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Man drops 27 pounds on 'Twinkie Diet' in two months
- Thread starter obeygiant
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That's a cool experiment - and just goes to prove (not that it needed proving) that weight loss is all about calorie control.
It must have been a really tough diet to follow though. Sounds easy to eat just junk food - but the high calories in junk food means he wouldn't have been able to eat much, and the high sugar content would have really thrown his insulin levels all over the place and likely made him crave food.
Cravings + serious limitations on the quantity you can eat = very tough diet to stick to.
Put it this way. A twinkie bar contains 150 calories (it's full of fat - 40g and sugar - 19g). So for a 1800 calorie diet you could eat only 12 twinkies and nothing else that day.
As a contrast, a cup of roast chicken breast has 231 calories (only 5g of fat, 0g of sugar). So for that 1800 calorie daily allowance you could eat about 8 cups. It would be unlikely to trigger any cravings.
Just comparing these two, it's much easier to NOT eat junk on a diet - since you can eat so much more. I think 8 cups of chicken sounds a whole lot more filling than 12 twinkies!
It must have been a really tough diet to follow though. Sounds easy to eat just junk food - but the high calories in junk food means he wouldn't have been able to eat much, and the high sugar content would have really thrown his insulin levels all over the place and likely made him crave food.
Cravings + serious limitations on the quantity you can eat = very tough diet to stick to.
Put it this way. A twinkie bar contains 150 calories (it's full of fat - 40g and sugar - 19g). So for a 1800 calorie diet you could eat only 12 twinkies and nothing else that day.
As a contrast, a cup of roast chicken breast has 231 calories (only 5g of fat, 0g of sugar). So for that 1800 calorie daily allowance you could eat about 8 cups. It would be unlikely to trigger any cravings.
Just comparing these two, it's much easier to NOT eat junk on a diet - since you can eat so much more. I think 8 cups of chicken sounds a whole lot more filling than 12 twinkies!
I'm not a big fan of twinkies either. Never understood why everyone loves them so much.
Now ring dings on the other hand....I would definitely do a ring ding diet.
I sought them out the first time I visited the 'States.
Very soft sponge cake, some chemical in the centre pretending to be cream. I was amazed that they could live for so long in a vending machine without going off.
They're OK. I'd probably eat one if it was given to me - but they're definitely not filling. You wouldn't feel well (or full) if you just ate 12 in a day.
I don't understand why people are amazed by this.
It's like you saying WOW to my statement:
Did you know that 1,800kg of bricks is lighter than 2,600kg of feathers! *slaps face in amazement* /sarcasm.
I'd like to see him keep that up for 5 years. The "right" foods are still needed. Weight and the quoted measurements of fat is not the whole picture. What was his diet before?
If he was consuming 500 calories from fat daily and now drops it to 400 calories from fat, of course you'll see a decrease in his blood tests. No S**T Einstein.
It's like you saying WOW to my statement:
Did you know that 1,800kg of bricks is lighter than 2,600kg of feathers! *slaps face in amazement* /sarcasm.
I'd like to see him keep that up for 5 years. The "right" foods are still needed. Weight and the quoted measurements of fat is not the whole picture. What was his diet before?
If he was consuming 500 calories from fat daily and now drops it to 400 calories from fat, of course you'll see a decrease in his blood tests. No S**T Einstein.
With only some very rare medical exceptions and the mental complexities of compulsive eating aside, the human metabolism is not very difficult to understand. Consume less "fuel" than you burn - you lose weight. Eventually the fuel you utilize will matter though so it's not exactly a sustainable "diet". There is some truth in the saying "you are what you eat." and putting that kind of garbage into your body on a regular basis will have consequences. Garbage in, garbage out... literally and figuratively, as it were.
