(hla) A teacher not only lost a whopping 37 pounds but also experienced a rapid drop in his cholestrol level from a reading of 249 to 170 by eating exclusively at McDonald's for 90 days, local TV station KCCI reported.

The result of this particular experiment challenges the health factors posed in the 2004 documentary Super Size Me (SSM) whereby the subject who also ate only at McDonald's, experienced a deterioration of health. Science teacher John Cisna in the Colo-Nesco School District in Ankeny, Iowa wanted to show his students that health is not so much about where you eat, but what you eat.

It is interesting to highlight that Cisna did not skip the heavy meals on the menu and stuck only to salads. His diet consisted of everything on McD's menu such as the Big Mac, sundaes, shakes and quarter pounders.

"The moral of this lesson isn't to eat more at McDonald's, but to pay attention to your daily nutrition and what you eat," he said.

Although his meals were catered from McD, Cisna ensured that he only consumed 2,000 calories per day. Using the Food and Drugs Act's (FDA's) reference daily intake tables, he balanced the intake of nutrients by mix-and-matching the different items off McD's menu.

Aside from watching his calorie intake, Cisna also started to take a 45-minutes walk every single day; an ideal exercise to maintain one's well-being.

With the recent negative publicity in the media about how McDonald's is blamed for making Americans fat, this documentary serves as an important reminder that everyone has a choice about what they eat. Instead of blaming one's obese state on any food institution, one should look into one's choices instead. Cisca's result of the experiment would have probably relieved McDonald's from these recent unreasonable allegations.

"It's our choices that make us fat... Not McDonald's."
Cisca claimed that through his smart choices, he was becoming healthier.

Allegations against fast food institutions have become rampant in recent years. The fast food industry has been blamed for all kind of thinsg such as being the cause of obesity, ill-health and many more. Many people in the world have been jumping on the bandwagon in a war against fast food. While some of the allegations may not be true, this phenomenon need not be entirely bad as it threatens the industry to keep up to its game. Close-scrutiny always leads to better service and better products.

At the end of the day, no one can drag anyone to dine in any fast food restaurant unless they themselves want to. So long one is watchful of what one puts into one's mouth and the amount of calories one burns throughout the day, one should not be gaining weight. Simple mathematics suggests that if the calories burnt is more than the calorie intake, one is bound to lose weight, regardless of the restaurant one chooses to dine in.




Copyright © 2014 Sandhya Maarga Holistic Living Resources
Holistic Living Annex (SEPTEMBER 2014)