The Junk Food Diet (seriously)
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That's exactly how I lost 70 pounds and went from 190 to 117. No, I wasn't intentionally following a "junk food diet" that I was aware of. I just do better eating mainly junk food lol. When I was very overweight, I was following low-carb, paleo, and keto which I ended up gaining more weight (calorie surplus obviously) and my cortisol was through the roof. I do so much better eating "junk foods" BUT in controlled portions. I do take a multi-vitamin. My fasting blood sugar also improved.6
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Nice post. I share a lot of the similar thoughts.
I will say for me and my beliefs. Macros have their role.
If weight loss is all u are concerned with. Then the macros don't matter. Just overall calories.
If you are concerned with body composition and/or athletic performance. Then an eye on ur macros I feel is warranted.
But I assume you would still get a decent Amt of protein in even if u weren't tracking macros.
Good thread3 -
It doesn't refer to the diet but other issues such as health care AFTER BEING RELEASED. Also, there's not reference to whether or no possible return to crime meant death by homicide which could be part of the average.Packerjohn wrote: »
But then how do explain prison inmates with long sentences (say serving 20 years) completing them and getting out of prison with health just fine?Packerjohn wrote: »Sorry long term adherence to a diet consistently of low nutrient food, even if it results in weight loss due to less calories in vs out is not healthy in the long term.
How about just a reasonable diet composed of 80-90% nutrient dense foods and an appropriate level of calories? Not a fad, not "cool: but very effective from a weight and health perspective.
I'm not advocating eating that way. I'm just pointing out that budgeting $4 dollars a day per inmate for 3 meals results in low low quality food and they survive just fine.
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A Google search references several studies that suggest an inmate loses 2 year of life expectancy for each year in prison. Sure a lot of factors going on, but not a ringing endorsement of the health aspects of a prison diet.
https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2013/02/05/prison-sentence-take-release/“Much work on prison inmates concentrates on outcomes such as denial of citizen rights, increased morbidity risks and erosion of lifetime earnings and job opportunities,” Patterson said. “Such collateral consequences of incarceration can be reversed.
“Death, though, cannot be reversed. It is this lack of reversal that makes this area of study so consequential.”
Evelyn Patterson (Vanderbilt)
The study did turn up a small bright spot, Patterson said. If a prisoner serves out parole without returning to prison, he eventually gains the years back to his lifespan lost during his prison stay.
“This finding is in line with prior research which reports high risk of death initially that declines over time,” Patterson said.
The difficulty of getting proper health care in the months immediately after prison is a particular problem, Patterson said. Many times an inmate with an illness is discharged from prison with a 30-day supply of medication and little chance of connecting with a new health care provider.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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"ninerbuff wrote: »Inmates eat 3 meals a days of the lowest quality food. And yet the obesity rate is non existent, lots of dudes get jacked looking while in prison, and there are inmates in their for YEARS eating this same way day after day, where "gurus" would say that eating a year of bad nutrition would kill a person.
I don't think this is the best illustration to use to make your point.
I worked in a county jail as an LEO and supervised the food service as part of my job. The quality of the food is carefully regulated and one of the quickest things inmates will complain (and even riot) about is the quality of the food (or lack thereof).
In fact, it is a legal duty of the government to safeguard the health and well being of the inmates in its custody and providing healthy food is an essential way to meet that responsibility.
Dietians are hired to plan healthy nutritious meals and other people are hired to make sure that the food is prepared properly. The situation is no different in the state prison system.
I've eaten the food myself. While it is not gourmet, it is not of the lowest quality. The best comparison is school cafeteria food, which you could argue is of the "lowest quality" but is still subject to the ssme standards of nutrition snd preparation as jail and prison food is.
On the other hand, inmates and prisoners can buy lots of very unhealthy snack food out of the commissary with funds from their "bank" (personal spending accounts funded w/their own money or gifts from family and friends). So, everything they eat while in custody is not "healthy."
Even so, there is still a normal variation in the levels of fitness and obesity within the inmate and prison populations. Those men who are concerned w/their weight and fitness will eat well and work out whenever they can. Those who aren't so concerned, don't and the differences between the 2 are obvious.5 -
Interesting experiment!
Your sodium intake must have been through the roof! Did you find yourself more thirsty during the month?0 -
For me, it's more about satiety. "Junk food" is typically calorie dense compared to other types of food. For example, I would be more satisfied eating a baked sweet potato than six pieces of Twizzlers.4
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Interesting experiment!
Your sodium intake must have been through the roof! Did you find yourself more thirsty during the month?
I did not really notice a huge increase in thirst, but then I am also one of those people that generally just drinks a lot of water anyway. The only exception I can remember to this is the 7-11 "spicy" variety chicken wings (I will attach a pic below). These were delicious, but extremely salty to consume. So much so that I found that dipping them in ranch was all but required to cut the saltiness factor when eating them. These did make me noticeably consume more water or diet soda if I had them for lunch or dinner.
