Great post. This is indicative of the fact that a caloric deficit is first, and foremost, the most important thing to pure weight loss. I suspect if he were an athlete or attempted to maintain a higher level of muscle mass, he would've lost much of it with such low levels of protein. In addition, eating junk/high GI items probably made him much hungrier in his caloric deficit than if he were to have kept his insulin levels at bay... in the end, I think a diet like this sets the person up for long-term failure since leptin will eventually bite the guy in the ass.