Eating "junk" and losing weight?

I can attest to the fact that deprivation and restricting don't always lead to weight loss. For me, I deprived myself and restricted, weighed and measured, and did all that other stuff that was supposed to make my body slimmer. It didn't work. You know why? I have an eating disorder. A chemical reaction to certain foods. My body has a switch that I can't control through depriving and restricting. What happens to me is when I do the deprivation of certain foods, I become obsessed with them until I finally break down and eat them, in quantities that aren't necessary for nutrition or even pleasure.

What I am learning to do with using MPF is that I can have anything and everything as long as I keep the quantities within what I need to lose the weight I need AND to be happy. Being miserable and thin isn't much better than being fat and miserable in my opinion.

As someone pointed out there isn't anything as unhealthy food. How it is prepared and the quantities that we consume is the problem. Bread in and of itself isn't problematic. Two slices of bread fried in butter and covered in syrup are problematic if you are trying to lose weight. Some people think that eating healthy is going for the salad bar instead of a hamburger and yet a plate of salad for some is some lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers piled with eggs, meat, cheese, and slathered with about 8 or 9 tablespoons of salad dressing.

I say all that for myself and to answer your post. I have come to the realization that for me, I have to learn to change the way I approach eating. It is not about deprivation and restricting for me any longer. It is about finding a way to enjoy foods I like and to have the body size I want. It can be done. I see if on this board and in every day life.

I heard that eating when you have an eating disorder as taking a hungry, untamed tiger out of a cage, feeding it and putting it back in before it maims or kills you. These days, I'm making friends with my tiger. I'm holding out my hand in friendship and showing it compassion when it does bite me. That seems to be working. I'm a lot happier since finding the MFP even when I eat what you call non-healthy food.

I'm probably one of these people you're talking about. I never cut out anything when I was losing weight, and I'm not about to cut it out now that I'm maintaining. So yes, you see cupcakes and slurpees and pizza and burgers in my diary on a regular basis. However, I do try and focus on eating mostly healthy food, hitting my macros and overall calorie goal. I refuse to assign food labels such as "good" or "bad" or "junk". If at the end of the day I have the carbs and calories left over to enjoy a slurpee, I'm going to have the slurpee, and enjoy every sip of it.

As for how quickly I lost, I lost my weight at an average pace of just over a pound a week, exactly as fast as I wanted to lose it.

All of this!

one of the great things about using MFP actively is you'll start to realise that the labels people assign to food like "junk" or "healthy" are only relevant to those concerned. Eat a big mac, manage your calories and macros or eat a 10 apples, You'll find the 10 apples have more calories.

I've been losing weight steadily and am using supplements to help keep the intake of certain nutrients. Don't believe those who just say "ooh you should be eating this its more healthy". Those people will get you fat. Whats right for them might not be right for you.

It's not just about how much you weigh, people. Fill your body with garbage and eventually you will suffer for it. I don't eat crap and I'm still not "thin" but that doesn't justify to me any reason to eat crap. I mean come on. That genetically altered chemical filled puff isn't going to do you OR your body any justice in the long term.

Doesn't make any difference; though it's probably healthier eating healthier, obviously

I sometimes just eat junk food on some days and has no effect on loss

It's not just about how much you weigh, people. Fill your body with garbage and eventually you will suffer for it. I don't eat crap and I'm still not "thin" but that doesn't justify to me any reason to eat crap. I mean come on. That genetically altered chemical filled puff isn't going to do you OR your body any justice in the long term.

What you mean by "junk" or "clean" may be very different to what another person means by "junk" or "clean." Whenever one of these threads starts it ends up in a "junk food" vs. "clean eating" mud sling fest. No one here is saying eat Twinkies all day long and you will be fine. What many of us are saying is if you make sure that you eat a reasonably balanced diet including vegetables with the sufficient micronutrients, good fats, protein and ensure that your macro balances are right, then enjoying the fun stuff such as ice cream, pizza, hamburgers, bacon and what have you, is not going to hurt you. What I personally take issue with is the people that argue ad nauseum that somehow I'm hurting myself by eating ice cream every day (or any other food item that they object to) even though all of my numbers are well within the healthy range and I'm fit and feel great. And honestly, the people I see arguing this most often fall into one of two categories: (1) unhealthy themselves and working to find the path that so many of us have already found, or (2) trying to sell something.

It's all about the calories.

The more healthy food you eat the easier it is to fill up and have energy.

The more "junk" you eat, usually the more hungry you are, the more cravings you have and might feel sluggish. It depends on how you react after the "junk" food.

It's all about calories.

p.s. be as angry as you want to be about it, but science will always trump anecdotal experience.

p.p.s. heavy smokers are also thinner than non-smokers - if weight is the most important indicator of health, perhaps we should all look into smoking!

p.p.p.s. j.k. about the smoking! terrible habit!

