Drive Thru fast Food Addiction

2

Replies

  • zyxst
    zyxst Posts: 9,134 Member
    I don't know, OP, because I'm not you.

    For me, never having a Timbit or peanut buster parfait or Ziggy Peelgoods fries for the rest of my life (30-40 years) will make those years pretty damned sad. I decided that when I had trusted "experts" telling me to stop eating "bad" carbs that life without donuts isn't worth living.
  • futuresize8
    futuresize8 Posts: 476 Member
    I generally don't eat fast food for a lot of reasons...mostly because I don't like it! And I'm a pescetarian, so fish is usually fried (I don't like that) or the salads are super crappy with flavorless cheap lettuce.

    That said, I do think that some foods may trigger other cravings. It seems to work that way for me.

    If I eat Skittles, even if the serving fits into my macros, I crave other sugar and carbohydrates. If I drink diet soda - and it may just be that I associate fizzy drinks with junk foods - I will crave potato chips or other salty snacks that I prefer to avoid.

    I think it's great that you're evaluating your food choices and not just calories!
  • jkwolly
    jkwolly Posts: 3,049 Member
    I had my Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich an hour ago and I am hungry as heck right now.
    Protein is your friend.

    Order things that are higher in protein, make them fit into your calorie goals, and you can have the best of both worlds!

    No need to go extreme and cut it off completely. Needs to be sustainable.
  • fedup30
    fedup30 Posts: 141 Member
    Sounds like me. I live in the middle of no where, so fast food really isn't the culprit. But if I happen to buy a bag of chocolates, or basically any type of potato chip...I tend to go overboard. I stick to buying a single serving every once in a while as a treat. So while you might be able to lose weight having these things in your diet, they may trigger binges (like mine) and you end up sabotaging yourself. I say if you can PLAN a little fast food splurge every once and a while and stick to this, then you should be fine!
  • bfergusonii
    bfergusonii Posts: 208 Member
    I had my Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich an hour ago and I am hungry as heck right now.

    1. I am going to back to intermittent fasting, by skipping breakfast daily or having a granola bar.
    2. I am going to quit fast food drive thru for one year, starting today. (Road trips with family dont count)

    Goals like quitting for 1 year, though admirable, are often really hard for me to stick to. Then I break them and feel really bad about it.

    I used to hit the drive through a lot, a really lot. I did not make any effort at stopping but by eating healthier, exercising in the morning and losing weight, I sort of just stopped eating most fast food. Wasn't something I planned so much as noticed after the fact.

    If you want to take your path, I would suggest shorter goals for smaller wins.
  • GeeWillickers
    GeeWillickers Posts: 85 Member
    It is not nor will ever be an addiction. People over use the term addiction as a means to excuse themselves from taking responsibility and to feel better about themselves. At the most it's a habit albeit deeply entrenched one. Nothing will ever set you up for failure unless you believe it, please don't.

    Changing a habit is hard and despite being in agreement with the IIFYM/flexible dieting crowd at this stage in developing a doable lifestyle for myself, I have no doubt that jumping on the all healthy foods eating kick when I first started the weight loss journey helped a great deal. It allowed me to add back in slowly plus I didn't feel guilty when having family get togethers.

    If you have an interest in learning more about habits and how to change might I suggest reading The Power of Habit: Why We do What We Do in Life and Business - Charles Duhigg. Thoroughly enjoyed this book and try to come back to using a feedback loop to check some of my less desirable habits.
  • thedarkwombat
    thedarkwombat Posts: 123 Member
    I had my Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich an hour ago and I am hungry as heck right now.
    Protein is your friend.

    Order things that are higher in protein, make them fit into your calorie goals, and you can have the best of both worlds!

    No need to go extreme and cut it off completely. Needs to be sustainable.

    The Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich has 33 grams of protein. More than a third of daily requirements.
  • extra_medium
    extra_medium Posts: 1,525 Member
    And if I do decide to hit the golden arches (or any of their competitors), I check the calories carefully before I order.

    This helps me a lot actually. I do the same thing in an attempt to plan my day but it often just makes me change my mind.. seeing how depressingly many calories are in even a small burger that I know I can plow through in 4-5 bites keeps me from ordering it. Most of the time...
  • vismal
    vismal Posts: 2,463 Member
    I had my Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich an hour ago and I am hungry as heck right now.
    Protein is your friend.

