By Richard Tardif
It’s too damned confusing this CI/CO thing, thanks, in part to Professor Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, to show his class that weight loss improves health, in 2010 for 10 weeks dined on Twinkies every three hours, instead of meals. Yup, the zany, toxic Twinkie diet. This is probably the longest cheat day. Transperancy, he did eat beans and vegetables. He also devoured Ho Ho’s and Little Debbie snacks, Doritos chips, sugary cereals, Oreos, and drank Diet Mt. Dew.
All this to show that pure calorie counting is what matters most, so forget the nutritional value of the food. Success. Labelled by CNN as the “convenience store diet,” he shed 27 pounds in two months.
Haub limited himself to less than 1,800 calories a day, down from his usual daily blend of 2,600 calories. That’s right. He consumed significantly fewer calories than he burned, most of it, non-life essential calories. Here are his before and after numbers. His body mass index went from 28.8, considered overweight but not obese, to 24.9, which is considered normal.
Did his health suffer? No.
Haub’s “bad” cholesterol, or LDL, dropped 20 percent and his “good” cholesterol, or HDL, increased by 20 percent. He reduced the level of triglycerides, which are derived from a form of fat, by 39 percent. It did show that weight loss improves health, but for how long? Haub, as a Nutritionist, asked himself the appropriate question. “What does that mean? Does that mean I’m healthier? Or does it mean how we define health from a biology standpoint, that we’re missing something?”
The healthy changes Haub experienced is not surprising and second, it’s not an indicator of health. When someone is overweight (as he was) and loses weight, cholesterol and blood pressure levels always improve, simply because the body is less stressed.
Haub in 2015 told The Wichita Eagle (great name for a newspaper), he was eating a healthy variety of foods and gained back 17 pounds. The reason for his initial weight loss lies purely with calorie restriction, but it is unsustainable. Sugars? Corn Syrup? And those spikes in insulin? It could be that Haub’s body began fighting him to regain some weight, slowing down his metabolism in order to store fat, and reinstall him at a desired weight, for him?
It’s been shown that if you’re trying to shed some of those pounds, your body will fight you as you attempt to lose fat, and when you try to maintain your new weight, albeit temporary, via a process known as metabolic compensation, your body works to get your body back to its desired weight. Your body compensates more when you consistently lower your calorie intake.
These zany and toxic diets are not as easy as they sound. These junk foods set you up for overeating by throwing off your body’s natural appetite regulation. Haub is a nutrition professor who conducted who carefully limited his calories. For the majority of us in the real world, when one opens, lets’ say, a gallon of Rocky Road, it’s damned near impossible to stop.
Richard Tardif is a personal fitness trainer, author, and an award-winning journalist writing and teaching about health and wellness. Richard’s first book Stop the Denial: A Case for Embracing the Truth about Fitness, challenges, surprises, and inspires you to embrace a fitness lifestyle that will work in achieving your individual goals.
Email: richard@richardtardif.com.
