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McDonald's diet

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themadcowtipper

Smells faintly of rancid stilton.
RALEIGH, N.C. – Inspired by the documentary “Super Size Me,” Merab Morgan decided to give a fast-food-only diet a try.

The construction worker and mother of two ate only at McDonald’s for 90 days – and dropped 37 pounds in the process.

It was a vastly different outcome than what happened in the documentary to filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, who put on 30 pounds and saw his health deteriorate after 5,000 calories a day of nothing but McDonald’s food.

Morgan, from Henderson, thought the documentary had unfairly targeted the world’s largest restaurant company, implying the obese were victims of a careless corporate giant.

People are responsible for what they eat, she said, not restaurants. The problem with a McDonald’s-only diet isn’t what’s on the menu, but the choices made from it, she said.

“I thought it’s two birds with one stone – to lose weight and to prove a point for the little fat people,” Morgan said. “Just because they accidentally put an apple pie in my bag instead of my apple dippers doesn’t mean I’m going to say, ‘Oh, I can eat the apple pie.’ ”

Spurlock, who turned his surprise-hit movie into a TV show on the FX network, isn’t talking about Morgan or the many other McDieters who have criticized his film and found success losing weight by eating healthy foods off the McDonald’s menu, said his agent, David Magdael.

One person went so far as to make her own independent film about dieting at McDonald’s. “Me and Mickey D” follows Soso Whaley of Kensington, N.H., as she spends three 30-day periods on the diet.

She dropped from 175 to 139 pounds eating 2,000 calories a day at McDonald’s.

“I had to think about what I was eating,” Whaley said. “I couldn’t just walk in there and say, ‘I’ll take a cinnamon bun and a Diet Coke.’ . . . I know a lot of people are really turned off by the whole thought of monitoring what they are eating, but that’s part of the problem.”

As might be expected, McDonald’s also objected to the impressions left by Spurlock’s film. Walt Riker, the company’s vice president of corporate communications, said the Oak Brook, Ill.-based company is pleased – but not surprised – that some customers have lost weight eating only at the fast-food giant.

Spurlock’s film “really spurred a backlash based on common sense,” Riker said.

Morgan used nutritional information downloaded from McDonald’s’ Web site to create meal plans of no more than 1,400 calories a day. She ate french fries only twice, usually choosing burgers and salads. Those choices are a stark contrast with those made by Spurlock, who ate every menu item at least once.

At the end of the 90 days, she had dropped from 227 to 190 pounds.

“It feels great,” she said. “Because the truth of the matter is that beauty is power, and if you’re fat or you’re overweight, then people don’t really take you seriously.”

Dawn Jackson Blatner, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, agreed that a low-calorie, McDonald’s-only diet can help people lose weight but said it may not offer enough long-term variety. Whatever an individual does to lose weight, he or she needs to do for the rest of their life, she said.

Morgan said she hasn’t decided if she will stick with the McDonald’s-only plan to reach her goal of 150 pounds. But she does have one complaint about McDonald’s.

“If I could suggest anything to McDonald’s, I would suggest the McMargarita,” Morgan said. “Dine-in only, of course.”

http://nsnlb.us.publicus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050814/BUSINESS/108140137/-1/sports

I'm just glad I run enough(2miles 3 times aweek) to eat whatever I want, dont eat fastfood much, but it is nice to have that option whenever I want it...
 
Surprised it didn't say how tall she was. 227 is pretty heavy for your average 5 foot 5 inch woman. It just proves to me that her diet was even worse than it was before she started eating at McDonalds.
If she's freakishly tall on the other hand, that's another matter. :D
 
I'm not going to endorse any kind of diet revolving around a restaurant but the fact of the matter is that it's not "the corporations" fault you're fat. That's the point that seems to be lost on a lot of people.
 
this whole counter trend is kind of dumb because the "super size me" documentary was clearly a motivating factor for McD's to put a lot of healthy stuff on their menu in the first place.
 
Nerevar said:
this whole counter trend is kind of dumb because the "super size me" documentary was clearly a motivating factor for McD's to put a lot of healthy stuff on their menu in the first place.

