How bad were your eating habits?

When I started my active weight loss phase I continued to eat the same foods I was already eating before-a very SAD diet, with lots of 'processed' convenience foods, fast food a few times a week etc. I didn't change what I ate to lose weight, but I learned what CICO was and lowered my calorie intake to match my weight loss goals. Lost the extra weight (around 50lbs), improved all my health markers and corrected a health issue.

Fast forward to now-my 6 year maintenance anniversary is in April. Throughout that time I've experimented quite a bit with different ways of eating. Currently I'm doing the DASH protocol, along with a mostly plant based diet.

How I eat now is completely different than how I used to eat, but I have years of blood-work/health panels (twice a year, going on 7 years now), that shows that it doesn't matter what I eat-my weight controls my health markers and keeps my glucose number normalized.

As I get older I'm starting to think of long term health, and how nutrition may play a role in that (I'm very interested in the Blue Zones etc), but I also have no problem going out to eat once in a while or eating the occasional cookie, because I know in the scheme of things it's not a big deal

ive lost 120 pounds and maintained that for 3 years (now working on losing the rest). my biggest issues were not so much what I ate, but how MUCH.

i still eat the same things i always have for the most part, just much less of it. and, nothing is off limits. learning how to do that, is what made it easy for me to maintain without tracking calories (other than the occasional spot check on things).

We ate out a lot when I was a child, and the habit continued into adulthood. I teetered between overweight and obese for pretty much my entire life until I moved away from home and didn't realize my parents were naturally regulating my portion sizes. I gained a good 30 pounds in a year just from eating what I normally ate, but more of it and more often, because I had messed with the regular meal schedule my parents had set (even if those meals were fast food).

Terrible. Just awful. When it came to meals I ate appropriate portions and mostly "healthy" foods. But then on top of that I ate large portions of random...stuff...because I was stress/bored/comfort eating. Grabbing a stick of butter and sleeve of saltines to mow through while my daughter napped was not uncommon. Saltines are still a huge temptation for me so I don't keep them in the house.

Mine were never terribly bad. I've always cooked most of my meals from scratch at home. I'd say the biggest issues with my diet were that I never got close to the recommended veg and fruit amounts (I do now) and I drank too much soda.

My weight gain was largely attributable to going from being a very active college student to a sedentary desk job when I was 30 and I put on around 40-50 Lbs from 30-38...pretty much 5-6 Lbs per year, so I wasn't going crazy with food by any means.

They weren't especially bad so much as I baked at least once, sometimes twice, a week (for one person) and I wasn't working out consistently for various reasons. I exercise more now and typically at a higher intensity and I eat less, but typically the same type of food. My soda habit came and went well before I decided to try to lose weight (it was very situational) and I haven't eaten fast food since I was probably 14, with a few exceptions when there weren't any other options.

I make the same proportion of my meals from scratch

I ate very little fruit and veg, so was filling up on all the other high caloric density kind of foods.

RoxieDawn wrote: »

I guess my eating habits are still terrible by others standards.

I still eat fast food, I went diet soda so I could eat more fast food.

Same I still eat fast food, just not very often and I try to pick the lower calorie options. I definitely don't deprive myself

My eating habits were pretty decent, just not quite enough veg and fruit, and just a bit too much treat foods. And not quite enough activity. That's pretty much how you gain 20 lbs over the course of 5 years or so. My diet is pretty darn close to what it was, just a few tweaks and a lot more steps on my Fitbit!

I grew up eating healthy. Most of what I eat is healthy. I do eat an occasional treat. I have eaten home cooked real food with lots of fruits and veggies my whole life.

But, I still gained weight eating too much healthy food. Intuitive eating doesnt work for me because I am always hungry. I have to count calories to keep my portions under control.

I had an all or nothing mentality. I would pick a day and then tell myself okay you are going to exercise a certain amount plus eat perfectly (in my head that would be low fat), so if I ate something that I considered "bad" I would use that as an excuse to blow it that day and start again the next day.

Sometimes I would be good for a day or two then blow it....this year I took up IF which seemed to click with me. I am still trying to retrain myself out of that "Low fat" mentality.

Actual nutrition from foods eaten, not that bad. (I've been vegetarian and "whole-foods-y" for decades.)

Problems: Portion sizes excessive, proportions of various foods not appropriate calorically (too much whole grain whatever is still too many calories), too many treats, and too much routine alcohol consumption (not huge amounts at a time, typically, just more often than calorically reasonable for someone my size).

I still eat mostly the same foods at a healthy weight, just different portion sizes, in different relative proportions, and treat-type (calorie-dense, not nutrition-dense) foods less frequently.