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Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds

Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds

By Madison Park,
(CNN) -- Twinkies. Nutty bars. Powdered donuts.

For 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate one of these sugary cakelets every three hours, instead of meals. To add variety in his steady stream of Hostess and Little Debbie snacks, Haub munched on Doritos chips, sugary cereals and Oreos, too.

His premise: That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most -- not the nutritional value of the food.

The premise held up: On his "convenience store diet," he shed 27 pounds in two months.

For a class project, Haub limited himself to less than 1,800 calories a day. A man of Haub's pre-dieting size usually consumes about 2,600 calories daily. So he followed a basic principle of weight loss: He consumed significantly fewer calories than he burned.

His body mass index went from 28.8, considered overweight, to 24.9, which is normal. He now weighs 174 pounds.

But you might expect other indicators of health would have suffered. Not so.

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 a form of fat, by 39 percent.

"That's where the head scratching comes," Haub said. "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?"

Haub's sample day
Espresso, Double: 6 calories; 0 grams of fat

Hostess Twinkies Golden Sponge Cake: 150 calories; 5 grams of fat

Centrum Advanced Formula From A To Zinc: 0 calories; 0 grams of fat

Little Debbie Star Crunch: 150 calories; 6 grams of fat

Hostess Twinkies Golden Sponge Cake: 150 calories; 5 grams of fat

Diet Mountain Dew: 0 calories; 0 grams of fat

Doritos Cool Ranch: 75 calories; 4 grams of fat

Kellogg's Corn Pops: 220 calories; 0 grams of fat

whole milk: 150 calories; 8 grams of fat

baby carrots: 18 calories; 0 grams of fat

Duncan Hines Family Style Brownie Chewy Fudge: 270 calories; 14 grams of fat

Little Debbie Zebra Cake: 160 calories; 8 grams of fat

Muscle Milk Protein Shake: 240 calories; 9 grams of fat

Totals: 1,589 calories and 59 grams of fat Despite his temporary success, Haub does not recommend replicating his snack-centric diet.

"I'm not geared to say this is a good thing to do," he said. "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."

Two-thirds of his total intake came from junk food. He also took a multivitamin pill and drank a protein shake daily. And he ate vegetables, typically a can of green beans or three to four celery stalks.

Families who live in food deserts have limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables, so they often rely on the kind of food Haub was eating.

"These foods are consumed by lots of people," he said. "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."

Haub's body fat dropped from 33.4 to 24.9 percent. This posed the question: What matters more for weight loss, the quantity or quality of calories?

His success is probably a result of caloric reduction, said Dawn Jackson Blatner, a dietitian based in Atlanta, Georgia.

"It's a great reminder for weight loss that calories count," she said. "Is that the bottom line to being healthy? That's another story."

Blatner, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, said she's not surprised to hear Haub's health markers improved even when he loaded up on processed snack cakes.

Being overweight is the central problem that leads to complications like high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol, she said.

How well are you managing your diabetes?

"When you lose weight, regardless of how you're doing it -- even if it's with packaged foods, generally you will see these markers improve when weight loss has improved," she said.

Before jumping on the Ding Dong bandwagon, Blatner warned of health concerns.

"There are things we can't measure," said Blatner, questioning how the lack of fruits and vegetables could affect long-term health. "How much does that affect the risk for cancer? We can't measure how diet changes affect our health."

I was eating healthier, but I wasn't healthy. I was eating too much.

--Professor Mark Haub


The ultimate Twinkie diet
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Kansas State University
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Diet and Nutrition
On August 25, Haub, 41, started his cake diet focusing on portion control.

"I'm eating to the point of need and pushing the plate or wrapper away," he said.

He intended the trial to last a month as a teaching tool for his class. As he lost weight, Haub continued the diet until he reached a normal body mass index.

Before his Twinkie diet, he tried to eat a healthy diet that included whole grains, dietary fiber, berries and bananas, vegetables and occasional treats like pizza.

"There seems to be a disconnect between eating healthy and being healthy," Haub said. "It may not be the same. I was eating healthier, but I wasn't healthy. I was eating too much."

He maintained the same level of moderate physical activity as before going on the diet. (Haub does not have any ties to the snack cake companies.)

To avoid setting a bad example for his kids, Haub ate vegetables in front of his family. Away from the dinner table, he usually unwrapped his meals.

Study: U.S. obesity rate will hit 42 percent

Haub monitored his body composition, blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose, and updated his progress on his Facebook page, Professor Haub's diet experiment.

