Teacher Loses 37 Pounds on 3-Month McDonald's Diet
While the "Supersize Me" documentary set out to show the dangers of eating too much McDonald's, a science teacher in Iowa decided to try and show that you can still make healthy decisions while eating fast food. He actually wound up losing 37 pounds after eating nothing but McDonald's for three months.
John Cisna told students at Colo-Nesco High School he could eat anything he wanted from the fast food chain and not gain any weight, as long as he balanced out the rest of the day's meals with sensible choices. It was an odd theory that Cisna laid out; he and three students looked at McDonald's menu and tried to plan for the day's meals ahead of time before he started his diet. Cisna was careful to stick to the recommended 2,000 calorie daily allowance and vary the foods he ate.
"A typical breakfast would be two egg white delights, a bowl of their maple oatmeal and a 1 percent milk," Cisna told FOX WGHP. "This isn't something where you say, 'well he went to McDonald's and he only had the salads.' No, I had the Big Macs, the quarter pounders with cheese. I had sundaes, I had ice cream cones."
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Cisna began walking for 45 minutes every day in order to counteract the extra calories he was taking in. At the end of the experiment, Cisna was actually healthier than when he started: he lowered his cholesterol from 249 to 170 and lost 37 pounds … all from making wise decisions at McDonald's.
"We all have choices. It's not McDonald's that makes us fat," Cisna cautioned. "It's our choices. I can eat any food at McDonald's (that) I want as long as I'm smart for the rest of the day with what I balance it out with."
The owner of the local McDonald's Cisna frequented on a daily basis decided to provide all his food for free after learning of the experiment.
