What ONE food habit... would you go back in time to stop.
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Indecisive eating... I go to McD's. Do I want the fish sandwich or the double cheeseburger? I don't know. I can't decide. Ah, I'll just have both...
"Economical" eating. Wow. The burger is 11 rmb, but the meal is only 15... seems like a waste of money to not get the meal...
ARGH!!!!0 -
I work at a restaurant and I work nights. Therefore I eat dinner late, usually always accompanied by wine or beer, as I wind down. Add on the fact that if I had skipped dinner and decided to drink I'd get SUPER hungry and crave unhealthy food and I'd end up pigging out on all that's greasy. I'm also always surrounded by yummy food at work so this makes it even harder to stick to a diet. I also would change the fact that I never ate breakfast! So bad for me!0
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Eating fast food so late, I wish I could have stopped myself because I always had this thought that there's no way a skinny girl like me would ever put on so much weight. Now I'm like what the heck was I thinking but then again I was a teen and dumb lol but I'm super excited to learn eating right and now I can break the habit and later one day teach my son to eat right as well...0
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I have no food regrets, but I have fitness regrets. I regret that I did not listen to my body when I was young and I pushed too hard and injured myself frequently and spent a lot more time recovering / sitting around than I needed to. I also did not progress in my fitness because I did not educate myself on how to break fitness plateaus. Now that I'm older I pay attention to warning signs and I haven't been injured (or sidelined) in years! I'm also stronger and faster than I've ever been. :drinker:0
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It started with my bubble tea addiction in the 3rd grade. Yes, I still remember. And then I was just eating tons of sugar. It wasn't that bad back then, I was always just the tiniest amount heavier than my friends but not enough to be overweight. Then, in 6th grade, puberty hit and all hell went loose. In 6th grade, I was a size 3-4 all year. By 7th grade, I was size 9 and looked like I was 17 years old.
Those food counters all throughout middle school and high school during the lunches did not help at all. They sold chips, giant pretzels, GIANT chocolate chip cookies (I would buy one of these almost every day), and cookie dough and pop tarts and such.
Not only was I gaining pounds, but I was wasting a lot of my money as well (not that I really even had a use for money back then).
I think the one thing that saved me from becoming obese was doing sports. I'm 1000000000% sure that if I had never done sports, I would be dead and gone by now. I would be way over the limit. But thanks to being athletic, I never got obese, I was actually just borderline overweight. I never got above a size 9 which is good, but right now, I'm trying to go back to a size 6.0 -
Indecisive eating... I go to McD's. Do I want the fish sandwich or the double cheeseburger? I don't know. I can't decide. Ah, I'll just have both...
"Economical" eating. Wow. The burger is 11 rmb, but the meal is only 15... seems like a waste of money to not get the meal...
ARGH!!!!
Oh my gosh. I gained almost 8 pounds in china over the summer because of all the AMAZING yet cheap food. My lunch was always either Mcdonalds because a meal was like $3 or those fried chicken breasts and bubble tea. It was so bad, yet so good!0 -
I have to list my top 2 bad habits...
1. Huge meal portions learnt from my family
2. Binge eating... Alone or with family in all you can eat buffets, Christmas and family events.0 -
This is a truly smart and interesting thread. I never really thought about the genesis of eating issues. I guess I'd say letting portions get out of control. I don't eat a lot of crap, but even the best food needs serious limits.
Also, the yo yo cravings of salty to sweet to salty to sweet....0 -
Portions....My favorite foods WERE: Pasta, Pizza, White Rice (I'm from the south and low country folks eat TONS of rice), Bread, and SWEETS. My issue is that I want three slices of pizza, a footlong sub, 3-4 cookies... ugh, I hope you get my point. Most of those foods I no longer eat anymore or I substitute for healthier options but I have always had a big problem with this.0
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I think mine is more of a psychological issue than a bad habit, but shame eating. Hiding what I ate or drank because I felt I would be criticized for what I was seen to eat. I was criticized by my parents and siblings, but I was also unsupervised through most of my childhood. Breakfast before school was whatever I could find before the bus came. Lunch was either the basic school lunch through middle school or whatever I could afford from the snack bar in junior high and high school.
At home I developed a habit of buying food and hiding it in my bedroom because I didn't want other people to know it was there. I would go to a nearby restaurant late at night, pick up a day's worth of food, hide in the basement and inhale it all without a second thought. I would stock the basement fridge with pop and candy and freak out whenever someone found it.
At the same time, I'm aware that some of my habits were fed by others. I would get "gifts" of liters of Pepsi whenever I wasn't feeling well or "just because". It became generally accepted that I would eat whatever was placed in front of me and that I would eat whatever leftovers would come about.
None of this led to healthy eating habits. None of this led to a healthy relationship with food. I still can't stand eating in a social setting, I still can't stand having someone sit there and just watch me eat. But I don't hide food anymore. I don't go to the grocery store and get the 10/$10 boxes of Nutty Bars (which are still the greatest invention in creation). I don't have meals as snacks. I don't drink 2-liters of Dr. Pepper with dinner.
