I needed a subject who could read his own labs and finish the protocol, so a fit doctor eats 600 burgers instead of an average eater. Dr. Mike Brandon came in with a trained baseline, which let the experiment isolate the meat itself rather than measure someone going from unhealthy to worse. The film shows his starting condition on camera and the film suggests why that starting point matters for how the diet lands.
Why did the film need a fit doctor eating 600 burgers instead of an average person?
The comparison people reach for is Super Size Me, and I wrote up that comparison separately on Keto Project vs Super Size Me. That film put an average man on the whole fast-food menu, fries, soda, dessert, everything. I wanted the opposite setup: one subject, one variable, patties only. A fit doctor eats 600 burgers gets you a controlled test of the meat itself, not a test of a full junk-food menu on a body that was already unhealthy.
If I put an average, sedentary eater on this protocol, I would not know whether any change came from the burgers or from a baseline that was already sliding. Dr. Mike came in as a strength-trained doctor, and that gave me a floor to test the ceiling from. In my experience running self-experiments like this, you cannot separate cause from confound if your subject’s starting point is a mess.
What did the film show about Dr. Mike's baseline fitness?
The film shows the testing protocol used to establish where he started and where he ended up: the where-to-watch page covers the ARX press and lat pulldown work, belt squat, 40-meter and 60-meter dashes, standing long jump, high jump and a timed mile, run at baseline and again at two later points during the month. That is not a casual fitness check. It is a full performance panel, repeated, on a man who trains.
The film also shows blood testing at four separate points across the whole project, described in what happened to Dr. Mike’s blood, covering hormone, cardiometabolic, liver, thyroid, kidney and inflammatory panels. A subject who already has a trained baseline and a full panel behind him gives you a real before-and-after, not a guess dressed up as one.
If you aren't testing, you're guessing. I wanted to quantify literally everything.
Why does baseline health change how a diet lands on someone?
This is where the evidence gets interesting, and it is also why picking the subject mattered so much. The evidence says LDL cholesterol rises substantially on low-carb diets in people with normal body weight but not in those with higher BMI, per a 2024 meta-analysis of 1,379 participants (Soto-Mota et al., 2024). That is a lean-body effect, and Dr. Mike is lean and trained, so his response was never going to look like an average overweight subject’s response.
The evidence also says the Lipid Energy Model proposes that in lean people on carbohydrate restriction, high fat flux raises VLDL secretion and turnover, producing a distinct lipid pattern of high LDL-C and HDL-C with low triglycerides (Norwitz et al., 2022). That is a hypothesis, not proof, but it is exactly the kind of mechanism you can only test cleanly on someone whose baseline is already healthy. Put that same protocol on someone starting from poor metabolic health and you would not be able to tell what the burgers did versus what was already broken.
Could an average eater have finished 600 burgers in 30 days?
I have spent years as a strength coach, and that shaped this decision as much as anything in a study. In my experience, an experiment like this needs a subject who can physically complete it, not just tolerate it for a week and quit. The film shows the daily protocol at 20 Burgers a Day: Day 1, and thirty days of that load on someone without a trained body and a history of self-monitoring is a much bigger gamble than most people realize.
Dr. Mike had done extended fasts before, and the film shows him drawing on that history when the protocol moved into the water fast and reset phase. A subject who already understands his own body’s signals, and who has some baseline reserve to draw from, is more likely to finish the full thirty days rather than tap out at day ten. That was not a small consideration when I was deciding who would sit across from a camera for a month.
Did being a doctor matter as much as being fit?
Yes, separately from the fitness question. A subject who can read his own labs catches things a lay eater would miss and describe symptoms with more precision than ‘I feel bad.’ The film shows Dr. Mike narrating his own numbers and reactions throughout, which is part of why the experts featured in the every expert in the film breakdown could engage with him as a peer instead of just a case study.
That matters for the individual-results caveat too. Everyone’s response to a diet like this varies, and having a subject who understood that going in, rather than someone expecting a uniform outcome, kept the project honest about what one man’s numbers can and cannot tell you.
What did isolating the meat let the experiment actually test?
By removing buns, fries, soda and the rest of a normal fast-food order, and by choosing a subject whose baseline was already solid, the project could isolate one variable: what does a large volume of ground beef patties do to a healthy, trained body over thirty days. The film shows the daily macro breakdown Dr. Mike tracked himself, and I cover the bun and bread side of that separately in bunless burgers and insulin.
That narrower question is also why I keep pointing people to the keto vs carnivore breakdown, because the protocol shifted phases and the meat-only isolation only applied to the first stretch. None of this is medical advice, and it is not a diagnosis of anything; it is one man’s numbers under one specific protocol, and individual results vary.
Frequently asked questions
Why not use an average, untrained eater like Super Size Me did?
Because I wanted to isolate the burgers themselves, not measure a body that was already unhealthy getting worse; the comparison is broken down on the Super Size Me post.
Was Dr. Mike a licensed physician on camera?
He is a doctor, referred to as Dr. Mike or Dr. Brandon in the film; Jim Goetz, who made the film, is not a physician and is never called Dr.
Did his fitness level change how his body responded to the burgers?
The film shows his performance testing at multiple points, and the evidence says lean, trained people can show different lipid responses to carb restriction than heavier people.
Is this medical advice or a claim that the diet cures anything?
No. It's one man's documented experiment, not medical advice, and individual results vary.
Where can I see what actually happened to him?
The full protocol and testing are in the film, available to rent or buy on Amazon, and detailed further in the book.
The Bottom Line
I picked a fit doctor eats 600 burgers over an average eater because I needed a subject who could finish the protocol, read his own labs, and give me a real baseline to measure change against. That choice is what let the experiment isolate one variable, ground beef patties, rather than muddy the result with an already unhealthy starting point.
Watch The Keto Project on Amazon to see the testing and the numbers as they happened, and read 600 Burgers in 30 Days for the day-by-day account behind it.
Sources
This article is for information only and is not medical advice. Individual results vary. Speak to a qualified clinician before changing how you eat.
The whole experiment is in the film. 600 burgers, 30 days, every blood test — and the ending we never post.
Watch The Keto Project on Amazon