Perhaps you’ve heard about the recent story of a man losing over 80 pounds eating nothing but McDonald’s fast food. Sounds crazy, right?

Chris Coleson, whose story was recently featured on Good Morning America, lost over 80 pounds and 14 inches off of his waist in 6 months time - consuming all of his calories exclusively from the McDonald’s menu. This has left a lot of people, and even fitness professionals, quite baffled. Everyone knows that food from McDonald’s isn’t exactly the cream of the crop - it’s calorie-packed, nutrient-empty, and very convenient.

If you have watched the Morgan Spurlock documentary, Supersize Me, then you probably have an idea of what a “McDiet” is capable of. In case you missed this movie, Spurlock ate nothing but McDonald’s food for one month’s time, and ended up gaining 25 pounds and a host of health problems.

Just a personal note - since watching Supersize Me in 2004, I have only eaten fast food once in four years: a crispy chicken sandwich from Wendy’s. Yep, it had that much of an impact on me!

So, everyone is wondering how Coleson was able to lose weight on fast food. It’s simple really - the same way that everyone loses weight. Coleson isn’t “in” on a special McDiet secret, he has simply applied a universal principle to his lifestyle - resulting in 80+ pounds lost and a much healthier lifestyle. Coleson used the fat loss principle of “energy balance.”

For energy balance in the body to exist, we must consume as many calories as we burn. If we want a negative energy balance (weight loss), then we need to burn more calories than we consume (or consume less calories than we burn; a slight difference in application).

Negative Energy Balance = (calories consumed < calories burned) = weight loss

Essentially, we need a CALORIC DEFICIT.

If you look at the GMA story, Coleson was only eating about 1400 calories a day (down from 5000+ calories a day before starting the diet, think that’ll make much of a difference?!?) - a starvation-level diet for his bodyweight. You may be thinking, “but aren’t starvation diets bad?” And you’re right to assume so - yet starvation diets do result in predictable WEIGHT loss. But there’s a catch!

When eating a starvation diet, the body is desperate for nutrition. If you aren’t consuming enough food to sustain your health, then your body will find its fuel elsewhere. This is a case when our body will actually catabolize, or eat, your muscles for energy. You can imagine how much this screws things up - effectively damaging your metabolism.

While a starvation diet will help someone lose WEIGHT, it will be at the expense of their health - namely, their metabolism and their muscles. Chris Coleson lost over 80 pounds, yes, but I bet that wasn’t all weight from bodyfat.

It’s also important to look into all of the details of Coleson’s transformation. It turns out he was usually eating salad’s, with sometimes a hamburger patty on top. So, it’s not like he was eating a Big Mac every day. He also said that he avoided fries like the plague.

Not only did Coleson adjust his eating habits, he also started exercising regularly and keeping a journal of his progress - neither of which he was doing before.

While I am very happy for Chris Coleson for achieving such amazing results, I think there is a lesson here. The goal of weight loss is a little too broad. Those of us who are looking to lose weight, should adjust our focus a little bit. What we truly need is to lose FAT, and hold onto our precious muscles which largely regulate our metabolism. The more lean muscle we have, the stronger our metabolism will be, and the more calories we will burn naturally - at all times of day. For fat loss to be truly effective and long-lasting, we need to make it into a lifestyle.

If we adjust our focus from “weight loss” to “fat loss,” and utilize the most effective fat loss principle of negative energy balance as is taught in Tom Venuto’s Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle program, we will predictably lose fat, and most importantly, our health will be so much better off.

To your health and success,

John Sifferman, NSCA-CPT

P.S. If you would like a lifestyle program geared to metabolism-boosting, fat loss goals, then check out www.burnthefat.com

P.P.S. If you’d like to read the official story on Chris Coleson, click here: