High School Teacher Loses 37 lbs Eating McDonald's Everyday for 90 Days

[Scholar]

Breakfast
Minute Maid OJ
Sausage Burrito
Fruit and Maple Oatmeal

Lunch
Fruit and Yogurt Parfait
Premium Southwest Salad
Apple Slices

Dinner
Large Diet Coke
Premium Grilled Chicken Classic Sandwich
Hot Fudge Sundae
Small Fries

A high school biology teacher in Iowa named John Cisna is making the news with his own story about how eating McDonald's every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner helped him lose weight. The twist? Instead of simply trying every single meal on the McDonald's menu at least once like Spurlock did, Cisna relied on three students to carefully plan a menu of McDonald's food that added up to only 2,000 calories a day and adhered to 15 nutritional guidelines as recommended by the Food and Drug Administration. For exercise, Cisna walked briskly for 45 minutes, four to five times a week.

Cisna's students used the McDonald's meal planner feature to map out three meals a day, while local franchise owners covered the cost of the food.

Toward the end of the 90-day experiment, Cisna threw his students a curve ball: They had to start letting him eat the restaurant chain's more high-fat, high-sodium options, such as Big Macs, Quarter-Pounders and Double Cheeseburgers.

"I didn't want people saying I lived off fruit parfaits and Egg White Delights," explained Cisna in a phone interview with HuffPost. Plus, he said, he wanted to add an extra challenge to the project. His students quickly found that they couldn't keep him at 2,000 calories while still fulfilling the 15 nutritional guidelines, and chose to sacrifice his calories instead of his daily recommended nutrients. On days he indulged in a Big Mac or similar sandwich, his daily caloric intake dipped to 1,700 - 1,800 calories.

By the end of the 90-day project, Cisna lost 37 pounds from his 280-pound frame, and his cholesterol came down 79 points. But beyond the weight loss, he's thrilled that the experiment seems to have changed the consciousness of students at Colo-NESCO High School, where he teaches.

"What is cool is when you see one kid say, 'It's not McDonald's that makes you fat. It's your choices that make you fat,'" Cisna said. "That right there is when we knew that the kids understood."

But just because Cisna lost weight eating only McDonald's, does that mean nutritionists will be recommending his McDiet any time soon? Not so fast, said NYU professor and nutritionist Lisa Young, Ph.D., R.D., C.D.N., who is also the author of the book "The Portion Teller Plan." Young, who actually appeared in the "Super Size Me" film to explain the evolution of fast food restaurant meal sizes over the years, says it's not surprising that Cisna was able to lose weight.

"You could lose weight any way you want as long as you eat less and you're conscious," said Young. "I think in this case what was happening is he was aware of the total amount that he was allowed, and I think that is what helped him lose weight." In other words, Cisna was simply using portion control to lose weight.

It's also no shock to find that there are many not-as-bad-for-you items on the menu at McDonald's, she added. The problem, said Young, is that most people who walk into a McDonald's restaurant don't have the discipline (nor the figurative weight of students counting on them for a school project) to resist ordering high-calorie foods.

"Sure, you could get a healthy thing," Young said, "but when you go to a place where the temptation of fries and soda and cheeseburgers are all over the place, it may not be so easy." Also, unlike Cisna, whose meals were subsidized by franchise owners, McDieters could be stymied by the expense of constantly eating out.

In addition, McDonald's newer, "healthier" choices leave a lot to be desired, and can sometimes even be worse for you than their traditional offerings. According to Mcdonald's nutrition information, the Bacon Ranch Salad with crispy chicken and ranch dressing, for instance, is 570 calories and contains 1,400 milligrams of sodium and 36 grams of fat -- 58 percent and 56 percent of one's recommended daily allowance, respectively. A Big Mac, on the other hand, is 550 calories and contains 29 grams of fat and 970 milligrams of sodium.

While Cisna's McDiet might seem to be working for now, the sustainability of his approach is unproven, concluded Young. And when it comes to weight loss, a sustainable diet is key to making the changes (and the weight loss) last for a lifetime. Indeed, Cisna has lost significant amounts of weight with Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig in the past, but was never able to maintain the loss.