Yeah, whenever I first heard of these "counter diets" I thought they were eating essentially the same food, and just losing weight instead.
Scientific process this is not!
Hey guess what single-mother of 3, why don't you go hop in your van, drive around and say you don't need men while your kids steal your crack money?
 
Nerevar said:
this whole counter trend is kind of dumb because the "super size me" documentary was clearly a motivating factor for McD's to put a lot of healthy stuff on their menu in the first place.

Exactly, their menu seemed to change overnight once the McShit hit the fan.
 
RevenantKioku said:
Yeah, whenever I first heard of these "counter diets" I thought they were eating essentially the same food, and just losing weight instead.
Scientific process this is not!
Hey guess what single-mother of 3, why don't you go hop in your van, drive around and say you don't need men while your kids steal your crack money?

What? Super-Size Me wasn't all that scientific either.

Also, most studies I've seen about the "healthier foods" at McDonalds reveal that they aren't all that healthy either.
 
loxy said:
What? Super-Size Me wasn't all that scientific either.
Not really, no. But saying "look, I'm doing it and losing weight" when they're eating the "healthy" food is a level of retardation so high I can't think of an appropriate analogy.
And I love analogies.
 
RevenantKioku said:
Not really, no. But saying "look, I'm doing it and losing weight" when they're eating the "healthy" food is a level of retardation so high I can't think of an appropriate analogy.
And I love analogies.

Making healthy choices about what you eat is retarded? Okay, I'm going to go ahead and respectfully disagree with your position on this.
 
I hope she took supplements because eating that crap, while not excessive in calories, is extremely low in nutrients.

I think the only the only fast food salad I've liked is Chic Fila's char grilled chicken salad. It had fresh greens. Stuff like broccoli.

Versus stuff from Wendy's I had recently, a mess of old iceberg lettuce, transfat/whiteflour crunchy noodles, and high fructose corn syrup dressing. Oh, but it was a salad, so it's "healthy."


I bet the lady was starving the entire time. Those foods don't fill you for long. Defeats the whole purpose of proving Supersize me wrong. While Supersize Me wasn't realistic, it didn't act like people are going to starve themselves with mccrap salads.
 
Alot of the point of Supersize me was the kind of diet and food that regular americans had gotten used to.

Including the types of food, the quantity and what not.

Sure, you CAN lose weight just eating mcds or rather choosing healthy foods from any restraunt/outlet that offers it, as well as eating in moderation... but the reality is, the way food is presented in society, especially when you include the likes of McDonalds and all the other fast foods creates an extremely unhealthy attitude towards food.
That's why he expounds on the school and advertising to youth angle so much.


On the flipside, this woman shows through a healthy attitude towards food, regardless of where it comes from (for the most part), whether its labelled Mcdonalds or GM Free, is... still food, and eaten correctly can still be used in a diet.

But ultimately... what message will normal idiot americans come away with? Will they be saying, hey, so you WON'T get fat eating Mickey Ds...
or will they say, so if you eat healthily, regardless of where you eat, even at Mickey Ds, you can still lose weight.

I personally don't see the majority of people that hear about this woman's endeavour coming off thinking the latter.
 
krypt0nian said:
This is the biggest load of crap in some time.

McD's has the money hats obviously.
Read the teacher from Edmonton's blog and you'll see that the biggest difference between what he did and what Morgan Spurlock did in Super Size Me is getting diet colas (1 cal) instead of regular colas (220 cals) and actually doing some exercise.

*Note: Calories in the colas is based on the medium sized colas and courtesy of McDonald's nutrition calculator.

EDIT: Large colas is 320 cals (regular) to 2 cals (diet). I have no idea what the super size difference was since they no longer sell that.
 
Of course if you go from eating McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Burger King to just eating McDonalds you're going to lose some weight.
 
If you were eating a REALLY unhealthy diet and went to McDonalds every day, it's easy to see how that weight could be lost... plus she could have done some exercising.

Doesn't change the fact that even if you lose weight, McDonalds is not healthy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If you use crack all day, you lose weight... but this is by no means healthy, is it? :p
 
I think you guys are forgetting what Spurlock clearly pointed out in SuperSize Me... most Americans barely get any exercise at all and they eat the shit that is easily and seductively available to them.

