Any Diet Works ... For A While

Banting is not the only diet that works for a while and then stops. In fact, just about any diet will work for a time.

A Junk Food Diet Works:

Mark Haub, a Professor of Human Nutrition at Kansas State University went on a pure junk food diet. For 10 weeks he lived on a diet of donuts, Doritos, Oreos and other junk food, in an effort to prove that it’s not what you eat but how much of it you eat that makes you fat. It worked for him and he lost about 12 kilograms.

A McDonalds Diet Works:

Science teacher called John Cisna dropped 16 kilograms on a pure McDonald's diet. He too kept his calorie intake below 2000 calories a day, while subsisting on a pure McDonald’s diet of Big Macs and ice cream sundaes.

These smart people believe that weight loss is about calories in, versus calories out, which certainly worked for them. But confusingly, the opposite tactic can also work…

An Unlimited Fat Diet Also Works:

In 2009, Dave Asprey, the originator of the Bullet Proof Coffee recipe, set out to prove the opposite. He tried show that you could eat a lot, do no exercise and still lose weight. His diet consisted of 70% fat with no processed sugars, which added an extra 1,500 calories to his previous daily average of 3,000. This provided him with almost double the daily intake of John Cisna, the McDonald's guy.

How is it possible to explain why, instead of putting on weight from eating too much, he steadily lost weight and ended up with a six-pack for the first time in his life? Dave claims that he kept this up for almost two years and only stopped because eating so much every day became too hard to sustain indefinitely.