RUSH: I’m gonna have fun with this story on CNN. Ladies and gentlemen, those of you who have been here for a while know how I love stirring the pot, the conventional wisdom when it comes to diet and 
exercise. I just love it. I absolutely love it because the conventional wisdom on diet and exercise is all wrong. It’s been all wrong for all time. A nutrition professor lost 27 pounds eating nothing but Twinkies. He lost 27 pounds, and his cholesterol went down. The bad cholesterol went down, the good cholesterol went up, triglycerides came down. All he did was eat Twinkies. When he got tired of Twinkies he went and got some Little Debbie stuff and then some other Hostess Cakes. He ate nothing but desert essentially and lost 27 pounds, and I am going to relish explaining this to you as the program unfolds today.
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RUSH: I told you I was gonna have fun with this story: ‘Twinkie Diet Helps Nutrition Professor Lose 27 Pounds.’ I love stirring the conventional wisdom pot, as you know. And I love being right. Folks, it’s a thrill. I have to tell you, you don’t know what it’s like to be right as often as I am, particularly when you’re simply following instincts, when being right really doesn’t have that much to do with formal education, just being street-wise smart, just having common sense, having the guts to say what you know to be true regardless what the reaction to it is gonna be and when it eventually is all proven like ‘I hope he fails,’ all this stuff.
What have I told you about diet and exercise? Exercise is irrelevant. What matters in losing weight is what you eat, pure and simple, and how much, nothing more than that. And everybody tries to tell me I’m wrong, that I don’t know what I’m talking about. And every time a story comes out on this I am validated, and nobody has ever said, ‘Rush, you know, you were right about this.’ This is CNN, their Web page: ‘For 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate one of these sugary cakelets every three hours, instead of meals. To add variety in his steady stream of Hostess and Little Debbie snacks, Haub munched on Doritos chips, sugary cereals and Oreos, too.’ This is a nutrition professor. ‘His premise: That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most — not the nutritional value of the food. The premise held up: On his ‘convenience store diet’ –‘ now, remember, this is what Michelle (My Butt) — uh, that’s the second time I’ve done that and I apologize.
You know, I have sworn, folks, that I’m not gonna pass on stories to you that have to do with her fashion sense, ’cause I, frankly, don’t care. I really don’t care. But some of it’s getting too hard to stomach now. The fact that she’s a fashion icon, I’m sorry. When she gets off the plane wearing something that looks like it’s got grease splotches on the dress, looks like she ran up against the hydraulic machine on the airplane and they’re calling it a fashion statement, I’m sorry, it doesn’t cut it with me. And I don’t care. But when you go that far overboard to claim she’s making fashion statements, like, they call it vintage. (interruption) No, I haven’t forgotten the diet story. Look, it works here. They’re calling it vintage. Go back and wear old-fashioned stuff that you shoulda thrown away from the eighties that you still have and then you mix it with what somebody bought you today and call it a fashion statement called vintage, when basically you wear what fits. You and I know a lot about that. You and I, we wear what fits, to hell with fashion. We don’t have time for that.
Anyway, Michelle Obama’s on this big obesity kick, right? Gotta eat healthy stuff, gotta eat the garbage that she grows in the garden, nothing but fruits and vegetables. You can’t go out and grab a burger like her husband does every chance he gets. I mean here comes some foreign leader, the last one was Dmitry Medvedev, and where does he take him? To a burger joint in Virginia. That’s because he doesn’t get to eat that stuff at home, and he is the president of the United States. So he’s having to eat all this so-called healthy stuff and Michelle Obama wants to spend $400 million to combat food deserts. She’s all upset that the only food available to poor urban people are convenience stores, the 7-Elevens. What did Biden say, you can’t go in one without finding an Indian? Yeah, that’s what Joe Bite Me said. So she’s complaining about food deserts, and Michelle Obama wants to punish Big Food and Big Retail for not putting quality food stores in poor neighborhoods, right? And that’s why there’s an obesity epidemic, right?
