Almost exactly a month ago I posted an entry about how the movie Super-size Me was stupid.
Well… another guy thought that, on top of being stupid, the guy responsible is just an idiot. He tried his own 30-day, McDonald’s only, super-size diet.
The results? He lost weight and lowered his cholesterol.
Which raises a lot of questions about the other guy, I think.
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July 30th, 2004 at 2:44 pm
The one thing that the guy doesn’t mention on is site (unless I’m just missing it) is how much he used to exercise before he went on the diet. He shows all the exercise he did while on the diet - which was not excessive, but was a descent amount. If he did no exercise at all before the diet, and then when he started the diet he began exercising as well - well, that would easily explain the weight loss. Of course, if his exercise routine was fairly similar before and after starting the diet, then it was most likely the diet that caused the weight loss. Perhaps a lot of vomiting or an intestinal worm could also explain it.
July 30th, 2004 at 3:24 pm
Excercise before and after makes no difference. It does expose a difference in personal metabolism, but nothing else, really.
Weightloss is Calories In - Calories out. If you end up negative, you lose weight.
The more interesting thing, though, was that he got MORE HEALTHY — not insanely sick as the other guy claimed. Methinks he might have been a little hypocondriatic.
July 30th, 2004 at 5:28 pm
Oh, clearly the first guy was an idiot, no doubt. But if this guy was maintaining his old weight eating between 2500-2700 calories a day and not exercising at all and changed over to a diet of, say, 3200 calories a day and began exercising over an hour a day, weight loss would not be surprising. If however his caloric intake increased while his exercise level stayed the same or decreased, a loss of weight would be surprising.
July 31st, 2004 at 3:07 pm
your friend matt is a smart guy.
this second guy did exercise a good amount, while the first guy didn’t exercise at all because he compared it to the fact that 70% of americans have no form of exercise. he still walked everywhere in new york, getting more steps in than most people. also the relative sickness of each person also depends on what their diet was like before. if you already eat fast food pretty frequently, then eating it for 30 days isn’t going to be too hard for you. and one last thing, if you look at his food journal, he doesn’t always eat three meals a day, a lot of times he only eats two. if the circumstances aren’t the same, you can’t fairly compare them - it’s just like 9th grade science 
July 31st, 2004 at 7:19 pm
He’s “smart” because he said something that suggests that this is anything but a publicity stunt? Heh. Nice try.
Notice how Matt’s story changed? First it was exercise… then it was exercise AND diet. No shit? What else is there? Chanting to the tree gods?
I should go on a Vegan diet for 30 days and document how sick I get to “prove” that vegan diets are unhealthy.
“the relative sickness of each person also depends on what their diet was like before.”
Which completely proves what I’m trying to say — that the Supersize-me guy is a hack. Either a) His diet changed drastically or b) He was imagining/exaggerating his symptoms. Either one pretty much makes the film worthless for anything except the entertainment factor of seeing an idiot eat himself sick.
…come to think of it… I bet that’s pretty funny. I should download it.
August 1st, 2004 at 12:07 am
i’d pay to see you do a vegan diet for 30 days. do it. i dare you.
besides, the supersize me guy isn’t a vegan, that’s his girlfriend, but he ate really healthily and exercised everyday. i’m not saying that his movie doesn’t have its faults, but it doesn’t mean that everything it has to say isn’t completely untrue. his factors are skewed in the fact that he would always finish everything, even when he was full, which would make anyone sick, but a lot of people do then to overeat. his diet did change drastically, in the film he says that he hadn’t had mcdonalds in a good while. but you can’t fake the kinds of medical results that his body went through. do you really think that constant fast food and an unactive lifestyle doesn’t lead to an unhealthy physicality? and also, the second guy always drank diet soda - that’s also different.
i think you should watch it. it’s got its amusing moments at some points and will probably make you want a big mac at the end. but then you can also call this guy stupid (because i know you still will) with having actually watched and not just stuff you’ve heard.
August 1st, 2004 at 2:48 am
First, I never said or implied that he was vegan. Not even close.
Second, I’d like to thank you for continuing to make my points for me: namely, that any fool could guess at the results of the film and, therefore, is completely worthless to watch.
Which leads me to something so annoying it ought to be a full post:
One doesn’t have to see, hear, or experience something first-hand to know it’s a pile of shit. I’ve never had my arm cut off with a pair of pinking shears, but I know it would hurt. I’ve never eaten a hunk of beef that’s been rotting on a counter top for two weeks, but I know it’d be disgusting.
Likewise, I don’t have to watch this “film” to know that it’s completely worthless to any serious discussion, except that of films made by two-bit, publicity-hound hacks trying to make it big.
