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Summer is fast approaching and bathing suits are awakening from their winter hibernation, so for one Credit Suisse analyst now was the time to shed those unwanted pounds with a rigorous 30-day diet - of nothing but McDonald’s.

That’s right - Credit Suisse analyst Keith Siegner took a page out of Morgan Spurlock’s playbook and dared to take on Ronald in a month-long battle of wills in an effort to show that even without further development, fast food can be considered synonymous with health living.

“As one of the first industries subject to health-related scrutiny, we believe quick-service restaurants [QSRs] will ultimately benefit from earlier product innovation and will potentially gain share from less convenient but currently perceived healthier concepts while scrutiny migrates towards other categories and industries,” Seigner said of his experiment.

Among the QSRs that Credit Suisse feels will lead the movement, McDonald’s jumped out ahead of the pack with what Siegner calls “early-moving and trail-blazing” efforts, but the analyst is also looking to Burger King, KFC, and Taco Bell to use imminent new product launches and marketing campaigns to gain healthful product share in the near future.

With McDonald’s identified as Siegner’s leading candidate, he set out to exercise “proper” item selection and portion control to prove that fast-food outlets are well positioned to turn potential regulation and evolving consumer preferences into opportunities to drive “healthy” sales and profits. The results? Through consuming roughly 30 chicken sandwiches, 27 salads, and 14 burgers ( resulting in an April diet total of 52,020 calories, 1,534 grams of fat including 472 grams of saturated fat, 142.3 grams of sodium and 3,165 grams of protein), Seigner actually lost five pounds and lowered his LDL (bad) cholesterol by 36 points, while his HDL (good) cholesterol barely moved. His overall cholesterol fell by over 20%, his sodium level declined a touch, his blood pressure declined and his resting hear rate was only 50 beats per minute.

“I ate more fast food over the course of April than I had since maybe last summer, when I tasted every burger from all the QSRs as due diligence (including some twice),” Seigner said. “The point is; I didn’t totally deprive myself. I just exercised moderation when eating the less healthful options.”

Not only does Seigner see potential for the national fast-food chains to capitalize on the healthy-conscience consumer, but he also sees a “solid” opportunity for regional concepts with active product development programs, customer bases that would be responsive to healthful options and creative marketing to exploit such efforts, such as Jack in the Box, Sonic, and others.

Consumers did take notice in April. McDonald’s said Thursday that its global same-store sales for April rose 5% versus the year-ago period, and U.S. comparable-store sales increased 2%.