Anyone Look Back At What They Eat In Shock

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  • phatbird79
    phatbird79 Posts: 4 Member
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    I've been reading through this forum with interest, seeing peoples break down of what they had been consuming before reality set in had me nodding my head in recognition.
    So I decided to roughly tot up a 'normal' Saturday night and needless to say it was well over 3,000 calories. So then I worked out what a week would have been and was shocked. If to lose 1lb of fat you need a 3,500 cal deficit then I should have been putting on 1.5lbs per week!! I knew I didn't eat healthily before, but I really didn't realise just how bad I'd gotten.

    Great thread, very eye opening
  • ARC1603
    ARC1603 Posts: 113 Member
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    I had a bit of a wake up call like this recently. I used to think one little burger king wouldn't make a difference. Until I realised it has 1000 calories in the XL burger alone! Even if I'm not 100% on my calories each day, by tracking what I eat and using MFP to be more aware of calories, I'm making better choices and eating much better than I used to!
  • iRageHD7
    iRageHD7 Posts: 4
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    YES! I was eating fast food very regularly, and it would get to the point where I was consuming 4,000 calories or more a day!
  • laineybz
    laineybz Posts: 704 Member
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    I worked in a shop and we used to offer £1 deals and i'd almost always buy them. I'd skip breakfast, have a loaded with cheese sandwich, packet of crisps, chocolate bar, full fat coke or fanta, sweets.....FOR LUNCH lol. Then i'd have maybe 2 - 3 rice krispie treats (over 100 cals each) for a snack and finally dinner. I wasn't exercising as i'd then passed my driving test. No wonder i piled the weight on.
  • AusEliza
    AusEliza Posts: 60 Member
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    YESS!! Late lat year I was eating twelve jaffa cakes a day. That was like twelve pounds a week just on jaffa cakes. lol
  • laineybz
    laineybz Posts: 704 Member
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    YESS!! Late lat year I was eating twelve jaffa cakes a day. That was like twelve pounds a week just on jaffa cakes. lol

    Lol jaffa's were my "treat" when i started cutting the crap out. I ate no chocolate except jaffa's lol
  • Jordan_Gregers
    Jordan_Gregers Posts: 35 Member
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    I used to think I ate healthy because I ate the way people do in my ancestral country (Denmark), and hey, you don't see too many obese Scandinavians.

    Herring Fillets
    Roast Pork
    Bacon Rashers
    Rogenbrot (super dense Rye bread)
    Potatoes
    Butter
    Beets & Carrots

    I couldn't figure out why I was consistently 40lbs overweight.
    I thought it was because I wasn't exercising as much as I should and that I had a body type that needed tons of exercise to slim down. My partner (who is also European) used to joke that our bodies were made for pulling ploughs and bearing children, not walking the runway. The only time I was ever slim was when I was running 7-8k a day.

    After joining MFP I've realized and thought about a few things.

    1. I WAS eating good, traditional food... but I was eating WAY too much of it
    2. I WASN'T JUST eating those kinds of foods, but also McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Tim Hortons and other nutritionally empty garbage
    3. My family all die of heart related illnesses, regardless of how thick or thin they are... that should tell me something about the 'European' diet
    4. The Scandinavian lifestyle involves constant, daily, physical activity (riding a bike and walking everywhere... driving very little, and being active constantly), whereas my North American lifestyle involved going to the gym (maybe) and sitting around for the rest of the day.

    I also did a mock nutritional day on my MFP diary and this got me realizing most of this stuff.

    I'm amazed at how full I can feel on a day where I only have 1500 or 1600 gross calories.
  • BlackRose101
    BlackRose101 Posts: 117 Member
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    I wouldn't quit eating cause I was full, I'd quit eating when I got tired of eating. ha
    <-- this is my life pretty much summed up in a sentence.
  • angie007az
    angie007az Posts: 406 Member
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    Oh yes. I didn't need to start watching calories until I hit the age of about 27. Nothing I ate made me fat, nothing. Now I watch everything.
  • Cakewalk25
    Cakewalk25 Posts: 71 Member
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    I used to be able to eat whatever I wanted and never gain weight so I had a lot of unhealthy habits! I would drink 4-6 glasses of juice a day, I didn't realize until I started logging my food how much sugar and calories that was! I would also regularly drink sugared coffee from Starbucks that I now know is like 500 calories. I was too lazy to bring lunch or snacks to work so when I got bored or hungry I'd go to the convenience store at the bottom of my office building and fill up on pops, chips or candy to get me through the day. I'm glad I started paying attention to what I ate because I'm pretty sure I was probably eating like 10 x my recommended intake of sugar and probably would have developed diabetes.
  • mersaultg
    mersaultg Posts: 13
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    When I was eighteen or so, my usual Saturday, was no breakfast, a lunch of Supersized Big Mac Value Meal, an extra Big Mac, and an extra Double Cheeseburger. That means that my lunch was 1,000 calories in soda in fries, 1500 calories in sandwhiches, roughly 2,500 calories just for lunch.

    You just described my lunch on any given day back when I was a teenager! Just add 3 apple pies and you've got it.
  • Faemusic
    Faemusic Posts: 14
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    A little different, but, Krispy Kreme is directly across from my gym. BAD!

    There was a Coldstone Creamery directly opposite my old gym. I'd drive out and it would literally be the first thing I saw as I was leaving the parking lot. It always seemed really unfair somehow.

