Eating junk food but still losing weight

2

Replies

  • JStarnes
    JStarnes Posts: 5,576 Member
    Calories in vs calories out. You can lose weight while eating the crappy food, but you can't get healthy by eating the crappy food. To me, being healthy is much more important than what the scale says. Not that I never eat junk food, but its a luxury now, not the main source of my food intake.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,993 Member


    Yes, as it is calories in vs. calories out. So you can lose weight eating junk, the problem with eating junk is you will not be healthy, no matter how much you lose.
    Gotta dispell this myth. Your health is more determined by your genetics than what you eat. There are lots people who eat junk and are healthier (meaning cholesterol, blood pressure, lipid profile, etc.) people who eat healthy. Just because you eat healthy doesn't discard you from cancer if it runs in your family vs someone who has no family history of cancer and eats junk. The healthy person still has a higher chance of cancer since it's genetic.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,993 Member
    While you can do it, I would recommend that you center your diet around more whole foods since the nutrient value is higher. Get your essentials in from whole food, then eat what ever you want to after and stay under calorie goals. If your family history has issues with heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, etc. then you should cut back more.
  • Amysgetnfit
    Amysgetnfit Posts: 231
    Everything in moderation.if you're like me a junk food addict you will be miserable and set yourself up to fail by trying to .completely eliminate your treats. But find healthier versions and reduce quantity ov time. mit I feel better when I eat better.
  • 4theking
    4theking Posts: 1,196 Member
    Your overall health is determined by weight more than anything else. I daily eat junkfood and I have gotten stronger, feel better than ever, and I am losing fat.
  • wendyc122005
    wendyc122005 Posts: 123
    Don't forget that the carbs that are in most junk food will be used for your energy output until there is a surplus and then it will pack on the pounds. Definite possibility that you could have a surplus depending upon the junk you choose.

    I try to keep my junk food limited by using portion size. I literally measure and weigh. I also try to change up recipes and make them healthy or at least healthier. If all else fails, not much you can do with a chocolate frosted chocolate cupcake, I take a bite of my kid's. I get a fix and I don't feel guilty knowing that I didn't sabotage myself.

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  • calliope_music
    calliope_music Posts: 1,242 Member
    sure you can, but it's not the most nutritious. maybe allow yourself a treat a day? that's what i try to do right now :) and i find the less junk i eat the less i want it.
  • Fochizzy
    Fochizzy Posts: 505 Member
    I still eat my junk food. I portion control it. As long as my sodium is within range and I get enough protein I call it good. And no I don't "feel like crap" nor am I vitamin deficent. Oh, I avoid transfats like the plague but they are flat out super bad for you. But yes, I work out, I earn it, and I eat it.
  • Fochizzy
    Fochizzy Posts: 505 Member
    Double Post
  • Rae6503
    Rae6503 Posts: 6,294 Member
    Well if you eat better it's easier to stay under your goal. But I think it's possible to lose while eating some junk. I eat McDonald's hamburgers, have chips, beer and ice cream....
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,993 Member
    Yeah the "feel like crap" thing is so subjective. I have my junk and actually feel really good.
  • beccyleigh
    beccyleigh Posts: 846 Member
    I lost 82lbs on the crisps & icecream diet. :tongue: but I weighed nearly 300lbs so not really that hard to lose when you create any kind of deficit. Now I am 30lbs away from my goal I have had to have a re think & start eating cleaner healthier food & really keep an eye on my portion sizes.

    A very good alternate (but admitting not as great tasting) chip is oven baked in olive oil. Peel & slice potatoes as normal but toss them in half a table spoon of olive oil then lay out on a baking tray. Cook at about 220 until they are cooked, turn them regularly .
  • jaimealison
    jaimealison Posts: 23
    I always think you shouldn't cut anything out because you'll still crave it, so allow yourself something unhealthy once a day, that way youre still satisfying the craving! Also maybe look for healthier options like instead of regular lays get the baked ones instead!

    good luck and continued success with your weight loss!
  • ChantalGG
    ChantalGG Posts: 2,404 Member
    Count your calories and have a multi-vitamin to supplement the vitamins you are missing out on. .
  • shelbygeorge29
    shelbygeorge29 Posts: 263 Member
    Of course you will. Its the calories that put weight on or off.
    But dont forget you are eating "junk". The effect on your body will not be good. If you doubt thsi watch the movie Supersize me, when the guys is actually killing himself eating this stuff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me
    Much better I think to decide that, say, friday is junk food treat day and have it only once.

