Hello Infographics fans, we're back with another
special challenge episode where we explore the deepest questions science doesn't dare
ask, and then make your favorite- and most expendable- writer answer them! Today we're tackling the issue of obesity
once again, but now we want to know what role does food play in our instant-gratification
culture? To find out we're putting our favorite guinea
pig through thirty days of nothing but fast food. As usual he'll update us on weekly progress,
so strap in and stay tuned for Challenge: eat only fast food for a month! Day 1: I have to admit, I'm not looking forward
to this one at all. I don't really like fast food, I mean I used
to when I was a kid but when you start having to pay for your own food you kind of hit a
point where you think to yourself, why am I paying to eat garbage? Now it's all I'm going to have to eat for
the next thirty days, and all I can say is that I'm glad the pay is worth it. Naturally the fitness-freak girlfriend did
not take this well at all, but I worked some of my charm on her to ease this one through,
and by “worked some of my charm” what I actually mean is that after the thirty days
are up I'm going to owe her big time. Again. So before hand I did my research on what I
could potentially expect. We've all seen Supersize Me, and after it
came out everyone hated fast food until it was revealed that Morgan Spurlock fudged quite
a bit of the quote- experiment- unquote, for the sake of drama. I'm going to keep it simple, I'll figure out
how many calories I'm taking in and keep track of my weight as well as mood and energy levels,
etc. I'm less interested in the numbers and more
on what the actual physiological effects are on me and my life. The effects of eating lots of fast food vary,
but some of the scarier ones include diabetes. Apparently that's because fast food is loaded
with carbs that have almost no fiber, and when your body breaks those empty carbs down
they turn into glucose which pumps up your blood sugar levels. To regulate, your body releases insulin, but
if you do this too many times your body can actually stop responding to the blood sugar
leading to insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes. Nothing I've found says that thirty days of
nothing but fast food is nearly enough to do this though. The other major side effect is, duh, weight
gain. The American Heart Association recommends
eating only 100 to 150 calories of added sugar per day, or six to nine teaspoons, but a 12
ounce soda has eight teaspoons of sugar- so kiss the rest of your daily allowance goodbye. Then ofcourse there's added sugar in the food
itself in order to make it taste good- I heard a rumor that McDonalds soaks their potatoes
in a sugar water solution to enhance the flavor, but that's just a rumor. What's not a rumor is that their fries are
actually pretty amazing. There is also added trans fat in fast food,
and every health website pretty much says that there's absolutely zero levels of trans
fats that are healthy for you. Lucky for me fast food is loaded with trans
fat, so... hooray? Then there's concerns over sodium, but that
only seems to be a real issue for people with weakened hearts and blood pressure conditions,
which I do not have- although the AHA recommends you eat no more than 2300 milligrams of sodium
per day and a single fast food meal contains as much as half your day's worth. So basically what I'm gathering from all this
research is that we need to add more hours to the day, so that then one meal won't have
almost all my daily allotment of sodium, calories, and sugar. You're welcome fast food industry, I just
ended your biggest marketing nightmare- just add more hours to the day and your meals won't
have an entire day's junk limits in one sitting! I should've been a Mad Man. Ok, so as usual I'll update weekly. Starting weight is 165 pounds, and I confess
that I exercise regularly so my results probably aren't going to be the same as a couch potato. In fact my fitness nazi girlfriend has promised
that she's upping our work out routine viciously because she's starting her own thirty day
challenge called: I'm going to not let my boyfriend get fat and crush him physically
to make sure it doesn't happen. Day 7: I've been doing some rough tabletop
math just to figure out how many calories I've been taking in based off what I can find
on different restaurant websites, and I'm pretty sure I'm running at about 3,000 calories
a day, well over the 2,000 a day natural limit we're supposed to be taking in. I've been hitting up Mcdonalds and grabbing
Big Macs with fries, so that's about 1k calories right there, and then grabbing In and Out
for a double double with fries which is about 1100 calories. By the way, if you don't have In-and-Out where
you live, why do you even live there? It's basically the only fast food restaurant
that doesn't taste like fast food, and the only place where I actually feel the money
I spend is worth the food I'm getting in return. Other places like Mcdonalds I typically feel
like I might as well just have eaten the ten dollars I spend, vomited the tenner back up,
and then eaten the vomited ten dollar bill. I've also been hitting up Del Taco though,
until I realized that Chipotle very much still counts as fast food but is infinitely better. I considered Taco Bell but then I remembered
that I don't actually hate my own existence and I like eating things that on some level
are considered food. Carl's Jr. has been good to me, and honestly
I'd say their quality is definitely in the upper tier of fast food, though far below
In and Out. Then again being upper tier quality in fast
