daily "diet" before deciding to lose weight?

Im always curious to know what people ate on an average day before deciding to get healthy and lose weight.

for me it was
no breakfast
heavy restaurant lunch like sandwhich and french fries
heavy restaurant dinner pizza, sushi rolls, or something like that
lots of sweets

and I was probably consuming 4000 cals/day and was always hungry

restaurant food was also no help, calorie laden but also full of sodium
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Replies

  • brower47
    brower47 Posts: 16,356 Member
    Multiple bowls of cereal at breakfast that never left me full for long.

    Snacking on my baking during the day.

    Lunch of a couple pb&js.

    Dinner, 2-3 times the portions I should have been consuming. I could eat an entire large pizza on my own.

    Beer. Lots and lots of beer. Maybe 3 - 6 every other night and more on the weekends.

    I never really felt full either and probably ate anywhere from 2500 to 4000 cals. I would offset that a bit with exercise but I didn't start to really lose weight until I got my eating under control.
  • I would fluctuate between stuffed and starving, and the stuffed feeling did not last long. and I too could rock out a large pizza.
  • Pearsquared
    Pearsquared Posts: 1,656 Member
    Mine was:

    Breakfast: Nothing
    Snacks: Crackers, usually goldfish or cheese-its
    Lunch: Some type of frozen microwaveable meal, usually pasta or pizza
    Dinner: Chicken nuggets, burritos, or breakfast foods (eggs, hash browns, sausage). Also, lots of pasta with cheese.
    Late night: Tortilla with cheddar melted on top or nachos

    It was usually the nighttime that killed me in the calorie department. I had a binge eating problem. ): I still eat at night, just with very controlled portions, or else I'll dive back into that habit.
  • majope
    majope Posts: 1,325 Member
    Breakfast: 2 fried eggs on buttered toast...just like now, only with heartier bread and more butter, so 200-300 more calories than today.

    Lunch: Soup, sandwich, potato chips. Potato chips are comparatively rare for me today, except when I visit the UK, because the many flavors of crisps available there are awesome.

    Dinner: Pasta, garlic bread--again, similar to today, except I watch my portions now--and if I didn't exercise much, would swap in a salad for the bread. Chicken dishes tended to be breaded and fried--not just fried chicken or tenders, but Orange Chicken or General Tso's when we went out for Chinese. I have those more rarely now.

    When I snack, I weigh portions and/or just eat less of the yummy things in general. If I wanted snack cakes before, I would eat a whole packet--now I split a pack of TastyKakes with my son.

    And when I eat out these days, I always check nutritional data online if available, and pre-plan what I'm going to eat. I'd say I'm just more conscious in general, which is great because I didn't have to give anything up to lose a total of 43 pounds to date.
  • Calliope610
    Calliope610 Posts: 3,771 Member
    No breakfast
    Heavy lunch of left-overs, fried food, not many veggies
    Afternoon snack - candy, sweets
    After work while preparing dinner snack - flour or corn tortillas, loaded with shredded cheddar cheese
    Dinner - another heavy "meat & potatoes" kind of meal
    Dessert - anything in the house

    That usually got me to 2700+ cals with no exercise.
  • NaomiJFoster
    NaomiJFoster Posts: 1,450 Member
    Pretty much the same as it is now, but with much larger portions. And I had gotten in the habit of ordering the Cheese Quesadilla at work for lunch almost every day (they're salsa is amazing!!!). Now I know that I should really only be getting that once a week. Also, I'm now thinking more about what I order in restaurants,and often get a to-go box instead of stuffing the whole meal in my mouth.
  • thursdayswoman
    thursdayswoman Posts: 60 Member
    Mine was very much like yours, linalovekitty. I did try to get lots of local and fresh things in there, but I would usually buy them, not cook them, and end up with a fridge full of spoiled food and takeout leftovers.

    It was really hard to face that I was eating that many calories and gaining weight, too, because I would quite often skip both breakfast and lunch. That I could be eating 2,000, 3,000, 5,000 calories in one meal was astounding.
  • PepperWorm
    PepperWorm Posts: 1,206
    A massive bowl of oatmeal or cereal.
    Snacks like entire bags of chips - little to no fruits or vegetables besides bananas.
    Pizza, Taco Bell burritos averaging at 500 calories per serving, Arby's, etc.
    Ramen.
    Dinners like Hambuger Helper with mashed potatoes and canned green beans or out at a restaurant.
    Chocolate, ice cream, etc.