    Best of luck!

    And then follow it up wth a viewing of "Fat Head."

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Head

    Granted, I eat pretty healthy and really don't have much desire for any processed foods. I got fat eating too much homemade goodness, now I'm just making healthier choices and fill up on vegetables, lean meats and legumes. I guess I should be thankful I don't really hanker Doritos, Reese's, Cheetos, Quiznos, Twinkies, etc.

    My triggers are more like homemade chicken and eggplant parm (I make everything from the sauce, breadcrumbs in the parms to the pasta myself), tiaramisu made completely from scratch, my cheesecake is heavenly . . . It's a little easier since I can't really impulse eat that stuff, I have to make it. Which requires going to the store, then coming home and spending a few hours making it. And for now, I refuse. Unless I was bringing it somewhere and leaving it.
  • beccyleigh
    beccyleigh Posts: 846 Member
    haha, love how some American posters think op is taking about crisps.

    friends over the pond: chips are potatoes cut chuncky & fried in oil. not french fries but chips. the chips you are thinking of are called crisps. :)
  • ArroganceInStep
    ArroganceInStep Posts: 6,239 Member
    Gotta dispell this myth. Your health is more determined by your genetics than what you eat. There are lots people who eat junk and are healthier (meaning cholesterol, blood pressure, lipid profile, etc.) people who eat healthy. Just because you eat healthy doesn't discard you from cancer if it runs in your family vs someone who has no family history of cancer and eats junk. The healthy person still has a higher chance of cancer since it's genetic.

    But lifestyle plays into it as well. While person A who lives ultra healthy might be at a higher risk of heart attack than person B who eats crap, person A living ultra healthy has a lower risk of heart attack than he/she would if he ate crap. Taking genetics wholly into account and disregarding lifestyle could result in someone getting a disease who wouldn't have otherwise. The reverse, taking lifestyle into account and disregarding genetics could result in some very upset people with diseases that yell about all the broccoli they had to eat. You have to take both sides into consideration I think.
  • ArroganceInStep
    ArroganceInStep Posts: 6,239 Member
    haha, love how some American posters think op is taking about crisps.

    friends over the pond: chips are potatoes cut chuncky & fried in oil. not french fries but chips. the chips you are thinking of are called crisps. :)

    You say 'tomato', I say 'F the tomato give me a beer!' =)
  • parisianskies002
    parisianskies002 Posts: 88
    lt is possible, but think of all the saturated fat clogging your arteries and the salt/sodium. lt's not good for your body & it won't like it - you will feel sluggish and tired and most likely end up with a vitamin deficiency. lt's OK to eat junk in moderation (l have a chinese takeaway every weekend and probably a packet of crisp once a week!) But every day is definitely not good. You can opt for an alternative, such as homemade curry and pizza instead of processed/microwave food.
  • Acg67
    Acg67 Posts: 12,142 Member
    t is possible, but think of all the saturated fat clogging your arteries and the salt/sodium. lt's not good for your body & it won't like it

    nothing wrong with sat fat or sodium, sat fat plays an important role in hormonal regulation and as for salt, here's the results of a recent study

    Stolarz-Sk­rzypek K Et Al. Fatal and nonfatal outcomes, incidence of hypertensi­on, and blood pressure changes in relation to urinary sodium excretion. JAMA. 2011 May 4;305(17):­1777-85.

    "CONCLUSIO­NS:

    In this population­-based cohort, systolic blood pressure, but not diastolic pressure, changes over time aligned with change in sodium excretion, but this associatio­n did not translate into a higher risk of hypertensi­on or CVD complicati­ons. Lower sodium excretion was associated with higher CVD mortality.­"
  • foremant86
    foremant86 Posts: 1,115 Member
    It's completely possible but not healthy.

