I fell hard for some Instagram clickbait, so much so that I actually made an account so I could view the whole story (found here: https://www.instagram.com/supershredme/). Evan Parker is a new/soon to be influencer that lost 11lbs in 30 days and significantly reduced his bodyfat eating nothing but McDonalds, in an attempt to achieve the opposite of Morgan Spurlock’s efforts in “Supersize Me”. Specifically, Evan employed what he referred to as the “McCarnivore Diet”: a “relaxed carnivore” diet wherein he ate primarily quarter pounder patties, cheese, bacon, round eggs, sausage patties, pickles and (at the start) ice cream and small servings of bread. Evan’s bodyweight went from 183lbs to 172, so this was not the case of a 400lb person losing some water weight, and his after photos demonstrate the presence of muscle tone, indicating that this was not an untrained individual benefitting from the novel response of training.
Ignore the subcaptions: this is an amateur before and after job done by myself
As much of a
publicity stunt as this can easily be chalked up to, in watching all 30 days of
this eating, I found that there were some significant takeaways from what he did
that could be employed in many other attempts at nutritional intervention. To include:
HE MADE IT
SUSTAINABLE
I mean, the precedent is there
Evan was
very adamant that this was a “relaxed carnivore” approach, and he employed this
approach for multiple reasons.
Biologically, he wanted to ensure that his transition from a traditional
western American diet to a carnivore approach was not so significant a shock to
his system that he experienced withdraw effects, aka “the keto flu”. Using the nutrition information provided by
McDonalds, he was able to determine the intake he would need for 50g of carbs
per day during the initial wave of the diet, which he then worked down to 25g,
before going effectively 0g in the final 2 weeks. And this ALSO permitted him the ability to
still have “treats” like an ice cream cone and the muffins from the breakfast
sandwiches, which afforded some psychological sustainability as well.
But along
with that, he made it FINANCIALLY sustainable as well by leveraging deals
afforded to him via the app, completing surveys, and employing the “ala carte”
ordering options in order to create a budget that boiled down to effectively $6
per meal at 1-2 meals per day. Living in
Hawaii, Evan noted that the cost of a McDonald’s quarter pounder patty ala
carte was effectively cheaper than buying 1/4lb of beef at the store. Evan found an approach that could be repeated
indefinitely without significant financial strain, AND it even came with the bonus
of requiring no cooking/cleaning, so it was the ultimate in “high speed/low
drag” operations.
And finally,
despite the fact that fast food is already hyperpalatable and engineered
specifically for maximum enjoyment, he made it sustainable by being able to
find foods that fit within his parameters yet still afforded him variety. This was not the “quarter pounder patty diet
for 30 days”, and, instead, if you watch all 30 days, you’ll see Evan get quite
creative with the limited menu afforded to him.
At one point he declares that he’s going to do JUST beef patties for the
remainder of the challenge, and then quickly abandons course in order to allow
cheese and bacon, which gave him what he needed to be able to make it to the
end. And Evan constantly commented about
how much he enjoyed eating the food he was eating. Compliance was easy to achieve. I feel this speaks to another aspect that
allowed him to succeed:
GUIDELINES
AND STRUCTURE, NOT RULES
Imagine being able to get "Fight Club ripped" without Fight Club rules...
All successful
diets employ some manner of restriction.
Time restriction (we only eating during certain windows), energy restriction
(we only eat a certain amount of food total) or nutrient restriction (we DON’T
eat 1 or 2 of the 3 macronutrients). Evan’s
approach employed all 3, but in a manner that did not FEEL like restriction.
Evan always
kept the goal the goal here, to take from Dan John, and he operated under a
series of guidelines that were intended to help him reach that goal. These weren’t rules and laws created by a
deity that he was supposed to feel guilt for if he broke them: these were
simply guidelines there to keep him on track and give him a vector. This was the “McCarnivore diet”, so if pickles
showed up on occasion, it wasn’t the biggest deal.
That said,
the structure of the diet ALSO created some “bumpers” that helped keep Evan on
track. Though one of the pros of eating
McDonalds for every meal is that you don’t have to shop for food, cook or
clean, one of the cons is that you don’t have ANY food unless you go to
McDonalds. This created a necessary “barrier
to entry” for Evan as it related to eating.
There was no opportunity to mindlessly snack, no sneaking off in the
night to raid the fridge: if he wanted to eat, he had to go out and get
it. It’s honestly very “hunter/gatherer”
meets Wall-E. But what this ended up doing
was putting Evan in a position where he only ate 1-2 meals a day, because logistically,
based around his personal schedule, it was what he could facilitate. This, in turn, necessitated another form of
nutrition strategy, such that…
THE FOOD
SELECTION ENSURED SUCCESS
 |
| Again: the precedent is there... |
The reason Evan
COULD sustain a 1-2 meal a day approach is BECAUSE of the foods he chose to eat
with his McCarnivore diet. Evan started
with around 2400 calories per day, bumped down to around 2200, and eventually
settled at around 1750. This isn’t many
calories for an active male at around 180lbs bodyweight. However, Evan’s foods (especially at the end)
were primarily fat and protein. This
meant he was achieving effectively zero blood sugar spike from his food, which
also meant no crash, which meant no “energy crisis” response from the body
compelling him to seek more food to eat in order to get his blood sugar
stabilized. It remained stable and
consistent throughout the day, so he never needed to eat in order to correct
his blood sugar: just to get enough nutrients.
Which, on
that note, he posted his daily protein intake, and was consistently achieving
around 140+g of protein. For a 180lb
trainee engaging in resistance training (15 minutes a day, according to his
Instagram), he was hitting Stan Efferding’s recommendation of .8g per pound of
bodyweight, and per Dr Ted Naiman’s hunger hypothesis, his protein forward diet
was allowing him to obviate hunger by successfully consuming enough of the
nutrient. Additionally, by being in a (most
likely) ketogenic state, Evan’s body was primarily relying on bodyfat and ketones
for fuel, the latter of which is an ABUNDANT fuel source and neither of which
tend to promote a hunger/blood sugar response.
Whatever carbs his body needed were being converted from protein through
a process known as gluconeogenesis.
Had Evan attempted
a similar approach of nothing but McDonalds, but set his calorie limits the
same and only allowed himself French fries and ice cream, I posit that he
simply would NOT have achieved the same outcome.
VARIABLES
There's always something
It should be
appreciated that Evan was apparently working as a kayaking instructor and went
out of his way to walk 10k steps per day on busy work days and 15k steps per
day on non-busy days. He was also
engaging in 15 minutes of resistance training 4-6 times per week. These are all excellent practices in general,
and I feel this is more a feature rather than a bug when we consider that he
was eating 1750 calories per day and NOT feeling hungry during the process.
And, of
course, everyone is going to want to say “bloodwork bloodwork bloodwork”. Is this diet healthy? Who knows.
Is it healthier than how the majority of Americans are eating? I’ll say yes.
Is weight loss one of the fastest ways to achieve positive health
outcomes? Also yes.
IN
SUMMARY
This was an entirely different (yet also "successful") McDonalds diet
The “McCarnivore
Diet” works because it’s sustainable, psychologically, physiologically, financially
and logistically. It works because it
has a structure and guidelines designed to promote COMPLIANCE, NOT a set of
rules intended to promote GUILT. It
celebrates success: it doesn’t punish failure.
And the foods that comprise the diet are built to perpetuate sustained
compliance, rather than simply setting a guideline of calories/macros and being
agnostic to the impact that specific foods have biologically and metabolically. Despite it being “The McCarnivore Diet”,
there is nuance to it that has to be appreciated.
