What were you eating at the age of 16?

2

Replies

  • This content has been removed.
  • AmyRhubarb
    AmyRhubarb Posts: 6,890 Member
    Oh my gosh, I think I lived on calzones form the pizza place across the street from my high school - soooo many after school sports and drama activities, and since school was 25 miles away from home, I ate out a lot.

    Other than calzones, regular purchases were those Grandmas soft baked cookies, crunchy Cheetos, Dr. Pepper, ice cream sandwiches, Taco Bell.... and in between I got my mom's awesome home cooking, so it wasn't all garbage. :smiley:
  • chastity0921
    chastity0921 Posts: 209 Member
    Breakfast: I was able to go off campus so we got $1 sausage biscuits from McDonalds most of the time. Heated honeybuns, or mini donuts at home. Sausage wrapped in pancake, or breakfast pizza at the school cafeteria.
    Lunch: Lunchroom junk, something from the college campus, or fast food.
    Dinner: Mom would bake/fry chicken with mashed potatoes and green beans, or sauerkraut with smoked sausage, or pinto beans with fried potatoes and cornbread (Kentucky living).

    Now I realize why I was fat.
  • leosmith66
    leosmith66 Posts: 69 Member
    My weight in carbs.
  • blankiefinder
    blankiefinder Posts: 3,599 Member
    edited February 2016
    16? Cereal. Sandwich. Healthy dinner. (Spaghetti, or fish, or chicken, or stew, or etc etc etc and always with veggies). Dessert on holidays and special occasions. Sour gummy keys for treats occasionally. Edited to add, oh, and pizza every Friday night, a couple of slices.
  • middlehaitch
    middlehaitch Posts: 8,486 Member
    Living in a cave on the beach.
    Instant coffee made with hot water from the tap for breakfast. Beer interspersed with Cornish pasties the rest of the day.

    Hey, it was '69. h.
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,423 Member
    As I remember it was something like this:
    Breakfast school day- nothing or candy bar and juice
    Lunch school day- nothing
    Afterschool snack- can of soup and crackers
    Dinner- meat, potato, canned vegetable
    Evening snack- popcorn, leftovers

    Weekend or summer breakfast- dinner leftovers or cereal
    Weekend lunch- sandwich/fast food
    Weekend dinner- meat, potato, canned vegetable
    Weekend snack- popcorn, crackers, chips, leftovers
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,343 Member
    Anything I could shove in my face, was usually the woe I abided by.

    Same! I was tall and very skinny, and trying to gain weight for football. It was basically a continuous attempt at a GFH bulk, I ate anything and everything in HUGE quantities. Problem is, I was still growing and so active that my TDEE was through the roof - I couldn't gain a pound no matter how much I ate. Sure wish I still had that problem!
  • lulalacroix
    lulalacroix Posts: 1,082 Member
    I totally remember this because me and all my friends had basically the same diet.

    Breakfast was coffee only.
    Lunch was diet coke and a dexatrim (anyone remember those?)
    Dinner often was small fast food meal or some of whatever was made at home.

    I was probably around 110 pounds and 5'7". I was scared to death of gaining weight.
  • WishfulThinking0
    WishfulThinking0 Posts: 54 Member
    I was eating around 400-600 calories a day. I'm now fully recovered from that ED and enjoy life a whole lot more!
  • LKArgh
    LKArgh Posts: 5,178 Member
    Homemade lunch and dinner, pretty much same as today. Only a glass of milk for breakfast, never was a breakfast person even as a kid. Snacks tended to be lots of oranges and lots of bread - bread with jam, grilled cheese sandwiches, or just bread, I loved bread. I clearly remember going through an orange phase in my late teens, with lots and lots of oranges, it had lasted for years.
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
    aggelikik wrote: »
    Homemade lunch and dinner, pretty much same as today. Only a glass of milk for breakfast, never was a breakfast person even as a kid. Snacks tended to be lots of oranges and lots of bread - bread with jam, grilled cheese sandwiches, or just bread, I loved bread. I clearly remember going through an orange phase in my late teens, with lots and lots of oranges, it had lasted for years.