Okay, along comes Mark Haub, professor, human nutrition, Kansas State University, who ate a Twinkie every three hours, and when he got tired of Twinkies, he ate Doritos, sugar cereals, and Oreos. And he was out there to prove that pure calorie counting is what matters most, not the nutritional value of the food. And the premise held up on his convenience store diet available in what Michelle calls food deserts. He lost 27 pounds in two months eating Twinkies, Doritos, Oreos, and sugar cereals. ‘For a class project, Haub limited himself to less than 1,800 calories a day.’ He didn’t care where they came from. It was 1,800 calories. ‘A man of Haub’s pre-dieting size usually consumes about 2,600 calories daily. So he followed a basic principle of weight loss: He consumed significantly fewer calories than he burned. His body mass index went from 28.8, considered overweight, to 24.9, which is normal. He now weighs 174 pounds.’ He weighed 201.
‘But you might expect other indicators of health would have suffered. Not so. Haub’s ‘bad’ cholesterol dropped 20 percent on a diet of –‘ Dawn, are you listening to this or are you ignoring me on purpose? Kathryn, you hear this? She sent me a note up there, ‘Don’t get any Twinkie ideas.’ (laughing) When I first mentioned this in the first segment she sent me an instant message, ‘Don’t you get any Twinkie ideas.’ Kathryn, are you hearing me on this? Nothing but Twinkies. I don’t even like ’em, don’t worry, I don’t like Twinkies. I don’t like hostess cupcakes. If you like ’em, fine. Now, I am a sucker for Doritos. That’s why we don’t have them in the house. I am a sucker for Doritos. I don’t like sugar cereals and I don’t like Oreos. I’m not a big sugar guy. Yeah, salted snacks, I’m right in there. Well, you do need to balance that stuff out with the occasional Twinkie because you need to go from the salt to the sugar. That’s why people eat Carmel corn instead of regular popcorn. That’s why sometimes you’ll see people at the movies eat popcorn with butter on it and then go grab a Snickers. All I’m telling you is if you do that and keep it under 1800 calories you are going to lose weight. That’s what this guy has proven here, and his cholesterol went down, his good cholesterol went up. He reduced the level of triglycerides by 39% eating this so-called junk food.
Let me tell you something else. Marvin Harrison, number 88, wide receiver, Indianapolis Colts, recognized as one of the finest wide receivers in the history of pro football, no longer playing, eight nothing but junk food. He was known as a junk food junky. You ever seen Marvin Harrison? String bean. Now, granted he’s out there running the equivalent of a marathon every week, but still. It doesn’t matter. I maintain he’d have looked the way he looked regardless. He was able to eat more of it, is the point. Exercise doesn’t matter. If you run a marathon every week, yeah, you’re gonna be burning some calories, but not as many as you think. Don’t distract me. ”That’s where the head scratching comes,’ Haub said. ‘What does that mean? Does that mean I’m healthier? Or does it mean how we define health from a biology standpoint, that we’re missing something? … ‘I’m not geared to say this is a good thing to do,’ he said. ‘I’m stuck in the middle. I guess that’s the frustrating part. I can’t give a concrete answer.” I went out and I ate this junk food and I lost weight, and I got healthier.
‘Before his Twinkie diet, he tried to eat a healthy diet that included whole grains, dietary fiber, berries and bananas, vegetables –‘ basically he ate cardboard ‘– and occasional treats like pizza. ‘There seems to be a disconnect between eating healthy and being healthy,’ Haub said. ‘It may not be the same. I was eating healthier, but I wasn’t healthy. I was eating too much.’ He maintained the same level of moderate physical activity as before going on the diet.’ He didn’t exercise any more than usual. ‘To avoid setting a bad example for his kids, Haub ate vegetables in front of his family.’ But that was just to fake ’em out. So there you have it. Every six months or so we’re gonna get a story like this, and it’s just gonna confirm what I, old El Rushbo, have always said. It is incredible. And Snerdley, what makes it even more incredible is that I have known this instinctively all along. It is what you eat. It’s the content. It’s not all the health food garbage. It’s calories in versus calories out, pure and simple. It’s not health foods; it’s not exercise, pure and simple. You gotta figure out how many calories at your body size and age that you can eat every day without gaining weight and then subtract from that, even if it’s booze. If you go over the limit of calories, the whole thing’s blown.
