I'm sort of surprised I haven't seen this posted here yet.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelzarrel...iment-where-he

Very interesting... An endorsement for calorie counting

And some good old fashioned activity!

The only way I could lose weight eating fast food every day, would be from inside a cage.

Most fast food ramps up my hunger to the point that limiting myself to fewer than 2,000 calories would be miserable at best and impossible at worst.

I envy people who have the willpower to stick to their calore budget no matter what they eat, but I'm not one of them. High carb foods, especially the salt/fat/carb combo Kessler talks about in his book, The End of Overeating, scramble my willpower.

I find it easier to avoid fast food and other trigger foods than to eat them and then try to fight the insane hunger and craving rebound that is inevitable.

Even so, I never once doubted that I could and would lose weight on 1200 calories of McDonalds. The miracle, though would be in sticking to the 1200 calories wothout being caged or muzzled

What about the cholesterol and sugar and carbs! And the money!?
I became very ill back in high school calorie counting 1200 calories a day….WHY? Because I ate nothing but junk food and Jack in the box. I lost 100 pounds in three months because I restricted myself in an unhealthy manner. I hope he's HEALTHY. It's not all about being thin.
((((And yes, maybe I'm a bit jealous. LOL))))

I'm with Kaplods. There's no way I could stop at 1200 calories of Mcdonalds. Even now with 17 months of dieting under my belt, I can still put away 2 big macs in one sitting. (Not something I'm proud of).

I could easily do this. But then, what was risked in this? Did he lose fat or did he lose weight,which includes muscle mass? What nutrients did he go without? I know a calorie is a calorie...but there is more to it than just that. If you want to lose weight, this kind of practice works in theory. But if you want to get healthy and lose weight, this is the worst kind of idea. Just saying.

There's a documentary called "Fat Head", which is a response to "Super Size Me" and it also talks about losing weight whilst eating at McDonalds. It's been a while since I saw it, so I don't even want to paraphrase what it's about, but it has interviews from Mary Enig, Sally Fallon and Michael Eades, so you can guess what the general gist is.

As for the experiment, of course he's going to lose weight. If he weighed 280lbs in the beginning and exercised 45 minutes every day, then his expenditure must've been around 3650kcal per day. That would mean a 1650kcal daily deficit on a 2000kcal diet. So...duh :-)

EDIT: I calculated his BMR by approximating his height and age and used the 1.55 multiplier, which is moderate exercise 3-5 times per week, since he was only walking every day. That said, he looked pretty out of shape even when just walking, so his expenditure might've been even higher.

What surprised me most is that he brought his cholesterol down.

Nah. Didn't seem to work for me with my large strawberry shake (850 calories right there), two Big Macs (another 1100 calories) and two large fries (another 1000 calories) on the way home...to dinner!

He can keep his McDonalds. And his calorie counting.

This can not be healthy! After not eating fast food for two months, i ate mcdonald's yesterday and had the WORST stomach cramps! What happened to good old fashion dieting and exercise?

I find this intriguing (as well as unappetizing!)

I still go thru the drive-thru at McDonald's for my children sometimes. On rare occasions I will order a grilled chicken chipotle snack wrap or the Sweet Chile grilled Chicken premium McWrap. For kids there are choices that can be made to make it reasonable... sliced apples instead of fries, yoghurt, grilled snack wrap without condiments, some sort of okayish options in breakfast - nothing earth shattering. I'm impressed he was able to stay under 2k calories a day there! Perhaps this amount of calories was far less than what he was previously consuming. Perhaps McDonald's food chosen more carefully for calories and nutrition was legit a more healthy way of eating than what he was previously eating - what a thought! 45 minutes a day of walking/exercise is quite laudable, though. This guy is way ahead of me in that regard; kudos!

I consider myself a (former) junk food lover and I can't even imagine being forced to eat a Value Meal every day, lawd, gross. Even though I still crave fries or a burger every now and then, honestly, the fried grease smell wafting from the drive thru window is one seriously unappetizing odor. Good for this fellow, but, wow, I couldn't even imagine going to McDonald's every day for however long he did. I think I would get seriously depressed, lol.

@kaplods, fast food "cage" oh man, can I just say that it is still super hard for me to say, "No" to foods and treats when I'm hauling my kids around. They are active, slim, and eat totally fine, but they still have a dairy queen treat, for example, every now and then. I have to like walk in, order 3 Blizzards, get nothing for myself, and walk out. Sometimes I order a large Diet Coke to be a rebel. They passed out coupons for free Pizza Hut Personal Pan pizzas to students who reached reading goals for the month at school. I had the pleasure of picking that up last week (nothing for myself, again, lol.)

This really isn't such a mystery, because he had his students choose the menu to match FDA guidelines.

He stresses that he did eat burgers, not just salads, but you can't forget that he didn't just randomly pick from the menu to get his 2,000 calories.

He didn't even have to do the work of balancing his diet or counting his calories for himself - he had his students doing this work for him.

What does this really prove? That if you have a team of people planning your meals for you, you can lose weight and perhaps even eat reasonably healthfully (at least in the context of 90 days)?

How many people eating at McDonald's have the skills to do what these students were doing for this teacher? Of those who have the skills, how many have the time?

And if you have the skills and time, why wouldn't you put those resources to better, cheaper, tastier use?

Who couldn't lose weight with a classroom of students putting together all your meals, where the only work you have to do is show up to eat.

If the teacher was single, he wouldn't even have to keep any food in his house during the 90 days (and I would wonder if he did).

He ate the cheeseburger value meal for most times dinner. That is a reasonable choice if one is craving junk food.

This story kinda reminds me of the Subway Sandwich guy who lost all that weight.

Yes, it is counting calories and up your walking. . .

It really just proves that you can lose weight eating just about anything. Does it mean it's the healthiest way to? Probably not.

I count calories, but will never eat at McDonalds now that I have been 'enlightened' on proper nutrition and GMO's. Thinking about McD's just makes me ill. You would have thought, as a teacher, that his 'experiment' would have been more nutritionally sound.