Most Americans don't exercise daily or go to McDonald's and get a salad.

Besides, even if you did find "healthy" food from McDonald's, I'd rather not eat something that was chemically engineered in a lab, I like to know that natural stuff is going into my body.
 
loxy said:
Making healthy choices about what you eat is retarded? Okay, I'm going to go ahead and respectfully disagree with your position on this.

....
What the hell are you talking about?

This is how it looks to most people:
Person eats food only at McDonalds. Gains weight. People say, "OMG, McDONALDS BAD?!?".
Person eats food only at McDonalds. Loses weight. People say "HAND ME BACK THE MILKSHAKES I"M LOSING WEIGHT".
This is how it really is:
Person eats unhealthy food at McDonalds. Gains weight.
Person eats "healthy"-ish food at McDonalds. Loses weight
 
RevenantKioku said:
....
What the hell are you talking about?

Selective memory?

Let's revisit your comment,

"But saying "look, I'm doing it and losing weight" when they're eating the "healthy" food is a level of retardation so high I can't think of an appropriate analogy."

To which I replied,

"Making healthy choices about what you eat is retarded? Okay, I'm going to go ahead and respectfully disagree with your position on this."

What is there not to understand here?
 
loxy said:
Selective memory?
No, just poor writing style. I'm saying there is NO COMPARISON between Supersize Me and this woman's endeavor.
 
i saw this lady on TV and she said she ate meals like "a small shake and fries". Hardly the kind of meal most americans get when they go to McDonalds.
 
First and foremost, I think "counter-experiments" are perfectly valid. Because regardless of Spurlock's motivation or thesis, the core message a lot of people got was "eat McDonalds get fat." Under the right (and possibly most) circumstances? Yeah. But there's nothing "retarded" about showing a counterpoint from a different approach -- and I'd argue that losing weight on a McDonalds diet would have been possible at any time depending on the food choices. (edit: though I will say "a small shake and fries" is pretty ridiculous). EDIT: There's no harm in connecting the dots for people, and that's what showing results that conflict with Super Size Me might do -- "dur, why did this person lose weight and that guy not lose weight?" Time to actually process the causes.

With regards to Spurlock living "an average American" life, no way. A life some Americans lead for sure... are there people who do what he did every day? Probably. Are they average? Doubtful. While many Americans surely overeat, I doubt many overeat to the tune of nearly 5000 calories day in, day out.

To me, Super Size Me was interesting on the whole, but the movie brought up some neat points that sort of ended up getting a bit of lip service and then went nowhere in favor of watching Spurlock say "Oh man, I'm already full" a couple more times.

(examples ripped from a thread I made just after seeing the DVD a couple months back: School lunches and food choices, for example; psychological/marketing factors in adult food choices; someone talking about the massive preservatives in a lot of modern convenience food; body image issues -- one guy talked about how the perception of the 17-year-old magazine model as the ideal can be linked to rises in obesity. The comment just sort of died -- no corroboration and no further discussion.... and so on.)

I'm no fan of McDonalds, and now that I live in a real city again (just over a year ago I didn't), I rarely grace its door -- and when I do it's usually not by choice. Last time I was hurting from their crappy food.
 
i suppose everyone here is forgetting simple dietary guidelines


if you eat less calories than you burn in a day, you will lose weight

if you eat more calories than you burn a day, you will gain weight

5000 calories is a lot for most people, even those that exercise

you could eat 5000 calories a day of vegetables and you are still going to gain weight
 
The simple dietary guidlines are too simple.

When you eat stuff like french fries, you're body absorbs it quickly. You could eat 5000 calories with no problem.

With vegetables, I'm not sure it's physically possible to fit 5000 calories worth of them in your digestive system.
 
That is not true either. If you have two meals that equal 5000 calories you will get fat. If you have 10 meals of 500 calories, you will not get as fat (if at all).
 
