Nutrition Professor loses 27 pounds on twinkie/junk food diet

I LOVE IT! Perfect article. People always argue with me about this stuff.

i've been following this experiment and already knew what the results were going to be from the start. seriously, there are some things science doesn't completely understand yet, e.g. muscle synthesis, and there are some things science COMPLETELY understands, like fat loss. any real legit dietician or nutritionist would know that fat loss is a simple matter of calories in vs. calories out. it doesn't matter where the calories come from. anyone who says otherwise is either lying or misguided. yes, i'm saying all the stuff you read and hear about from the mainstream about fat loss (and pretty much most health-related stuff) is flat out false. ignore what the marketing execs want you to believe so you can continue to buy their products and services and listen more to science. even then, most people have no idea who to tell if a study is legit (hint: there are just as many bad studies as good studies out there, and they are get published).

anyway, bravo to mr. haub for the experiment, even if it's nothing surprising. the next part of his experiment is to overeat "healthy" foods to show that an excess in calories will cause fat gain and worse health markers, regardless of where the calories come from.

Originally Posted by Sunnydale

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Well, calories count in weight loss. But in addition there are plenty of other studies saying other factors play a part in weight loss also - sleep, nutrition content for some people, thyroid health, feeling of fullness for example. And this is just one guys experience.
by weight loss, do you mean fat loss? weight loss is also caused by water depletion and absence of food in your system.

for 99% of the population, meaning people who don't have some extenuating health disorder, sleep, nutrition, thyroid, etc. only play a role in fat loss if it in some way affects the way you consume calories. in other words, they don't play a role physiologically, but i can see a case psychologically.

now if you're gonna disagree, i'd like to see a SINGLE study out of these supposedly plenty of studies.

Originally Posted by MetroStyles

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This is fine for fat people, but good luck gaining lean muscle mass with that diet. Also, ignoring the health of your internal organs is worse than being fat. Ok, not really, but almost.
he wasn't trying to gain muscle mass. even then, the average north american diet has more than enough protein (the OPTIMAL amount of protein for building muscle ranges from a daily AVERAGE of 70-120 grams of protein, but the keyword here is "optimal;" you can eat more than that, but it won't give you any extra gains; it's also a range because this is our best guess from what we know so far and anyone who claims to have a formula to calculate exactly how much protein you need is either lying or misled). you have it all backwards regarding the health of one's internal organs. body fat levels is BY FAR the most important thing for one's health. overeating calories, a.k.a. "being fat," causes harmful hormones, chronic inflammation, nutritional imbalance, etc., and THAT is the main cause for internal organ damage. all the hyping of macronutrients or fearmongering with trans fats, fructose, etc. only happen when you eat in excess.

Originally Posted by Taxler

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What are the qualifications for becoming a professor of nutrition at KSU? I tune out any obese person telling me what/how to eat. Not to say they can't know the answers, but they're the wrong messenger.
i would say a former fat person would be a great messenger for those who are looking to lose fat too.

forget his qualifications - you don't need to be rocket scientist to eat mostly junk food and take a blood test.

Originally Posted by Sunnydale

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That's a good point about his good cholesterol going up. Diet does play a part in HDL cholesterol. It matters not only in the amount of HDL present but also in size - and for cholesterol size matters! Small dense HDL, created by sugary foods, are not thought to do much good in the body though.

HDL cholesterol is sensitive to sun exposure/ vitamin D3 creation. So the professors rise in HDL might not only have been due to a calorie deficit, but more likely that it is the end of summer/ early fall, which is the time we witness a peak in our D3 levels.

Here's one article on the sunshine vitamin, D3, raising HDL dramatically.

http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/20...olesterol.html
he is not the only person reporting improved health markers from decreasing body fat levels. this is pretty much a known observation, but people just don't know about it because...well, simply put, the fitness and weight loss industries don't want you to know about it, and science always gets drowned out by the billions of dollars these industries pour into marketing and political lobbying.

Originally Posted by Monaco

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Nutrition Professor said: Data doesn't say that? data doesn't say what happens with long term habitual 500-800 daily calorie deficits. Calories in/out definitely works but if you're drastically reducing calorie to lose weight, you'll definitely suffer from metabolic damage and when you're off of this 'magic diet' your weight will go back to normal and then some. Starving yourself doesn't do ****.
cite your studies to support that prolonged drastic caloric deficit will damage your metabolism. that is just patently false, but i know you heard and read about this from magazines and whatnot. and a caloric deficit is NOT starvation. starvation mode doesn't happen until your body fat levels are at dangerous levels, and really no one will ever get to that point because your body will make it very clear you need to eat (and i'm not talking about hunger pangs or cravings). see ansel keys's famous starvation study.

Originally Posted by virus646

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Yes, he wasn't exactly starving per se.

