twinkie diet

a professor set out to prove that weight loss is nothing more than calories in versus calories out. heres the details, 3,500 calories equal 1 pound. basal metabolic rate is how many calories your body burns in a day on average. so lets say person A has a BMR of 3000 calories, if they maintain a 2500 calorie a day diet they should lose a lb per day.
here is an article speaking about it

(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

RELATED TOPICS

• Healthy Eating
• Hostess Twinkies
• Kansas State University
• Weight Loss
• 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."

MY THOUGHTS ON THIS

I am not going to argue the outcome of his case study. the data speaks for itself. now apply the same experiment on different populations and the study has firmer legs to stand on. what I will say however is what is healthy? BMI is stupid. my BMI has me paying a higher premium on life insurance. I'm at a higher risk of death because my BMI has me as borderline obese.

if you dont know me here are my stats in brief 5'5 (5'6 if i have new shoes and good posture that day) i weigh between 178 and 183/body fat percentage around 10-12%/ have a 1250 total in powerlifting and working towards a 1300 this december at USAPL's american open.

ok so im a little strong that doesnt mean healthy and public perception of powerlifters (and wannabe's like me) is that we're fat (male) or manish (women). well, are bodyweight exercises a good enough marker of health?-about 20 pull-ups from dead hang/around 120 push-ups straight in 2 minutes/40-50 dips straight/no clue how many inverted rows i can do but a lot/ i run a 10k in under 50 minutes/5k around 21 minutes/2 miles around 13 minutes, and i dont even run, ever.

the purpose is not to toot my own horn, (if it seems that way, its because i dont proofread, i want this blog to seem as if im speaking to the reader right now) my purpose is to start discussions about the definitions of health. Is the good professor healthy because he lowered his vitals? BMI? Cholesterol levels? try-gliceride levels? my ability to "perform" and move is great with a HIGH BMI too!! I dont know if the professor is "healthier" than me, but i doubt it.

health should be defined as the ability to perform many functions as efficient as possible. so if you are weak youre not healthy, no endurance? not healthy, flight of stairs kill you? unhealthy bench 600 lbs but cant do pull ups or many pushups?unhealthy. Food should be viewed as the fuel for the activities that we are going to do, and coupled with exercise, that should determine our status of health.

how has the professor's "performance" been changed due to his diet? yes when your digestive system breaks food down into whatever it is broken down into, it doesnt know where it originated from. how nutrient rich are those cheetos? from a performance point of view nutrition is the fuel needed to do what you want to do better.

maybe his diet allowed weight loss, what did it do to his ability to move a weight as heavy as possible? as many times as possible? as fast as possible? what did his high sodium diet do to his blood pressure? what did it do to his sex drive?

were the changes small? almost negligable? that drop in performance will have a cumulative affect over time. im not advocating gigantic changes in lifestyle or a strict diet, i just made myself a double bacon cheeseburger for dinner, but i know i can use the fat and protien and i have a heavy day of squats tomorrow.

in health,

Jorge Unigarro

good read

Samurai Strategies for Strength

by Nate Miyaki

First, you must choose a goal before you can achieve it, and second, the more difficult and dangerous your goals is, the more effort you must put into achieving it. All achievement starts with goals, and Musashi emphasized that you should be ambitious in setting them.

— Samurai Strategies

Goal setting? I know what you meatheads are thinking right about now. Hold off on that thought for a minute, though, because despite trying to come off as intellectual and well-rounded through studying exercise physiology, nutritional biochemistry, philosophy, and sports psychology, deep down I'm just a pure, simple, fucking meathead like most of you.

I like training in the gym, of course, as well as football, MMA, fire, action movies with gun fights and explosions, porn (both in traditional video format and newer, internet options), Will Ferrell (the movies, not the guy — although he is rocking the mean, brown sugar chest hair), Jessica Alba (the girl, not the movies — although Good Luck Chuck was funny), the occasional whiskey, and when I grow up I want to be just like "the most interesting man alive" guy...am I missing anything?