ToxicAdam said:
That is not true either. If you have two meals that equal 5000 calories you will get fat. If you have 10 meals of 500 calories, you will not get as fat (if at all).


you have no idea what you are talking about
 
Ninja Scooter said:
i saw this lady on TV and she said she ate meals like "a small shake and fries". Hardly the kind of meal most americans get when they go to McDonalds.

Seriously?

This lady is a fucking idiot! Wait, scratch that, just an "idiot", because a fatass like her is never gotta get laid.

Oh and even though she lost weight by eating less, her health will begin to get worse as she's not getting the vitamins she needs.
 
you could lose weight eating a balanced diet



or a stick of butter, wrapped in bacon, with M&Ms stucking on top as long as its 2000 calories or less a day
 
sans_pants said:
you have no idea what you are talking about


Why don't you go fuck yourself, dietary expert.


http://seniorhealth.about.com/library/nutrition/bl_big_meals.htm

BIG MEALS MAY CONTRIBUTE TO BODY FAT IN OLDER PEOPLE
As people age, they may be able to reduce their risk of gaining weight by eating smaller, more frequent meals, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture findings reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

"Dietary fat that doesn't get burned gets stored as body fat," said I. Miley Gonzalez, Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics. "That's what happens when older people overindulge. So the scientists recommend that seniors eat fewer calories at a sitting, but eat more often to ensure getting enough nutrients."

In the study comparing the fat-burning ability of eight women in their 20s with another eight in their 60s and 70s, the seniors kept pace with their juniors after eating 250- and 500-calorie meals. But they couldn't match the fat-burning rate of the younger group after a 1,000-calorie meal. Fat oxidation was about 30 percent lower in the older women after the big meal.

Study leader Susan Roberts heads energy metabolism research at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston.

Roberts said the study is the first to measure fat oxidation after eating, noting that further studies are needed to confirm the findings. She and colleagues are conducting the research--funded by USDA's Agricultural Research Service--to get at underlying causes behind the age-related increase in body fat.

"Body fat typically doubles between the ages of 20 and 50 to 60 years," she explained. That increase is linked to several diseases, including cardiovascular disease and non-insulin dependent diabetes. Several studies suggest a drop in fat oxidation may play a role, said Roberts.

The women in the study ate two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches plus a large glass of milk to get 1,000 calories, which represents a moderately large meal, Roberts said. On average, U.S. women in their 60s and 70s consume about 1,400 to 1,500 calories a day, according to the latest USDA survey data. So 1,000 calories is about two-thirds of a day's calorie intake for this age group. "It simulates going out to a restaurant and having a big meal," Roberts noted.

She said the 250-calorie meal, representing a snack, and the 500-calorie meal, representing a small meal, were also peanut and jelly sandwiches and milk, but in smaller portions. All the test meals contained 35 percent calories from fat.

Roberts believes the drop in fat-burning ability is due to hormonal changes. The older women had higher levels of glucagon. This hormone triggers the release of sugar into the blood--the opposite effect of insulin. With more sugar available to fuel body processes, the women burned less fat.

She cited several factors that could contribute to the drop in fat reduction. Older people have less skeletal muscle, the primary site of fat oxidation. They also are less physically active and thus don't burn as much fat. In addition, they tend to eat higher-fat diets.

The scientists suggest that older people exercise to increase skeletal muscle and fitness. This may offset the fat-burning deficiency by increasing their capacity to burn fat while resting.

In earlier studies comparing energy metabolism in young and older men, Roberts found that basal, or resting, metabolism doesn't increase in older men when they overeat as it does in young men. This also helps explain why body fat creeps up with age.

More Articles...

More meals in lower caloric amount >>>>> then fewer meals in higher caloric amount. It's been proven too many times.
 
RevenantKioku said:
Not really, no. But saying "look, I'm doing it and losing weight" when they're eating the "healthy" food is a level of retardation so high I can't think of an appropriate analogy.
And I love analogies.
About as retarded as eating 5000 calories of any food, let alone McDonalds, and blaming the grease for making you feel sick. No shit, anybody would feel sick after 5000 calories.

You know how many Thanksgiving dinners you could eat for 5000 calories? At least 2, seperate sitdowns. I mean the type of sitdowns where you get 2-3 plates becuase you starved yourself all day.
 
