What were you eating at the age of 16?

ClubSilencio · February 2016

Here's what I remember eating on a typical day back then...

Breakfast (rarely had it): Donut shop or cinnamon roll & chocolate milk from the school cafeteria

Lunch: Cheeseburger (we had an outdoor BBQ grill year-round at school!), bag of nacho cheese Doritos, Minute Maid pink lemonade or Hawaiian Punch

Dinner: Quiznos subs, Wendy's dollar menu, teriyaki chicken bowls; at home my mom always made Italian food

Desserts: Little Debbie's Swiss Cake Rolls, Grandma's peanut butter cookies (not my Grandma's, that's the brand lol), Entenmann's coffee cake (my parent's jam but I partook as well)

Yep. Those were the days. Sad thing is I still wasn't getting enough calories for my activity level.

Do you remember what you were eating when you were 16? Please share with the group.

juggernaut1974 · February 2016

I can't remember what I ate 3 days ago...much less 25 years ago.

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janjunie · February 2016

Pizza pops, Oreos, TV dinners, Eggo waffles, mr noodles, chips.....anything out of a box that could go in the microwave or toaster. My mom never cooked for me after the age of 13.....quite sad actually because now she makes the most colourful and healthy foods for herself.

erickirb · February 2016

home cooked meals my mother prepared. lunch was usually a sandwich, juice and a treat. breakfast was pretty much always cereal.

cwolfman13 · February 2016

The only thing I really recall is having like 3 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches most days for lunch.

Breakfast was usually a lot of cereal...my mom primarily kept Cheerios in the house and I'd have at least a couple bowls and we always had whole milk for me in the house.

Dinner was whatever mom was making...I remember a lot of various pasta dishes as it was cheap and I could eat a ton...after track meets, wrestling meets, swim meets, and football games my parents usually took me to an all you can eat pancake house so that I could put 'em down. My dad grilled burgers a lot.

I was never a big desert person...I liked ice cream and that was about it...a lot of times I'd just take a big chunk out of a block of cheddar and nibble on that with a pint of milk to wash it down. My mom could make some kick *kitten* chocolate chip cookies too.

I was really active and involved in athletics when I was younger...I ate like a horse and still had a hard time keeping my weight up, let alone trying to gain weight. I remember my parents thinking they were going to go broke trying to feed me...

yourhiddengem · February 2016

I literally can't remember what I was eating in college never mind when I was 16.

But I do remember one time in high school I went through a stage where literally all I ate was ice cream sandwiches for all my meals. I did that for long enough for it to become a problem lol nutritionally.

stealthq · February 2016

I was training with someone not well versed in nutrition, so I was eating grilled boneless, skinless chicken breast on a dry hamburger bun and steamed vegetables, no butter or oil. A couple of scrambled eggs for breakfast, no butter in the pan. Fruit allowed as a snack. I ate basically the same every day for months.

Did I mention I was not in the least overweight and not trying to diet? The goal was to get stronger for equestrian competitions. He had me lifting weights in addition to my regular work at the barn on this diet that was probably 1000-1200 cals per day. It's a wonder I didn't keel over.

Need2Exerc1se · February 2016

That was a long time ago. As best I can remember it was school lunches and whatever my mom cooked for dinner, which was usually meat, potatoes and some type of frozen or canned vegetable unless we were having spaghetti. My mom wasn't a very adventurous cook. But MAN could that woman bake!!

peleroja · February 2016

I was on student exchange in southern Germany for half my sixteenth year, so I was eating pretty much just muesli, rye bread sandwiches, and meat/potato/veg type dinners with my host family. And a lot of good chocolate. Pretty healthy, all things considered.

When I got home we hosted a student who put on 60 lbs over the school year with us because her family never let her eat junk and my mom kept buying her nutella and stuff, just trying to be nice...and I lost 15 lbs I didn't really have to lose because she was eating all the food in the house. My mom had to start calling me for dinner 5 min before her so that I at least got a full plate of food, lol. I was a pretty involved kid with lots of extracurriculars so food wasn't much of a priority for me, I guess, as I was always doing stuff before and after school and at lunch.

Outside of that and throughout my teen years, my mom is a good cook and served balanced meals and I didn't really eat a lot of fast food/packaged meals/anything like that because she was a stay-at-home mom and cooked every day and packed me a lunch.

I didn't gain weight until I was bartending in uni and getting no sleep and drinking too much and pigging out on whatever I could find when I had time.

DaddieCat · February 2016

Anything I could shove in my face, was usually the woe I abided by.

Trump2016 · February 2016

It was so terrible.

I had lots of the healthy components like tons of fruits and veggies, but more than that were: rice; cereal; breakfast bars; chips; more cereal; more breakfast bars; a hell of a lot of noodles.

