My 11 Month Old Baby at a Ranch Dorito Chip

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Diet professor'due south "convenience store nutrition" helped him shed 27 pounds
• Haub limited himself to 1,800 calories and two-thirds come from junk food
• Haub said it'due south too early to draw any conclusions about diet

(CNN) -- Twinkies. Nutty bars. Powdered donuts.

For 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of man nutrition at Kansas Land University, ate 1 of these sugary cakelets every three hours, instead of meals. To add variety in his steady stream of Hostess and Petty Debbie snacks, Haub munched on Doritos chips, sugary cereals and Oreos, too.

His premise: That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most -- non the nutritional value of the nutrient.

The premise held up: On his "convenience shop diet," he shed 27 pounds in two months.

For a class project, Haub limited himself to less than ane,800 calories a mean solar day. A man of Haub'southward pre-dieting size usually consumes nearly 2,600 calories daily. So he followed a basic principle of weight loss: He consumed significantly fewer calories than he burned.

His body mass index went from 28.8, considered overweight, to 24.9, which is normal. He at present weighs 174 pounds.

Only you might expect other indicators of health would have suffered. Not so.

Haub'due south "bad" cholesterol, or LDL, dropped 20 pct and his "proficient" cholesterol, or HDL, increased past 20 pct. He reduced the level of triglycerides, which are a form of fat, by 39 percentage.

"That's where the caput scratching comes," Haub said. "What does that mean? Does that mean I'm healthier? Or does it mean how we ascertain health from a biology standpoint, that nosotros're missing something?"

Espresso, Double: six calories; 0 grams of fat

Hostess Twinkies Gilded Sponge Block: 150 calories; 5 grams of fat

Centrum Avant-garde Formula From A To Zinc: 0 calories; 0 grams of fat

Fiddling Debbie Star Crunch: 150 calories; 6 grams of fat

Hostess Twinkies Gilt Sponge Block: 150 calories; 5 grams of fat

Diet Mountain Dew: 0 calories; 0 grams of fatty

Doritos Cool Ranch: 75 calories; 4 grams of fat

Kellogg'due south Corn Pops: 220 calories; 0 grams of fatty

whole milk: 150 calories; 8 grams of fat

baby carrots: xviii calories; 0 grams of fat

Duncan Hines Family Style Brownie Chewy Fudge: 270 calories; 14 grams of fat

Fiddling Debbie Zebra Cake: 160 calories; 8 grams of fatty

Muscle Milk Protein Shake: 240 calories; nine grams of fatty

Totals:

i,589 calories and 59 grams of fatty

Despite his temporary success, Haub does not recommend replicating his snack-centric diet.

"I'm not geared to say this is a good thing to do," he said. "I'm stuck in the middle. I approximate that's the frustrating office. I can't give a concrete answer. There's not enough information to do that."

2-thirds of his total intake came from junk food. He also took a multivitamin pill and drank a protein shake daily. And he ate vegetables, typically a tin of greenish beans or three to iv celery stalks.

Families who live in nutrient deserts accept limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables, and so they often rely on the kind of food Haub was eating.

"These foods are consumed by lots of people," he said. "Information technology may be an issue of portion size and moderation rather than full removal. I merely think it's unrealistic to expect people to totally drop these foods for vegetables and fruits. It may exist healthy, but not realistic."

Haub'south body fat dropped from 33.4 to 24.9 percentage. This posed the question: What matters more for weight loss, the quantity or quality of calories?

His success is probably a result of caloric reduction, said Dawn Jackson Blatner, a dietitian in Chicago, Illinois.

"It'southward a great reminder for weight loss that calories count," she said. "Is that the bottom line to being salubrious? That'due south some other story."

Blatner, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, said she's not surprised to hear Haub's wellness markers improved fifty-fifty when he loaded up on processed snack cakes.

Existence overweight is the primal problem that leads to complications similar high blood force per unit area, diabetes and high cholesterol, she said.

How well are yous managing your diabetes?

"When you lose weight, regardless of how yous're doing it -- even if it's with packaged foods, more often than not you will encounter these markers ameliorate when weight loss has improved," she said.

Before jumping on the Ding Dong bandwagon, Blatner warned of health concerns.

"There are things we can't measure," said Blatner, questioning how the lack of fruits and vegetables could affect long-term health. "How much does that affect the run a risk for cancer? We tin't mensurate how nutrition changes affect our health."

I was eating healthier, but I wasn't salubrious. I was eating too much.
--Professor Mark Haub

The ultimate Twinkie diet

On August 25, Haub, 41, started his block diet focusing on portion control.

"I'm eating to the point of demand and pushing the plate or wrapper away," he said.

He intended the trial to final a month as a teaching tool for his form. As he lost weight, Haub continued the diet until he reached a normal body mass index.

Before his Twinkie nutrition, he tried to eat a salubrious nutrition that included whole grains, dietary fiber, berries and bananas, vegetables and occasional treats like pizza.

"There seems to be a disconnect betwixt eating healthy and being healthy," Haub said. "It may not be the same. I was eating healthier, but I wasn't healthy. I was eating too much."

He maintained the same level of moderate physical activity as before going on the diet. (Haub does not have whatsoever ties to the snack cake companies.)

To avert setting a bad example for his kids, Haub ate vegetables in front of his family. Away from the dinner tabular array, he usually unwrapped his meals.

Study: U.S. obesity rate will hit 42 percent

Haub monitored his torso limerick, blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose, and updated his progress on his Facebook folio, Professor Haub'southward diet experiment.

To curb calories, he avoided meat, whole grains and fruits. Once he started calculation meat into the diet four weeks agone, his cholesterol level increased.

Haub plans to add almost 300 calories to his daily intake now that he'south washed with the diet. Just he's not ditching snack cakes altogether. Despite his weight loss, Haub feels ambiguity.

"I wish I could say the outcomes are unhealthy. I wish I could say it'southward healthy. I'm non confident plenty in doing that. That frustrates a lot of people. I side says information technology'due south irresponsible. It is unhealthy, but the information doesn't say that."

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Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html

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