of Marge's sisters 'sank like a rock' in the dead sea. The joke is she's supposed to be fat, not that she's more built than the Governator in his prime.

    • See Dr. Joel Fuhrman for a good understanding of this (bot how to be healthy and lose weigt by eating a lot of vegetables, fruits, and beans):
      http://www.diseaseproof.com/ [diseaseproof.com]

      Most chronic disease including obesity can be treated with nutritional intervention, which moslty comes down to eating a variety of plant foods, heavy on the vegetables.

      It's true this guy lost weight, but he may have increased his disease risk. Also, it probably took a lot of will power that almost no one can keep up for years. A whole food

    • He didn't eat "only junkfood". Haven't you learned? Never trust the summary, and only trust TFA sparingly ;) He got 2/3 of his calories from twinkies, doritos, and other junk food. The other 1/3 came from protein shakes and canned green beans. Plus he also took multivitamins to avoid malnutrition. And, he didn't just lose weight. He lost fat, and maintained muscle mass, as well as improving his cholesterol ratio and lowering his triglyceride levels. The point of this isn't that nutrition is meaningl
      • you can eat crap, but a small amount of crap, and still do OK.

        The problem with crap isn’t that it’s crap; it’s that it’s also not very filling and you crave more of it. So you end up eating a lot of it, i.e. a lot of calories. Can anyone say weight gain?

        Also, how many sugar-addicts are going to bolster their diet with green beans? Most people seem to think vegetables are made of kryptonite unless they’re deep-fried or drenched in butter or high-fructose corn syrup.

  • Not sure where the 10 days comes from when the article clearly indicates it was over 2 months. It was just a clever trick to make me RTFA wasn't it?

  • by sznupi ( 719324 ) on Tuesday November 09, 2010 @11:09PM (#34182498) Homepage

    He just has genetics, gut bacteria, etc. suitable for losing weight.

    But we must not forget many people around us, in which those factors(*) cause them to be a thermodynamic perpetuum mobile. Major concentrations of them in just few places around the world certainly suggest genetic factors.

    • Major concentrations of them in just few places around the world certainly suggest genetic factors.

      Or, the same crap lifestyle. Tough call.

    • Unless you manage to shut down the "metabolic furnace" so to speak with your crap diet and/or lack of movement your body will continue to consume relatively similar calories. So much like any balloon that has a hole letting more out than is being replace it will shrink. Being overweight is simply a product of too many calories coming in relative to those going out.

      While genetics can play a role, food quality and physical activity will influence how hot furnace operates far more than any other factor for

      • by sjames ( 1099 )

        There is, however, evidence that there exist pairings of people of similar build such that on exactly the same diet with the same routine, one will lose weight and the other will gain.

        The ratio of calories metabolized to calories used does hold true, but apparently the ratio of calories eaten to calories actually metabolized varies in different people OR the ratio of physical activity performed to calories expended varies. Perhaps both ratios vary.

        • A person's physical build unfortunately does not provide a complete picture for the sake of like vs. like comparisons. People of similar builds may well have different caloric requirements for a number of reasons. I certainly wouldn't dispute that. Build and physical health do not necessarily go hand in hand for instance. Stronger (not necessarily larger) muscles tend to burn more calories even when at rest. Something as simple as how thoroughly food is masticated will affect the rate and efficiency of

          • by sjames ( 1099 )

            Quite the contrary! Yes, some people are fat due to lifestyle and diet issues alone. Others because they have metabolic differences. Yes, anyone at all can lose weight by consuming less calories that they expend. However, some people's metabolisms will very easily go into a conservative more where they feel listless and have a greatly reduced expenditure.

            In other words, for some people consuming less than they expend is much easier said than done. By the time their expenditure is further reduced through wei

            • I think we aren't necessarily speaking about the same type of people. I am not suggesting that people ought to fit the supermodel body type. For the average person that would be unhealthy and next to impossible to maintain. Regardless of what our culture says a modest amount of padding isn't necessarily a medical problem. It sounds as if you believe I'm lumping them and what physicians call obese and more specifically morbidly obese in the same basket. I'm definitely not. I am referring to people whos

              • by sjames ( 1099 )

                I very much agree that the problem exists at a social/cultural level. The American culture is oriented towards unhealthy, low quality calories and excessive portion sizes.

                While those certainly don't help (right along with restaurants that charge as much for ice water as for soda), other factors also play.

                For example, too many jobs where the PHB doesn't believe you're working if your butt isn't glued to a chair. It's hard for people to get an adequate amount of daily exercise when they're not supposed to stand up.

                Too many people feeling pressed for time such that home cooking seems to be becoming a lost art replaced by not terribly healthy pre-processed crap.

                A bunch of bad

                • by Belial6 ( 794905 )

                  As for the level of padding, even some (certainly not all) of the people the medical community labels obese (particularly when the over simplified height-weight charts are used as the only criterion) are in fact, quite healthy.

