Can you eat whatever you want?

harribo_mum

I lost all 70lb by eating whatever I wanted and staying under my goal so yes you can but I've had to change that as my health was badly affected and I was ill constantly.

So yes you can but would you really want too? The odd treat now and again is ok but everyday is never going to do you any good!

ash190489

Yes, I believe you can eat whatever you want as long as you stay under your daily calorie goal - however, in saying that, you'll soon find whilst on this path (like I did) that it is in fact BETTER for more reasons than one to eat foods that are healthier and therefore 'HIGHER QUALITY' as I have found this tends to also lead to HIGHER QUANTITIES AS WELL. If you eat better./healthier food options you can have more - whether that be more of the actual food, or it's density ---

"Nutrient-dense foods have a high nutrient/calorie ratio. Meaning they are rich in nutrients when compared to their calorie content."

For instance, I found that I was really hungry for my next meal after having a white bread ham & salad sandwich. When I switched my bread over to whole grain bread (12 seeds & grains & brown) with the same ham and salad, I was not hungry after the same amount of time after consuming it. Often the bread calories are all fairly similar (multigrain is a little bit more as it is jam packed with goodness) however, it's worth the few extra calories if it means that I won't be hungry again a short while after and eating something else anyway.

I am amazed that I have just come home from work and instead of sitting on the couch eating treats, I have come home, chosen to eat a small handful of natural and unsalted almonds and a protein shake & I will be on my way to gym in a few minutes! I was not this person 3 months ago!!! This journey is amazing --- in terms of educating ourselves on health, our own bodies and the value of food.

Good luck on your journey. Just remember there will/could be days where you stuff up, but just pick yourself up and get back on track the next day!! Nothing can get in your way!

rileysowner

Not if you want to be healthy and get your hormones and digestion working well. I could eat 700 calories in processed Twinkees every day and probably lose some weight through some caloric deficit - but it would probably wreak havoc on my body and I would be even unhealthier than before. There are also studies showing that if our hormones are too out of whack, no matter what we eat, it will be stored as fat, even if we eat at a caloric deficit (our bodies will then be cannibalizing our muscles for fuel, etc).

Quality over quantity. Then everything will work itself out.

The twinkie deit showed that is not the case. Not to say that is the way to eat, but the guy who did it not only lost weight, but his other health markers improved as well. That is he was healthier. Another example is the documentary Fatheads (available on netflix). In that he ate a calorie controlled diet of 2000 calories of only fast food for 30 days. He lost weight and also had improvement in other health markers. Again this is not to say that is an optimal diet. Even the guy who made the documentary said that a good diet needs to include more veggies, but it does show healthy eating is much more flexible than most people think.

Have you ever seen anyone that got 6 pack abs on a twinkie diet? No. Because it's hard as hell to stick to a diet of under 2000 calories for any long period of time.

I have no idea if a person could get a six pack on a twinkie diet. If you read my post you would have realized that I was not advocating that, simply pointing out that our bodies are much more flexible with food than many people present them to be. I am guessing that if a person wanted to eat only twinkies, they are not really looking for a six pack, not everyone is. As another person stated, to stay within ones calories, it soon becomes apparent that the calorie dense, nutrient poor food is just not that satisfying, so instead of eating a lot of that, they eat more nutrient/fiber dense food that is not as calorie dense.

MintyStarshine

I read about a guy who lost weight (almost 30lbs) by eating (almost) nothing but junk food.

This is his diet:

Espresso, Double: 6 calories; 0 grams of fat
Hostess Twinkies Golden Sponge Cake: 150 calories; 5 grams of fat
Centrum Advanced Formula From A To Zinc: 0 calories; 0 grams of fat
Little Debbie Star Crunch: 150 calories; 6 grams of fat
Hostess Twinkies Golden Sponge Cake: 150 calories; 5 grams of fat
Diet Mountain Dew: 0 calories; 0 grams of fat
Doritos Cool Ranch: 75 calories; 4 grams of fat
Kellogg's Corn Pops: 220 calories; 0 grams of fat
whole milk: 150 calories; 8 grams of fat
baby carrots: 18 calories; 0 grams of fat
Duncan Hines Family Style Brownie Chewy Fudge: 270 calories; 14 grams of fat
Little Debbie Zebra Cake: 160 calories; 8 grams of fat
Muscle Milk Protein Shake: 240 calories; 9 grams of fat
Totals: 1,589 calories and 59 grams of fat

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html

It said his bad cholesterol went down too.
It's pretty weird to me.
However, I am not really one for junk food. This is one big girl who doesn't really like cake!

Florawanda

I have been monitoring my sugars for about half the time I've been on MFP, and got such a shock when I first began to look at them... I reckon I was a chocoholic, and have still been having several sweet things every day, and stayed under my goal. And that was a lot less chocolate, biscuits, etc than I had been having, when my weight was slowly increasing. When I have tried dieting before, I had to ban chocolate completely, because, just like an alcoholic, one taste was enough to start me eating loads - this time I have been able to have more self-control, just, eg, having half a Crunchie bar, and leaving the other half for the next day. But looking at sugars showed I was still eating more than double the amount of sugars than my goal was. Natural sugars, from fruits and other things are probably better than the artificial kind, but you find loads of sugar in all sorts of things, eg bread, sauces, and processed foods. So now I am beginning to educate myself more about what my diet actually contains, rather than just eating whatever I like as long as it is under calorie goal.

At the end of the day, our bodies are delicately balanced, and giving them the wrong sort of fuel (and we may all react differently to different foods) is going to affect this balance. So get to know your own body, listen to its reactions to different foods, and give it the fuel that will help it rung most efficiently.