PressEthic

September’s Fitness Magazine ran an article by Anna Roufos titled, “I Lost Weight on a Fast-Food Diet.” Roufos, normally a healthy eater, was asked by Fitness to eat fast food three meals a day for a week. Sound somewhat familiar? Here comes the kicker. Her objective was to lose weight. Roufos enlisted the help of dietitian Nelda Mercer, R.D. and explains:

I figured out that eating 1,500 calories a day would have me losing one to two pounds a week based on my level of activity, which consists of running and walking three days a week. Mercer and her assistant, Rebecca DeKeyser, then pored over menus to come up with a week’s worth of meals.

Fitness published her menu, and some of the items she was allowed to eat were surprising. Her first day of the “diet” started with a McDonald’s Egg McMuffin. On the next day she had a Burger King Cheeseburger for dinner with Small French Fries. Over the week she eats at McDonalds 8 times, including two yogurt parfait snacks. Of course, she also breaks it up with legitimately healthy fast-food items like Blimpie’s six-inch turkey sub and a cup of garden vegetable soup.

At the end of the week, Roufos concludes:

The next day, I wake up, weigh myself and am surprised to find that I did indeed drop a pound. I’m still bloated – a week of sodium-packed meals will do that to anybody – but I’m convinced that fast food itself isn’t enough to ruin a diet. If you pick and choose your menu items carefully, you don’t have to gain, and you might even lose a few pounds.”

You might say that this experiment isn’t realistic. Who gets low calorie salad dressing with their McDonalds salad? But, who force-feeds themselves super-sized meals until they vomit? I guess you can prove almost anything if you really set your mind to it.