Now I know what you’re thinking… What in the actual world are you talking about. Twinkies are a junk food. They are unhealthy. You can’t possibly lose weight that way… but… a nutrition expert has proved you wrong!

Mark Haub, a nutrition professor at Kansas State University went on a “Twinkie Diet” for a class project. It lasted 10 weeks, and his diet only consisted of one of these sugary cake every three hours. He ate Hostess and Little Debbie snacks, Doritos chips, sugary cereals and Oreos.

The reason behind this insane project was to show his students that calorie counting is what matters most to lose weight, not nutrition.

Haub normally ate around 2,600 calories a day, but for this project he ate up to 1,800 calories.

In two months he lost 27 pounds, his LDL dropped 20%, his HDL increased by 20%, and reduced his triglycerides by 39%!

(For people who don’t speak science… his “bad” cholesterol dropped, his “good” cholesterol increased, and his body fat dropped).

Here are some of Haub’s thoughts on his project:

• “That’s where the head scratching comes (losing 27 lbs). 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?”
• “I’m not geared to say this is a good thing to do. I’m stuck in the middle. I guess that’s the frustrating part. I can’t give a concrete answer. There’s not enough information to do that.” (Is this healthy?)
• “These foods are consumed by lots of people. It may be an issue of portion size and moderation rather than total removal. I just think it’s unrealistic to expect people to totally drop these foods for vegetables and fruits. It may be healthy, but not realistic.”
• “I wish I could say the outcomes are unhealthy. I wish I could say it’s healthy. I’m not confident enough in doing that. That frustrates a lot of people. One side says it’s irresponsible. It is unhealthy, but the data doesn’t say that.”

Moral of the story…

Calories in and calories out is all that matters. Yes, make healthy choices, but don’t cut out all the “unhealthy” foods you enjoy. Be realistic!

If Mark Haub can survive off sweets for 10 weeks and lose weight, you can lose weight by going out with friends and enjoying life!

Click here to read about 5 myths you still believe about nutrition!