Probably not. But it's interesting information, nonetheless :)
I recently saw a news article about a professor who ate junk food like Twinkies and snack cakes for two months and lost a whopping 27 pounds! Seriously?? If you're like me, you might feel like that's kind of what you've done your whole life (ok, maybe since college) and yet you're not exactly watching the pounds disappear. Well there's a little more to this "diet." The professor did eat junk food, but his overall caloric intake was drastically less than when he ate normally. The point of his experiment was to say that maybe it's not what you eat, but simply how much, that impacts your body weight.
Intrigued? Well, how's this... not only did the professor lose weight, but his cholesterol and triglyceride numbers improved as well. I don't know about you, but this sounds appealing. The guy ate some junk every 3 hours instead of a normal meal. He did eat some vegetables in front of his kids so as not to set a bad example, but for the most part it was all the things we're told to avoid like the plague. And after two months he was in fantastic shape! I imagine he was also craving some seriously crunchy salads, I know I would be. Double-plus for this diet!
If you read the article I linked, you'll see it's mentioned that the long-term impact is questionable although his short-term numbers all looked good. While it sounds like a lot of fun to eat junk and lose a crap-load of weight, the logic behind it - simply calorie counting - seems to prove that there are better ways of doing this. If you're just counting calories wouldn't you get to eat more if you chose lower calorie foods? I mean, I love me some junk food just as much as the next person (ice cream, anyone?), but I feel like the volume of food you would get to consume if it's all super calorie-dense would actually be kind of disappointing. I wouldn't want to stare at the clock counting down to my next tiny little Twinkie while listening to my stomach growl. I'm thinking there's a good balance in there somewhere between total junk and all lettuce.
Anyway, with the holidays and New Year's resolutions just around the corner, those of you considering something to do with your weight or eating healthy can take this info and do with it what you will. For me, I think I like knowing that (for the most part) it all comes down to calories! I suck at eliminating one kind of food or another. It just makes me want that food more. Knowing that I can bank some calories and save up for Christmas cookies and pie and still be ok, kind of makes my whole holiday season. I've never tried counting calories (so tedious), but maybe I'll just begin loosely paying attention and see if I notice a difference.
Whew-- so that's one previously promised post (say that 10 times fast!) down. Stay tuned for the report on my natural cleaning experiment coming up next!
While South Beach did work for me in the beginning, I HAVE found that calorie counting is the best combination of easy-to-stick-with and likely-to-produce-results :] While it can be tedious, I find that REALLY counting for a week or two is a great way to start, because it gives you a very good sense of how many calories are in the foods you eat most often. After that, it's much easier to just "loosely pay attention" because you're accustomed to having a running tally in your mind, and you don't have to necessarily look up every single thing you put in your mouth because you have a good idea of what's what. I'd highly recommend, at some point, strictly keeping track of your calorie intake, first without trying to restrict. Then you get an idea of just how many calories you normally eat (it's WAY more than you think, for most people!), and then for a week or two while you're restricting. It's worth it for the experience and the knowledge you gain - makes it much easier to avoid foods that really ruin your "total" and find foods that you like that fit in better with your goals.
ReplyDelete