Pretty much just carbs carbs carbs. Ended up skinnyfat before I committed to running and cutting all the crap out.

glassyo · February 2016

juggernaut1974 wrote: »

I can't remember what I ate 3 days ago...much less 25 years ago.

Only 25 years ago?

I'm pretty sure boxes of little debbie's swiss cake rolls (probably the WHOLE box at one time), ding dongs, cupcakes, etc were involved altho I was only working part time so not sure where I'd get the money for them.

So basically whatever my mother cooked (my favorite was her mac & cheese) and school lunches or McDonalds which was near the school.

When I was younger than 16, I would totally steal candy from drug stores tho.

malibu927 · February 2016

The same thing I ate until I was 32...too much candy/snack foods and too much pop

pinggolfer96 · February 2016

I just turned 20 and I already miss those days lol. My job has pushed me to not go as hard on the food as I used to. When I was 16, I was playing football and extremely active. After practice we would pound down huge California burritos(I'm from San Diego, so they were HUGE), chili cheese fries, 2+lb burgers, pizza, lots of steak, chicken, and fish. I remember eating a whole London broil every time my dad would make it. Peanut butter toast and waffles before bed. Lots of oatmeal, eggs, sandwhiches....literally everything. With football and how active I was, I was hitting easily 4-5k cals on some days during the week. I also stayed lean. right before my job took off the end of my junior year I was 6'2 189lbs playing wide receiver. I am now 6'2 174lbs. It kinda sucks haha but I reminisce about those days all the time lol. I wish I could go back. (:

niniundlapin · February 2016

Not when I was 16 but 14-15, since it's the year my braces were removed & I entered the hell-like study environment for high school entrance exam (FYI... entrance exams for high schools and colleges exist in most Asian countries and I believe no one would say it's the best time in their lives...).

Stressful life is usually associated with lots of food, IMHO, lol. My typical weekdays at that time were like this:

Breakfast: usually something warm prepared by my mom, who believes breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I woke up around 6AM and would usually have a full cup of whole milk with toast/bun/bread/cake from nearby bakeries. Sometimes it's bun with meat/veggie stuffing with egg/veggie soup. Fruit was a must, so I'd usually have several pieces of seasonal fruit.
Estimated intake: 400-550 kcal (lower when I didn't have much bakery food; higher when I ate a lot of those plus fruit).

Lunch: Before the "concentrated study mode" for the 9th graders was turned on, I usually have leftover from last night's dinner for my lunch. Lunch is in a bento box and would be re-heated with my classmates' in a group bento steamer. I'd also have a small portion of sweets (cookies or cup cake-sized stuffs) or juice box as my desert. When we entered the "study mode" for entrance exam, parents in my class took turn to provide lunch and dinner (we'd have dinner as a whole class & kept studying until 9PM). The food part might be the only thing I was looking forward to at that time since my parents seldom ordered take-outs as our lunch, which is way more delicious compared to re-heated leftover bento (sorry mom...). It seems like parents from our class (around 45-50 students per class) were in some sort of competition to see "who can provide the most luxurious food for the class," so our lunch & dinner option got crazier and crazier (I mean, from a standard of a typical 14-15 year-old's standpoint). As a result, our luxurious take-out bento would also come with a 500c.c. bubble tea (usually the classic sweetened milk tea).
Estimated intake: around 500 kcal before the "concentrated study mode" and probably 700-900 kcal from the luxurious take-out food plus bubble milk tea. I might under-estimate these since I don't really know the ingredients for the food I ate.

Dinner: it's rather simple compared to my lunch. If I ate at home, it'll be white rice plus one or two plates of protein-based dishes, one or two veggie-based dishes, one clear soup, and the fruit after dinner is a must (again). Of course, once I started the evening studying routine at school, what I had for dinner is similar to my lunch (plus the bubble tea...).
Estimated intake: 500-600 kcal at home and 700-900 kcal at school.

Outside of regular meal: most snacks I like were all carb-based and that's the nature of a lot of Asian snacks. My dad would also bring home something from street venders on his way back as late-night snacks & shared with the whole family (fried chicken, tempura, or vermicelli-based dishes). It was usually 9:30PM when I got home from school, so it's a perfect stress-relieving setting for me (nothing's better than eating something with the whole family!).
Estimated intake: could be over 400 kcal...

Anyway... now having all these spread out in front of me, I know why I gained weight like a balloon! We had intense PE classes (50 min per session and 2x-3x per week) at school but that's definitely not enough compared to my blooming appetite and high-calorie snacks...

amusedmonkey · February 2016

At 16 I usually packed some kind of sandwich, a large greek yogurt sandwich most of the times with lots of olive oil, and 2 tomatoes for school which I ate during lunch break (11:30 am). I would sometimes buy a candy bar or a single serving pack of chips, but most times I didn't.

