Runner Eats McDonald's For 31 Days

A little while back we heard about a marathon runner who vowed to eat McDonald's for 31 days straight — all while training for the Long Beach Marathon and raising money for charity. Crazy, right?

Well, last night we caught up with Emily Helm, or McRunnerette as she calls herself, and she's still not tired of Mickey D's after 14 days.

Breakfast usually consists of fruit-and-yogurt parfaits, although on Fridays she gets "hotcakes" for carbs and two chicken sandwiches. Her main problem isn't feeling heavy afterwards — it's getting enough food to eat. "That's the hardest part, is getting enough calories, I can't just run to McDonald's six times a day," she says.

Since she's running six or seven miles a day (and more on long runs), she needs at least 2,800 calories a day. That means getting plain English muffins and freezing them, or buying a ton of chocolate chip cookies to munch on at home. She is, however, trying to limit herself to one order of fries a day.

"It really is only 31 days," Helm says. "I've always loved fast food. I already ate McDonald's four or five times a week." Still, she's hoping for pizza, wings, and chicken nachos once this is over. We can only hope to have her metabolism when we're 30.

The Daily Byte is a regular column dedicated to covering interesting food news and trends across the country. Click here for previous columns.