At your heaviest, what was your eating like?

Well, i'd skip breakfast at home, make sure my daughter ate something nutritious and wholesome, drop her off at Daycare and then head over to either Carl's Jr for a Famous Star (w/o cheese or mayo) ok, sometimes I'd add cheese, but not always and never mayo, blech...Or a Jumbo Jack, no cheese and no mayo (never cheese on a jumbo jack), typically an extra large dr. pepper, some mornings I'd splurge and get a milkshake...

On mornings I didn't go to fast food, I'd go get 2 donuts and some chocolate milk...

Lunches I'd typically pack things from home, but with all processed snacks and foods, never any fruits or veggies...More times than not I'd skip the lunch I brought because I wasn't in the mood and would hit up a double cheeseburger, small fry and YEP, you've got it, another extra large Dr. Pepper...Other lunches would include taco bell, pretty much a fast food junkie...

Dinners, let's see, I never meal planned, we'd just buy a conglomerate of food and we would always stair at eachother saying "what's for dinner, or we have nothing to eat!!" Dinner was always something hightly processed like Take N Bake Pizzas, Frozen Pizzas, Mac N Cheese, Hamburger Helper...Never a veggie and never a salad to go along with it, just processed crap upon processed crap, nachos, etc.

Rarely if ever any water, I filled my thirst with Dr. Pepper and Monster/Vodka's...

Crazy to think this was all just 11 months ago and how much everything has changed!!!

Wow you and I are soul sisters!! This was me... .I even worked fast food for 11 years so you can imagine......

Celebrate all the changes that you have made!! We've both come a long way baby!!

All of my meals were large portions and heavy/creamy/cheesy foods. I don't even crave those foods anymore! If given the choice of a creamy pasta or a veggie loaded meal, I'd definitely choose the latter. It's crazy how my tastes have changed over this time but I'm so glad they have! I love my colorful meals now, and I always love trying to figure out how to add more color through produce!

Dunkin Donuts for breakfast every day, so an extra large coffee with cream and sugar and a donut. Throughout the morning I snacked on the candy always at work, and probably grabbed a coke from the machine. I never packed a lunch or planned for it, so when I crashed hard at 1 I would either go to McDonalds or go home and eat half a loaf of bread. Either way, I would drink a coke. Of course, I'd be starving by 6, but I didn't plan for dinner so take-out 3 or 4 nights a week. Then at night I would walk to the bodega and get another coke, a pack of mini donuts, and a double chocolate dove ice cream bar.

During all this, the fruits and veggies I dutifully bought at the grocery store every week spoiled. It's amazing how much rotten food I used to throw away!

I constantly rewarded myself with food, and made occasions or outing "special" with food.

It was exhausting.

junk, junk, taco bell, junk junk, more taco bell....etc etc LMAO

It was really fun, takeaways in the week, lots of sweets/chocolates/cakes/crisps/biscuits....... Take me back hehe

eating every 3 hours with the worst kind of food such as double chicken fillet burgers and water was unknown territory for me. breakfast was usually a bottle of coke.. 2 litres that is

It was fun. Sigh.

Yeah it was. 2 Double Western Cheese burgers, large fries, zucchinis, onion rings and large strawberry shake for lunch. That was about 4,050 calories just for lunch with absolutely no physical exercise. Another was 3 Subway footlongs. I do miss those days and my stomach is growling just thinking about it, but I rather enjoy how I feel and look now rather than gorge myself.

When I do eat breakfast, its coffee and fast food on the way to work. Occasionally I will bring cereal and milk to work with me. I try and snack when I can, small things of popcorn, almonds, crackers. Lunch is my downfall for sure!! I try and make lunches, but then don't want to eat them so I end up going out for fast food instead. Dinner time is always frantic in my house ranging from thrown together meals at the last minute or opting to go out for dinner. Dessert usually follows with icecream or brownies after my daughter is in bed.

I would eat a lot of food throughout the day, even when I wasn't hungry (and HUGE portions!). I would put a lot of butter on things, sauces, etc and order SO MUCH FOOD when we went out to eat. I feel so much better and healthier now that I've made changes!

THEN:
a typical breakfast was either 2 biscuits cut in half with at least half a cup of white gravy and 2 pieces of bacon or 2 scrambled eggs with half a cup of cheese melted on it, 2 pieces of toast with butter, and 2 pieces of bacon or 4 pieces of french toast or 4 waffles or 10 pamcakes with butter and too much full sugar syrup OR 2 cups of any kind of cereal from marshmallow mateys to capt crunch to kashi with a cup of 2% milk.
a typical lunch was a whole totino's pizza or a big ham and cheese sammich with mayo and at least 2 servings of chips/cheetoes or anything from breakfast
a typical supper was half a large pizza from domino's or 8 oz of chicken, fried, with french fries and green beans or 2 toasted cheese sammiches with tomatoe soup or anything from breakfast
a typical snack was an entire cake... frosting and all! Yes, in one day I'd eat an entire cake. 4 scoops or more ice cream cones, movie theater butter microwave popcorn, a whole bag of cheetoes, 4 little Debbie snacks... Any or all of these made up both desserts and snacks in my life... I'd have multiples because I couldn't control myself