Setting goals is for dudes with "man-ginas" right? It's for little girls and desperate housewives who, gosh-darn-it, are going to take control of their lives and empower themselves. It's for powerless office workers who can't get out of the grind or get their bosses to stop shitting on them. It's for cheesy, self-help seminars and gurus. It's not for the head of the wolfpack, the alpha males that roam the Testosterone site...or perhaps it is?

What if I told you that you've been setting goals — albeit most of the time subconsciously — all of your life? Hitting new PR's, reaching a certain level of body fat percentage or conditioning, rehabbing an injury, winning a competition, taking the hottest girl at the bar/club home for the night, etc.

What if I also told you that CONSCIOUSLY setting these goals, keeping them always in the forefront of your mind, and setting a definitive plan of action towards achieving those goals can be the difference between consistent mediocrity and consistent excellence?

for the rest of the article click the link

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/samurai_strategies_for_strength_1

variables

The human body is amazing and very resilient. No matter what challenge is thrown its way the human body will adapt to it. This is how the system works, the body is stressed, the body doesnt like that stress so it does whatever it needs to do to so the next time its stressed in the same way its less stressful. Now that the same activity is no longer as stressful, it will not elicit the same response. This is why newbies to lifting make gains more quickly than somebody who has been under the bar for quite some time, they arent as used to the stress. So thats the nature of beast, stress your body and your body will adapt to it, over time the adaptations become smaller as the stress diminishes, eventually leading to a plateau. To put plateaus off we must stay ahead of our adaptations and make said activity continue to be stressful.

This is also known as the overload principle, Vladimir Zatsiorsky and William Kraemer say this of overload-"To bring about positive changes in an athlete's state, an exercise overload must be applied. A training adaptation takes place only if the magnitude of the training load is above the habitual level."

That brings me to my topic, how do you manipulate variables to achieve overload? How do you make tomorrow, next week, next month, next macrocycle, harder than this one? What variable to manipulate to make your workout progressive depends on your goal. Some answers are obvious such as getting stronger, well one obvious variable to manipulate is weight make the next workout heavier. manipulating other variables will elicit other responses.

Volume, how would you manipulate that? more sets? more reps? more exercises in the workout?

Time, this is a fun one to manipulate- longer workouts? (might be counterproductive?), time your set; make yourself last x amount of time, shorter sets; make yourself maintain volume in less and less time or do more reps in the same amount of time

Tempo, slow down the eccentric, speed up the concentric, pause in between to minimize the effect of the stretch-shortening cycle forcing your body recruit more muscle fibers and rely less on stored energy, move a submaximal load as fast as possible.

All these are ideas to play with and I am certain i did not cover all possible variables, adding instability is another variable to play with, I just wanted to get ball rolling here. Lets avoid plateau's, train intelligently and manipulate what we can and want. Let's create a specific stress to produce specific adaptations.

Jorge Unigarro

great article

Training Women

October 15, 2010 by Bret Contreras

When I first started training clients full-time, I assumed that I’d specialize in training athletes. I bought all sorts of equipment from Elitefts including a huge power rack/platform with all the accessories (box squat box, step up attachment, monkey chin bar, dip bars, band peg attachments), a 45 degree hyper, glute ham raise, reverse hyper, competition bench press, incline press, deadlift lever, chalk bin, bands, chains, specialty barbells, etc. I situated the equipment in my garage and was in awe at how manly my gym appeared! I was well on my way to be the next Joe DeFranco.

What happened next was unexpected. A bunch of female friends and relatives of mine started requesting that I train them. At first, I told them, “I’m not sure, my equipment is more geared toward training athletes.” They’d say, “Cool, when can I start?” I quickly realized that women like this type of training and all of a sudden I’m training tons of women.

Next thing you know, I open up my own studio and within three months I have 55 clients; probably 45 of them were women. If you train a few women well, out of nowhere you’ll have tons of female clients through word-of-mouth advertisement as they love to tell their friends about their trainer. I’ve really grown to love training women over the past five years, and here are some things I’ve learned along the way:

for the rest of the article follow this link

http://bretcontreras.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/training-women/