I agree with you, and just wondering if they are eating junk and loosing as much as 5 lbs a week, are they in their 20's or running 3 miles a day or something. I think I understand that 1lb is about 3500 real calories and until I have a 3500 calorie deficit I won't loose a lb. So someone loosing that much would be at a 17,500 calorie deficit, alot for one week, (5 lbs X 3500 calories (1lb)= 17,500) If I have the math right. Sorry to be so annal, just had been wondering myself, also, like you. My bottom line is that I will eat the salads and fruit and cut the junk food as a way of life. Not 16 years old any more, all about metabolism and burnning...right?? Sorry, long winded.
Marcia

3500 calories is only a lb if you are losing 100% fat.

from here - http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance-equation.html

"create a 3,500 cal/week deficit and you should lose one pound of fat, right? Again, wrong.

There is a built in assumption in the above that turns out to not be necessarily correct but also throws a wrench into expectations about the energy balance equation. That assumption is that 100% fat is being lost when a deficit is created. Now, if you diet correctly (e.g. the way I describe in my books), this is a pretty good assumption but it’s not universally true. Often people also lose muscle and connective tissue on a diet.

And the issue is that muscle and connective tissue doesn’t provide as much energy to the body as a pound of fat. Rather than 3,500 calories to break down a pound of fat, a pound of muscle provides about 600 calories to the body when it’s broken down for energy.

Let me put this in mathematical terms, to show you how the identical 3,500 calorie/week deficit can yield drastically different changes in body mass depending on what percentage of tissue you’re losing. I’m going to use the extremes of 100% fat, 50/50 fat and muscle, and 100% muscle.


Condition Energy Yield Total Weight Lost
100% Fat 3500 cal/lb 1 pound
50%Fat/50% Muscle 2050 cal/lb 1.7 pounds
100% Muscle 600 cal/lb 5.8 pounds


See what’s going on? The assumption of one pound per week (3,500 cal/week deficit) is only valid for the condition where you lose 100% fat. If you lose 50% fat and 50% muscle, you will lose 1.7 pounds in a week for the same 3,500 calorie deficit. Lose 100% muscle (this never happens, mind you, it’s just for illustration) and you lose 5.8 pounds per week."

It's not just about how much you weigh, people. Fill your body with garbage and eventually you will suffer for it. I don't eat crap and I'm still not "thin" but that doesn't justify to me any reason to eat crap. I mean come on. That genetically altered chemical filled puff isn't going to do you OR your body any justice in the long term.

What you mean by "junk" or "clean" may be very different to what another person means by "junk" or "clean." Whenever one of these threads starts it ends up in a "junk food" vs. "clean eating" mud sling fest. No one here is saying eat Twinkies all day long and you will be fine. What many of us are saying is if you make sure that you eat a reasonably balanced diet including vegetables with the sufficient micronutrients, good fats, protein and ensure that your macro balances are right, then enjoying the fun stuff such as ice cream, pizza, hamburgers, bacon and what have you, is not going to hurt you. What I personally take issue with is the people that argue ad nauseum that somehow I'm hurting myself by eating ice cream every day (or any other food item that they object to) even though all of my numbers are well within the healthy range and I'm fit and feel great. And honestly, the people I see arguing this most often fall into one of two categories: (1) unhealthy themselves and working to find the path that so many of us have already found, or (2) trying to sell something.

just an addendum - i am supremely healthy (doctor approved!) and selling nothing other than staying current on science and being wise to motivations of corporations on our food supply and the longterm impact on our bodies. I never said clean, i said "garbage, crap and genetically altered chemical filled puff" and I stand by all three qualifications. I eat organic cream and butter every day damn and I wouldn't clean my floors with the genetically modified "whole grains" that other people consider clean. I also understand that not everyone can afford, has access to, or experience with organic foodstuffs and in such cases, mass produced agribusiness produce is still better than corn flakes and pop tarts and loads better than taco bell. oh and I def indulge in my martinis too, but i don't think they are without their flaws

Just because a person is losing weight doesn't mean they are losing undesireable fat. People who lose weight while eating junk food could be losing muscle, which weighs more than fat. So, initially the weight on the scale will drop. However, in the end, with less muscle to burn calories, continually eating junk food will make a person gain the weight back. Conversely, if you are eating healthy (and within you calorie limits) and the scale isn't dropping, it might be an indicator that you are building muscle. This is a good thing and eventually should help the undesireable fat drop off. A great way to see how you are doing and get a real sense of what is happening in and to your body is to do a hydrostatic underwater body fat test. It is the only 100% accurate measurement of body fat/ lean muscle mass.

This is a lifestyle change for me. However, my lifestyle will consist of enjoying food. I like to eat, I want to make healthy choices, but I will also eat ice cream and cookies when I choose. Working out has been part of that change.

p.s. be as angry as you want to be about it, but science will always trump anecdotal experience.

Spoken like someone with no real life experience.

haha! that is the funniest thing i have heard all day!