How much did you eat before MFP?

Rough estimate I'd say about 2000 on average per day with mental binge days thrown into the mix. Booze and eating out was my downfall. Pints of real ale and pub grub is not a friend of the waistline.

Breakfast - Vending machine food. Best guess a Butterfingers and a Mountain Dew (560)
Lunch - Usually ate out. One example Philly Cheesesteak and Fries and Mountain Dew (1290)
Dinner - Macaroni and Cheese (whole box) or whole frozen pizza w/ add'l cheese and Mountain Dew (1490)
Evening snacking - endless. Good example half a container of Grasshopper cookies (700)

Total between 3500-5000 calories/day. Honestly I'm lucky I didn't weight more.

Lol - just read that and thought wow - she can eat that and still lose? I think I missed the point...hahaha ok typical day for me pre MFP:

No breakfast
Mid-morning - 2 full fat lattes, service station muffin
No lunch
Mid-afternoon - egg and bacon triple sandwich, chocolate bar
Evening meal - fish and chips, entire family chocolate cake
Last thing - half a packet of biscuits

....and that was every single day. To go with that I had exhaustion, IBS, regular stomach bugs and colds, and various aches and pains...wonder why? Hahaha. Good luck everyone, and what a great post to remind you how quickly things change...

I'd have double helpings at least of everything and it usually worked out to what, 1800-2800 depending? probably on the lower side most days because i was generally maintaining at 65-67kgs.

I think about this every time somebody asks me how I've lost weight. Before my fitness pal this could be a typical day:

Breakfast: Left overs from last night (dinner food, heaping amounts of it) or a stop at Wawa (I think these are only in South Jersey and Philly area? Midwest think a cheaper version of Sheets) for a breakfast sub, pretty much a cheese steak.
Lunch: Taco Bell, McDonalds, or whatever other fast food restaurant were in the vicinity of my store.
Dinner: All-you-can-eat sushi and a BOTTLE of wine, then go over my friend's house and drink more. If it wasn't sushi night it was two or three helping of dinner at my house.

Snacks: Throughout the day I'd eat chips, candy bars, whatever Best Buy sells in the checkout line.
Drinks: Energy drinks, flavored coffees with cream and sugar (Wawa Mocha Mint 16oz is 800 cals by itself!!!)
Late night: After drinking we would go to a late night pizza joint, Wawa to get a 10 inch sub or the 24-hour McDonalds, or Taco Bell

I think I estimated I was on average ingesting about 3600-sometimes 5000 cals a day easy.

I dropped down to 1700 cals and dropped weight very quickly, it's like my body went into shock. I was horrified when I started searching for foods in the data base and saw what the hell I was actually eating.

So thanks MFP

Mine would usually be a starbucks non fat latte or a Tom Horton coffee with a brekfast sandwich for breakfast. Lunch would usually be a smart one frozen dinner, can of soup, or salad with ranch. Then usually on my way home from work i would run through a drive thru for a burger or sandwich. Then when I got home all hell breaks loose! Generally starting with a beer and something light like veggies and dip or a salad. And after grazing the kitchen for a few hours muching on cookies, chips, and little bits of everything else (and usually 4 or 5 more beers later..) i would end up cooking pasta or steak or a few frozen burritos. Then go to bed feeling SICKLY full. Yep, it was bad.

OH wow, GR8 topic! Where do I begin?

Ok, since I use to always tend to eat more during the weekend, below is the typical weekend meal for me.

Breakfast: If we ate at home, we usually had gravy, biscuits, bacon or sausage, eggs, and either grits, oatmeal, or pancakes (sometimes all three).
If we ate out, our foods ranged from McDonalds to Bojangles to you name it, we ate it. Cajun Fillet biscuits w/ large fries & Sausage egg and cheese McGriddles are just to name a couple of the foods I use to LOVE to eat.

Lunch: This was always fast food. Either Taco Bell, Hardees, Zaxby's, Chillis, Los Reyes, Applebees...etc. Applebees was one of my FAVORITE.S. My hubby and I would go there every weekend and split the trio combo appetizer platter. It usually consisted of the boneless buffalo wings, chips and spinach dip, and those cute little mini burgers. The wings alone was more than my daily calorie intake, not to mention SODIUM CITY! We still eat at those places, on occasion, but I always try my best to check out their nutrional page before I go so that I can choose the foods that are the lowest in calories, fat, & sodium.

Dinner: Well, it was the same as lunch. I mean why eat at home, when you're usually always on the go, especially on the weekends.

So, I'd say that I would eat anywhere between 3000 and 4000 calories per weekend day. And probably at least 2500 calories a day during the week. So on average, I'd say that within 7 days, I probably consumed around 19500 calories. And if 3500 calories is equal to 1 pound of fat, that means that I should have gained around 5 pounds a week. WOW! It really adds up when you eat like a pig. Now that I think about it. I must have a fast metabolism because I ate like that for at least 6 month straight (while in college) and I only gained like 25 lbs.

I'm SO glad I don't eat like that everyday. Notice, I said everyday. LOL! I still have my cheat days but hopefully I'll never return to my old eating habits.

OMG!!! I figured a typical day pre-MFP, and it was a little over 4500 calories! What doesn't amaze me is how much I need to lose, but why I don't have way more to lose. I always figured I had a slow metabolism, but after calculating that, I must have the metabolism of a cheetah to not have gained so much more weight. A huge part of my food was candy bars - not the personal or even king-sized, but the really huge ones that are supposed to be something like 6 servings. I could eat 2-3 of those per day. When I ate pasta, I would eat the entire 1-pound bag (strangely, that appears to exceed an actual normal serving). But, I also ate tons of vegetables and beans, so everyone would comment on how "healthy" I ate. If they only knew...

Yikes! I NEED MFP and all the fabulous support I am finding here!

SONIC & COKE!!

This is a very interesting topic, I don't think I've ever thought about the way I ate before MFP. I've always been very conscious of what I ate -- my mother tended to not use salt in food growing up, and our go-to meals as a family are PACKED with veggies. My issue has always been portion control -- especially when pastas.

That's definitely how I got big to begin with. That being said, I am starting to believe that my attempts at weight loss failed in the past because I restricted myself too much -- I'd start out with cereal or perhaps yogurt for breakfast -- under 300 calories, then do a veggie burger with granola bar and apple for lunch, and then a microwave dinner... with perhaps another salad thrown in there. No wonder those diets wouldn't last -- I was WELL under 1200 calories. SO then, of course, after a few days of over-restricting myself, I'd binge, and binge BIG. After which I would gain a few pounds, then decide to start another overly restrictive diet, and the cycle would start all over again.

Funny how it all works out. I've been eating much more, and have lost weight because of it!!