Cutting pizza (© EdNurg - stock.adobe.com)
BANGOR, Northern Ireland — Is it possible to eat whatever you want every day, as long as you're following a strict exercise routine and monitoring your calories? A personal trainer in Ireland says he lost over seven pounds despite eating 10 slices of pizza every day for a month. Moreover, he's claims he's now more ripped than at the start of this delicious diet.
Personal trainer Ryan Mercer, 34, says he ate pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and managed to lose roughly 7.7 pounds during the 30-day challenge. He took on the challenge to show how calorie-deficit diets allow people to lose weight without restricting their favorite foods. Ryan, from Bangor in Northern Ireland, carefully planned his diet and made all the pizzas himself, while maintaining his usual exercise regime.
“January is a tough month for people when it comes to fitness goals,” Mercer says in an online video. “I aimed to highlight not only fat loss about calories in and calories out but that it's also not about restriction. We don't have to restrict our favorite foods to get results and I also wanted to encourage more people to prepare their own food.”
Ryan's usual diet is a flexible approach to eating, with a healthy protein intake, and seven to 10 portions of fruit and vegetables each day. For the challenge, however, Ryan ate nothing but pizza.
“I consumed pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day,” the 34-year-old says in his video. “I had two pitta pizzas and one larger dough-based pizza per day, this equated to roughly 10 slices per day. Additionally, I left room for additional snacks.”
Pizza is one of Ryan's favorite foods, but due to his busy schedule, he found it difficult to make time to prepare the pizzas himself. “The hardest part of the entire diet was the preparation,” Mercer says. “Pizza is one of my all-time favorite foods, so I enjoyed eating it all month, although I did ensure I had a large variety of different pizzas to give myself some variance.”
As he prepared everything himself, Ryan spent around $12 per day on ingredients. “I home-cooked everything. The estimated daily cost was around £6-a-day for two pitta pizzas, and one dough-based pizza and three side salads,” the dieter continues. “Additionally, I spent around £2 or £3 per day on snacks.”
At the end of the month, Ryan became leaner, which surprised many of his followers online.
“This was a carefully planned dietary strategy. I designed a system, and this is what got me to my goal,” Mercer continues. “Daily calorie intake was set at 1,800-2,100 Monday to Friday, 2,700kcal Saturday and Sunday, daily protein target 140g per day, daily fruit and vegetable portion goal, seven portions minimum per day.”
Ryan only recommends the diet if it suits the person's lifestyle citing “everyone is different.” His video reveal garnered over two million views online and has generated a huge response.
“I feel [that the video] has highlighted the confusion among the masses when it comes to fat loss and nutrition,” Mercer says. “I've had some negative comments, some very funny ones and of course some positive feedback. One thing we have in common is we all eat food so everyone has some sort of opinion when it comes to nutrition.”
Interestingly, a study in 2020 found that it's possible to eat all the pizza you want (occasionally) and not damage your health.
University of Bath researchers found that young men were able to devour twice as much pizza than usual when they pushed themselves. For some in the study of 22 to 37-year-olds, this meant chowing down two-and-a-half large pies in one meal! Despite all the extra calories and fat, the British team found men don’t suffer any immediate health issues when overindulging occasionally.
“We all know the long-term risks of over-indulgence with food when it comes to obesity, Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease,” lead researcher Aaron Hengist says in a university release. “Our findings show that the body actually copes remarkably well when faced with a massive and sudden calorie excess. Healthy humans can eat twice as much as ‘full’ and deal effectively with this huge initial energy surplus.”
The study in the British Journal of Nutrition reveals the men’s blood sugar levels are no higher after finishing a normal meal. The all-you-can-eat pizza buffet does however create a 50-percent spike in insulin, the hormone that controls blood sugar levels.
That said, it's best to consult your doctor first before attempting to do what Mercer did or radically changing your diet.
Report by SWNS writer Barney Riley.
