Don't kid yourself! Twinkies are not a weight loss panacea!

I’ve received numerous emails and Facebook requests about the big news: a nutrition professor at  Kansas State University has allegedly lost close to 30 pounds by eating a low calorie diet that includes significant amounts of Twinkies for 8 weeks. The media circus is spinning with this news, if you haven’t already heard about it, you will very soon.

Professor Haub, along with the American Dietetic Association, cite this as proof positive that calories count.  The food industry loves nothing more than promoting the mythology that calories matter above all else. Here in America, we are over focused on calories, fat and carbs. And we’re fatter than ever.

We have a billion dollar diet industry that thrives on American’s gullibility and lack of common sense when it comes to food. 80-90% of all weight lost through dieting is regained. Weight Watchers is a great example of this phenomenon. People tell me Weight Watchers is great, they’ve gone 5 or 6 times over the years, losing the same 5-20 pounds over and over again.

As nutritional anthropologist Liz Snyder reminded me, Jenny Craig is owned by Nestle, Wt Watchers by the same co. that owns Keebler foods. Your yo-yo diet is their ponzi scheme!

Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  Calorie counting is one of those insane things. Not to mention it takes all the fun out of eating food.

Back to the Twinkie guy. Here’s the deal. He’s been eating Twinkies  (and a protein shake and a multivitamin) every day for 8 weeks. His weight is down, for now.  His cholesterol has slightly improved,  which could be a result of his drinking whole milk. After all, saturated fat has been shown to improve HDL levels.

Bottom line? The real story will be 6 months to a year from now. Will the weight stay off?  Will he end up with a “unrelated” health issue? Will the news media follow that story or will we all be onto the next “big news”? Our collective attention span is too short to follow this story to the real conclusion.

To call it now and say this guy actually lost the 26 pounds is like calling a baseball game after 2 innings. The game isn’t over yet.

Before any of you go running to the store to get your share of Twinkies, you might want to take a look at this book: Trinkie, Deconstructed by Steve Ettlinger. At least then, you’ll know what you’re eating.