Your daily menu when you were fat (or b4 changing)

My first post on the forums!

When I was in grad school I was definitely eating the worst I ever had in my life. This was a typically Tuesday or Thursday from that time:

Breakfast: Slimfast shake.
Snack: Orange and part of the entire bag of Goldfish I brought with me
Lunch: Egg and cheese on an asiago bagel from finagle
Snack: The rest of the entire bag of Goldfish
Dinner: I'd come home from a 13 hour day starving so I'd make a quick tomato sauce and a pound of pasta. I'd only eat a small bowl's worth at first, but since I left the pot on the stove I'd go back two or three more times for more.
Dessert: 6 or 7 Biscoff cookies.

Luckily it was only one semester that was so crazy I couldn't think about food, but it's still surprising to me that I didn't gain more than the small amount I did.

I did this for fun a little while ago. Taking an average, I was eating:

Breakfast:
nothing, an egg or a hot dog (0-100 calories)

Lunch:
footlong subway, usually meatball (~1000 calories)

Snack:
6-pack or bottle of wine (750-1000 calories)
bag of toasted corn or Doritos (800-1300 calories)

Dinner:
2-3 cups of instant rice (300-450 calories)
2-3 eggs or hot dogs (200-300 calories)
1 glass of vegetable juice (50 calories)

Total:
3100-4200 calories... surprised I didn't get fatter than I did.

Before: Eat all the things!
After: Eat all the things....that fit reasonable macros.

Before: Eat all the things!
After: Eat all the things....that fit reasonable macros.

:drinker:

I'll drink to that.

As long as it fits my macros and my goals.

Typical work day:

B'fast - ham and cheese croissant (350)
Lunch - Large pad thai (770)
Dinner - Steak with mash and peas (600)
Snacks - Nuts (300), Allens lollies (400), cookies (200), Arrnot's shapes (200)

So around 3000 a day? Then weekends would be kebabs, pizza, wings, and a LOT of beer.

Before I was on MFP I was living in a sharehouse but buying/cooking/eating all my own food. Tbh, my eating was very sketchy. I bought ingredients for recipes I wanted to try out but I didn't buy normal breakfast foods as such. Examples of meals were:

A pack of tim tams
2 cups flour, 2 cups sugar, 500g butter, all mixed together (amounts varied, I kinda just mixed the stuff and used it all up).
Several pieces of white chocolate passionfruit cake that I made from scratch
Three pieces of bread with 3 precooked BBQ sausages and sauce
Several pieces of bread or toast with butter

Before that, I lived with a relative of mine who cooked amazing food, and had regular diet there.

Breakfast: Large bowl of full fat yogurt with muesli and honey, fruit toast with butter
Snack: Chocolate if it was there
Lunch: If at home, cheese and spinach or ham, chutney and cheese pita bread, followed by a slice of cake, if at school, 2 ham, cheese, onion and creamy mayo sandwiches, piece of fruit and slice of cake
Dinner: Meat (usually chicken) with mashed potato, some kind of cream based sauce and vegetables.
Dessert: Cake and icecream, whipped cream or yogurt

I've never been technically overweight if going by bmi but I did at one point go through a phase of having some really bad problems at work and as a result just had no motivation to do any exercise and was eating way too much on a daily basis. I put on around 16lbs in a couple of months and it did not look good. If I hadn't nipped it in the bud I quite easily would have kept on gaining. During that time my diet was something like this:

Breakfast before leaving home: 2 slices of thick white bread with A LOT of pate & sweet onion chutney

Morning "snack": a muller crunch corner and a fruit smoothie made with full fat milk, banana, berries etc

Lunch: A very generously filled homemade sandwich, usually tuna or chicken with lots and lots of mayo, homemade slaw. Pack of crisps and then sometimes a trip to the work canteen for a large side of potato salad/cous cous salad and a cookie or muffin as well.

Afternoon snack: some chocolate or other sweet treat.

Dinner: a large bowl of pasta, typically in a creamy white herby sauce with pancetta/mushrooms/chicken/onions.

Late night snack: another smaller but unnecessary bowl of the same pasta or couple slices bread with very generous helping of peanut butter and perhaps mindless munching on either haribo sweets, ice cream, cheesecake, choc bars, muffins, cookies or a mix of a couple of these on same night etc.

My actual meals have never been too awful (always room for improvement but they weren't too bad). Snacking has always been my downfall. I'd think nothing of eating an entire packet of biscuits most days, or a family-size bag of chocolate.

Definitely too many takeaways as well... I blame my lazy OH for that lol.

ETA: my portion control on pasta was also WAY out!

My menu wasn't much different, just the portion sizes were bigger. For instance, I'd eat a whole cup of rice or potatoes with a meal, rather than a half cup. I 'd eat more carbs for breakfast -- cereal and toast, for instance, instead of one or the other, or a whole bagel, rather than just 1/2 of one. Also, a whole sandwich on regular bread, rather than a 1/2 sandwich or a sandwich on 1/2 pita bread. I also would do take-out or eat out more often. I never weighed or measured anything. I'd also eat 3 big meals a day, rather than 3 smaller meals with 2 snacks. I eat way more fruit and vegetables now.

Kinda funny post because the day before i started a healthier lifestyle was my first time ever counting my calories, here goes...

Breakfast: 2 Bacon Egg Cheese Biscuits, Large hashrounds hardees = 1445 Calories
Lunch: Large Stromboli and Garlic Knots = 1330
Snacks: 2 Dunkin Donuts Boston Creme = 620
Dinner: Outback Blooming onion 1/4th, baby back ribs and mash potatoes = 1909 calories

Daily Total = 5304 calories