As a physician, I tell patients I care less about the shape they are, and more about the shape they are in. Weight is simple: calories in - calories burned = weight change. While I've had patients improve their lipids on the Adkins diet ( which is comprised of foods we've told patients for years to avoid in order to lower cholesterol), I wouldn't want them to eat this diet forever. And horrible cholesterol numbers can be seen in centenarians.
Drawing sweeping conclusions from this one anecdotal example is folly. I worry this well-publicized example will be used by people to justify bad dietary habits.
Drawing sweeping conclusions from this one anecdotal example is folly. I worry this well-publicized example will be used by people to justify bad dietary habits.
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This is a good point. As interesting as the article is, it's definitely not the kind of encouragement this country needs right now.
The "bad dietary habit" isn't really bad at all if it's sold to the masses as a "you can eat what you want but watch the amount/calories" which is essentially true.
I don't think people -- especially those on a current well-balanced (but too large) diet -- are going to go out and start a "junk food only" diet. (Those on a junk diet already would still be better-off on a junk-but-less-of-it diet).
If all you care about is losing weight, that's true. But being the appropriate weight does not equate to being healthy. This article proves that you can lose weight while eating junk food. On the long term though, this kind of diet is horribly unhealthy. People who eat lots of junk food will take this article as an encouragement to eat more of it.
ROFL!
TLC did a "Howstuff Works" article on Twinkies. It's a delicious read:
Pretty sure I remember seeing a "How It's Made" (?) episode (the Mike Rowe Narrated show) on Twinkies too. They make like 1,000 of them an hour!
I love 'em, but I don't think I could live on 'em. Snickers and Peanut M&M's OTOH, that's a different story.
They are so processed that I bet they'd survive a nuclear blast. The cockroaches would need something to eat.
I never really liked Twinkies, but I used to love Passion Flakies.
(Hmm, apparently it's a Canadian thing... but essentially it's a little flaky pastry apple-cherry flavoured thing. Like Twinkies, the cream filling is full of chemical goodness.)
I remember one university class (a large first-year class with about 500 students) someone brought boxes of them and threw them all around. We were standing and catching them like we were at a rock concert.
Then I hit the jackpot: the student-run store/lounge was cleaning up its storage room and found entire unopened boxes of snack cakes which had technically gone past their best before date and they were legally not allowed to sell them. So, I took home a box of Passion Flakies.
I ate and ate and ate. Until one day I realized I was sick of them.
That was 14 years ago. I can't eat them anymore. My body just won't let me.
(Hmm, apparently it's a Canadian thing... but essentially it's a little flaky pastry apple-cherry flavoured thing. Like Twinkies, the cream filling is full of chemical goodness.)
I remember one university class (a large first-year class with about 500 students) someone brought boxes of them and threw them all around. We were standing and catching them like we were at a rock concert.
Then I hit the jackpot: the student-run store/lounge was cleaning up its storage room and found entire unopened boxes of snack cakes which had technically gone past their best before date and they were legally not allowed to sell them. So, I took home a box of Passion Flakies.
I ate and ate and ate. Until one day I realized I was sick of them.
That was 14 years ago. I can't eat them anymore. My body just won't let me.
That was 14 years ago. I can't eat them anymore. My body just won't let me.
I know exactly what you mean except for me, it was Jack Daniels in my college days.
Query: if 1g of fat=9 Calories and 1g of sugar=4 Calories how does
150 Calories=436 Calories?
Twinkies soaked in Kerosene do not burn...
Query: if 1g of fat=9 Calories and 1g of sugar=4 Calories how does
150 Calories=436 Calories?
Nicely spotted. Here's a person who knows their twinkies. Copied the wrong column from here in haste. It's 4.5g of fat, or 40 calories of fat.
Doesn't alter the point I was making though.
Do Twinkies last forever? Click here to find out!
Regarding the thread topic, as others have stated, losing weight this way isn't healthy, because you're missing essential nutrients.
Regarding the thread topic, as others have stated, losing weight this way isn't healthy, because you're missing essential nutrients.