    Order things that are higher in protein, make them fit into your calorie goals, and you can have the best of both worlds!

    No need to go extreme and cut it off completely. Needs to be sustainable.

    The Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich has 33 grams of protein. More than a third of daily requirements.
    The RDA woefully underestimates the amount of protein a man needs each day in my opinion.
  • thedarkwombat
    thedarkwombat Posts: 123 Member
    It is not nor will ever be an addiction. People over use the term addiction as a means to excuse themselves from taking responsibility and to feel better about themselves. At the most it's a habit albeit deeply entrenched one. Nothing will ever set you up for failure unless you believe it, please don't.

    Changing a habit is hard and despite being in agreement with the IIFYM/flexible dieting crowd at this stage in developing a doable lifestyle for myself, I have no doubt that jumping on the all healthy foods eating kick when I first started the weight loss journey helped a great deal. It allowed me to add back in slowly plus I didn't feel guilty when having family get togethers.

    If you have an interest in learning more about habits and how to change might I suggest reading The Power of Habit: Why We do What We Do in Life and Business - Charles Duhigg. Thoroughly enjoyed this book and try to come back to using a feedback loop to check some of my less desirable habits.

    No people use DISEASE as a means to excuse themselves from taking responsibility and to feel better about themselves. As in being an alcoholic is a disease. But I do agree in that the term addiction is used too often as well.
  • thedarkwombat
    thedarkwombat Posts: 123 Member
    I had my Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich an hour ago and I am hungry as heck right now.
    Protein is your friend.

    Order things that are higher in protein, make them fit into your calorie goals, and you can have the best of both worlds!

    No need to go extreme and cut it off completely. Needs to be sustainable.

    The Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich has 33 grams of protein. More than a third of daily requirements.
    The RDA woefully underestimates the amount of protein a man needs each day in my opinion.

    If thats true, then I would need three steaks a day or three chicken breasts a day to keep the protein at the right level. Or drink a protein shake everyday.
  • vismal
    vismal Posts: 2,463 Member

    If thats true, then I would need three steaks a day or three chicken breasts a day to keep the protein at the right level. Or drink a protein shake everyday.
    Not necessarily that much but depending on how much weight you have to lose, you should probably be eating somewhere between 0.6-0.8 grams of protein per lb you weigh if you want to maintain lean mass while you lose fat. But 70 grams a day recommended by the RDA is WAY to low in my opinion and there is a large body of research to back this up.
  • thedarkwombat
    thedarkwombat Posts: 123 Member

    If thats true, then I would need three steaks a day or three chicken breasts a day to keep the protein at the right level. Or drink a protein shake everyday.
    Not necessarily that much but depending on how much weight you have to lose, you should probably be eating somewhere between 0.6-0.8 grams of protein per lb you weigh if you want to maintain lean mass while you lose fat. But 70 grams a day recommended by the RDA is WAY to low in my opinion and there is a large body of research to back this up.

    Well if you are trying to build muscle sure I agree, but 250 grams of protein for me daily? Not sure if that is realistic.
  • vismal
    vismal Posts: 2,463 Member

    If thats true, then I would need three steaks a day or three chicken breasts a day to keep the protein at the right level. Or drink a protein shake everyday.
    Not necessarily that much but depending on how much weight you have to lose, you should probably be eating somewhere between 0.6-0.8 grams of protein per lb you weigh if you want to maintain lean mass while you lose fat. But 70 grams a day recommended by the RDA is WAY to low in my opinion and there is a large body of research to back this up.

