COLO, IOWA — A teacher in Colo, Iowa decided to eat only at McDonald’s for 90 days to see what it would do to his health.
The result turned out to be a good lesson for him and his students.
John Cisna laid out a theory for three of his students at Colo-Nesco High School last fall.
Cisna said he could eat any food at McDonald’s and not gain weight — as long as he’s smart for the rest of the day with what he balances it out with.
Cisna said he ate McDonald’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner for 90 straight days.
But he had strict daily nutritional limitations of 2,000 calories and tried to stay close to the recommended dietary allowances for nutrients like carbohydrates, proteins, fat calories and cholesterol.
Cisna said he approached the owner of the local McDonald’s franchise and the owner was so interested he provided the 90 days of meals at no charge.
Cisna said his students used McDonald’s online nutritional information to construct daily meals for their teacher, making sure to follow the nutritional limitations he set.
“A typical breakfast would be two egg white delights, a bowl of their maple oatmeal and a 1 percent milk,” Cisna said.
He said a salad for lunch would be followed by a more traditional value meal at dinner.
“This isn’t something where you say ‘well he went to McDonalds and he only had the salads.’ No, I had the Big Macs, the quarter pounders with cheese. I had sundaes, I had ice cream cones,” Cisna said.
During the experiment, Cisna said he also started walking 45 minutes a day.
By the 90th day, Cisna said he lost 37 pounds and his cholesterol dropped from 249 to 170.
Cisna said the moral of this lesson is not to eat more McDonald’s, but to pay attention to your daily nutrition and what you eat.
“We all have choices,” Cisna said. “It’s not McDonald’s that makes us fat. It’s our choices.”