food is like being the smartest dumb guy, you're still an idiot. Speaking of dumb guy, I was getting the swiss
chicken sandwich at Carl's Jr thinking to myself, hey it's chicken, this is definitely
healthier than a burger! And guess what, it's 780 calories, over 200
calories more than a Big Mac! Even that doesn't compare with the half pound
mile high bacon thickburger though, which is a whopping 1230 calories. Ok, so I've been getting in right around 3k
calories a day this week, and I've been skipping breakfast because every fast food breakfast
is awful. I hit the scale and weighted 167, but that's
definitely within natural fluctuation so I can't say I've actually gained that much weight
already. There's also the fact that the girlfriend
has been running me during our exercise time like an old drill instructor, a job I suspect
she is secretly loving. First week done, and I gotta say, I feel pretty
normal. Day 14: I've been trying to switch it up other
than just hitting the same few places over and over again, and I gotta tell you, fast
food really tastes the same everywhere you go, and that's predominantly: awful. Thank god for in and out though, and chipotle. At least those taste like real food. I'm definitely no food snob, I've eaten way
too many cold MREs in my life to ever be one, but I think if we were all honest with ourselves
we'd admit that fast food tastes good for like the first five bites, and after that
it tastes like depression, loneliness, and suicide. My mood is definitely affected, I feel sluggish
both physically and mentally. Girlfriend got called up for an acting gig
that took her away for most of the week so she hasn't been around to slavedrive me into
exercise oblivion, and I kind of wish she had. I tried to switch things up and added Panda
Express to the mix just to get away from mexican food and burgers. Two servings of orange chicken and fried rice
are just over 1500 calories. How in the world did I think this would be
a healthier option?! I've been going to a lot of fast food places
guys, and it turns out that burgers are overwhelmingly the most healthy option! I'm at 169 pounds this week, which is definitely
past normal weight fluctuation, and if I remember right it's the high point I got to when I
did the only soda for a month challenge. And it's only halfway through! Welp, this is definitely not going to be the
month of washboard abs. Day 21: I am legitimately dreading meal time. At first it was kind of fun to eat fast food
all the time, specially since I rarely get to. Then it became boring and repetitive- spoiler
alert, it all starts tasting the exact same. Then it very quickly became a mini-hell. I literally feel like my blood has turned
into barbeque sauce, I could probably flavor my own food just by cutting myself open. I now hate fries, and I have always- always-
loved french fries. Now I think we need a new potato famine. I kind of wish I could go back in time to
the famous irish potato famine just so I could gloat over all those dead potatoes. Not so much the dead irish though. This week I added Wienerschnitzel to the mix,
and then I immediately took Wienerschnitzel out of the mix. Remember how I said that Carl's Jr. was upper
tier of fast food earlier? Well Weiner doesn't even rank. It's just not food, period. Physically I can't keep up with the girlfriend
when we exercise anymore. She outruns me, she outboxes me, I am on the
verge of passing out while she's still warming up. I'm at 172 pounds, and that's not major weight
gain but the fast food just literally... I don't know, it weighs you down physically. It's like jamming chocolate and marshmallows
into a car's engine. I feel absolutely terrible, and my mood has
definitely been quite a bit darker. The girlfriend has definitely taken note of
the mood change, and she's been sending me corny one line jokes while she's at work because
she knows I love bad dad jokes. It's actually really sweet of her. Then she comes home and kicks my ass working
out. Only one week left, and I am seriously looking
forward to this one being over. Day 30: Final weight is 174 pounds, or a nine
pound weight gain over thirty days. I have no doubts that if I hadn't been exercising
as much as I do, I could've easily done some pretty high double digits. I know Murgon Spurlock fudged a lot of things
in his Supersize Me doc, but honestly a lot of the stuff he presented was spot on. Fast food kills your mood, absolutely ruins
your sex drive, and destroys your energy levels. I used to breeze a two mile run, now I'm dying
at a mile. Girlfriend celebrated the end of the challenge
by going out and buying a bunch of healthy stuff to make for lunch and dinner for the
next week, and I gotta tell you after all the garbage I've been eating, seeing the rows
of fresh vegetables and fruit in our fridge has kind of got me salivating. I can't say that I hate fast food now and
will never eat it again, in fact I think this challenge has helped me identify exactly which
fast food I do like and which I'll never touch again, but I definitely have no desire to
eat fast food for at least... a year? My final verdict is this: if you're eating
fast food pretty regularly and feel terrible about yourself or depressive all the time,
try and stop or cut down. You'll be amazed at how much food is to blame
for how you're feeling, or at least making bad feelings much, much worse. Four weeks of 3000 to 4000 calories a day,
specially such low nutrition calories, have absolutely wrecked me, and I can't imagine
what it must do to people over the really long term. Now please do me a favor and upvote a bunch
of comments telling the infographics show to send me on a 30 day challenge: vacation
to hawaii! Byeeee