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It might be surprising, but for the average person who goes to prison, most of those factors are better in prison than outside - mainly because most people who go to prison aren't leading particularly healthy lives before they get there. For example, prisons in the US ban smoking either partially or completely, and access to drugs and alcohol is more limited. That's not to say inmates can't get their hands on those things, but they're less available than on the outside. (The rate of fatal drug overdoses is lower in prisons, for example.) Also, as the article pointed out, life expectancy is two years less after release. Deaths that occur in prison due to prison gangs or inmate-on-inmate violence wouldn't be part of the reduction in life expectancy.Yes it probably has little to do with prison violence, poorer health care, smoking, drug use, and less physical activity while being incarcerated compared to people on the outside...not to mention what kind of lifestyle they return to once freed....hopefully that 2 year life reduction per year in prison is true esp. for pedophiles.2 -
I don't think anyone worth listening to would argue against thermodynamics, but being deficient in vitamins and minerals (probably proteins) and getting crappy quality fats for the length of time most people seeking to lose weight require to do so would be suicidal IMO4
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supaflyrobby1 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »I know OP was not doing this, but if you wanted to you could get a nutritionally okay diet from the 7-11 nearest me.
I also think I could eat at a deficit eating just from the 7-11 for 30 days (let's say 1400 calories) and would probably do so more consistently than I seem to be able to now, since it would be an interesting experiment and having a reason to do it is what I need.
It would actually make it easier, as I couldn't eat random foods that show up at work that might be more tasty.
On the other hand, the diet would be depressing, although not so much as the "military" diet, so there's that!
You should give it a try then, and you have the perfect platform here at MFP to document your progress. Since I see you are also from Chicago, you know as well as I do that you are never terribly far from a 7-11 since they dot the landscape
I am quite close to two separate 7-11s. One has Quest bars and a better selection of ice cream (Talenti, and better quality B&J). The other has alcohol. (I don't drink, though.) ;-)3 -
Sigh. It's really disheartening to see how many people are misconstruing the OP. He isn't suggesting that anyone undertake this diet, for either the short term or the long term. I believe, and I could be wrong, that he initiated this experiment as a counter to the people who suggest you MUST eat clean in order to lose weight, or that it's impossible to be satisfied on a primarily calorie dense diet, or that there will be direct health consequences as a result of eating this way.
Day in and day out on these boards, posters try to suggest that anyone who says "calories are all that matter for weight loss" is telling posters to ignore nutrition. This OP went through the experiment, lost weight, didn't feel compelled to overeat as a result of the food choices, and didn't suffer adverse effects on health markers. He is absolutely not advocating that others eat this way - but went through the trouble to eat this way, measure his results, and summarize it for people to read and understand.
Thanks for the post OP. Sadly, I feel people are going to read it with preconceived confirmation bias and are going to misconstrue your benign personal experiment as a directive to others.19 -
WinoGelato wrote: »Sigh. It's really disheartening to see how many people are misconstruing the OP. He isn't suggesting that anyone undertake this diet, for either the short term or the long term. I believe, and I could be wrong, that he initiated this experiment as a counter to the people who suggest you MUST eat clean in order to lose weight, or that it's impossible to be satisfied on a primarily calorie dense diet, or that there will be direct health consequences as a result of eating this way.
Day in and day out on these boards, posters try to suggest that anyone who says "calories are all that matter for weight loss" is telling posters to ignore nutrition. This OP went through the experiment, lost weight, didn't feel compelled to overeat as a result of the food choices, and didn't suffer adverse effects on health markers. He is absolutely not advocating that others eat this way - but went through the trouble to eat this way, measure his results, and summarize it for people to read and understand.
Thanks for the post OP. Sadly, I feel people are going to read it with preconceived confirmation bias and are going to misconstrue your benign personal experiment as a directive to others.
Are there people here that actually disagree with CICO in terms of weight loss? LET YOURSELVES BE KNOWN!!!!2 -
Many people have said that they do in many different threads.
Many people who theoretically believe in it have trouble getting away from magical thinking about it too (I may be one of those). Thus, all the "if I eat a cookie can I still lose weight" questions.4 -
mrsnattybulking wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Sigh. It's really disheartening to see how many people are misconstruing the OP. He isn't suggesting that anyone undertake this diet, for either the short term or the long term. I believe, and I could be wrong, that he initiated this experiment as a counter to the people who suggest you MUST eat clean in order to lose weight, or that it's impossible to be satisfied on a primarily calorie dense diet, or that there will be direct health consequences as a result of eating this way.
Day in and day out on these boards, posters try to suggest that anyone who says "calories are all that matter for weight loss" is telling posters to ignore nutrition. This OP went through the experiment, lost weight, didn't feel compelled to overeat as a result of the food choices, and didn't suffer adverse effects on health markers. He is absolutely not advocating that others eat this way - but went through the trouble to eat this way, measure his results, and summarize it for people to read and understand.
Thanks for the post OP. Sadly, I feel people are going to read it with preconceived confirmation bias and are going to misconstrue your benign personal experiment as a directive to others.
Are there people here that actually disagree with CICO in terms of weight loss? LET YOURSELVES BE KNOWN!!!!
