New Adventures of Old Christine

by krista on December 29, 2009

Yes, yes, Christine is the new Jared, losing a significant amount of weight eating fast food. Specifically, items from Taco Bell’s Fresco menu (essentially regular items minus cheese, sour cream or guacamole) helpfully labeled in small print, “not a low calorie food.”

Not a particularly fresh angle either, anti-Morgan Spurlocks abound. Deshan Woods, who lost weight by eating exclusively at McDonald’s, is just one that I had time to look up. Even the Swedes got into the debunking.

There is no secret to losing weight. Reducing calories and increasing activity are tried and true (spending an hour at the gym, then eating fried chicken will not result in weight loss—I can tell you that first hand).

Almost anyone could lose weight eating fast food daily. 2,000 calories is the number typically used as an ideal for the average woman’s daily intake (2,500 for men). If you wanted to lose a modest but healthy one pound per week you would need to shave 500 calories a day off this number.

For 1,500 calories you could scarf a Whopper (670 calories) and a Cinnabon (730) every single day and lose weight (1,400 total). You probably wouldn’t stay full and would become completely scurvy-ridden and deficient in essential nutrients. So, you could also eat zero and near-zero-calorie roughage like carrots and broccoli and use the remaining 100 calories for an apple (65 calories) or an orange (85 calories).

This is assuming you are completely sedentary. 45-minutes-to-an-hour on an elliptical trainer would probably allow you a small handful of fries (220 calories for BK value menu size, 340 for a small).

Fast food isn’t a particular weakness of mine, though I am proud of my proposed miracle diet. I do like to drink, however. Why blow hundreds of dollars on those silly juice cleanses when you could drop weight fasting on seven martinis a day (roughly 200 calories each)? Everyone knows that cleansing is about getting thin not detoxing or being healthful.

Unrelated: why do people insist on spelling lose as loose?