NOW:
a typical breakfast is 2 scrambled eggs with 1/4 cup of cheese and salsa of some kind or a cup or less (whatever is a serving) of cereal with at least 1/2 cup of almond or soy milk or 2 french toasts or 1-2 waffles or 4 small pamcakes with spray butter and sugar free syrup
a typical lunch is a small plate of nachos (about 1.5 oz of corn chips with 1/3 cup cheese) or a quesodilla with 1/3 cup cheese or 1 grilled cheese with tomatoes sliced on it or anything from breakfast
a typical supper is 4 oz of chicken with mashed taters with no gravy and some veggie, usually green or anything from lunch or breakfast
a typical snack/dessert is cereal, 2 scoops ice cream, 1 cupcake, hot air popped popcorn with small amount of melted butter or salt, never both or 1 little Debbie or granola bar.

I do have big eating days sometimes where I'll go out to a restaurant and eat like a huge plate of chili rellenos or something, we all do, I'm sure.
The way I look at it is we should enjoy food, not shun it... We just have to control it, not let it control us.

Just mindlessly shoving whatever I wanted in whatever quantity no matter if I was hungry or not.

Felt happy? Yay pint of ice cream here I come.

A family member say something hurtful? No problem, nachos I'ma running for ya.

No wonder I was 338lbs.

I would stock Chips Ahoy or Soft Batch cookies on hand and sit at my computer all day. I would eat vegetables and whole grains some of the time, but also dive into macaroni and cheese, chilli over white spaghetti, and put margarine on everything. I would usually go for four hours or more without meals, and then just eat a lot later in the day. I sometimes ate cookies straight out of the box and just savored the flavor as I played WOW on my computer. It wasn't really hunger at that point - it was often boredom, and the desire to taste something sweet after a few sugar spikes.

I didn't eat that much more than I do now - I estimate I was doing about 500 more calories a day than I would do now for maintenance. But I ate the wrong foods and didn't exercise, so it added up over time. Even a small excess can add 50 added pounds over a year if you're not careful.

I was at my heaviest (5'2, 195 lbs) about 4 years ago. I started gaining weight when I got my first "grown up" job, which consisted of sitting at a desk, and still does. :-P I also started drinking a lot in the evenings. Most days, I would drag myself into work at 7:30, hungover from the night before and at around 9 a.m. I would get a bacon, egg, and cheese bagel sandwich from the cafeteria at work. That usually helped with the hangover. Then lunch was usually either mozz sticks from the cafeteria (6 huge ones), a sandwich from the cafeteria, usually a big one with double meat and cheese on a kaiser roll, or tuna with lots of mayo and provolone cheese, or if we ordered take-out/delivery it was usually pizza (at least 2 slices, and I'd go back for more after everyone else had finished), Chinese, and I'd have a large shrimp fried rice to myself, or something from the restaurant across the street. I'd usually get a huge burger and fries with a coke. If I was hungry when I got home from work at 4:30 I would raid whatever was in the kitchen and usually snack on a few pieces of string cheese, or some potato chips, or some garlic ring bologna, what have you. Then dinner was usually something fairly decent. I usually served meals consisting of meat, starch, and two veggies, but I just had way too much of the meat and potatoes and not enough veggies. Or if I didn't feel like "cooking" my husband and I would split a frozen pizza and garlic breadsticks. I would have my half of the pizza, and if he didn't finish his, I snacked on it later while I glugged an entire bottle of merlot on my own.

Oh, and then on Friday or Saturday nights if I didn't go out drinking I would stay in and have almost TWO bottles of wine to myself. The next-day hangover would have me driving to McDonald's after I dragged myself out of bed at around noon. My McD's hangover cure is what I like to call the McFatass: A double quarter pounder meal (large fries and coke) and a ten piece chicken nuggets with bbq sauce. I would be stuffed when I finished it, but I never even left a french fry in the bottom of the bag.

Like so many others, I wonder how I was not bigger. I was certainly obese, to be sure, but never above a size 16. I can't believe I didn't weigh at least 300 lbs.

I ate anything and everything that I wanted. If I wanted pizza, I ate pizza. If I wanted chips and dip, I ate chips and dip - sometimes the whole jar of dip in one sitting! If I wanted Chinese, I ate Chinese. I always had a cabinet full of junk food - chips, candy, cookies, etc. I used to sit and dip oreos in peanut butter in front of the TV. Before I knew it, all the oreos were gone. So I would go buy more. I could polish off an entire big bag of M&M's in a sitting. I was a binge eater and living alone didn't help that. My first year on my own I gained 30 pounds.

Never ate breakfast, drank tons of soda, lots of white rice, bread, and high-fat meat.. and lots of late-night eating.

Ugh.

Still getting cravings late at night but everything else is much better now