    Your oranges made me think of orange juice. My dad used to make us (my sister and I) drink o.j. with breakfast whenever he was home. We liked it okay but it was annoying to *have to* have it. One Saturday we were thrilled because there was. no o.j. so we didn't have to drink it. My sister and I went to a community expo that day and a grocery store had a wheel to spin for prizes. Well one of us spun and won a big jug of o.j. Heh. On the walk home we passed a tree with a crook in it about 6 feet up so we carefully lodged the jug of juice in there and just kept on walking. I have no idea why we didn't just give it away to somebody at the expo or decline the prize. Nope, leaving it in a tree made much more sense :blush:
  • hoyalawya2003
    hoyalawya2003 Posts: 631 Member
    Breakfast: nothing
    Lunch: captain wafer crackers and diet mtn dew
    Dinner: what my mom fixed, which was a lot of baked chicken and potatoes
    Weekends: lots of beer (yes, at 16)

    Result? Barely in the normal weight range and skinny fat. I'm in better shape and health at 40, even with an extra 15 lbs!
  • ForecasterJason
    ForecasterJason Posts: 2,577 Member
    My diet was certainly not the best when I was 16. For many years I've logged everything I eat (though not on MFP), so I can easily look back and see what I was eating.

    A typical breakfast: A bowl of cereal and homemade bread made with whole grains OR homemade waffles with bananas or strawberries on top (both options being high in carbs with little non-grain protein or fat)

    Lunch: Usually a combination of some of these foods: Chips, cereal bars, homemade pizza, homemade cheese biscuits, Oreos, vanilla wafers, Ritz crackers

    Snack: Homemade bran muffins OR granola bars OR cereal bars

    Dinner: Home-cooked meal involving meat (usually chicken but sometimes beef or fish) (though I didn't eat that much; on average about 2-3 ounces), rice OR frozen French fries and sometimes bread. Other options included homemade pizza, fried rice, or spaghetti.

    Dessert: Homemade cake most days

    I was about 5'7" 115-120 lbs. Even though I was quite sedentary at the time, I somehow was staying around my maintenance calories, so the little weight gain I had at that time was natural muscle growth from growing. Other than the fact that I got ample amounts of whole grains (which was more than needed and probably too much gluten), there wasn't much else that was very healthy about my diet then. I think it was about 60% carbs, 30% fat, and 10% protein. My protein intake was somewhere around 40-50g.
  • Queenmunchy
    Queenmunchy Posts: 3,380 Member
    Black coffee all day, almost no food. Terrible diet.

    That sounds like my college diet. Mostly cause I was broke, tired and lazy

    That was my diet from like 11 years old until 25 when I became pregnant. I was an avid reader of nutritional information and crazy in the kitchen (had my own catering business at 21) but it didn't click in applying to myself until after I had a child to care for.

    Oh wow starting to drink coffee at 11 seems early!

    Yeah, seconded! I don't think a lot of people are alone in their coffee-drinking habits, though. I've never been a coffee person (too much caffeine in one sitting), but I've been chugging at least two cups of tea per day since I was about seven or so. Probably why I'm so short lol.

    Ditto! I'm almost 5 feet tall!
  • JustMissTracy
    JustMissTracy Posts: 6,338 Member
    At 16, I never ate breakfast, and I rarely ever ate lunch either. I was SKINNY, and not in a fashion model way. I ate whatever was served, and usually regretted it ( I had no idea 30 years ago that I had allergies to foods as well as environmental, so I paid the price often). I had chocolate milk and a KitKat bar every day....and cigarettes and pepsi all day long.....my grandmother used to get so upset about that, she thought I survived on smokes and pop...lol...I guess I kind of did! I don't miss those days, I've seen pictures of myself at the time...and it's awful! I was 95 lbs and all you could see was bones, but I thought I looked great..lol! NEVER AGAIN!
  • PaulaWallaDingDong
    PaulaWallaDingDong Posts: 4,644 Member
    edited February 2016
    Mostly pastries and breakfast burritos from the school cafeteria (amazing!), and whatever mom was cooking for dinner.

