A personal trainer has been attempting to bust a couple of popular myths about dieting and weight loss by eating McDonald's every day for two weeks and claiming that he is actually losing weight. Watch:
Ultimately, this is a lesson about moderation and self-control, but also about how the accepted wisdom surrounding how to diet and lose weight is - more often than not - a load of nonsense.
At least, that's the point that Irish fitness instructor Oisin Mulligan is trying to make over on his TikTok account.
Oisin is on a mission to prove that you can still have some of the things you love while continuing to lose weight, and he's using himself as the proof.
In the first of a series of videos, he said: "I'm doing this to remove fear surrounding food.
"No food will inherently make you gain weight - even if that food is a Big Mac from McDonald's."
From that starting principle, he then weighed himself and tipped the scales at 82.1kg.
Eleven days later, he'd managed to drop 1.7kg, just from eating food from Maccies.
He explained: "I'm doing it by staying in a calorie deficit.
"Essentially, our body burns so many calories per day or utilises so much energy every day and if you just eat a little bit less than that, no matter what you eat, within that you will lose weight."
The plan is simple - every day he shows himself ordering another item from the McDonald's menu, while also making sure he takes his 10,000 steps and does other exercise, too.
He intends to prove that operating at a calorie deficit is the key to weight loss, rather than faddy dieting and self-punishment.
Oisin added: "If this doesn't show that calories are the deciding factor in weight loss then nothing will.
"All diets work by creating a calorie deficit - but most do it by restricting full food groups, such as carbs. And I'll say it again, restriction leads to failure!"
Obviously, he isn't advocating eating only McDonald's, as he also ate other foods to get the vitamins and minerals he needs daily, but he does want to challenge the idea that their food is somehow 'bad'.
"People feel afraid of certain foods or feel like they can't consume the foods they enjoy and lose weight at the same time," he continued.
"If someone calls your food bad or says McDonald's is inherently bad or your chocolate bar is bad, when you consume that food, it makes you feel bad."
There you have it. It's not what you eat, it's how you eat it.
Featured Image Credit: TikTok/MulligainzTopics: Food, Interesting, Food And Drink, Diet, McDonald's, Health, TikTok