To curb calories, he avoided meat, whole grains and fruits. Once he started adding meat into the diet four weeks ago, his cholesterol level increased.

Haub plans to add about 300 calories to his daily intake now that he's done with the diet. But he's not ditching snack cakes altogether. Despite his weight loss, Haub feels ambivalence.

"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."

The Worst Burgers in America

The Worst Burgers in America

Failed Again-

Its almost Winter in Iowa the snow and -40 below temp's will start soon. I lost no weight, didn't get a book idea done or started. Didn't run a race, and really wasted the Summer being a Stay at Home daddy.

This blog has failed because I failed-

Bike Seats aren't built for Fat People

Wow, With all the padding being over weight you would think riding a bike wouldn't hurt so much!!! Let me start with I have not been a bike person since I broke my BMX trying to do a jump that I failed. I was 12 year old, that was over 20 years ago.

Me and my wife entered the Urbandale Iowa Amazing Race. Which is a very cool mini version of the popular show. Was a 14 mile race around town with 7 different challenges. Which include, mile on treadmill, bean bag toss, slip and slide, bobbin for hard boil eggs to name a few. It was a small field of 8 teams and me and my wife entered with the goal to finish and not get divorced. The race was totally free. We finished and won some cool stuff such as $85 in gift cards. We were last, were second to last for a few legs, one group blew a tire. This is one of the hardest things we have done together and by far one the hardest thing I have done physically for some time.

Couple things.
1.Toward the end of the Race we had my car at the Library we had at least 4 mile's left we both joked about cheating and taking the car. I was hurting so badly my legs, my butt but I said No, we have cheated with fitness to long.
2. I really want to quit- But that sets a huge bad example for my son
3. Even being in pain as a write this and most likely more later it was worth it.
4. We got a food bill paid for with the $50 Hy Vee Gift card

Sandwiches in a can: Can-do or can-don’t?