    Also, one time in my mid-teens, my parents bought a giant pack of double stuf oreos. I ate so many, I barfed.

    Also, Fruitopia.
  • tarabole
    tarabole Posts: 166 Member
    I loved fries and gravy and instant ramen but luckily I also loved vegetables and always wanted the salad bar when we would go for dinner.
  • AmazonMayan
    AmazonMayan Posts: 1,168 Member
    My mom was a horrible cook so all I remember eating regularly at home is cereal and bland spaghetti that she made by boiling noodles then dumping plain tomato sauce mixed with salsa on top. :s I actively sought out ways to learn cooking when I moved out.


    At school if I ate it was only an ice cream sandwich. I never liked school food on the east coast - that greasy slimy mushy weird pizza that everyone else lined up for - yick. When we lived in the west we had cafeteria ladies that could cook - homemade pierogies and gnocchi, etc.

    I grew up eating almost no restaurant food. I was model thin and modeled for local stores and was very active. Small town life walking everywhere you need to be.
  • rattiemomma
    rattiemomma Posts: 41 Member
    Black coffee all day, almost no food. Terrible diet.

    That sounds like my college diet. Mostly cause I was broke, tired and lazy

    That was my diet from like 11 years old until 25 when I became pregnant. I was an avid reader of nutritional information and crazy in the kitchen (had my own catering business at 21) but it didn't click in applying to myself until after I had a child to care for.

    Oh wow starting to drink coffee at 11 seems early!

    My mom and aunt started drinking coffee around age 7 or 8 (late 1950s). Mom remembers how their grandmother wouldn't let them have any when they were with her and they would be so upset! Lol!
  • markrgeary1
    markrgeary1 Posts: 853 Member
    At 16 I ate an 8 oz. box of Apple Jack cereal for breakfast every day. Plus a quart of whole milk, that's about 1400 calories for breakfast. Lunch would have been school cafeteria, I remember eating tomatoe and lettuce sandwich with miracle whip most days and peanut butter cookies. Oh greasy chesse pizza. Mom cooked great dinners so at least they were nutritious. For snacks a box of ho-hos or an entire box of butterscotch crimpets.

    Funny thing I was skinny never made it to 150 pounds until I was 28 working behind a desk.
  • rattiemomma
    rattiemomma Posts: 41 Member
    OMG. Someone mentioned French fries! At some point in the late 1980s, my dad's favorite snack after my brother and I went to bed was a whole bag of frozen fries cooked in a Fry Daddy. If one of us followed the amazing smell, he let us have a few, but got upset if we took what he thought was too many. When mom finally evicted the Fry Daddy, he switched to most of a half-gallon of ice cream as a snack. Between super-big eater Dad and always-on-a-diet-even-if-she-was-normal-weight Mom, it was a weird food environment, despite Mom's efforts to sort of teach us better. As I said somewhere up the thread, Mom has gained tons more weight and has given up entirely and says she is 65 and can't ever lose weight and Dad found MFP and lost 50-55 lbs. It must have killed Mom that he could eat well over 2000 calories and still lose tons of weight and she was cooking the food they food the both ate and she could only eat about 1200 calories and it was still a struggle to drop pounds. I might have given up, too.
  • Cynsonya
    Cynsonya Posts: 668 Member
    Breakfast: Sausage cheese biscuit from McDonalds or nothing

    Lunch: chocolate shake, French fries, side of dill pickles

    Dinner: what ever fast food I picked up on the way to work.

    Doesn't take a genius to figure out how I became a 300 pound adult.
  • robot_potato
    robot_potato Posts: 1,535 Member
    Breakfast, usually nothing, I walked 45 minutes to school for an academic program, never had time to eat. Weekends I'd have cold cereal or instant oatmeal.

