Foods from your past- What you know now...

On the topic of cheese...I still love cheese, and eat it...but holy portion control. That has been a big eye-opener for me.

My husband makes homemade pizza pretty often with a healthier whole wheat superthin crust and loads of veg...it is so good...and he puts like 2 oz of shredded cheese on the whole big pizza and it's PLENTY. It doesn't seem like it would be, and it doesn't look that cheesy. But it tastes amazing.

I used to dump at least that much cheese on a microwave burrito for lunch.

And when I made chicken broccoli alfredo pasta for my ex, with "reduced fat" Ragu jarred sauce (ugh) I would toss in like 1 cup of shredded mozzarella. WHY!? I don't even know. It was not that good and you could barely taste the cheese anyway.

I used to have a golden syrup sandwich (or two, on buttered thick white bread of course!) as a snack.

The calories...the sugar...the HORROR hahahah

Haha that's so english! Sounds so good. I once remember eating an entire LOAF of sugar and butter on toast with my brother when we were teenagers.

I never paid attention to serving sizes. So when I was "just having some ice cream" or "some cookies" or "hey let's have a fancy iced drink" It never occurred to me I was consuming multiple servings and thus a crazy amount of calories!

Same here. I didn't realize my portions sizes were so off. No wonder the weight creeped up. I wasn't really eating "bad" food all the time, but just too much of everything. At work and at home the people I eat with are much taller, so I would eat as they did, not really thinking that they could afford more calories than I could.

In the past I'd have had a fairly low calorie day like today and thought "great low calories=weight loss".
Now I know that too low also = muscle loss.
So, I went and got myself a cheesecake (half price!) and had 930 calories of that. In the past such a thought would have seen me running away shouting 'unclean', with reading through various research and the like I've now realised that washing the knife beforehand will do just fine .

This makes me sad. It's just food. We need calories... 400 for a medium frosty sounds like a good deal to me. That's just a drop in the ocean when it comes to an entire day's calories!

What does deter me from eating certain things now is learning what foods contain sand and wax... what some preservatives are derived from... stuff like that. Something's got to be a literal non-food item to keep me from eating it. Haha.

My wakeup call was Starbucks, who knew

My wakeup call was Starbucks, who knew

This exactly. Adding 500 calories of Starbucks coffee every morning before class along with a 700 calorie or more breakfast burrito....eeps!!! The sodium, the sugar...the calories! And all before 10AM!

This makes me sad. It's just food. We need calories... 400 for a medium frosty sounds like a good deal to me. That's just a drop in the ocean when it comes to an entire day's calories!

Not for me - its a quarter of my daily calorie allowance on excersise day and pretty much half my calorie allowance on fast days.

Kentucky Fried Chicken was my downfall. I used to walk 20 minutes to the nearest one get a 2 piece snack box with sides then walk home. I thought I was being healthy by walking it off LOL!

And iced coffees, with full cream milk, ice cream and whipped cream with chocolate sprinkles. My sister and I used to have one every afternoon after school when we were kids. Luckily we were very active back then and never put on any weight.

B4 MFP - Pizza love it - ate it all the time!
After MFP - Pizza love it - eat it once in a while! Tons of calories and lots of sodium!

B4 MFP - I love soup and would always eat canned
After MFP - I don't really eat soup any more because there's way too much sodium.

I used to eat Lean Cuisines all the time. Also low fat mayo and dressings, etc.

Now I've realized that if I cook meals at home, they can be as low calorie as Lean cuisine and taste much better, not to mention better ingredients and less sodium. And I've gone back to regular dressings, just measure the amounts of regular. I actually am generally more satisfied with 1Tb of regular dressing than I would be with twice as much "light" or "low fat" ... and when things are reduced fat they usually add sugar and other stuff to compensate, so it's not really any better.

Beyond that, I eat everything I used to. Wendy's, sushi rolls, pizza, shakes, etc. I don't do it all the time, and try to keep near daily calorie goals (and macros, as much as possible). Or I allow it for a cheat day. But I have to admit, I've stopped at the Chinese Buffet and other places that don't really taste all that good.

Mammoth muffins!

I used to have a golden syrup sandwich (or two, on buttered thick white bread of course!) as a snack.

The calories...the sugar...the HORROR hahahah

Haha that's so english! Sounds so good. I once remember eating an entire LOAF of sugar and butter on toast with my brother when we were teenagers.

OMG! I had forgotten about my childhood "bedtime snack"... white bread, butter, sugar... sometimes a light sprinkle of cinnamon, too. I gave that up yeeeeears ago, though... pre-weight issues days.

Yep, pizza is probably my biggest downfall. I used to eat a lot of cookies, chips, etc. and thought I'd miss them, but after reading the nutritional content, I'd rather not have to pay for it with extra time on the treadmill. Now, if I want something sweet after dinner, I'll measure out some Greek yogurt and add fresh blueberries to it. Not *quite* as satisfying as Blue Bell ice cream, but I'll happily take the trade off.

I definitely used to use pasta as a comfort food, not chips or pizza etc, always pasta, healthy you might think? Not how I measured it.
Easily half a bag at a time, around 250g I'm guessing, never used to weigh it. Easily well over 1500 calories in pasta alone without the sauce and cheese etc.
Since going gluten free through choice, I now use gluten free pasta, and not ever more than 60g at a time with plenty of veg, just one of the mistakes I used to make!

THIS!! The amount of Pasta I ate before must have been a days worth in a sitting!

Calzones or Stromboli. I'm not sure why I didn't realize that they are basically a WHOLE pizza folded in half or rolled up...probably with even more cheese!! I would down the whole thing at 2000-3000 calories!! The first time I logged that after eating, I wanted to throw up!

I still give in to the fast food french fries, but not nearly as often! They are my weakness!!!