You must be new here.10 -
Just from personal experience, the montra "a calorie is just a calorie" has worked well for me. I've maintained my current weight since 1995 after recovering from anorexia. Sometimes I choose the grilled fish and sometimes I eat a Milky Way bar for breakfast (because it's better to get 240 calories of junk than nothing at all). According to my blood work I'm healthy with a BMI of just slightly under weight. I work out. I eat fruits and veggies (smoothies and salsa) I just count everything. I don't know if it would work for everyone but I'm sticking with it until it doesn't work for me.7
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facinating idea. What came to mind for me was how I felt when I did the Atkins diet many years ago. I ended up losing only because you can't eat that way forever so you lose interest in food. This sounds similar. Thanks for sharing your story.2
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WinoGelato wrote: »Sigh. It's really disheartening to see how many people are misconstruing the OP. He isn't suggesting that anyone undertake this diet, for either the short term or the long term. I believe, and I could be wrong, that he initiated this experiment as a counter to the people who suggest you MUST eat clean in order to lose weight, or that it's impossible to be satisfied on a primarily calorie dense diet, or that there will be direct health consequences as a result of eating this way.
Day in and day out on these boards, posters try to suggest that anyone who says "calories are all that matter for weight loss" is telling posters to ignore nutrition. This OP went through the experiment, lost weight, didn't feel compelled to overeat as a result of the food choices, and didn't suffer adverse effects on health markers. He is absolutely not advocating that others eat this way - but went through the trouble to eat this way, measure his results, and summarize it for people to read and understand.
Thanks for the post OP. Sadly, I feel people are going to read it with preconceived confirmation bias and are going to misconstrue your benign personal experiment as a directive to others.
Yes, that provides summary of my thoughts on the subject fairly well indeed I did what I did initially just out of morbid curiosity. I wanted to see if it would actually work. Even after reading about the nutritionist who did it and documented his results I was still skeptical to be honest. At the time my brain had become so diluted with MFP "eating clean"/macros/whatever else nonsense that my ability to think critically on the subject was diminished greatly. It gave me the opportunity to challenge these wildly held assumptions and I am glad I went through with it.
Basically the experiment provided clear evidence that as long as calories are properly restricted, macros and "eating clean" do not matter one Iota in the context of weight loss. Also that many people obsess over macros far more than is warranted, and I would know as I used to be one of them. It also provided me with is a new contextual basis as I have continued on in my journey. I no longer beat myself up if I go out for a burger with the guys on occasion or grab a bag of Dorittos from (heaven forbid) 7-11 if I am in a hurry . So long as I can squeeze it in under my calorie count, it's effect on my program is pretty much non-existent. I feel much more liberated as a result.
It has also made me realize that the fad diet (Keto, Paleo, Zone, etc) crowd is needlessly punishing themselves and are placing their focus on what basically amounts to a fraudulent distraction from the central issue, perpetuated by supposed gurus that seek to profit from the naive.
Nobody should ever attempt this type of diet of course, and I would never suggest otherwise. It just serves as an extreme example of the fundamental truth of calories in. vs calories out, regardless of the type of food consumed.
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WinoGelato wrote: »mrsnattybulking wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Sigh. It's really disheartening to see how many people are misconstruing the OP. He isn't suggesting that anyone undertake this diet, for either the short term or the long term. I believe, and I could be wrong, that he initiated this experiment as a counter to the people who suggest you MUST eat clean in order to lose weight, or that it's impossible to be satisfied on a primarily calorie dense diet, or that there will be direct health consequences as a result of eating this way.
Day in and day out on these boards, posters try to suggest that anyone who says "calories are all that matter for weight loss" is telling posters to ignore nutrition. This OP went through the experiment, lost weight, didn't feel compelled to overeat as a result of the food choices, and didn't suffer adverse effects on health markers. He is absolutely not advocating that others eat this way - but went through the trouble to eat this way, measure his results, and summarize it for people to read and understand.
Thanks for the post OP. Sadly, I feel people are going to read it with preconceived confirmation bias and are going to misconstrue your benign personal experiment as a directive to others.
Are there people here that actually disagree with CICO in terms of weight loss? LET YOURSELVES BE KNOWN!!!!
You must be new here.
No, I guess I just don't pay attention lol0 -
WinoGelato wrote: »Sigh. It's really disheartening to see how many people are misconstruing the OP.
It may have something to do with the fact that the OP is SEVENTEEN PARAGRAPHS long. This is a message board, not the National Institutes of Health.4 -
WinoGelato wrote: »Sigh. It's really disheartening to see how many people are misconstruing the OP.
It may have something to do with the fact that the OP is SEVENTEEN PARAGRAPHS long. This is a message board, not the National Institutes of Health.
When I begin to read something and realize that I dislike the content, length, or style and I don't wish to continue, I just close the thread and move on to something more interesting. I don't begin replying based on my guesses of what the content actually was.
(OP, I had no problem with the length of your post. Some experiences and ideas are better served by including more detail. Not everything has to be expressed in a few words only.)13
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