                  That is funny, I just responded to the previous post that I am one of those people. I have been accused of painting on my abs at the same weight and boy fat ratio as I have been called 'obese'. Mind you, the lighting was just right for my stomach muscles to stand out that well, but still, it is ridiculous to think that just having the light come from the right direction could make someone who is 'obese' look like they painted on abs. Heck, the entire time that Arnold Schwarzenegger was Mr. Universe, he w

                  • by sjames ( 1099 )

                    Evidence suggests that body fat content in itself has very little to do with health as long as the cardiovascular system is in good shape.

                    I saw an extreme example just last night on Medical Incredible. The guy has a well documented exceptionally efficient metabolism so that his daily caloric requirement is unreasonably low even though he is a tri-athlete who competes monthly and trains daily. Because of his metabolism, he looks like a typical heavy-ish middle-aged man with the middle-ages spread.

              • by Belial6 ( 794905 )
                Well, I have had physicians call me obese, and suggest I lose more weight than what I have in body fat to get into the 'normal' range. I get regularly hyrdostatically weighed, and I currently have enough lean body mass that even if I had 0% body fat, I would be "over weight" per the government, medical, and insurance industries. The only reason that I have as little lean body mass as I do is because I DON'T work out. I build muscle extremely fast. Now, I am carrying about 20 lbs. of extra body fat that
            • I saw a British video about obesity where they took an obese woman who claimed to have tried every diet and to have a slow metabolism, and they actually tested her in a hospital with a special test for that (respiration rate), and she had an average metabolism.

              As Dr. Joel Fuhrman says inhis book "Eat To Live", tryng to control portion size breaks down eventually because no one can deny themselves foods they crave forever.

              What works, reliably, is to switch ot a diet emphasizing vegetables fruits, and beans

        • Very true. Hypothetical case study, sitting at the same table at lunch table you see:

          Person A: Eats a salad, and diet coke everyday. for lunch everyday. Consumes ~2000 kcal / day. Works out and lifts weights, but is a lard ass.

          Person B: Eats large bowl of pasta, and 20 hot wings for lunch everyday. Consumes around 3Kcal. However, he has 7% body fat, and a GQ body. The only exercise he gets is the sweat he builds up from making love to all the hoties that he gets as a result of his perfectly sculpted bod

          • The 'models' that the Renaissance painters painted would all be obese by today's standards. Back then your next meal was not as guaranteed as it is today. ( i don't know this for a fact. Any time travelers are welcome to correct me)

            Being skinny is not always a survival characteristic.

            She [blogspot.com] would be considered a lard-ass by today's standards.
            FFS just compare the supposed ideal versions of women. For men, [google.com] and for women. [google.com]

            It's as if some higher power is deliberately trying to raise male and female humans with completely opposite ideal expectations.
            In order to reduce birth rate or something?

            • by sznupi ( 719324 )

              There's another factor at work except present fertility and likely ability to take care of a child for a few years (Playboy) - young age and future "potential" (Vogue)

          • At any weight, there is no doubt some variation in metabolism based on genetics, activity level, and gut bacteria. With that said, I doubt the difference is huge.

            You can't tell what those people are eating at other times.

            Also, vitamin D deficiency may be linked to obesity, so that is another variable:
            http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml [vitamindcouncil.org]

            Dr. Joel Fuhmran goes into detail to a proven approach to weight loss and increasing health by eating more vegetables and fruits:
            http [youtube.com]

          • by sznupi ( 719324 )

            Diet coke tricks your organism into expecting lots of sugar to process...which doesn't come. So now your organism, revved up, really starts to crave it / you will eat unhealthy quantities (but feeling small) quickly enough.

        • by sznupi ( 719324 )

          What does it change? It still means that those people are simply eating too much (while claiming they eat normally or even very little, hence me making a jab at such claims, amounting to claiming one is a thermodynamic perpetuum mobile...). There is no obesity epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa.

      • A better metaphor might be the thermostat for a furnance. It is called the "appestat". Basically, when your body sense your stomach is full and your body sense it has enought nutrients (usually from plant foods), your appetite thermostat shuts off your appetite. See Dr. Fuhrman's book "Eat to Live" for a discussion of this.

        So, if you get your calories from strained fruit juice or milk, your stomach does not feel full for long as liquid just passes through. If you eat leafy vegetables you will fill up your s

      • by sznupi ( 719324 )

        I was actually aiming at "Funny" (telling how it got "Insightful"...) - I thought describing those people as perpetuum mobile gave it away.

  • Oh, of course all that matters in the end for weight loss alone is calorie counting. But the problem in dieting is more about learning proper self-control, and eating a lot of sugary junk food is going to leave you with massive cravings all day. If you've got the willpower to lose weight in spite of that, then more power to you. Most people don't, though, and I wonder how long his diet is sustainable. A proper diet is a life-long decision -- not just something to do and then abandon one you reach a targ

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