Home by 1:30, homework, then lunch (biggest meal) with the family at about 3 pm - usually steamed rice with some kind of vegetable and meat micro stew with the rice (I picked off the meat because I didn't like it). There was also always some kind of salad and juice (tomato juice in my case). I usually added some extra olive oil (a lot extra) to my salad on top of what's already there.

Snacking on some kind of fruits or vegetables while watching TV, then dinner at about 7.

For dinner we would usually have whatever is in the fridge. The table would have various plates containing hummus, cheese, greek yogurt, broad beans, some kind of luncheon meat, fried eggs, bread...etc with a cup of sweet tea. The olive oil bowl was usually placed closer to me because I used it the most.

Occasionally, maybe once every 4-5 months, we would go out for pizza or some other restaurant food, and about once every 1-2 months my mom would bake or make some dessert.

Meganthedogmom · February 2016

By 16 I think I was buying most of my own groceries, so...
Junk. Just pure garbage.

jemhh · February 2016

When I was 16 I normally had a bagel and cream cheese for breakfast plus maybe a cup of tea. Sometimes I had a bowl of cereal. At one point I discovered Golden Grahams and ate 3 or 4 bowls in one day and then my dad limited me to one bowl a day because he said it was too expensive.

For lunch I had a candy bar and water or maybe twice a week I'd go out (open lunch at my high school) and have 6" sub from Subway or a hamburger and fries from McDonald's.

For dinner I ate whatever my mom made. We always had a full sit down meal for supper so I'd eat a salad and some meat. No mashed potatoes because I didn't like them at the time (I have since seen the light on that issue.) I was 5'6" and about 110 pounds or so at that age.

Asher_Ethan · February 2016

Breakfast - raisin bran in skim milk
Lunch - sprite with a hot pocket and candy bar
Snack - left overs from the night before
Dinner - lasagna or Mac and cheese or whatever else my mom thought she could cook.
Dessert - ice cream every night - even though I really don't like ice cream, every one else was eating it so I did too.

I was a dancer so I'm sure that's how I could eat all that.

rattiemomma · February 2016

Breakfast was a couple of bowls of cereal (not high-fiber or high-protein - Chex or Cheerios would have been the "healthiest" we had). Sometimes with toast or an English muffin. Lots of butter. A glass of milk or orange juice.

I can barely remember lunches. I never bought lunch at school. I would have a sandwich every day and probably packaged sides/snacks. I FREQUENTLY got Sun Chips from the vending machine in the cafeteria. And, there was a class about life skills for kids in a special education group. They had to run a business. They sold Otis Spunkmeyer cookies out of the classroom across from my biology class. Smelled like heaven. Three HUGE greasy/buttery cookies for $1. I can't tell you how many dollars I spent!

Then, I'd beg for or sneak snacks until dinner. Dinner was whatever Mom made. Usually a meat main dish (chicken, pork chops, meatloaf), applesauce, a boiled veggie or two. Bread. More milk. Chips Ahoy cookies for dessert. This isn't counting what I ate with friends or bought at the convience store on the way to my friend's house or the time I ate all the chocolate bars I was supposed to sell to other people for choir fundraising.

I remember getting to the point of HATING chicken breasts when my mom would get on a diet streak.

I never thought my mom was heavy, but I realize from pictures she was significantly heavier than she had been when she was first married. So, while she was still a normal weight, she was always unhappy with her weight and trying various diets and going on exercise stints. It had to be tough, because my dad is a HUGE eater who prefers fattier, saltier foods. Now, in their 60s, Mom IS significantly overweight and still unhappy with her body and my dad found MFP and lost 50lbs. Go figure.

My mom did try to give us some food smarts, but it was a bit warped. I don't feel like I left my parent's house with a good grasp of how to feed myself well for a lifetime. Now, I learn more and more everyday and try to explain to my kids why I made certain food choices, for them or myself, so they will have some knowledge when they are old enough to chooses their own foods. And, we allow all kinds of treats (except artificially-dyed - Big Kid is sensitive) while talking about how they make up a teeny part of a well-rounded diet. And I never talk about me being on a diet. If they ask why I am measuring something or skipping something, I just tell them Mommy is working on taking care of her health/being healthier.

-Rattie

Carlos_421 · February 2016

Breakfast: chocolate fudge pop tarts and milk
Lunch: whatever was in the cafeteria, usually pizza and milk
Supper: whatever my parents fixed, usually a meat with a side vegetable and dinner rolls.
Snacks: fudge rounds, Reese's, cookies, pizza rolls, spaghettios...

What were you eating at the age of 16?

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