And I will NOT be ashamed.0 -
EATING AT NIGHT. My arch nemesis.0
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I wish I would have ignored that "last couple of spoonfuls" in the bottom of the pan or bowl or whatever. When I was younger, I was an athlete that burned through 9,000 plus calories a day. My mom asking me to eat that little bit more wasn't a big deal. While I was lucky in that my body didn't try to keep eating those insane portion sizes after I stopped, I still had/have a problem with wanting to finish off that last little bit...even if I don't want or need it.0
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re buttering the last bit of bread for a fatty last mouthful - def got that from my mum!
learning to eat massive portions quickly - having 3 brothers you had to fight for dinner!
great thread - it's interesting to think back and look at where your bad habits came from!0 -
For me it was having an all-or-nothing attitude when it comes to food. It took a long time to break the idea of being "on" or "off" a diet or that a food was "good" or "bad".
I don't know when it started exactly, but probably when I first tried getting in shape in early 2005. I went straight into the bodybuilding type sites/forums looking for help and it was a lot of very black-and-white sort of talk in there.0 -
My first year or so working at McDonalds I gained 80 pounds...I kinda wish I hadn't done that.0
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Mine is not a food habit, but it is a drink...sweet tea...it is my WEAKNESS.
I have been doing so good going without tea for the past few days though. I got one from McDonald's, just a tea, yesterday while I was uptown and when I took the first sip...WOW...all I could taste was sugar. It didn't even taste like tea anymore.0 -
My 5 years after high school where I ate what I wanted. Including....western omlet with cheese on a grilled hard roll almost every work morning.....huge bowls of ice cream with lots of different chunky topings on them.....cheeseburgers with bacon and melting cheese on top of them....and lots of drinking out with the co-workers.0
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I think mine is more of a psychological issue than a bad habit, but shame eating. Hiding what I ate or drank because I felt I would be criticized for what I was seen to eat. I was criticized by my parents and siblings, but I was also unsupervised through most of my childhood. Breakfast before school was whatever I could find before the bus came. Lunch was either the basic school lunch through middle school or whatever I could afford from the snack bar in junior high and high school.
At home I developed a habit of buying food and hiding it in my bedroom because I didn't want other people to know it was there. I would go to a nearby restaurant late at night, pick up a day's worth of food, hide in the basement and inhale it all without a second thought. I would stock the basement fridge with pop and candy and freak out whenever someone found it.
At the same time, I'm aware that some of my habits were fed by others. I would get "gifts" of liters of Pepsi whenever I wasn't feeling well or "just because". It became generally accepted that I would eat whatever was placed in front of me and that I would eat whatever leftovers would come about.
None of this led to healthy eating habits. None of this led to a healthy relationship with food. I still can't stand eating in a social setting, I still can't stand having someone sit there and just watch me eat. But I don't hide food anymore. I don't go to the grocery store and get the 10/$10 boxes of Nutty Bars (which are still the greatest invention in creation). I don't have meals as snacks. I don't drink 2-liters of Dr. Pepper with dinner.
And I will NOT be ashamed.
Okay in response to this one and other's where family encouraged bad eating habits by either not supervising, criticizing, or reward feeding, stinginess, greediness, cheapness, or otherwise I am going to write what DID work and remind that even though I did post a bad habit I wish I'd changed it was short lived and did not stem from childhood. My basic eating habits are quite good and I'd like to share what GOOD things my parents did that led to this, so you may learn how to inspire and help your own children any of you that are parents that did not have a good model for food.
1) My mother cooked dinner every single night from scratch from the grocery store...(it was the 70's and yes she was a liberated woman with a full time job.) I learned how to cook this way because my father insisted I always sit in the kitchen and watch while she cooked, yes above playing with friends (allowed earlier in the day) and even above homework (should have been done immediately after school or else there was always after dinner, or in the morning if I'd forgotten or postponed).
2) At least once a weekend we were taken out to eat somewhere. My father wasn't totally free from cheapness so he'd remind us to eat the protein first as that was the most valuable thing on the plate, my mother would warn us from too much cheese as she believed it can constipate you but otherwise we were allowed to eat as much or little as we wanted. The children starving in china was something I only heard once older from other peoples parents. (ps. When my hubby tried to employ the finish your plate kids in china routine with our kid, I plainly told him, I don't imagine any kid in china is sitting around worrying about him? He blinked twice, smirked, then never mentioned it again.)
3) We were not allowed sleepovers until older as to prevent learning ANY unhealthy habits of any kind...food included. (and this actually stemmed from my first sleepover as the oldest child I returned telling a story of something that had been offered to me a peach baby food swirled with a pillsbury crescent which my parents both found disgusting and inadequate and paved the way for the no sleepovers until older rule.)
