An illusion of health: Nutrition professor eats twinkies to lose weight

An illusion of health: Nutrition professor eats twinkies to lose weight

Twinkies for weight loss?

Here's a new one. As if the dude that ate nothing but fast food for 30 days wasn't enough, now a knowledgeable nutrition professor eats noting but Twinkies to prove a point. Yes, we get it. If you eat less calories than your body uses each day, you will lose weight.

Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate one of these processed, sugary snacks 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 10 weeks.

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.

His body mass index went from 28.8, considered overweight, to 24.9, which is normal. He now weighs 174 pounds.

That's what the news was covering anyway. They forgot to mention that he also ate vegetables and salads every day in addition to a smoothie he made himself and a multi-vitamin pill. I in no way am saying a person doesn't lose weight by eating less calories. In fact, that's one of the main reasons this country is obese: we eat too much. The problem with this twinky man though is that the issue that arose is that surrounding NUTRITION, not weight loss.

His experiment proved true: he lost weight. When your body mass goes down, health issues diminish. When your body mass increases, new health issues such as cancer and stroke arise.

"There seems to be a disconnect between eating healthy and being healthy," Haub said. "It may not be the same. I was eating healthier, but I wasn't healthy. I was eating too much."

My take on this experiment?

Our country's obesity rate will hit 42% this year. Stop making excuses. I think it's important for people to get the main point, that if you are overweight and poor, you still have a chance at getting to a healthy weight. You don't need a Whole Foods near you or a huge food budget to be a healthy weight. You can literally shop at a convenience store for energy, just keep the portions small and be smart about it. Everything in moderation. Eat healthy MOST of the time. Treat yourself in moderation-now and then. Be active. Eat less calories than you consume when you want to lose weight and don't exceed what you burn when you want to maintain. Nutrition is vital: make sure you get enough REAL foods, not packaged, processed poison. You are what you eat.

more info: http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/04/study-u-s-obesity-rate-will-hit-42-percent/

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