What did you eat before dieting?

I grew up on takeout and was very fit as a child. I was active in sports and a vegitarian. If it wasn'tfor my hubby my kids and I would eat out. My kids are very fit and active in sports as well. My husband grew up with meals on the table and not so very fit. My husband cooks for us and I gained alot of weight overs the years eating his food. Now that I am eating healthier, my hubs is helping me and cooking healthier foods for the entire family. Its work in progress. My 13yr old son asked me the other day why the whole family has to eat healthy. I told him, it is dinner, eat it or leave it, he eats of course.

I had to make my own meals from a young age.

My mum got fed up of us moaning "this is too dry", "this is burnt", "This doesnt taste right" that she had enough and turned round n said "if you dont like what I make, make it your F***ing self" (she wasnt the best cook, im afraid).
Mum split with dad and moved out when I was about 6 years old and dad started cooking meals (trying to give us as normal a childhood as possible) but my dads patients was WAY shorter than mums, and it took a third of the time moaning before we go the same response from him :-) whoops.
Since I had no clue how to cook, and had no clue how to use our gas oven, my brother and I lived off of: bread n butter, sandwiches, cup a soups, microwavable meals (they had only just started being sold in the supermarket, and were very unhealthy) and crisps (chips to the USA ) and bisicuits. My brother and I caused 3 toasters to go up in flames, 2 Kettles to blow their filaments and I burnt loads of things in the microwave (charcoaled bread, porridge exploded, and burnt chocolate)

I still cannot cook ( I find myself moaning about my own cooking as mych as I did my parents "this is too dry", "this is burnt", "This doesnt taste right"

I still pretty much eat the same stuff I always have (i dont stock biscuits as I cant have 'just one', I dont have a taste for crisps anymore, but the bread n butter, microwaveable meals, cup a soups are still eaten.. The difference is that MFP taught me i wasnt eating enough calories.. I worked out the for the last 20 odd years I was living on about 600 calories a day... Ive now more than doubled it.

At home, I grew up on everything from stir fry to home made tortillas, to cheese souffle. My mom was an amazing cook who eventually ended up going to France to even get to work in a restaurant for a while a number of years ago. We always had really good food that was from all different kinds of cultures. It was typically always a protein/carb/veggie dinner, with an array of all things on constant rotation.

But I hardly ate any of it. I was the pickiest of picky eaters and was often left at the table for hours after dinner staring at a plate of cold veggies.

When I moved out, it was mostly junk and fast food. Or, the hubby (boyfriend at the time) would cook a meal that was literally just steak and potatoes. I'd usually skip every meal and then have a massively huge, unhealthy, fast food (or occasional chain restaurant) dinner, after which, I'd munch on whatever stuff we had around the house while sitting around watching TV at night.

Once I started eating to lose weight, I actually ended up having my palette expanding beyond belief and I eat almost anything now. In fact, I think the only things I don't eat nowadays are celery, beets, and truffles.

I've cooked since I was about seven, cooking full meals alone in the house since about eight, and improvising cooking methods out of necessity. At one point I made an entire Thanksgiving dinner for four with a toaster oven and a stove with only two working burners (yes, really), so I'm kind of used to getting creative with what I have available because both my mother and I hate bland food.

Growing up, I ate a lot of things like pizza and Chinese takeout when I wasn't cooking that meal. One of my favourite breakfasts has always been cold pizza or Chinese takeout eaten on the balcony while painting and / or smoking (started that at an embarrassingly young age as well). Other than that, there was a LOT of meat. As an early teen, I had to eat a lot of steak (I didn't like it, that's just what was bought) and a lot of chicken. Sides were usually mashed potatoes or canned green beans, brussels sprouts, peas or corn. One of the dishes I cooked a lot was pan seared chicken with pesto and pasta. My cooking included a LOT of butter and spices. There were also things like tuna casserole, which I maintain is one of the most disgusting things on the planet. It's basically canned mixed vegetables, two types of canned soup, tuna, egg noodles and it's covered in cheese.

Chili is pretty much the only thing I've kept since I changed my eating habits and stopped eating meat. Well, there's also pizza, but I make it differently now, and the chili is meatless as well. It was quite an adjustment to go from eating LOTS and lots of meat to none at all, but I feel much better having made the switch.

My mom cooked three meals a day. We always had a "meat & three" for dinner and supper with fried cornbread (think southern Fried....fried pork chops, fried okra, fried corn was a typical meal). Cornbread Every Single Day...ugh. I loathe cornbread. Two fried eggs over easy with either potatoes or bacon every morning. Anyway we never ate pasta, pizza, tacos, fast food OR sandwiches.

I was a teen before I had Chinese food & I vividly remember going to McD's the first time with a friend's mom. To this day I just can't eat pasta, I hate it. I can choke down pizza if I'm starving & I don't eat sandwiches of any kind, hamburgers included although I can tear up a hamburger steak!! I still only drink water, tea or milk, won't drink soda or "flavored" stuff at all. And yeah, my favorite food is still......Fried.

Had to amend this to also say I will eat pretty much anything if it's covered in gravy.
And that I do not cook. I don't like it & I suck at it. If I had to shell peas or shuck corn like my mom did (and made me do!) to feed my kids they would have starved to death a long, long time ago. I'm working on it....

My mom tried to be healthy, but we didn't have a lot of money and it was just easier to make pasta or get fast food when we didn't have time to cook.
So I ate a lot of pasta... When she cooked veggies I refused to eat them (can't stand most veggies to this day though I'm trying really hard to incorporate them )
Even our healthy foods had gravy along with it.
I would eat chips and cookies and I had a really bad habit of eating cookie dough all the time.
When I'd go to work, I would just get anything for lunch, without really thinking about it. I don't really like sandwiches so I hated lunch in highschool and got a lot of poutines and caesar wraps and pizza from the cafeteria and store across the street.
In college I hated dorm food so I ate a lot of Pitas and ramen.

... It's been so hard trying to eat better now. I used to eat so salty! And snack all the time. It's hard to find other things to snack on that are good for me! And started to exercise has been both trying/ fun because I'm always sore now! But I know It's all an improvement.