On the metabolism stuff. I know than the yo-yo effect is probably because after a person starve himself, he would probably go back to binge eating after being so strict on food eating and therefore regain his weight loss if he don't keep his diet in check. But are you saying that keeping your calories like 1000 calories below maintenance for a certain amount of time won't affect your metabolism? Serious question.
no, it won't. that's a dumb myth perpetuated by the fitness and weight loss industry. metabolism is determined by your lean body mass, which is everything that isn't fat, which means your bones, organs, skin, muscle, water, blood, etc. since muscle makes a relatively small portion of your body, metabolism is practically almost the same for everyone at any given height (and gender). the increase in metabolism that the industry likes to talk about does happen, but only during exercise. it goes back to BMR after you stop exercising. all the other "metabolic enhancements" are usually factoids in which while they are technically true, they only increase your metabolism like maybe 1% at most lol.

Originally Posted by not_a_virus.exe

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i've been following this experiment and already knew what the results were going to be from the start. seriously, there are some things science doesn't completely understand yet, e.g. muscle synthesis, and there are some things science COMPLETELY understands, like fat loss. any real legit dietician or nutritionist would know that fat loss is a simple matter of calories in vs. calories out. it doesn't matter where the calories come from. anyone who says otherwise is either lying or misguided. yes, i'm saying all the stuff you read and hear about from the mainstream about fat loss (and pretty much most health-related stuff) is flat out false. ignore what the marketing execs want you to believe so you can continue to buy their products and services and listen more to science. even then, most people have no idea who to tell if a study is legit (hint: there are just as many bad studies as good studies out there, and they are get published).

anyway, bravo to mr. haub for the experiment, even if it's nothing surprising. the next part of his experiment is to overeat "healthy" foods to show that an excess in calories will cause fat gain and worse health markers, regardless of where the calories come from.

umm. no.

muscle maintenance requires amino acids. no protein intake = greater muscle loss = weight loss not fat loss

Originally Posted by indesertum

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no protein intake = greater muscle loss = weight loss not fat loss

not really. Muscle maintenance does require amino acids, but most amino acids can be recycled.


the amount of protein actually required in the diet for muscle maintenance is pretty small.

The key word here is muscle maintenance, not growth. You can basically eat a big steak and call it a day.

The way I see the physics of metabolism working, the only way for two people who do the exact same physical activity (think a mirror copy of yourself going through your daily routine with you) and to achieve different results as far as calorie-burning goes is for there to be a difference in body temperature (assuming they also spend their time in exactly the same environments). Another possibility is that one of these mirror people is not actually absorbing all the calories s/he consumes. That's certainly a possibility, but I don't know if there's evidence to support it.

I do think there is something to the body temperature thing. That said, I'm not sure I really buy the whole "damaging your metabolism" stuff and gaining back all your weight after a starvation-style diet...which is basically all diets/workout regimens. The only way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you consume, so no matter if you're consuming a normal amount and burning more or consuming less and burning an average amount, the effect is that you're still "starving". Stuff like building muscle, etc. is a different story.

Originally Posted by hendrix

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not really. Muscle maintenance does require amino acids, but most amino acids can be recycled.


the amount of protein actually required in the diet for muscle maintenance is pretty small.

while true, i think it's been shown many times that higher protein intake (1g/pound) decreases rate of lean body mass loss

for example
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19927027

Originally Posted by not_a_virus.exe

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the increase in metabolism that the industry likes to talk about does happen, but only during exercise. it goes back to BMR after you stop exercising. all the other "metabolic enhancements" are usually factoids in which while they are technically true, they only increase your metabolism like maybe 1% at most lol.

Yes this is what I understand to be true. This is what the guy administering the water immersion fat percentage test I took told me. He himself is at 13 percent body fat and eats 1 big meal a day generally around 10-11 pm and basically said that yes eating lots of small meals increases your metabolic rate but it's a 1 percent thing that really only matters for athletes who are trying to maintain 5 percent of sub 5 pecent body fat and even then mostly because their body fat reserves are so low that they can't afford to wait for that big meal.

It's pretty mind blowing how this "myth/theory" of lots of small meals being better if not key has been spread around so pervasively by people I consider to be much more intelligent than me. And they hear about it from word of mouth and not by doing any serious research. Maybe some of you have done the research and believe differently. That's cool too, do whatever works for you.

Originally Posted by hendrix

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ok, so what exactly is this "metabolism"?

my understanding of how most people define it:
One's efficiency to convert food into energy for use.

so poor efficiency=fast metabolism because people broadly said to have a "fast metabolism" are thought to be able to eat a lot without doing much exercise and not getting fat. (really, really really hard to prove, but whatever, we'll let it slide)

then presumably high efficiency=slow metabolism because we all know fat people say they eat the same amount as skinny people (even though we know they don't and we know they don't evercise). Again, whatever, we'll let it slide.

This is right. It is desirable to have a metabolism that is actually inefficient. If someone's metabolism is efficient, it means their body is not burning enough calories and their metabolism is slower.

To me, this study is not much of a surprise. Many recent studies studies have shown that the type of calories ingested is not as important as the amount of calories ingested when it comes to weight loss. Referring to the bloodwork, it is well known that even moderate weight loss can help improve cholesterol, TG, and especially blood sugar levels. So, despite eating foods loaded with saturated fats and sugar, his lipid profile improved anyway. Keep in mind the professor did not recommend this diet as a "healthy" diet to follow. This type of diet will be deficient in a wide variety of vitamins and minerals that the body needs to stay healthy.