70-day diet of biscuits, cakes, fat-laden junk food to help you lose weight!

Ever thought gobbling fat laden junk food, biscuits, cakes and other high-sugar could help shed those extra kilos? If not, then here's something you should know - an American professor managed to be leaner, healthier and happier after a 10-week junk-food diet.

After eating sponge cakes, biscuits, some raw vegetables and drinking full fat milk and a protein shake every day, Mark Haub, of the Kansas State University, revealed this week that he had lost 12.1kg off his original 91.3kg body weight.

After an initial "rough" few days, he reported that he was snoring less and sleeping better. His other health indicators also showed improvements through a lower body mass index, lower cholesterol and blood pressure, he said.

Twinkies sponge cake was among the foods Haub enjoyed during his diet.

But before lovers of junk food can start finding solace in Haub's experiment, note that he limited his intake to a maximum of 1,800 calories a day, exercised heavily throughout the period and took vitamin supplements in addition to 'muscle' protein shakes.

"I am not recommending or promoting this approach. I am simply in the process of illustrating that foods deemed to wreck diets, cause obesity, lead to diabetes, etc do not - in and of themselves - do that," the Age quoted him as writing on his Facebook profile page after four days and a 3.2kg loss.

Rosemary Stanton, Australia's leading nutritionists, said Haub's experiment proved one thing:

"He showed he lost weight because he reduced his calorie intake," said Stanton.

Tim Gill, of the University of Sydney, said the experiment follows a global trend to take diets to the extreme but it did not take into account the benefits of good nutrition over a person's lifetime.

"You can't see that in 10 weeks.

"What (Haub) is trying to say is that if you don't go over the 1,800 calories you won't have any worsening effects. What I'm saying is most people who might try this will go over 1,800 calories and in the long term will get ill effects," he added.

Here's what Mark Haub ate in a day:
- a double espresso
- two servings of Hostess Twinkies Golden Sponge Cake
- one Centrum Advance Formula 'From A To Zinc' pill
- one serving of Little Debbie Star Crunch cookies
- a Diet Mr Dew drink
- half a serving of Doritos Cool Ranch corn chips
- two servings of Kellogg's Corn Pops cereal
- a serving of whole milk
- half a serving of raw baby carrots
- one and a half servings of Duncan Hines Family Style Chewy Fudge brownie
- half a serving of Little Debbie Zebra Cake
- one serving of Muscle Milk Protein Shake drink
Total: 1,589 calories