Twinkie Diet. Low cost, no luxury.

I came across this article a couple days ago. When I first saw the title, I thought to myself this sounds crazy, which meant I had to stop everything I was doing and read.

A nutrition professor at the Kansas State University went on a 10 week diet of food that you would normally find in a convenience store. So, basically he snacked on Hostess snack cakes, chips and sodas every three hours with a multi vitamin and protein shake thrown in for good measure.

This diet was pretty low cost and I bet it was a luxury to be able to just walk into the local 7-11 and grab breakfast lunch and dinner, but this is ridiculous. And the fact that this guy is a professor of NUTRITION baffles me. I'm not really even sure why he conducted this little experiment in the first place, I guess maybe to show the power of calorie counting on weight loss.

Personally, I am a huge fan of the calorie counting method of living (it's not a diet, it's a lifestyle combined with exercising, being active ect.). I have been tracking my food based on calories for about 2 years and I love it! It keeps me from eating out of habit rather than when I am hungry and it's a good way to know how much of what I have eaten throughout the day. I look at calorie allotment as a bank account and only eat things that I can "afford" that day depending on how many calories I have used. (see, I use this "low cost luxury" approach in all areas of life).

Back to Twinkie Man. He lost weight on this diet, and proved that when you only eat 1,800 calories a day when you are supposed to be eating around 2,600 you will lose weight. It seems like that is pretty obvious (especially to a nutrition prof) without having to actually test the theory. Even though processed foods may be cheaper and easier, they are not luxurious, and will probably ended up costing you money in medical bills down the line. And those my friends are not cheap.

I enjoyed my fair share of Little Debbies back in the day, but I realized, they just aren't fulfilling in the same way real, whole foods are (maybe that is why this guy had to eat every 3 hours). Maybe eating Twinkies all day every day will shed the pounds. As for me, I will be going all natural. Except for the occasional slurpee. I will never give those up.