It’s not likely dieticians will be endorsing his regimen, but a Virginia man demonstrated it is possible to regularly dine at a fast-food restaurant without being criticized for signing your own death certificate.
Despite media attacks on fast-food for being unhealthy, ABC’s “Good Morning America” showed that healthier options are available without heavy-handed involvement from government in its June 19 broadcast.
“Meet Chris Coleson – for years the Virginia man said he was eating too much and, of course, no diet seemed to work,” co-host Diane Sawyer said. “Then last December, he tipped the scales at 278 pounds and made a bold pledge – to drop down to the 185 pounds he weighed on his wedding day by resorting to a McDonald’s-only diet.”
Coleson told “Good Morning America” he lost his weight by limiting his calorie intake to 1,400 calories daily. He explained that he stuck to McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) salads, wraps, apple dippers and their hamburgers – without the bun – for six months.
“The apple dippers – and they were a great snack,” Coleson said. “They have a caramel sauce that comes with it; I’d stay away from that. I'd just eat the apple dippers alone.”
Since Coleson began his diet, he has lost 86 pounds and his cholesterol has also dropped.
“You know, it’s funny,” said Coleson. “I come from a family that has heart disease. My mother passed away at the age of 62. My father had a heart attack at 39. We look back at some of our cholesterol results back through 1993, when I was 180 pounds and I had a cholesterol level up around 300 and I was 180 pounds. I dropped below 240 just this recently. This is the first time since ‘93 where I’ve dropped below 250 so, my cholesterol, my triglycerides look pretty good. I’m trending in the right direction.”
Coleson’s success with what he called the “McDiet” provided the antithesis to Morgan Spurlock’s 2004 anti-fast food documentary “Super Size Me.” Spurlock, with an anti-McDonald’s agenda in mind, chronicled 30-days of eating nothing but McDonald’s fast food and limited his exercise, resulting in serious health problems including weight gain.
Coleson’s example called into question the need for fast-food restaurant bans promoted by some politicians. Back in November 2007, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry appeared on CNN’s “American Morning” to tout a measure to ban new fast-food restaurants for one because she was pushing “a healthier agenda, to give people some choices that they have not historically had.”
