I think his point was to try to surprise people by riding on the wake of Super Size Me and using a attention-grabbing headline like "Eat Only McDonald's and Lose Weight!"

My point had nothing to do with whether it was better for your diet etc. etc. My only point was: Yes, of course it's possible to lose weight and eat [only] at McDonald's. That's not surprising at all.

If your body uses more calories than it takes in, regardless of what kind of calories they are, you will lose weight. You could eat only candy or maple syrup + cayenne pepper + lemon juice or pumpkin pie every day and still lose weight, but those results shouldn't "surprise" anyone.

He intentionally mislead people by making them think he ate a "normal" adult's food choices at McDonald's and lost weight, but he severely restricted his diet (and added extra exercise) to forcibly yield his intended results [and grasp at straws for his 15 minutes of fame].

@budzos
@lucky760
@Truckchase

It wasn't a clinical study, I think the point was merely to show that it was possible for a overweight, borderline obese man to eat only MCD menu items, be satiated and maintain the calorific deficit needed to gradually lose weight, provided basic exercise was maintained.

I don't think the point was to stress that changing to MCD made his diet better (in that case adding exercise is obviously cheating), just to show that it is possible to lose weight and eat MCD.

Taking this as a reference for calorie burned:

http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/Calories-burned-in-30-minutes-of-leisure-and-routine-activities.htm

45 mins walking is about 300 calories burned. Considering that teaching is primarily a pretty sedentary job (outside of class), that's only freeing up an extra 15% of your roughly daily intake needs of 2000 calories.

Not huge. I think the main takeaway here is, junk food or not, if your goal is losing weight (ignoring long term health complications), then it's all about portion control.

@JiggaJonson

As above, I think this is the main issue. I usually want half the portion that take away food outlets offer. Pricing structure then distorts the cost of the smallest size to make the larger 'value meal' much more attractive. One reason why I tend to prefer sashimi eat outs.

You're always going to lose weight if your caloric intake is lower than the calories you burn every day, regardless of what you eat.

These results are not at all surprising.

This isn't anything new, several people have went on pure fast food diets and lost weight as long as they kept it within reason (calorie count, etc)

The "documentary" super-size me is a joke also, I remember reading a few stories where a couple of sites and other documentary makers asked for the info and data regarding his calorie counts etc and they either flat out refused or lied.

In the end, it's always about self control and watching the calories and cutting various things out (minimizing carbs for one).

It's your choice. Yes. Does McDonalds make your choice harder, oh hell yeah. It's all about moderation. But, of course, it's hard to "feel full" when you're only eating a portion of the actual meal. When Burger King came out with their Eggnamormous sandwich, it contained as many calories as the average person should eat in a whole day. That was before drink and tater tots.

So yeah, it's not per se McDonalds fault . . . but they're not helping. Roy Crock invented the Super Size because he wanted to increase sales per person, not to increase the quality of food. He saw that people wouldn't go back for seconds because they felt gluttonous …. So he made it bigger and told them they were getting better value for their money. It seemed to have fooled a lot of people.

There is a lot missing in this report. He was eating a limit of 2000 calories daily, he may have ate 2500 a day before Mac meal plan, plus he started exercising 45 mins a day what other outcome could be expected. Not much of a science teacher. Before the Mac diet plan he was on the Burger King plan, who knows.

The whole issue about calories is a misdirect, there are dozens of other more important reasons why McD's is worse than trash. A couple of examples - the food is loaded with all manner of artificial ingredients, it's lacking in quality fiber, it's highly processed (low nutritional value), and the quality of the macro ingredients is very poor - i.e. the use of trans-fats as @RedSky points out, as well as the use of poor quality sugars (i.e. HFCS) to sweeten the dough.

That's not even to mention the exploitation of their workers, rainforest clearing to raise cattle, wasteful use of plastic packaging etc.

My guess would be he stuck to zero calorie drinks and avoided fries.

Had a quick on their nutritional website, a Big Mac is 520 calories, which is not great but not absurd. The issue is, you add a large fries (500) and coke (280) to that and you've added exactly 150% more calories on top.

All up being 1300 calories or about 2/3rds of your daily intake in one meal. Provided you avoided the sides though, it wouldn't be too hard to stick within the limits.

