Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame-seed bun. You know you’re “lovin’ it.” Some are lovin’ it two or three times a week. But could you love it for 30 days?

Morgan Spurlock is the director, star and guinea pig of “Super Size Me,” a documentary of a 30-day McDonald’s binge. Spurlock said the idea came to him on Thanksgiving Day. He saw a news story about two girls in New York who were suing McDonald’s for making them fat.

“I thought, ‘Is this what it’s come to? That we’d have to sue companies for making us fat?'” he said in an e-mail message.

Spurlock said his next thought led directly to his profession.

“And then I thought, ‘Wait a second, if this food isn’t as bad as they would make it out to be, then I should be able to eat it regularly without a problem.’ I called my friend Scott and told him, ‘Wouldn’t this be a great bad idea for a film?'” Spurlock said.

So the two researched the topic before setting out to make a film that would explore responsibility of individuals versus responsibility of corporations.

“After getting beyond the initial bumps — the McGas, the McGurgles, the McHeaves, etc. — I started to crave the food more even after ingesting so much already,” Spurlock said. “I was becoming addicted to it in just a span of a few days.”

Breakfast, lunch, dinner and even the water that he drank came from over the counter of McDonald’s.

“I was living every kid’s dream,” Spurlock said. “Eating fast food three times a day, every day for a month. And I liked fast food.”

Spurlock’s health began to deteriorate as the month wore on.

“By day 21, my body gave me a very strong signal that it was exhausted from all this. I awoke in the middle of the night because I had trouble breathing and my heart was palpitating,” he says. “I was very, very scared at that point.”

He went to see his doctors the next morning before deciding whether he should continue the experiment.

He decided to press on for the final nine days, despite what the doctors said.

Just before the release of the film, McDonald’s announced an end to the super sizes and introduced the adult Happy Meals.

“They insist that this was all planned years ago and coincidental to the release of my film,” Spurlock said. “Uh-huh, riiiiight.”

Spurlock is now taking his message on the road, going to colleges, high schools and middle schools to talk about “how fast food and junk food is practically indoctrinated into youth through schools of all places.”

He will be bringing that message to the Memorial Union at 8 p.m. Thursday.

He said his health has returned to his pre-“Super Size Me” days. His girlfriend, a vegan chef, put him on a strict, all-vegan detoxifying diet to help him get his health back to normal.

He quickly lost all but about five of the 24.5 pounds he put on during the month.

“It took me a very long time to lose that last 5 pounds,” he said.

The experience has changed Spurlock’s eating habits, and it has affected a lot of other people.

“Not a single day has passed where someone hasn’t come up to me and said something like, ‘Hey, your film’s scared me from eating as much fast food as I did before’ or ‘Thanks to you, I don’t eat that crap anymore,'” he said. “I try to take as much personal responsibility as possible.”

After the monthlong fast food fest, Spurlock decided he wasn’t going back to McDonald’s for a while — and hasn’t been back since.

“I think I consumed enough Mickey D’s in that month to last a lifetime,” he says.