I guess it would be irresponsible not to make a comment on a recent news story that has everyone buzzing: The Twinkie Diet.
If you've had your TV off in the past few weeks, here's what happened: An overweight professor of nutrition at Kansas State University went on a junk food diet for two months and lost 27 pounds.
His diet consisted of mostly Twinkies, with a smattering of Little Debbies, Doritos, sugary cereals, Oreo cookies. So as not to set too bad an example in front of his kids, he also ate a small amount of canned vegetables at family dinners and a daily protein shake.
The fact that he lost weight isn't really the part that's puzzling. You can lose weight on any low-calorie diet, and you can also lose weight mainstreaming methamphetamine.
What's surprising is that some of the things your doctor measures and that are considered indicators of good health -- i.e. cholesterol and …show more content…
So what?
When are we going to realize that losing weight isn't the only way we should measure the success of these idiotic diets?
The puzzling part about the Twinkie Diet experiment is that the good professor saw his cholesterol numbers (and triglyceride numbers) change for the better. Putting aside my view that cholesterol is a much-overrated measurement that tells us very little, the fact is that weight loss -- no matter how you do it -- always improves those numbers.
But health is not measured simply by cholesterol numbers or even triglyceride numbers and certainly isn't measured by the number of pounds you lose. (Ask anyone who was in the concentration camps.)
If there's any take-home point to this silly story at all, it's probably to emphasize the fact that calories do count (though they are not the whole story, as the "Twinkie Diet" professor and other mainstream nutritionists would have us
If you've had your TV off in the past few weeks, here's what happened: An overweight professor of nutrition at Kansas State University went on a junk food diet for two months and lost 27 pounds.
His diet consisted of mostly Twinkies, with a smattering of Little Debbies, Doritos, sugary cereals, Oreo cookies. So as not to set too bad an example in front of his kids, he also ate a small amount of canned vegetables at family dinners and a daily protein shake.
The fact that he lost weight isn't really the part that's puzzling. You can lose weight on any low-calorie diet, and you can also lose weight mainstreaming methamphetamine.
What's surprising is that some of the things your doctor measures and that are considered indicators of good health -- i.e. cholesterol and …show more content…
So what?
When are we going to realize that losing weight isn't the only way we should measure the success of these idiotic diets?
The puzzling part about the Twinkie Diet experiment is that the good professor saw his cholesterol numbers (and triglyceride numbers) change for the better. Putting aside my view that cholesterol is a much-overrated measurement that tells us very little, the fact is that weight loss -- no matter how you do it -- always improves those numbers.
But health is not measured simply by cholesterol numbers or even triglyceride numbers and certainly isn't measured by the number of pounds you lose. (Ask anyone who was in the concentration camps.)
If there's any take-home point to this silly story at all, it's probably to emphasize the fact that calories do count (though they are not the whole story, as the "Twinkie Diet" professor and other mainstream nutritionists would have us