The issue is that MCD makes the minimum mandated attempt to educate customers. Australia legislates that food energy levels be published in a prominent fashion alongside the rough recommended daily energy intake of 8700kJ. They usually publish most of these on the side in small font. Having been over in France recently they didn't have them, I'm sure that's the case in most countries.

The larger issue with MCD and other fast food is the use of trans-fats and excessive sodium.

Trans-fats act as an insanely effective preservatives that keeps their produce looking like it'd been cryogenically frozen even years on. They're also have a reputation for clogging arteries causing heart attacks, strokes and the like.

Sodium which boosts blood pressure when ingested is a flavour enhancer which is probably why it's used in excessive amounts (e.g. a Big Mac has 40% of recommended daily Sodium). Even if this guy kept within calorie limits he would have easily been breaching recommended Sodium levels and in the long term would be elevating his risk of high blood pressure, stroke or various kidney diseases.

Not quite. Coca-Cola Life has stevia and sugar for less calories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola_Life
Apparently only in Argentina and Chile.

Why does this work better than the candles alone?
The same number of calories are being burnt...
Hot gasses rising from the candles should create some pretty good air circulation...

um
As mentioned, diabetes mellitus type 1 is genetic, you need regular insulin injections because, without it your blood sugar levels will be sky high, and sugar in the blood leads to glycation. Glycation is where sugars attach to proteins (such as the ones in your red blood cells) and then become useless/damaging. The amount of glycation is measured by a test called the HbA1C, something diabetics will be familiar with. Glycation cannot be avoided by faith...

The comment @Sniper007 made about curing diabetes is almost true however, as it has been demonstrated time and time again (in studies for over 20 years) that calorie restricted diets (and to a lesser extent weight loss) can basically cure diabetes (type 2). It is thought that one of the main reasons for this is that it helps to reduce adipose tissue (fat) that has been laid down in places like the pancreas and liver. A small reduction in the adipose tissue in the pancreas helps it regain much of its lost function. This calorie restriction doesn't appear to work in all type 2 diabetics, but it does work in many.

Info about the adipose tissue deposition/pancreas issue.
dvr.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/09/10/1479164112455817.full.pdf+html
http://www.endocrine-abstracts.org/ea/0015/ea0015s39.htm

Actually there's some pretty decent evidence to suggest that "juicing" is not a good idea at all.

You're essentially ruining perfectly good fruits and vegetables and ingesting more calories quicker. Plus, you don't get the same fibre content.

That said, cutting out processed food can only be good for you. The paleo diet is a good example of this.

Personally, I've stopped drinking soda and fruit juice, as they essentially just fructose in water and fructose is bad. I try not to buy any sauces or packaged foods and pretty much make as much as I can from scratch. It's better for you and there's more satisfaction from it.

And honestly I don't miss sugar at all.

But then there is my weakness, my kryptonite, my Achilles heel if you will. I do love me some ethanol.

So i'm doing a 10 day juice fast where i drink between 6 and 8 (16 oz) glasses of juice per day.

Each day i juice:
3-4 bunches of kale
3-4 apples
3-4 lemons
12-16 stalks of celery
6-8 carrots
Total daily calories 875-1250
and the great thing is im not hungry at all.

I'm not a politician or lawyer. The patent infringement stuff you mentioned sounds bad, but I don't know enough to make an educated comment.

As far as RoundUp Ready soybeans, what I know about it is that it inhibits an enzyme required for RoundUp (the sprayed pesticide) to work, thus rendering certain crops "immune" to the spray. From a bioengineering perspective it is ingenious and allows developed nations to have plentiful and cheap crops year round. GMO is a product of our (humanity's) need for cheap, plentiful and calorie-dense foods. Sure, we can complain about the fact that we don't want to eat pesticides/insecticides/whatever, but we complain far more when the food we eat is expensive, scarce and calorie-sparse. Before GM (I'll include selective breeding in this category), our food supply was predicated on the vagaries of the weather, insects, viruses, fungi and bacteria. We now enjoy a plentiful bounty year round and still we complain. We cannot have it both ways.

I realize that there is a gut reaction to GM (and irradiated) foods, but people need to educate themselves and ask if they would rather have massive price swings for staple foods or (relatively) cheap food year round that is inherently not the product of evolutionary changes.

I'd love to be able to dance like this but it's way too many calories and co-ordination for my liking/ability