August 1st, 2004 at 6:15 pm
Is that “matt” referring to me? (I’m kind of assuming it is since no else besides you 2 posted). If so, and you(pete) are saying my first post referred only to exercise while my second was “exercise and diet”, you should note that the word diet appeared 6 times in 5 sentences in my first post. And I never mentioned anything about something being or not being a publicity stunt. For the record, I think the first was clearly was while the second one kind of was.
All I was saying, in both posts, is that if you’re going to do a study you should only change one variable. If you change 2, such as diet and exercise, it becomes more difficult to tell which change caused the effect. Welcome to 5th grade science.
August 1st, 2004 at 7:04 pm
ahh yes “I used the word ‘diet’ X times!” — except that you were talking about exercise each of those times. You might note that in all but two of those usages the word “diet” was part of a prepositional phrase which was used to further qualify “exercise.” In the two cases where the word “diet” was not a part of a prepositional phrase, it was STILL used to further qualify exercise — the sole point you made any effort to make in that post. You might have meant something else, but your post didn’t imply it.
Yes, I’ve taken as much science as either of you, I promise — I know about variables and the like… but trying to impugn the second film by saying that he changed more than one variable and then ignoring the fact that the original changed more than one varialbe from it’s frame of reference seems a little silly, doesn’t it?
They’re both publicity stunts, they’re both silly, and neither are really worth watching.
August 1st, 2004 at 8:04 pm
OK, if you think they’re both silly I can buy that - and I agree. But your origianl post didn’t really specify that.
Of course I mentioed exercise every time I mentioned diet, I was discussing their inter-relation. You can talk about grammatical cases all you want but in both posts I talked about the same thing:
Whether or not a change in exercise could explain the weight loss, rather than the change in diet.
Why one would conclude that my next step would include tree gods seems fairly ridiculous and uncalled for.
As to whether it seems silly to impugn one when ignoring the fact the original did similar things as well - I deny both the premise and conclusion of that question. I never ignored the first one’s problems - it was painfully obvious that the guy was an idiot, and I stated as much on both this thread and the original. In addition, just because one thing is wrong doesn’t mean another is right. I attacked the validity of the second study based on its own merits, or lack thereof. Your original post didn’t attack the second study’s lack of valdidty, so I did. If you already agreed that it was invalid, then that’s fine - but you never said so until just now.
August 1st, 2004 at 9:47 pm
Its always a dick measuring contest between you two.
August 2nd, 2004 at 5:19 am
sorry to interrupt the flow of the tape measure.. but…
the film isn’t just about results, it’s a discussion about fast food in general and american’s problems with obesity. it also discusses school lunches and other lifestyles of different people. it’s not just about him and his 30 day diet. something you did not guess and would have known if you watched it.
sure.. duh.. you don’t have to cut off your arm to know it hurts. of course.. but in less extreme cases what about foreign (non-rotten 2 weeks old beef) foods or something like that. you can’t know whether or not you’d like it without tasting it. watching a movie is not like cutting off your arm.
i don’t get what you’re saying about how the first film changed it’s variable from the original frame of reference. he did the same thing the whole time, and he set the variables. there is nothing to change. but i was simply saying you can’t call the first guy a hack based on the second one’s results if they’re not the same. that the second guy is wrong, it’s just not the same.
i don’t think the second one is a film, or at least not yet.. just a guy who logged his results and video taped himself eating stuff for proof.
and i too thought that you thought that the second guy was “right”
one last thing- aren’t all movies some sort of publicity stunt anyways?
August 4th, 2004 at 4:35 pm
i’m not surprised. i’ve lost 10 lbs in the past month eating at McD’s. no publicity stunt, i just like their food. there are plenty of ways to eat healthy at McD’s, but people want to be idiots and eat a pound of cow at one sitting, washed down with 800 calories worth of sugar water.
McD’s is all about making money. They are going to sell what the public wants to buy. Where was mister SuperSizeMe when they had the McLean on the menu? Whatever happened to that? People didn’t buy it. They WANTED the supersized double quarterpounder. McD’s was there to answer the call.
Now we’re getting all fat and looking for someone to blame. Boo hoo.
You can eat whatever you want… in moderation. As long as you’re burning more calories than you’re consuming, you’ll lose weight. Simple, no?
Salads, Chicken McGrill, etc… there are plenty of things on the menu at McD’s that make not becoming obese easy. It’s up to the consumer to buy them.
August 4th, 2004 at 4:41 pm
people want to be idiots and eat a pound of cow at one sitting, washed down with 800 calories worth of sugar water.
Hi, my name is Pete and I’m the man you’re looking for.
Pound of cow? Check.
800 calories of sugar water? Check.
Where do I sign up?