In other words, if it takes 1800 calories a day to lose weight, and you eat 1900 or more, it doesn’t matter what you eat. I know what you people think, ‘But, Rush, but, Rush, what about the Atkins diet, low carbohydrate, because you can eat all the protein you want?’ Yes, you do at first. But after a while, you people who have been on that diet admit it to me, you lose your appetite after a while. One of the effects of a no-carb diet, high protein diet is called ketosis, and that’s an appetite suppressant. That’s how that diet works, for the time it works. Don’t doubt me on this stuff. That’s just all I’m telling you.
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RUSH: I’ll never forget when I was on William Shatner’s show on Bravo, Raw Nerve, and during the interview he asked, ‘How do you know?’ I was so certain about something. ‘How do you know?’ I said, ‘Because it’s my job to know.’ ‘How do you know all this?’ One of the reasons I know what I know is that I know liberals, and I know liberals lie, and if Michelle Obama’s gonna be out there ripping into ‘food desserts’ and saying, ‘This is why people are fat,’ I know it’s not true. ‘Rush, do you really believe that? It’s that simple to you, liberals lie?’ Yes, it is, folks. Once you learn that, once you come to grips with that, once you accept that, the rest is easy. Very, very simple. Now, my doctor has never told me to restrict any intake of salt, but if he did, I wouldn’t. I’d just spend more time in the steam or the sauna sweating it out.
There are more than two ways, three ways to skin a cat. (interruption) Well, you sweat it out, Snerdley. Absolutely right. If the idea is to limit your intake of salt, then just go ahead and intake it and sweat it out. What do you think you’re sweating, Snerdley? Why do you think your dog wants to lick you when you’ve been sweating like crazy? Or your cat, it doesn’t matter.
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RUSH: David, Aventura, Florida, welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Thanks, Rush. I agree with you a hundred percent, and I’ve been in this field for about 35 years.
RUSH: Thank you very much. Which field?
CALLER: The exercise and nutrition field.
RUSH: Oh, exercise and nutrition.
CALLER: I’ve been a trainer for over 35 years, and I keep meaning to call you and telling you how right you are about it, not because of any other reason because you are right.
RUSH: Specifically right about what?
CALLER: About the calories in. It’s the total number of calories, it always has been.
RUSH: So exercise is not that big a factor in losing weight but why does it matter?
CALLER: Absolutely a zero factor, believe it or not. Your body will adapt to it over time and it will be part of your lifestyle. Therefore it’s not calories out. It’s all 100% calories in.
RUSH: Okay, so if exercise increases your appetite, you’ll just eat more.
CALLER: That’s psychological. I’ve never been able to measure that. I don’t believe it does. Never does anything for me except for making me more tired. And many people more tired.
RUSH: But you’re a trainer, so — well, wait a minute, though. You said you were a trainer so I assume means you’re an exercise trainer. There’s obviously some value in it. Why do you do it?
CALLER: Oh, yeah. If you do it properly, it makes you more efficient human being. It makes you stronger, more efficient in doing things better, but many of the claims that they have out there in the field of exercise are specious.
RUSH: Like weight loss?
CALLER: They seem like they’re a good idea, but not really.
RUSH: Like weight loss.
CALLER: Weight loss, absolutely not. It’s a very inefficient, very poor mode for weight loss.
RUSH: Very hard, too, ’cause all it does is make you hungrier. At least that’s me. It increases my appetite.
