Twinkie Diet EXPOSED (A Calorie STILL is NOT a calorie)
Posted by Joel Marion
In response to my Calorie is NOT a Calorie post the other day, several readers posed questions about the “Twinkie Diet”, a dietary experiment whose results seemed to suggest otherwise (that indeed all calories were equal for fat loss). Here’s one such question:
But what about the Twinkie Diet? A guy lost something like 40 pounds [Note: the actual amount was 27 lbs] eating only Twinkies (and a few multivitamins)… If they were only Twinkie calories, shouldn’t he have gained weight? He set out to prove that a calorie is a calorie, even if it is not unprosessed or proteinful food. Why didn’t he get fat?
I responded in the comments sectoin of that post, but let me go in to a bit more detail here:
First, just to clarify, the actual amount of weight lost was 27 lbs, or an average of 2.7 lbs a week over a 10 week period.
Having said that, the test subject only reduced his calorie intake by 800 calories daily, which equates to a deficit of 56,000 calories. A pound of fat is 3,500 calories, so even if the entire caloric deficit resulted in pure fat loss (which it never does) this would only equate to 16 lb loss of body fat.
In reality, of the 27 pounds lost, the dieter would be lucky if 50% of it was actually fat — absolutely terrible if you enjoy your muscle and give a rip about your metabolism.
The important distinction here is that between “weight loss” and “fat loss”.
If this particular dieter made much more appropriate food choices and his calories were derived from different (i.e. better) foods, he would have lost much, much less lean body mass.
And let me ask you this: Which do you think LOOKS better in the end? 27 pounds of “weight loss” in which half is lean body mass? Or a lesser amount of pure fat loss? Here’s the truth: no one truly cares about the numbers on the scale…they care about how they look. If they lose 40 lbs and are still ashamed to take their shirt off, it’s likely not the outcome they were looking for.
And you be the judge on if you’d like to look like Mark Haub, the infamous Twinkie dieter.
The other point to consider is what type of deficit needs to be achieved in order to lose fat in a situation in which calories are being derived from crappy sources (such as snack cakes).
Of course if you eat 1800 calories of twinkies (when you maintain at 2600 cals) you’ll lose fat, but you could lose just as much fat (and much less lean body mass) eating a higher calorie level of wholesome, natural foods.
To sum it up, if someone has all 5 of the factors that I shared in my previous article working against them vs. someone having all 5 factors above working for them — and calories are equal — the person having all factors working for them will lose more fat, less muscle, and at a higher calorie intake. All in all a much more desireable situation.
To recap, the 5 factors are:
1. Eating foods with a high thermic effect of feeding (i.e. protein)
2. Eating higher fiber foods with indigestible calories
3. Choosing low glycemic index foods to control insulin
4. Avoiding the combination of carbs and fats in the same meal
5. Eating small, appropriately timed meals
And of course, there are a million other inherent problems with the Twinkie Diet, including ridiculously small portion sizes, etc, but today I just wanted to tackle it from calorie perspective.
If you missed the first part of this series, click here for full details on each of the above.
For Five Foods that Fight Abdominal Fat, Click HERE.
Questions/Comments? Post ’em below and I’ll talk to you in the comments section!
Keep rockin’,
Joel
Hey, it’s Joel! So you want to know a little more about me, huh? Well, I’d be happy to oblige :-)
I guess it all started back in 2001 (my freshman year of college) when I was just a “skinny fat” 19-year old kid. At the time, I was spending close to 2 hours a day in the gym (now my workouts last about 30 minutes), and despite my efforts, you’d probably never guess I worked out a day in my life by looking at me...