Well, here's one that has me rethinking foods to burn fat. A nutrition professor managed to lose 27 pounds in ten weeks by eating mostly twinkies, ding dongs, nutty bars, and doritos.  Of course, he also ate some vegetables and a protein shake in the morning, but he claims that a full 2/3 of his caloric intake was from junk food.  Dubbed the "convenience store diet," he started it as an experiment for his class, but continued on to the government definition of normal weight when he began to see success.  With the improvements in his cholesterol, I'll be damned if I can figure out why I shouldn't start eating twinkies, too!

It makes me wonder a bit.  I mean, I know that it probably isn't healthy to get THAT many calories from processed food, but the real quesiton is "what does it mean to be 'healthy'?"  And at the very least, it shows that trash like that is NOT the reason America is increasingly overweight.  At one point, I could tell you how many grams of protein, fat, and carbohydrate I was going to eat for the day, what the total calorie count was, and how I performed on those goals for yesterday and last week, plus what my lean body mass, fat mass, and fat percent were.  Of course, I was a single, competitive Judoka who was on the mat three times a week and in the gym 4 times a week. 

That kind of rigor and structure is probably necessary for serious athletes (or at least athletes pretending to be serious, like me), but I may have to rethink nutrition for a guy like who I am now, a father of four working a full-time job who sits on his ass a significant portion of the week doing homework for full-time school.  Somebody better buy some stock in Twinkies!