Teacher Loses 37 Pounds After Three-Month McDonald’s Diet

marko320
marko320 Posts: 84 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Here's a story you don't read every day:

By Samantha Grossman

Remember the 2004 documentary Super Size Me and its blatant lack of a twist ending? Guy eats only highly processed, high-fat McDonald’s food for one month. Guy’s health deteriorates. The end.

Science teacher John Cisna tried out a similar experiment, but saw drastically different results. After eating nothing but McDonald’s for three months, the Iowa man lost 37 pounds and saw his cholesterol level drop significantly, local TV station KCCI reports.

Cisna enlisted his students to help him plan out a 2,000-calorie daily diet plan consisting only of food sold by the fast food giant. They also tried not to exceed recommended allowances of nutrients like carbohydrates, proteins, fat calories and cholesterol.

For breakfast, Cisna typically ate two egg white delights, a bowl of maple oatmeal and 1 percent milk. For lunch, he’d usually opt for a salad. And for dinner he’d order a more traditional value meal, including items like Big Macs, ice creams and sundaes. After Cisna told the owner of the local franchise about the experiment, he was so interested that he agreed to provide all the items free of charge.

During the experiment, Cisna walked for 45 minutes every day, and by the 90th day he reported that he’d lost 37 pounds. He also reported that his cholesterol had dropped from 249 to 170. He said he was able to get healthier simply because he made smart choices.

“It’s our choices that make us fat,” Cisna told KCCI. ”Not McDonald’s.”

Replies

  • vtmoon
    vtmoon Posts: 3,436 Member
    You missed the big thread about this yesterday, was a fun discussion.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1163290-90-days-mcdonald-s-diet-with-results
  • fruttibiscotti
    fruttibiscotti Posts: 986 Member
    There's a movie documentary called "fathead" by Tom Naughton as a response to "supersize me", where he eats macdonalds and other fast foods for a month, loses weight and improves blood work. The movie can also be found on you tube.
  • jwdieter
    jwdieter Posts: 2,582 Member
    If you count your calories, you can lose weight with aaaannnnyyythinnnnnggggg. Pure lard if you want.
  • toutmonpossible
    toutmonpossible Posts: 1,580 Member
    Two obvious differences are that the fellow who made Supersize Me did not restrict his calories and he was not active. What a lousy piece of "journalism."
  • toutmonpossible
    toutmonpossible Posts: 1,580 Member
    If you count your calories, you can lose weight with aaaannnnyyythinnnnnggggg. Pure lard if you want.

    Of course. A junk food diet may not be healthy in the long run, but if you create a calorie deficit you will lose weight.
  • marko320
    marko320 Posts: 84 Member
    Two obvious differences are that the fellow who made Supersize Me did not restrict his calories and he was not active. What a lousy piece of "journalism."

    Well, the point he was trying to make is that super sizing is bad. He didn't ask for it. He could only accept when offered.

    He was somewhat active because he lived in NYC, lived in a walk up, and walked to McD.
  • jenifr818
    jenifr818 Posts: 805 Member
    If I could afford it, I'd totally hit that diet

    Unfortunately, I'm too poor to eat at McDonalds every day for 90 days :sad:
  • laurenpjokl
    laurenpjokl Posts: 118 Member
    I did think Supersize Me was a horribly unrealistic documentary. I don't think it's particularly fair to slate Mcdonalds when they're not worse than other fast food franchises and they don't pretend to be healthy. I would argue that you could probably repeat the Supersize Me documentary on even ordinary restaurants (besides fast food ones) and get a similar result.
  • Crash7676
    Crash7676 Posts: 41 Member
    Like McDonald's or hate them, the owners, the the Krocs, have helped cities get fit and healthy through the Salvation Army by building Kroc centers across America. These are amazing family centered fitness and activity centers that are funded largely by a trust fund set up by the Krocs but each town has some skin in the game. The Kroc money makes it possible for the centers to offer low income families and children memberships and activities, as well as reasonable memberships for everyone. We visited one in Coeur d' Alene Idaho, it was beautiful and so fun for kids, but also had state of the art fitness facilities & equipment, group fitness, pools, track, climbing, afterschool programs, and the list goes on. They are giving back.

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