    My gym has a McDonald's, Taco Bell, Burger King, and TWO supermarkets, all in the same plaza. Yikes! The other night I joked with my friend -- "It's healthy to eat at McDonald's if I'm walking there after the gym, right?"
  • onleethestrong
    onleethestrong Posts: 44 Member
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    I started doing a mock version of what a "stressful" day's menu would look like, and stopped when I hit about 7000. And that was without adding everything.....

    I think the sickest thing I used to eat on an almost daily basis was a soup bowl full of chocolate peanut butter ice cream with at least a half a cup of melted peanut butter poured over it. Maybe a handful of crunched up oreos sprinkled on top.... Nearly 2 days worth of calories in ONE SNACK!
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,741 Member
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    I look back in shock for a variety of reasons.

    For a very long time, I was around 270 lb. Like from age 20-24 and 27-30...same range of weight. During those years I ate like this:

    Breakfast: 3/4 cup of sugary cereal and 1 cup of 2% milk
    Lunch: a few carrot sticks, a few blueberries, a turkey sandwich with light mayo & lettuce on 2 slices of white bread
    Dinner: smallish bowl of pasta with chunks of chicken cooked in butter, topped with Ragu reduced fat alfredo sauce & steamed broccoli and some red pepper flakes
    Dessert: 2 homemade chocolate chip cookies OR a tall cinnamon dolce latte from Starbucks

    NOT good...but it's weird to me that I stayed 270 when really it wasn't THAT much different from how I eat now (granted I make a lot of tweaks from that, but still...that isn't crazy crazy tons of calories there...I logged it and it only had me "over" by 70 cal from what I eat NOW at 198 lb to lose 1.5 lb/wk)

    Later on, after reaching my HW of 307 lb - there were many many months where I ate just cucumbers and hummus for lunch every day and no desserts at night. I did lose weight but it was at the rate of 45 lb in 4.5 years (with quite a bit of exercise). I know people say there is no starvation mode and you can't stay fat on too few calories but I actually have doubts. Since joining MFP I have never felt hungry and have lost 63 lb in 10 months.

    As for shock at the "bad" choices I used to make, it's mostly restaurant food that shocks me. I used to think shrimp tacos from Chili's were basically the same as making them at home but there's a difference of almost 600 cal/plate and TONS and TONS of sodium.

    Or some of the choices that I didn't think were all that "bad" like getting a small frozen custard concrete or a milkshake and then eating a restaurant dinner. Totally crazy calorie wise. Shakes are probably my number one shock. They don't seem nearly as indulgent to me as a mini DQ Blizzard but have about 3 times the calories in even just a small vanilla shake. Wow.
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,741 Member
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    Back in the day when I worked in a busy ER, my diet consisted of three things: Sara Lee Coffee Cake, Pepsi, and black coffee...that's when I found the time to grab a bite in the break room during a long 18 hour shift. We ALL ate that way, doctors, nurses, PA's, and oddly enough, we were all very thin. Too thin, in many cases. I guess we worked it off running from one patient to the next.

    I shudder to think of what we would look like today if we ate that way...now that we are of a "certain age" and our metabolism is as slow as a clogged drain.

    Truth is, the thought of eating Sara Lee Coffee Cake makes me feel nauseated.

    My mom was a nurse and later a director at a nursing home. She consumed mostly coffee, cookies & crème ice cream and peanut butter for like 20 years. Along with laxatives twice daily. She was fairly thin (5'7" and ranged between 120-150 with a Kim Kardashian body shape) but now at 63 her body is all jacked up from lack of proper nutrition.
  • echoslug
    echoslug Posts: 73 Member
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    Not so much with shock but longing. When I was a competitive swimmer I would eat 5-7k calories a day during season but I was also logging 15+ hours a week a pool. I liked buying milkshakes everyday and two steaks for dinner. I mean I ate plenty of healthy foods too, my family pretty much only cooks healthy. I just didn't worry about portion sizes or those extra treats XD

    Needless to say I ate whatever I wanted. I was perfectly aware of what I was eating, all food just feel into the category of fuel back then. If I could go back to that I would in a heartbeat. I just don't have those 15 hours to devote to swimming anymore.
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,741 Member
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    The calories in alcoholic drinks does surprise me. I am glad I have never been a big drinker, even in college. I only drank maybe once every 2 months but when I look at the calories (and sugar) in cocktails (especially girly fruity cocktails) and even just in shots...wow
  • obrientp
    obrientp Posts: 546 Member
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    Back in college, my best friend and I would eat a extra large pizza and share a whole dozen Dunkin Dounts every Friday night to celebrate the end of the school week. On Saturdays, I would have either Mexican or Italian platters for lunch or dinner. This is on top of eating breaded chicken sandwiches, and french fries nearly everyday for lunch and bucket size bowls of cereal for dinner during the week. Sometimes I would sprinkle extra sugar on the cereal, or sometimes dinner would be a bucket sized bowl of buttered popcorn. At least i always drank Diet Coke!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,867 Member
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    Not so much at what I ate, mostly how much I ate. I've always been a foodie and enjoyed good quality food and never been much of a junk food guy...but being a lover of good food meant that I often went back for 2nds and 3rds long after I was satiated.
  • Awesomers
    Awesomers Posts: 144 Member
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    Some of my favorite shocking foods from the past:

    Dairy Queen Blizzard - Georgia Mud Fudge size large: 1,180 calories!! I have not been to DQ in a long, long time.

    Or this gem, from a food diary in 2008: FIVE cans of soda. I drink soda on very rare occasions, now.

    ETA: and very little water. Ugh. Glad that's not me anymore.

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