When it comes to weight loss, common convention says caloric deficits cut pounds, eat fewer calories than you use per day. But does calorie counting play a bigger role above anything else when trying to lose weight? Mark Haub, a human nutrition professor at Kansas State University, put this theory to the test with the Twinkie diet.
For ten weeks, Haub ate a diet of almost exclusively “junk” convenience food, which included Twinkies, nutty bars, powdered donuts — just to name a few. His daily caloric intake was shy of just 1800 calories. To cover any possible deficiencies, he consume a daily multivitamin and protein shake. In short, his experiment was successful at the end of the 10 weeks, Haub lost 27lbs.
Want to try to Twinkie Diet?
All diets follow certain rules; the “Twinkie diet” has only one rule: calorie restriction. For example I need to eat about 2,100 calories per day to stay at my current weight. On the Twinkie diet, I could theoretically stuff my face with 1,800 calories of Doritos per day and lose 0.5 pounds per week. I did the math using a nutrient calculator.
Wait so why not try the Twinkie Diet?
This seems too good to be true! So before you dive into that bag of chips, we should dig deeper into Haub’s experiment
Problems with the Twinkie Diet
Note the protein shakes and multivitamins Haub ingested during his experiment. He included these to fill any gaps in nutrient intake. Without these protein shakes and multivitamins, Haub’s health would have gone downhill.
In order for your body to function properly a consistent and abundant supply of nutrients is needed, even more so when on a diet. Processed foods such as Twinkies don’t offer the same kind of nutrients you would find within natural or minimally processed foods. By following the Twinkie diet, you’ll lose weight but risk developing complications from serious malnutrition. Convenience-store food tends to lack nutritional value due to heavy processing.
Aside from nutrient intake, we also need to look at the type of calories, or macronutrients, Haub ingested during his experiment. His diet consisted of very little protein, high saturated fat content, and high added sugars. Regularly eating processed food can lead to development of several types of heart disease. In addition insufficient protein intake can cause serious health complications such as muscle atrophy; Haub accounted for protein deficiency with a shake.
The Twinkie Diet just might be the dream of frustrated dieters.
After all, it takes self-indulgence to the next level: you can basically eat anything as long as it’s within your caloric allowance. As Haub demonstrated, you can lose weight with this diet — at your health’s expense. Ignoring the essentials of a healthy diet is dangerous and isn’t an ideal diet for long-term weight loss. Certainly, man cannot live on Twinkies alone.