CALLER: Well —
RUSH: I can’t tell you how many people… No, David, I’m serious. I can’t tell you how many people I know who do exercise a lot who tell me the reason they do it is so they can eat a lot, they love to eat and so they exercise to accommodate for how much they’re eating.
CALLER: That’s funny because we see a lot of people that acquiesce to that, and in my opinion they’re just fat active people. Okay? I’ll do you one better than that: There’s no such thing as cardiovascular exercise.
RUSH: Oh, now, that’s controversial. That’s gonna light some fires out there.
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: There’s no such thing!
CALLER: If you look at it, don’t you seek the truth in economics and philosophy?
RUSH: I do.
CALLER: Well?
RUSH: I do, but cardiovascular exercise is one of these unmitigated truths. I mean, it’s just accepted.
CALLER: There, you just said it: It’s accepted. It’s traditionally accepted without scrutiny, just like liberalism is traditionally accepted and passed down without scrutiny. Of course, I’m a conservative or I wouldn’t call the show. (laughs)
RUSH: Well, I know but you’re gonna have explain to people. What’s the ruse? What do people…? What are they mistaken about when they think they’re helping themselves doing cardiovascular exercise? Are you saying it doesn’t strengthen the heart? It doesn’t strengthen your cardiovascular system?
CALLER: No, it strengthens the skeletal muscles involved. It makes them very skillful at performing said recreation, said sports, said activity.
RUSH: Ah ha!
CALLER: But it doesn’t make your heart any healthier.
RUSH: Let me go at this a different way. Let me ask you a question. All during junior high school, grade school and junior high school we had the President’s Physical Fitness Test we had to do twice or three times a year, and one of the things you had to do the 600-yard walk and/or run in a certain amount of time.
CALLER: I did that. Yes.
RUSH: Okay, okay. I don’t care what I weighed, I could not run 600 yards straight. I had to stop and walk some of it. Now, your theory is no matter how much cardiovascular I did, that would not change?
CALLER: No. Absolutely not. It’s a specific activity unto itself.
RUSH: So when Coach Mike Shanahan of the Washington, DC, Redskins says, ‘I pulled Donovan McNabb because he wasn’t cardiovascular prepared to run the two-minute drill,’ uhhh.
CALLER: I found that to be ridiculous when I heard about that.
RUSH: Well (laughing), you’re right. I can’t tell you why I know, but you’re right.
CALLER: I found that to be absolutely ludicrous, but I find a lot of those things to be ludicrous. So, yeah. What I’m saying is, it’s your skeletal muscles that perform the work. The heart gets specifically so-called conditioned for that set activity. If you really want to… It’s a very accepted, traditional thing because it’s not your heart or vascular system that performs the work; it’s skeletal muscles. So it’s most important to find the most efficient way to work your skeletal muscles and let your heart do what it does best is keep you alive.
RUSH: Yeah. Well, that makes all the sense in the world to me. I don’t doubt any of it. I have known some professional athletes, particularly NFL players, who smoke three packs of cigarettes a day, who were among the best at their positions. (interruption) What? Yeah. I know I’ve done it. I step in it every time this subject comes up. Every time. Every time it comes up, I’m the one that doesn’t know what I’m talking about. I’m well aware of it, Snerdley. It’s been my lot in life.
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RUSH: How many of you happened to see either the actual live coverage of the New York City marathon yesterday or maybe some highlights of it later on? Did you see it? Look at the people who ran in the New York City marathon. Most of them looked like death eating a cracker. I thought I’m looking at cadavers eating crackers, and I just know that that’s not for me.
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RUSH: I got this e-mail: ‘Dear Rush, I don’t know who it was, the idiot that sent you this note about no cardiovascular exercise. I don’t know where he went to school but he’s dead wrong.’ I knew that was gonna happen. I just knew that was gonna happen. They don’t call me Old Captain Stir the Pot for nothing.