    Well if you are trying to build muscle sure I agree, but 250 grams of protein for me daily? Not sure if that is realistic.
    High protein is important not only to build muscle, but also to maintain muscle while losing fat. 250 is a lot but 180-200 is a decent goal. I got in 200+ a day for a major portion of time I was dieting from 315-195 lbs... My after pictures look like they do because of that and my use of resistance training. You don't need high protein to lose weight, but it helps with muscle maintenance and satiety.
  • shabaity
    shabaity Posts: 791 Member
    I usually grab an energy drink in the morning so I don't fall asleep in my 8 am class, morning are not fun for me, but if I actually eat something solid I get hungry all day and blow my day by quite a bit. So my solution, for the times I really have a taste for that egg McMuffin is to go ahead and buy it but toss it in a lunch box with an ice pack and then reheat it around 1 or so when I actually get hungry, usually with some pineapple, carrots, or some apple slices. This being said I likely need to figure out a way to up my protein intake and McDonald's is not the way for me to go about it.
  • Lady_Senie
    Lady_Senie Posts: 100 Member
    I know EXACTLY where you're coming from, darkwombat! It's not even that I get some kind of deep satisfaction from the drive thru. For goodness sake, a lot of times I feel worse after eating there because I KNOW that I shouldn't have! But it's the habit. End of a long shift = eating a meal to celebrate getting through it. End of a long stretch of shifts (I'm a nurse and I do a LOT of 5 and 6 evenings in a row for my rotation) = one meal to celebrate. End of a very successful shift = ... You get the drift.

    I'm fighting tooth and nail to find a better way to deal with stress, both good and bad, but success varies day to day (much like my willpower oddly enough). The times that I'm able to get away from doing 'the usual' is when I really make myself focus on how it's not going to make me feel better and it's not going to fix anything, so is it REALLY worth it? Sometimes the answer is still 'screw it, I'm gonna do this anyway'. But little by little, the 'no, it's not worth it' is starting to creep through.
  • vegkitten
    vegkitten Posts: 106 Member
    My boyfriend for sure has a fast food addiction. He goes anywhere from 1 to 3 times a day. It's still possible to lose weight doing so which he has which is making a little bit better choices or exercising to compensate.
  • klkarlen
    klkarlen Posts: 4,366 Member
    And if I do decide to hit the golden arches (or any of their competitors), I check the calories carefully before I order.

    This helps me a lot actually. I do the same thing in an attempt to plan my day but it often just makes me change my mind.. seeing how depressingly many calories are in even a small burger that I know I can plow through in 4-5 bites keeps me from ordering it. Most of the time...

    Same here, several times I checked the calories online at lunch, and went to the grocery store instead. One cup of soup and a serving of crackers goes a lot further than one tiny hamburger. And stays with me longer.
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,742 Member
    I love love LOVE drive through... McDonald's, Wendy's, Popeye's, Chick-Fil-A, etc... I've always struggled with Fast Food because I love it so much. It stems not only from a habitual need but also a comfort need. Emotional eating can be tough for me. My family used it as a reward or to feel better when I was a kid, so I look to that as a level of comfort now in my 30s.

    ding ding ding

    I think we have a winner, at least in my opinion.

    I think for a lot of people it's laziness and/or lack of time that leads them to frequent drive-thru stops. But honestly for many of us who have long term weight struggles, I think emotional eating is the more likely reason for this.

    When I am feeling low stress and low anxiety in my life, I really don't even notice fast food places. When I'm in times of mega stress they are all I can see as I drive down the road. For awhile when we were dating & engaged, my husband had to live apart from me for months to care for his terminally ill mother. We spent weekends together but M-F we were apart. When I would drive an hour to visit them I was fine -- but on the way home, unless he was coming back with me, I felt the "need" to stop at a fast food drive thru for a burrito or at a convenience store for a chocolate bar or just something...to deal with the emotional stress of seeing his mother paralyzed and dying, and having to leave him behind.

    Similarly, when I worked in a VERY stressful position in the past I would stop by McDonald's AND/OR Starbucks on my way home from work...I felt propelled to do so almost daily, until I identified that issue and then gradually stopped.

    Money is a huge motivator for me. I'm very frugal and love to save when I can. Unfortunately though for me that just means no $4 lattes or $8 value meals...dollar menu stuff is affordable and tasty...even I don't mind dropping two bucks on a snack. I just try to avoid it all together unless it's a planned occasion. I find those are few and far between now because for my planned dining out occasions I strongly prefer to go to a "real" restaurant for Thai, Korean, sushi, or quality Mexican...and have a longer, higher quality & more enjoyable dining experience than the McChicken can provide.
  • LaurenEileen74
    LaurenEileen74 Posts: 142 Member
    I'm a filthy *kitten* for a McChicken from time to time, but I just said out loud the other day that I don't think I'll be going to the drive-through much at all for the rest of my life. Something clicked and I just got grossed out by not only the food, but the whole operation.