    I lost about 50lbs back in 07(maybe more, i never weighed myself) and i literally ate and drank whatever I wanted, and it was a lot of junk food. Snacky cakes and soda and I ate at the casey gas station almost every day( pizza usually or a burger or pork tenderloin) and went out to dinner every night as well.

    Difference was i worked 12 hours a day doing construction completely busting and sweating my *kitten* off. my body was burning so many calories from my job that it didn't matter what I ate.

    I wasn't actually consciously aware of all of this at the time, i wanted to lose weight but I wasn't trying to. I did however end up going from a size 20 pants to a size 11. Now if I had only actually paid attention to it all I might have started eating healthier and would have continued to lose weight after the job was over and would have kept the weight off but the weight loss came so easy that it didn't register in my mind.
    I ended up putting about half of it back on and am back up to a size 13/14 pants, sometimes a 15/16.
  • bachooka
    bachooka Posts: 719 Member
    I'm a junk food addict as well... I love the stuff and can't get enough. I think your best bet is to remember that nothing is off limits but that doesn't mean that you have to eat it all the time. And after a week or two of eating nothing but junk, you will probably be starving! just take a look at 100 calories of cheetos vs 100 calories of salad and you will see why some people will choose the salad.
  • Wilfred808
    Wilfred808 Posts: 113
    of course! you body doesnt recognize that you are eating "unhealthy" foods and just turns it to fat.
    if your body requires 2000 calories to maintain itself and you eat 1900 calories of butter you will lose weight.

    its obviously better for overall health to get most of your calories from whole foods
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,993 Member
    But lifestyle plays into it as well. While person A who lives ultra healthy might be at a higher risk of heart attack than person B who eats crap, person A living ultra healthy has a lower risk of heart attack than he/she would if he ate crap. Taking genetics wholly into account and disregarding lifestyle could result in someone getting a disease who wouldn't have otherwise. The reverse, taking lifestyle into account and disregarding genetics could result in some very upset people with diseases that yell about all the broccoli they had to eat. You have to take both sides into consideration I think.
    I don't disagree with most of the points you've made. Where I find it amusing is when the "health police" come out and just state that eating junk makes you unhealthy. While it may be for them, to use a blanket statement like this would only by true if EVERYONE had the same issues with junk.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,993 Member
    of course! you body doesnt recognize that you are eating "unhealthy" foods and just turns it to fat.
    if your body requires 2000 calories to maintain itself and you eat 1900 calories of butter you will lose weight.

    its obviously better for overall health to get most of your calories from whole foods
    You could eat healthy and have an overage of calories that gets stored as fat. The body doesn't discriminate between a surplus of whole foods or junks foods and decides which will be stored *kitten* fat.
  • ArroganceInStep
    ArroganceInStep Posts: 6,239 Member
    I don't disagree with most of the points you've made. Where I find it amusing is when the "health police" come out and just state that eating junk makes you unhealthy. While it may be for them, to use a blanket statement like this would only by true if EVERYONE had the same issues with junk.

    A valid point, I was just being snarky and playing devil's advocate (I can't help myself sometimes, it helps the work day go by faster) =)
  • ChezBubbles
    ChezBubbles Posts: 30 Member
    I am so pleased that I asked the question. You guys have definietly made me look at things differently and I have seen the light - I even made sandwiches for my lunch today so I will be giving the chip shop a miss!

    Thank you all for your comments.
  • Naomi_84
    Naomi_84 Posts: 197 Member
    You will lose weight if you stay under your calories but eating only junk food for a long period of time will increase your risk of loads of serious health problems such as diabetes, heart disease, even cancers!! How much the scales tell you you weigh is not an accurate measure of health so cut down. Like you said, it's like an addiction and addiction is not good x
  • LaMujerMasBonitaDelMundo
    LaMujerMasBonitaDelMundo Posts: 3,634 Member
    Junk foods have a very high sodium content and rich in trans fats. So even if you stay within your calorie range but eat plenty of those everyday, it can eventually alter your weight loss.
  • xarra
    xarra Posts: 128 Member
    Tip for ice cream: Mark out the servings on the top with a knife if it's in a rectangular tub. So 125ml in a 1ltr tub = 8 servings. Then you know how much you're 'allowed' per serving. It helps me limit my intake!
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