ToxicAdam said:
Why don't you go fuck yourself, dietary expert.




More meals in lower caloric amount >>>>> then fewer meals in higher caloric amount. It's been proven too many times.


it barely makes a difference, and that article doesnt say you can eat 5000 calories as long as you break it up into small meals

thats the worst idea i have ever heard
 
Inspired by the documentary “Super Size Me,” Merab Morgan decided to give a fast-food-only diet a try.

YOU"RE ALREADY !&% POUNDS YOU FAT BITCH AND YOU WANT TO GO ON A POSSIBLY SUICIDAL DIET?!?!?

!&% = 175 :p

Sorry I just had to get that out of my system! :)
 
Red Scarlet said:
So she mostly ate salads and not very often what the average person gets from there. Pretty weak counter to Super Size Me.

Yeah, she basically had the Subway diet, but at McDonalds.
 
Red Scarlet said:
So she mostly ate salads and not very often what the average person gets from there. Pretty weak counter to Super Size Me.


i think it said she ate burgers instead of fries or something
 
More meals in lower caloric amount >>>>> then fewer meals in higher caloric amount. It's been proven too many times.

Yeah, but 500 calories is NOT low. You will definetly get chunked if you eat ten 500 calorie meals a day.

5000 calories is too many calories a day, unless you are a wieght lifter or something.
 
I just discovered my McDs serves Double Cheese burgers with green chile and McChickens now come extra spicy and all for a $1 each. :D
 
3kuSaS said:
Yeah, but 500 calories is NOT low. You will definetly get chunked if you eat ten 500 calorie meals a day.

5000 calories is too many calories a day, unless you are a wieght lifter or something.

dude, come on.


its proven
 
SickBoy said:
First and foremost, I think "counter-experiments" are perfectly valid. Because regardless of Spurlock's motivation or thesis, the core message a lot of people got was "eat McDonalds get fat." Under the right (and possibly most) circumstances? Yeah. But there's nothing "retarded" about showing a counterpoint from a different approach -- and I'd argue that losing weight on a McDonalds diet would have been possible at any time depending on the food choices. (edit: though I will say "a small shake and fries" is pretty ridiculous). EDIT: There's no harm in connecting the dots for people, and that's what showing results that conflict with Super Size Me might do -- "dur, why did this person lose weight and that guy not lose weight?" Time to actually process the causes.

With regards to Spurlock living "an average American" life, no way. A life some Americans lead for sure... are there people who do what he did every day? Probably. Are they average? Doubtful. While many Americans surely overeat, I doubt many overeat to the tune of nearly 5000 calories day in, day out.

I agree wholeheartedly, especially with the second paragraph. I think McDonald's sucks as much as the next guy, but they're not forcefully shoving 5000 calories worth of food down anyone's throat everyday. People need to think about and take responsibilty for their own diet.
 
loxy said:
I'm not going to endorse any kind of diet revolving around a restaurant but the fact of the matter is that it's not "the corporations" fault you're fat. That's the point that seems to be lost on a lot of people.

This is all that really needs to be said.

Close the thread!

Well maybe not, but it really does come down to the fact that no-one seems to take responsability for their actions these days. It's someone else's fault! That seems to be the attitude. Who can I sue? McDonalds grabbed me kicking and screaming into their store, pinned my arms behind my back and force fed me!
 
dont eat the buns
eat lots of chicken nuggets
have a salad every now and then.
drink diet coke.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is fucking Atkins - phase one.



"I'm not going to endorse any kind of diet revolving around a restaurant but the fact of the matter is that it's not "the corporations" fault you're fat. That's the point that seems to be lost on a lot of people."

true - but saying that - mcdonalds really f*cking target the kids. It's not about the burgers , it's about "oh the little mermaid collection!" etc etc...

i'm pretty sure they know thier food is horseshit.

Anyways, GTA made me eat burgers - its rockstars fault i'm a fat, useless, low IQ , VD carrying , murdering fuck wit.
 
I haven't eaten a 'meal' at a fast food resturaunt since I saw that movie. *Proudish* Have I lost weight? *Coughish*
 
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