    Bad stuff!
  • mem50
    mem50 Posts: 1,384 Member
    Anything that wasn't nailed down. Truth.

    I wrote a daily food intake on another forum...I should go find it and put it down.
  • operation_cute
    operation_cute Posts: 588 Member
    I was eating pretty close to the same foods except I used a lot of butter/margerine in my cooking that i've now substituted with other flavoring and olive oil... My main problem though was I would eat an extra serving of everything every meal :p Simply changing up some of my recipes of the meals I already made and cutting out sweet tea mostly has helped so much! Also my food intake was very inconsistant, some days I know I probably pigged out, but other days I had to come in terribly low on food intake :p I think staying consistant has helped a lot too!

    Average day:
    breakfast: cereal and whole milk (2-3 servings worth) replaced with tomorrow oats most days
    Lunch: yikes many times nothing because I hate lunch meat and that was all I knew to eat :p now chicken breast, or peanut butter on english muffin, salad, fruit ect
    Snacks: nothing really.. I hate things like chips, crackers, and anything salty really, not a huge fan of sweets, and thats what I thought snacks were :p Now, apple with peanut butter, a banana, cucumbers, carrots
    Dinner: ex. 1: seared butter basted chicken breast I replaced the butter with chicken broth(for basting) and olive oil (for searing) and its just as good!
    ex. 2: meatloaf (made with ground beef, bread crumbs, and an egg) now its turkey loaf omit bread crumbs and egg (it doesn't change the meatloaf at all!)
    ex. 3: mashed potatoes were made with a ton of margerine now I cook my potatoes with 4 chicken boullion cubes in the water while boiling and am using only a fraction of the margerine I was before and they actually taste so much better :)

    *edit: not to mention I drank a ton of milk (whole milk) probably a good 5-6 tall glasses a day, I crave the stuff.... still do, but I now save up a bit in cals to have a good glass of the 2% at the end of the day on the days I'm craving :)
    **oh and like 0 glasses of water :p sweet tea was my water :noway:
  • mem50
    mem50 Posts: 1,384 Member
    Found it

    Daily example from back then.
    Breakfast
    5 pancakes (large ones)
    scrambled eggs, at least 4
    sausage
    a ton of syrup over all the above
    4 slices of toast.
    Lunch
    two or three sandwiches - ham and cheese were my fave but would settle for bologna and cheese
    half bag of chips...did not matter what kind.
    Dinner
    Huge pile of mashed potatoes, pry at least 2 or 3 cups
    half a stick of butter
    two maybe 3 dinner rolls
    salad
    some kind of meat (loved steak)
    vegetable

    During the day
    2, 3 candy bars
    the other half bag of chips
    chips and cheese (evening snack)
    Cookie dough - raw
  • annemw82
    annemw82 Posts: 97 Member
    I didn't know how to cook or care until my late 20s so I ate a lot of prepackaged things like frozen dinners, pizza, and boxed rices and noodles especially in college. My schedule was so busy with school and 2 jobs that it was normal for me to not eat all day and then go to something like Chinese buffet for dinner and eat until I was sick to my stomach. I also ate lots of fast food, fried things, salty snacks, and sugary sodas. Just like someone else said I never really felt satisfied. I would just go back and forth from starving to sickly full. I almost always had a stomachache too....I definitely don't miss that.
  • nak1a
    nak1a Posts: 69 Member
    I didn't have a proper diet. I had the worse eating habits ever. I would wake up in the morning and sometimes not eat until late afternoon. I ate plenty of carbs + fat, plenty of sugary drinks, lots of fast food and frozen food with preservatives. I pretty much gave into every single food indulgence I wanted to. There was no structure and I used to binge eat as well. I am not even a week into my new lifestyle and I feel considerably better already. I feel hydrated and I don't feel hungry because I feel like I am eating all the time since I've added structure. I never want to go back to my old eating habits ever again.
  • 88meli88
    88meli88 Posts: 238 Member
    No breakfast.
    Healthy lunch w salad and lean protein
    And uncontrolled eating in the evenings when I was starving. Had a snack while cooking (e.g. brie on baguette with wine), then dinner (quite healthy) but 3 portions, then desert sometimes yogurt, sometimes chocolate and drank lots of juice.