Bottom line? "I wouldn't go out and advocate the McDonald's diet just yet," said Young.

[quote]McDonald's corporate headquarters weren't aware of Cisna's experiment and didn't know franchise owners were furnishing food for free, said a rep to HuffPost. They sent along a prepared statement congratulating Cisna for his weight loss, written by Dr. Cindy Goody, R.D., Senior Director of Nutrition at McDonald

[Draz]

McDonald's definitely going to give this guy some free food after boosting their image.

[Scholar]

McDonald's definitely going to give this guy some free food after boosting their image.

He's already getting free food. Local franchise owners were giving him food to conduct this experiment.

[miller-time]

That is not a typical McDonalds diet though. If someone asked you to list 10 things from McDonalds I would be surprised to see any of those things listed. Are people really going to McDonalds to order apple slices and oatmeal?

[Draz]

That is not a typical McDonalds diet though. If someone asked you to list 10 things from McDonalds I would be surprised to see any of those things listed. Are people really going to McDonalds to order apple slices and oatmeal?

You'd be surprised. People actually go there to eat salads and shit.

[BurningHammer]

Food is like guns in this case. They don't harm people. People do.

[Patrick Chewing]

Mother****er give me a Big Mac

[JEFFERSON MONEY]

Good

Now the people know they better take personal fukkin reaponsibility

stop hatin on mickey ds biiitcgez

edit LOL AT THE NUTRITION GUY
hey dumbfukk dietary fat and sodium arent tge demons theyre made out to be and now ur consenses is not quite advocatibg a mcdonalds diets

hoky fuuj ur bright

[johndeeregreen]

This is proof that when you're a f*cking fatass, your body is just begging, PLEADING to lose weight if you let it. This guy is still hammering down soda, ice cream, fries, and sausage burritos DAILY, but obviously he was such a f*cking mess before that that was actually a break for his body and it took it.

People are all about these fad diets, exercise, whatever. JUST EAT REAL F*CKING FOOD. If you're a fatass, the pounds will melt off if you just stop eating huge quantities of complete and utter garbage.

BTW: Just cause this dude lost weight, don't be fooled into thinking this is a healthy diet.

[hateraid]

Good

Now the people know they better take personal fukkin reaponsibility

stop hatin on mickey ds biiitcgez

edit LOL AT THE NUTRITION GUY
hey dumbfukk dietary fat and sodium arent tge demons theyre made out to be and now ur consenses is not quite advocatibg a mcdonalds diets

hoky fuuj ur bright

I've been trying to hammer that point my whole career

[Draz]

The sad part is we don't know if this guy is diagnosed with a medical problem to be losing this amount of weight eating the diet he did. It's too early to tell and even if he is we would never truly know. There's a lot of factors like stress that could of taken a role in this weight loss.

McDonald's will advertise this and profit. It'll hit a few thousand obese and overweight customers. Pull them into this one guys story.

[Meticode]

Basically he hate like shit before doing this, then when he did this he just ate less of that shit and lost weight.

[Meticode]

If this guy really lose that weight eating close to this every day. He must've been eating like completely shit beforehand... total calorie count is... 1895. Usually people will cut their calories down to around 1500 to loss a considerable amount of weight.

Breakfast
Minute Maid OJ (150 calories) if small size
Sausage Burrito (300 calories)
Fruit and Maple Oatmeal (290 calories)

Lunch
Fruit and Yogurt Parfait (150 calories)
Premium Southwest Salad (140 calories)
Apple Slices (15 calories)

Dinner
Large Diet Coke (0 calories)
Premium Grilled Chicken Classic Sandwich (290 calories)
Hot Fudge Sundae (330 calories)
Small Fries (230 calories)

[bigkingsfan]

He was 280 lbs to begin with, ain't hard.

[bdreason]

He went from morbidly obese to just obese on a McDonalds diet?