    Lunch I would go to the burger stand with my boyfriend (now husband), so we'd have burgers, poutine, onion rings etc. Or we'd eat cafeteria pizza. Weekends would be a pb&j with yogurt or something easy.

    Dinner was whatever my mom/his mom cooked, his mom specialized in chicken strips and instant potatoes most nights (she got home just in time to make dinner). My mom would do canned soup or pasta a lot... i didn't like either. If my dad was home he'd do a nice dinner like a roast with fixings or a casserole or pot pie.

    We always had bagels or donuts or instant noodles for snacks, fruit and vegetables went fast in a house with 4-9 kids, depending if my godmother and her kids were staying with us.
  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
    edited February 2016
    Absolute crap.

    No breakfast, or a soda
    fast food for lunch and a soda
    candy for all snacks, and soda,
    and if I was at home, a TV dinner, or something for dinner, and soda.

    I was SKINNY. I never dieted. I just was.

    College was much the same, plus beer.
    I remember getting nervous when I got up to 130 (I'm 5'6") my senior year of college and consciously deciding not the "waste" any calories on vegetables. Oh my how my outlook has changed in the last 30 years.
  • caratayloruk
    caratayloruk Posts: 58 Member
    edited February 2016
    Breakfast was usually skipped or occasionally I'd have toast

    Mid morning I'd have a bag of crisps (cheese and onion discos were amazing)

    Lunch. A sausage roll and a sandwich, then some sweets

    Dinner. If I was in, it'd be a fairly healthy mealade up of some combination of meat/potatoes/veg. If I was out with friends (most nights to be fair, christ knows how I did so well in my GCSEs) then the chippy or Chinese would be called on

    Oh and drinks wise, it was either milk or diet coke (never liked the taste of full fat coke) except on a Friday night when we'd indulge in underage drinking of cider/cheap lager/lambrini and then a kebab on the way home

    Oh and 16 was probably the last time I wasn't really overweight. I was a bit chubby but you couldn't say I was fat (although I thought I was!)

  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,423 Member
    Lounmoun wrote: »
    As I remember it was something like this:
    Breakfast school day- nothing or candy bar and juice
    Lunch school day- nothing
    Afterschool snack- can of soup and crackers
    Dinner- meat, potato, canned vegetable
    Evening snack- popcorn, leftovers

    Weekend or summer breakfast- dinner leftovers or cereal
    Weekend lunch- sandwich/fast food
    Weekend dinner- meat, potato, canned vegetable
    Weekend snack- popcorn, crackers, chips, leftovers

    Just want to say that I was underweight when I was 16 years old and eating like this. I wasn't a picky eater, trying to diet or thinking about eating a balanced diet at all.
    I started eating more regularly when I got to college and got to a normal healthier weight.
  • serenityfrye
    serenityfrye Posts: 360 Member
    I was an unhealthy vegetarian living on cheerios, nutrigrain bars, white rice mixed with shredded cheddar (cafeteria had limited vegetarian options) and double chocolate ice cream. I'm sure my parents cooked healthy dinners but I honestly don't remember them. I do know that I was on a constant blood sugar roller coaster from my high -carb almost - zero - protein diet though.
  • tosi1312
    tosi1312 Posts: 78 Member
    Breakfast: 4 slices of bread with butter & some kind of liver.
    Dinner: Potatoes with "fish pie", meatballs, or somethin' like that.
    I could eat more bread through out the day if I felt hungry. Aside from what I ate I could easily drink between 1-2 liter of milk daily.
  • fishshark
    fishshark Posts: 1,886 Member
    breakfast: mcdonalds or a smoothie or eggs toast bacon or break burrito

    lunch: sald and soup or sandwhich or fast food

    dinner: restaurant or my mom cooked a balanced meal...

    and whatever the umm.... munchies made me eat
This discussion has been closed.