    When I started tracking calories, I realized that I only had about 500 calories in me when I got home from work, of course, I was hungry and ate uncontrollably. So I distribute my calories during the day. I now always have breakfast, reasonable lunch, and I control my dinner intake. Stopped drinking anything but water (and wine of course, but I count it) Works like a charm.
  • redfro2
    redfro2 Posts: 11 Member
    Nothing for breakfast, nothing for lunch, picked at my dinner, several sodas throughout the day, whatever candy hubby happened to bring out at night (jellybeans right now). It's bad when he brings junk food into the house (ice cream, Little Debbies, candy bars). At those times, he will go for a bowl of ice cream and it's gone because I ate it all. That, the sodas, then pick at dinner. I really wish he would stop with the junk. Then there is the lack of physical activity. Diabetes, here I come!
  • Mine has always been very healthy. Lots of veggies, fruit, whole grains, lean white meat, the good fats, fish, all the good stuff. And meals spread out through the day. I just ate too much crap on TOP of all that. So I needed to crack my ice cream/chocolate addiction, haha. But always lots of substantial nutritious food every day, just too much "desert" in addition to it that I really don't need :)

    Oh, and lack of activity not so long ago. I put on weight because I had had jobs where I was standing most of the day, or was just used to walking around a lot in general. When that changed, I gained weight fairly quickly. So back to being (a lot more!) active at the gym instead.
  • rdcphone572
    rdcphone572 Posts: 75 Member
    Im always curious to know what people ate on an average day before deciding to get healthy and lose weight.

    for me it was
    no breakfast
    heavy restaurant lunch like sandwhich and french fries
    heavy restaurant dinner pizza, sushi rolls, or something like that
    lots of sweets

    and I was probably consuming 4000 cals/day and was always hungry

    restaurant food was also no help, calorie laden but also full of sodium



    ^^^this. SO THIS!

    Old school me: I was trying to climb the corporate ladder and didn't realize that I was kicking the life ladder out from underneath me. I worked 12 and 14 hours a day sometimes, mostly in front of a computer or in team design meetings where they bring in calorie laden crazy stuff. No exercise. Lots of stuffed/empty periods. Forget breakfast, heavy meeting lunch, and other junk if easily obtained. Food just had to be easy. The family got what was left when I got in at seven and most weekends...but I worked a few weekends too, usually on travel. I might go for a walk on vacation! Then to bed at eleven most days, up at five or six, and back at it...totally unsustainable!

    For the in progress better me: I still have to work long days but not as often. I now have someone add healthier options to business meeting food if I can. I separate my food in half when eating out and get the to go box up front if possible. I stopped full calorie soda and switched to unsweet. I don't do anything drastic but try to moderate and pull it back a notch. I still eat some of the same things but in smaller sizes. I break for exercise during the day even if it is just getting up and walking around for 10 minutes. I try to exercise early in the morning most days because then I at least have that 30 minutes in before the phone or email or craziness blocks me. I also really use MFP to track and control exercise, carbs, and calories. I hope to stay this way and am approaching this like it is part of my work day or a required habit...that works for me as I usually get requirements done. It still a work in progress...I have slid back to old things on occasion...but it is so much better and I feel so much better!

    Good luck to everyone on their journey!
  • 6spdeg
    6spdeg Posts: 394 Member
    lol was no diet.. was eating lol

    never counted to see how many calories in a day guess i could.. but 4k seems really low lol..

    How much is a box of cereal and almost half gallon of milk or a whole box of chocolate chip cookies crushed in a large bowl of milk? just snacks lol Oh my or half a loaf of bread for french toast and 6 eggs along with sausage and milk for breakfast, homemade sausage gravy and 12-14 ole grand biscuits with 2 whole eggs coffee and some homemade apples with PLENTY O SUGAR for breakfast.. wow those were the days.. 125 count of shrimp for dinner at redlobster all you can eat shrimp days along with all the sides and cheddar biscuits, or 18 1 lb lobsters all you can eat in fla, or killing any seafood buffets 5plate minimums stacked high and a pitcher of sweet ice tea to wash it down..
  • Maidofmer
    Maidofmer Posts: 908 Member
    see food and shovel diet. i'd see food and my hands would shovel it into my mouth.
  • frankizoy
    frankizoy Posts: 83 Member
    no breakfast, pizza, ramen (which i still have sometimes..) what ever else i could find. and actually a lot of health food because of my mom, but since i still ate too much of it, it didn't help much.