The Twinkie Diet: Eat Junk Food and Lose Weight?

It's been dubbed "the Twinkie diet" by the media: Mark Haub, a professor in Kansas State University's Department of Human Nutrition, has been surviving on junk food for the past month.

And, he's lost weight.

This might seem to fly in the face of conventional nutritional wisdom. After all, junk food results in weight gain, right?

Haub started the "Twinkie Diet" on 25th August. Since then, he's been eating mostly swiss cake rolls, blueberry muffins, cinnamon rolls, Peanut Butter Oreos, and hot dogs.

As well as the junk food, Haub has milk (for protein), and vegetables (for vitamins) with dinner.

By sticking to 1,800 calories a day - around 600-800 fewer than he'd need to maintain weight - Haub lost 10lbs in the first three weeks of his "diet".

It shouldn't come as such as surprise. After all, you could lose weight eating two candy bars a day: it's the calories-in verses calories-out which matter.

Haub isn't doing this because he's a junk-food addict - he admits missing salads and blue cheese. He's trying to open up debate about how people on a low income can't eat healthily (on the diet, his food costs have dropped to around $5/day):

It's unrealistic in some areas of society to expect that you can find fresh broccoli, tomatoes at a price that is affordable. If somebody can get their nutrients from a supplement and then they get their fuel from whatever is available, does it matter that they're not getting fruits and vegetables and whole grains? Is that okay?

Of course, there are big nutritional questions to be asked about a diet which relies so heavily on sugary, salty, processed products. Nutrition is about a lot more than calories. Plus, most folks on a junk food diet would find themselves so hungry (due to sugar crashes and lack of fiber) that they'd be hard-pressed to stick to a calorie restriction.

What do you think? Is Haub's experiment an important one in a world where processed, packaged foods are often much cheaper than fresh ones? Or is this a dangerous way to diet?

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Drinking Milk Helps Weight Loss

We've got all sorts of things for weight loss: pills, diet books, surgery, and even vibrating machines you strap around your belly. But, who would have thought the answer would be as simple as drinking milk.

A new study claims consuming milk and calcium helped people lose more weight, regardless of diet.

But, before you go out and buy your own personal dairy cow, take a look at who sponsored the study.

Writing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, experts found study participants (300 overweight men and women, ages 40 to 65, on either a low-fat, Mediterranean, or low-carb diet) with the highest dairy calcium intake, 12 ounces of milk - equal to 580 milligrams of dairy calcium - lost 12 pounds at the end of two years, regardless of the diet style.

On the flipside, people with the lowest dairy calcium intake, 150 milligrams of dairy calcium, about half a glass of milk, only lost seven pounds.

The magic might not just be in the milk or the calcium. The researchers say vitamin D levels were higher in the people who lost the most weight. Vitamin D is a nutrient that acts like a hormone, and helps facilitate calcium absorption. Other sources of vitamin D include fatty fish like salmon and algae supplements.

But, the research has a fatal, and sadly all too common flaw, it was supported by the Dr. Robert C. and Veronica Atkins Research Foundation, i.e. a fad diet company. Atkins advocates a high-fat diet for weight-loss, eating foods like bacon, steak, eggs, and of course milk, so you've got to raise an eyebrow. It's the same as a cigarette maker backing research that claims inhaling tobacco smoke actually improves lung health. Fail.

When a fad diet, activist group, or pharmaceutical company sponsors a study the findings can't be trusted. It's like a mafia don buying a judge.

Image credit: [ henning ]

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