The Twinkie Diet

[Dr. Mark] Haub is a Human Nutrition professor at Kansas State, and as such, ate wisely: whole grains, plenty of fiber, fruits and veggies, occasional treat meals (burgers, pizza), and so forth. And yet, he seemed stuck on the high side of 200 pounds. He was eating healthily, but, he observes, “I wasn’t healthy. I was eating too much.”

It occurred to him to wonder if perhaps the key to weight loss had nothing to do with nutritional quality, but merely the quantity that one consumed. He decided to try a little experiment with himself as guinea pig. For one month, he determined, he would consume very little other than junk food, but with a strict control on calorie intake. At 211 pounds, he would ordinarily pack away about 2,600 calories per day; he gave himself an absolute limit of 1,800.

But those 1,800 calories were mostly composed of a diet that would make a nutritionist’s head explode. Instead of actual meals, every three hours he would scarf down a few Hostess Twinkies or Doritos or powdered donuts or Kellogg’s Corn Pops or Oreos. He avoided meat, whole grains and fruit. His central focus was on portion control, not nutrition. In all, 2/3 of his daily intake consisted of junk food, augmented by a multivitamin pill, a protein shake, and vegetables such as celery or baby carrots.

At the end of the month, he found that his weight was down a few pounds, and he felt reasonably okay, so he stuck with the regimen. Finally, after ten weeks of this, he took inventory of his vital statistics. In a little more than two months, he had lost a total of 27 pounds, down to 174, had lowered his body fat from 33.4 to 24.9 percent, and reduced his BMI from 28.8 (overweight) to 24.9 (normal). Even more unexpectedly, his LDL (bad) cholesterol was down by 20 percent and his HDL (good) cholesterol was up by the same, 20 percent.
--http://www.carbwire.com/2010/12/07/the-twinkie-diet-guy-dr-mark-haub-regrets-his-experiment-went-public