Give up junk food or make room for it in your diet?

I am a moderator, if you will. If I have a bag of chips in the house, I can happily ignore that bag of chips (or candy or cake) for a very long time, and when I do have some have an amount that fits my calories. If, however, I were to say "I WILL HAVE NONE EVER AGAIN" I would obsess about the thing I was not 'allowed' to have, then eventually snap and eat way too much of it.

So I always try to leave a couple of hundred calories on the table and always allow myself the things I really want - though I WANT a lot of things a lot less than I used to (weirdly, I do not care about chocolate in general, but I am INTO some other things that I keep around and will always have some of.)

Even leaving that aside:

If I tried to revamp my life so that the only frozen meals were the ones I premade and froze myself, and was always prepared with 'healthy' snacks, and never had to eat at a drive through or from a gas station, I would have fallen off the weight loss wagon before I was fully on.

I do fairly well meeting my calorie goals with 'good' food probably 95% of the time.

The other 15%?

Well, today my food has been:
Coffee made with reduced calorie swiss miss and unsweetened almond milk
An egg sandwich (2 pieces of bread, 2 eggs, little mayo, lots of black pepper)
Some raw bell pepper and carrots-

Great so far, right?

Then crap hit the fan with life being life (flat tire, was stuck) and the rest of my day was:
A bag of chips, a candy bar, and a slim jim with a diet coke I bought at the gas station I was stuck at).

So. Yes.

There's room in my diet and day for almost all food. Sometimes a lot of the less than ideal stuff in a day, but usually just a small bit a day and a larger small bit about once a week.

I haven't given up anything. But there are foods I have less frequently now
For example: I love salty snacks, but I rarely buy potato chips, because I know I need a large enough portion to feel satisfied (which requires a bit of planning since it's high calorie). Whereas for example Japanese rice crackers, I love them too but I can eat a smaller portion and still feel satisfied and they are less calorie dense. So I have rice crackers 3 or 4 times a week and potato chips perhaps one bag every 3 months (spread over a few weeks). One rule for all snacks: no eating from the bag!

Junk food meals are rare for me, but they were rare before too. We have the occasional pizza from the freezer (for convenience), take away pizza or takeaway sushi (hardly junk food, but it is about 1000kcal). I make it fit my calories (or sometimes not 😁 ).

You say you won't eat pop tarts because they're 150 calories, but maybe you don't like them that much? I'll make room for foods I really like, and that includes 500-600 calories for half a pint of Ben & Jerry's on average once a week!

Once I realized that "junk foods" were just collections of calories and macro nutrients, planning what to eat because a lot easier. Do I have room for the calories and is it crowding out other stuff I need? That's all I have to ask.

I avoid most hyperpalitable/energy dense foods MOST of the time, but one day a week I allow myself to relax and have a meal out or similar. I still am conscious about calories, but one meal wont make or break my maintenance. I do avoid certain foods that might "trigger" heavy overeating. I just believe, for me, I like a treat to be a treat. I dont obsess and enjoy my current dietary pattern and think it is one I can do in the long term.

jayemes wrote: »

I need to eat 1500-1800 calories a day to lose weight when I'm working out. I eat lunch and dinner and leave room for a drink and/or a little snack to keep me sane.
Sometimes (every other week?) I have pizza. I try to eat light the rest of the day to balance.
Sometimes I have a bagel and try to go easy to make up for the giant NY carb bombs.
There are things I find I can't/refuse to make room for. For example, I like pop tarts.... but when I'm eating 1500 calories I can't justify 190 of it to be a pop tart.
Do we just not get to eat stuff like that at all again ever?
Do you give it up totally, or do you cycle in the stuff you miss occasionally?

My overall diet is pretty nutritionally on point...but we do have family pizza night most Friday nights...and I enjoy cookies or some cake, etc for desert most evenings.

If you're working out, are you also accounting for that by eating back exercise calories. I'm assuming you're male...1500 calories is the lowest calorie target for a sedentary male...most men can eat more and lose weight. I'm a desk jockey and I exercise regularly, but I don't really do any crazy workouts or anything...I'm just active outside of work and get around 11-12K steps per day...ride my bike for 30-45 minutes 2-3x per week and lift 2x per week. I lose about 1 Lb per week on about 2500 calories per day on average...plenty of room for some "junk food."

Both when I lost a bunch of weight and was eating lower cals and now, I focus on eating meals made up of protein and vegetables, along with some (usually) whole food starches or fruit or whole grains and also healthy fats.

Because lean protein and vegetables are so low cal, I often did have about 200 discretionary cals even after a healthy day with sufficient fiber, 90-100 g of protein, and 10+ servings of veg. This typically was on days I had exercise cals. So I'd have about 200 cal of ice cream sometimes. Junk food? No nutritional value? I think that's a bit of an overstatement, but typically it was something I had in lieu of using my extra cals on a non dessert luxury (like cheese in my omelet or salad or maybe, on somewhat rare occasion just due to personal preference, a sandwich instead of a lower cal/higher protein lunch, or, sure, a higher cal dinner (ice cream was more likely to fit if I had fish or shrimp vs lamb or chicken roasted with the skin on or even pulled pork).

I've lost my sweet tooth lately (it was never a big issue, but lately I am not really interested in even a little ice cream after dinner), so have been doling out my luxuries in other ways, but I just don't see this strong line between what is and is not junk food -- I'm another who sees it as about nutrients in the overall diet (I actually watch this pretty closely off and on by logging at Cron) and what fits and is worth the cals to me. Thus, although I am unlikely to want dessert, I'll have evenings like today where instead of my planned dinner (inspired by a vegan African peanut stew with collards recipe I saw online), I decided I really wanted a grilled cheese sandwich so made one (on the Ezekial bread I conveniently have in the freezer for just such an occasion) with some vegetable soup and cottage cheese on the side. Grilled cheese isn't something I have often, but it can fit into my overall diet just fine, and that's how I feel about "junk food" generally.

I think the big thing is down to 'worth it' and *not trying to overhaul so much of your life at once that it falls apart when life inevitably happens*.

I actually DO eat healthy 90% of the time - maybe more. A lot of my 'junk' is not all that junk food oriented. But those changes came with time and seeing calorie counts and realizing that I don't like those things THAT much. I took a bite of a donut today, said 'too sweet' and threw the rest of it away - and I had just bought it. Came home and made a chicken sandwich for the calories I'd saved for the 'treat' it turns out I didn't actually want.

But I will absolutely find a way to fit the things that REALLY matter to me in there, and sometimes that's healthy stuff (Gorton's freshcatch fish sticks man. High protein, low calorie and delicious) and sometimes it's a freaking peanut butter cup.

And sometimes it's not the food.

It's eating with my mom or watching a movie with my kid -- or even going out with my friends for ice cream. Even though I threw away my ben and jerry's months ago because the ice cream itself wasn't worth it.