Mark Kirkland is used to skeptics. He’s comfortable with critics. He’s unfazed by the reaction he typically gets the first time people hear about his invention: “Ewwwwwwww.”
Kirkland, 50, of Salt Lake City, Utah, has dedicated more than a decade of his life to a single concept: The sandwich in a can.
Or, actually, make that a few concepts: Sandwiches in a can. Pizza in a can. French toast in a can. Cinnamon rolls in a can.
Why a can? Because, when combined with techniques similar to those used to preserve Meals Ready-to-Eat for soldiers, an aluminum can keeps food fresh for a full year or even longer. Yes, that’s right: A fresh, year-old sandwich.
And cans have an added benefit, Kirkland noted: They fit perfectly inside all the soda vending machines that exist, well, everywhere. That means his “Candwich” products could be sold in both stores and vending machines.
“So think about it,” Kirkland explained. “You’re a mom running your kids between school, piano lessons, soccer. Stopping at a fast-food restaurant takes time. This is something that literally could roll around the car for a few months. ... I kind of compare it to bottled water when it first came out. At the time I thought, ‘Why would I pay a dollar for a bottle of water when I can just go to the water fountain?’ Now I drink bottled water every day. It’s convenient.”
But how does it taste? Thus far, Kirkland’s assurances haven’t done much to stem the snickering and giggling. On his late-night Comedy Central show “The Colbert Report,” Stephen Colbert joked about preserving sandwiches with the same technology used to store motor oil. Colbert said of the “BBQ Chicken Candwich”: “I am confident only one of those B’s stands for botulism.”
Jac Howard
TODAYshow.com writer Laura T. Coffey conducts a taste test and gives the PB&J Candwich a thumbs-up.
Kirkland knows his products won’t be a hit with busy moms, kids or anybody else if they don’t taste good. To demonstrate the virtues of “shelf-stable bread” and sandwich fixings that have a long shelf life, he sent two peanut-butter-and-jelly Candwich samples to TODAYshow.com. This writer tried them, and you know what? They weren’t bad at all. In fact, they tasted just like standard peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches made with hot-dog buns — a perennial kid-lunch staple.
In the interest of full disclosure, Kirkland did not send the sample sandwiches in a fully canned state. (The cans are in the process of being mass-produced for his PB&J Candwich product launch in August.) When canned, his food products will undergo the rigors of “hurdle technology” — that is, hurdles to prevent the growth of any pathogens or unwanted organisms in the food. By controlling the amount of oxygen, acidity and water inside the packaging and the sandwich itself, pathogens can be stopped in their tracks, Kirkland said.
markonefoods.com
To build a PB&J Candwich, you spread the contents of squeezable peanut-butter and jelly packets onto a hot-dog bun that has been stored separately in cellophane.
The sandwich samples Kirkland shared with TODAYshow.com included the ingredients that would have gone inside a can: A hot-dog bun wrapped in cellophane; a squeezable packet of peanut butter; a squeezable packet of jelly; and a small piece of taffy for dessert. You just build your own sandwich and nosh. The shelf-stable bread Kirkland uses for the hot-dog buns wound up sitting in a FedEx package for five days, but it still tasted, smelled and felt just fine.
But what about pre-built sandwiches and pizza pockets that have meat baked into them? How do those hold up after months and months inside a can?
Jeff Pierson, 46, a nature and wildlife photographer based in Salt Lake City, loves the BBQ Chicken Candwich so much that he’s devoured dozens of them. A few years back, he tried his first canned sandwich courtesy of one of his buddies, a longtime friend of Kirkland’s.
“When it was just peanut butter and jelly, I was pretty excited about it, but when I was handed my first meat sandwich I was a little hesitant,” Pierson recalled. “I thought, ‘How safe could this be?’ But I’ve eaten them after a full year, and they were still good — and I’m still here.”
Pierson said the sandwiches are convenient when he spends multiple days outside — nowhere near a store or refrigerator — taking photos of grizzly bears and other wildlife. When closer to home, he’s also devised a method for enjoying hot chicken sandwiches.
“I keep ’em in my car,” he said. “I put ’em in a heavy plastic sack and leave them on the dashboard, and I have a hot sandwich for lunch. ... I’ve never been sick and I’ve had a lot of them that have been kicking around in the car for a spring and a winter, a few seasons, and it’s always been OK.”
No need for refrigeration Because of their staying power, inventor Kirkland also sees a place for Candwiches in emergency-preparedness kits and at times when natural disasters strike.
“I wish I would have had about 100 million of these when the earthquake hit Haiti,” Kirkland said. “Or any time there’s a hurricane or the power goes out. ... I think of it as more of a convenience item than an emergency item, but I do think it’s perfect for emergencies.”
In August, peanut-butter-and-jelly Candwiches will go on the market for the first time in limited areas of the United States. That will be followed by a nationwide product launch. Next will be the Pepperoni Pizza Pocket Candwich, which has the pepperoni, sauce and cheese baked into the bread.
Next up: The BBQ Chicken Candwich, the BBQ Beef Candwich, French toast that contains a maple filling, and cinnamon rolls that come with a spreadable chocolate sauce. Kirkland also has plans to unveil canned calzones and canned wrapped sandwiches in the future.

Pretty soon consumers will be able to add a sandwich to their soda order when they do business with a vending machine.
He foresees the products selling in soda vending machines for $2 to $3, and in grocery stores and convenience stores for varying prices.
‘A long, hard road’ Kirkland is almost giddy that the Candwich — which is being marketed by his company, Mark One Foods — is finally about to be sold to the general public. His lengthy canned-sandwich journey began when he had an epiphany back in the 1990s.
“I was eating a cookie and drinking a soda, and it occurred to me if I put cookies into a soda can I could sell it through a soft-drink vending machine,” Kirkland said. “I had a cookie in one hand and a drink in the other, I thought, ‘Hey! Bring your hands together!’ That’s where it all started.”
He patented the concept of putting a non-beverage item inside a soda container in 1999. He found an investor named Travis L. Wright who wanted to back the Candwich and help bring it to the market — but as time passed, everything went awry.
It turns out that Wright allegedly used money raised from about 175 other investors to support Candwich development and other business ideas. But those other investors had given Wright $145 million to invest in commercial real estate. A lawsuit filed this month by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission maintains that Wright committed fraud by misleading his investors and using their money to fund a “lavish lifestyle.”
“He had me in limbo for years, and then he left me in the lurch,” Kirkland said. “When the real estate market crashed, his business crashed, and now he’s being charged with fraud. It’s nothing that we did wrong; it’s just that he turned out to be a bad investor.”
Kirkland said he’s struggled to get the Candwiches to the product-launch point without Wright’s full, promised backing. It took a while to pull that off in this economy.
“It’s been a long, hard road,” he said. “It’s been a tough five years. If I didn’t really believe in the product and I didn’t have a good wife, I’d probably be dead now.”