4) On vacations we were allowed to explore foods freely and my family stocked up on whatever natural things in the region and we gorged on those while we could learning the benefits of fruits and veggies and having the incentive that we wouldnn't have access to it the exotic fruits/veggies for long.
5) Holidays had their share of treats but for every "treat" or sweet dish there were about 3-5 other "real" foods prepared.
6) They gave us a clear and simple kid understandable distinction of "real food" versus "not real food". ie. Meat, tacos, enchiladas, chicken, juice, broccoli, soups, pastas, rice, tortillas, breads,= "real food". Sweets, chips, soda, pastries, donuts, pies, fries and burgers from fast food places, pizza "not real food". My kid just the other day when offered a cookie by his dad said " no" wrinkled his nose like yuck, "I need REAL food first".
7) Once a child knows how his/her body feels eating regular filling nutritious foods over the course of many many meals, they quickly learn how it feels when they are in need of more of it and how bad it will feel to eat sweets only or junk only in comparison (they'll naturally learn this at birthday parties or amusement parks or anytime they have been too stubborn and yacked up too much halloween candy, or been nauseated by too many christmas cookies). They become their own barometer for how much is too much and can be trusted later when they are older and on their own in school or sleepovers, etc.
8) When I got older and learned more about nutrition than they did, they did not recoil, feel one upped, or anything but proud and encouraging and as freely as possible within budget constraints indulged my pleas for grape nuts, yogurts, bagels, and any host of healthy foods I had learned about either from friends or school. By that time I was in high school and they knew they could be equally indulgent with the sweets I heard of too since they knew they'd taught us when to say when.
I see them employ the same methods with my younger siblings and now the grandkids.
Hope this helps any of you who just had no good way of learning but especially I hope it helps your kids in the long run.0 -
When I was a kid, my father would always swing by the gas station after work and pick up candy for me and my brother. I'm addicted to sugar and chocolate, and trying to break that, but that definitely wasn't very good for me.0
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I'd never take up fast food, EVER. We got a Wendy's in my small town around the same time I started driving and well... that started a lot of things.0
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For me, it wasn't one particular food, but a particular habit.
I love to read, it's my very favorite pasttime. I've always brought a book to the kitchen table with me, or wherever I sit to eat. I never realized until recently how much more I eat as a result. Not paying attention to what I'm eating and just munching mindlessly resulted in, most of the time, suddenly realizing I was so full I was nearly sick. That's been a tough habit to break.0 -
I have this bad habit of waking up during the middle of the night and snacking. I have not yet conquered this monster..but I'm working on it! I have been trying to "consciously" eat better things when I do wake up or even drink water, but it's been a tough one to break for sure.0
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Alcohol. I never realized how may calories are in one drink until I started using the site. No more drinks for me!!0
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McDonalds, I think it was kindergarten. I wish I had never gone there. I don't understand when people say McDonalds isn't awesome, because I LOVE the devil-food.0
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Bingeing on chewy chocolatey stuff when I'm stressed. I have no idea when it started and I'm just now becoming aware of it as I'm paying closer attention to my eating patterns & behavior. It must go way back to high school b/c snickers bars have always been my favorite & I was seriously addicted to them during my first pregnancy at 21. It's really bad too. There's no stopping me when I get like that. I have a theory I'm going to test out the next time I get super stressed.... I'm going to take one of my chocolate peanut butter protein bars & cut it into many, many precise tiny pieces & pop them in my mouth like I would with chocolate covered raspberries. I think this will actually work in tricking my mind.
protein bar cut up with a little peanut butter on them helps me...
I would stop Jim and Jack and Miller - when I found them in college it was a number of years (and pounds) before realizing how many calories they have. now I only drink on special occassions0 -
Avoiding vegetables and eating too fast! I wish I had the craving to eat more veggies. My brother loves them and I wish I was the same. Would make looking for low-cal snacks a lot easier.0
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Actually mine wouldn't be to stop a habit, but to actually start the habit of eating veggies every day, every meal.0
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Eating in private or secretly. Either stopping at fast food or eating alone at restaurants. Or stopping at gas stations and buy food to shove in my face in my car.0
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When I was pregnant with my first, mediun pizza..with pepperoni, green pepper & mushrooms, fron Domino's, thats all I wanted to eat. 3/4 a pizza at a time if I could. And I still love pizza 23 yrs later!! Up until 2 weeks ago I would have it 2-3 times a week.0
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Growing up we didn't have soda with meals because it was too expensive. We usually had hot or iced tea. And we had to finish all the food on our plate because "there were children starving in Asia." After dinner we were allowed to have some homemade cookies.
Now I only put on my plate what I know I can finish without overstuffing myself. After dinner I have a Healthy Choice fudge bar (only 100 calories). But as soon as I moved out of my parents' home I began to drink soda. I only drink diet soda now but I drink too much. For all those years of not drinking it I am making up for it big time. I wish I could still stick to iced tea or water; it's better for me than the soda.0
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