For years, illnesses related to obesity have been haunting the nation and well beyond its borders, and now that consumers are growing more aware of health demands and how to treat their bodies better, industries like the fast food one are seeing their worst numbers in a very long time - which is why the viral story of the teacher who took a McDonald's diet is greatly appreciated by the biggest chain in the world.
To prove to his high school science students that fast food was a viable option as long as it was taken with precaution, Iowa teacher John Cisna went through a McDonald's diet for six months, eating only at the fast food giant - and actually losing weight in the process.
According to Business Insider, the tale of Cisna's McDonald's diet saw the teacher starting with 280 weight and, after his experiment was over six months later, he had gone done to 224 pounds - how? Well, limiting his caloric intake to 2,000 per day and exercising five times a week for a full 45 minutes.
Cisna worked in the McDonald's diet experiment along with his students to prove that it wasn't just a matter of eating one thing or another, but rather about keeping a healthy lifestyle nonetheless and not overdoing it.
Cisna's story of a full weight loss became viral and, as Eater reports, the Golden Arches chain lost no time in hiring him as a paid brand ambassador to tell his story, now including a new documentary called "540 Meals: Choices Make the Difference" and telling the teacher's story.
A complete opposite to the Academy Award-nominated 2004 documentary "Super Size Me," the McDonald's one tells a story of how healthy eating is all about choices in a time where the chain's struggling with the worst sales numbers it's seen in well over a decade.
As Take Part reports, however, there's one less successful McDonald's diet story out there: father and son science research team Tim and Tom Spector recently performed a similar experiment, where 23 year-old Tom ate nothing but McDonald's for 10 days and the two later studied what happened to his gut bacteria.
The results were dismal, of course: by the time the 10 days were over (after eating nothing but chicken nuggets, Big Macs, fries, and Coke), Spector had 1,300 less species of bacteria in his gut.
In any case, you can watch John Cisna's McDonald's diet documentary below and see his experiment!
