It’s a common belief that eating fast food directly contributes to obesity and poor health. I can speak from experience that this isn’t always the case. I am a science teacher who, as a result of a classroom experiment designed to apply critical thinking to everyday life, lost 43 pounds while eating nothing but McDonald’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner for 90 days.
Most people respond to this with the same question: “How could that be possible?” The truth, which I shared during the Nevada PTA Convention in Las Vegas, is that It all comes down to making careful, educated choices about which menu items to consume and how much to consume, in addition to maintaining a reasonably active lifestyle.
My weight-loss journey began with a challenge to my science students: design an experiment to test whether an individual could become better off by eating nothing but McDonald’s for 90 days.
The motivation behind the experiment wasn’t to promote eating fast food, but to highlight the importance of using critical thinking before making decisions regarding food choices. This applies to all aspects of life, including eating. I have been obese for nearly all of my adult life, which is why I volunteered myself as the 280-pound, 54-year-old guinea pig for the experiment.
Nearly all of the students and school staff members were skeptical, but I set very specific parameters for the project. In order to test the hypothesis, my students had to design daily meal plans that limited my food intake to 2,000 calories a day and also included 15 important nutrients, including protein, dietary fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium and iron. One of the goals was to keep these in line with the recommended daily allowances as established by the Food and Drug Administration for a 2,000-calorie diet. McDonald’s incorporates the nutritional information for their menu items right on their website. Having this information readily available was crucial in this experiment.
Surprisingly, the students’ meal plans allowed me to eat the majority of items on the menu, including higher-calorie items. On days that I consumed a high-calorie item during lunch or dinner, the students made the necessary adjustments with both the calorie intake and nutritional intake for the rest of the day so I did not exceed the 2,000-calories-per-day limit.
One of my daily menu plans included a sausage burrito, fruit and maple oatmeal and orange juice for breakfast; fruit and yogurt parfait, a premium Southwest salad and apple slices for lunch; and a large diet Coke, premium grilled chicken classic sandwich, hot fudge sundae and a grilled honey mustard snack wrap for dinner.
This kind of meal planning is an effective approach to a balanced diet, regardless of where people eat. In the original 90-day plan, the students were able to put together 56 different combinations of foods, which kept them as close to the FDA’s recommended dietary allowance as possible.
I also exercised regularly as part of the experiment. I took a moderate approach to exercise that I consider attainable for most people: walking briskly for 45 minutes, four to five days a week.
Not only did I lose weight throughout the project, but my overall cholesterol dropped from 249 to 170 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL), and my low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol declined from 170 to 113 mg/dL. My triglycerides decreased from 156 to 80 mg/dL.
The results of the experiment were so successful that I extended the experiment to 180 days. At the end of those 180 days, or 540 straight meals, I ended up losing 60 pounds and my blood pressure ended at 121/78 millimeters of mercury (mmHg).
What my class and I achieved with our meal planning experiment shows that it is possible to become better off eating food from any grocery store, any fast food chain or any restaurant if you make the right choices and you include moderate exercise in your routine. Since this project ended, I have maintained my new weight by holding to the lesson reinforced throughout the project: Make careful choices with meals by evaluating the caloric and nutritional content of food, and maintain a moderately active lifestyle.
I always emphasize that this experiment wasn’t about McDonald’s, and it wasn’t about reducing my belt size. I would not recommend that anyone eat only at one restaurant every day for months. It was about educating students to apply critical thinking to what they eat. Kids aren’t the only ones who can learn from this. Anyone can apply this approach to eating.
One of my students phrased it well: “This experiment has shown me that it’s not McDonald’s that makes us fat, it’s our choices of what we eat that make us fat.”
I hope people of all ages can learn as I have that it’s not where you eat, but what you eat and how much that matters.