Losing a double-digit chunk of weight in one month was a piece of cake for Mark Haub. On August 25, the Kansas State University professor of nutrition began a 10-year-old's dream diet of Twinkies, Ho Hos, and brownies for each meal. Thirty days later and 15 pounds lighter, Haub not only feels great, but his bad cholesterol is down, his good cholesterol is up, and his blood pressure is fine. But while he is pleased about his new, trimmer self, that's not the reason he switched to junk food. He wanted his students to see for themselves that any diet can produce weight loss­—and if accomplished with a menu all but guaranteed to wreak havoc, then weight shouldn't be the sole standard for good health.

Haub's diet grew from a course he teaches on energy balance. Weight loss, he told his students, is simply about consuming fewer calories than you burn—energy in, energy out. To illustrate the point, Haub announced that he would eat exactly the kind of junk that's supposed to be off limits to someone who wants to lose weight. "If weight loss is the ultimate goal," he asked his students, "does it matter how I achieve it?"

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