Anybody eat junk food fairly regularly and just work it into calorie budget?

i guess it would depend on how you define junk food, but yeah, i don't restrict the 'what'. i just restrict the 'how much'. i literally have a candy bar, or a filet-o-fish, a bowl of ice cream...every single day. i work them into my calorie allowance. i lost 71 lbs and have maintained it for almost 3 years using that strategy.

Yep. Very nearly every day. My diet has changed to include more 'healthy' foods, naturally, in making having a calorie deficit work, but I've not stopped eating chips/candy/icecream/whatever and have no intention of doing so. Started as obese, and my BMI is now normal. Never been a serious issues.

Losingthedamnweight wrote: »

I don’t eat junk everyday, but every now and then I’ll head down to Taco Bell and get some beefy laxatives and work it into my calories.

I know a lot of you are health nuts and don’t ever eat “junk”, but I’d really like to hear from other people that eat whatever they want, work it into their calories and still lose weight.

For me anyway, the more restrictive I am the more I tend to fall off the wagon. So when I’m able to work in the foods I like, I tend to stick to it longer

I don't know whether your supposition (bolded) is true, actually. Some, sure - though I personally wouldn't call them nuts, just maybe strict, or - at an extreme - tending toward orthorexic.

And then there's the "talk vs. action" dimension: Occasionally, someone here has been waving the "eat clean" flag, but has had an open diary. Usually, they weren't eating noticeably "cleaner" IMO than people who were saying it was fine to eat more flexibly (the latter were eating mostly reasonably, some treat-type foods, not all pizza, pop and cookies!).

Personally, I think overall decent nutrition, on average, is important for health, but that doesn't mean some strict prohibition on arbitrary categories of food. Most foods make some nutritional contribution. For sure, a person can get OK nutrition at a Taco Bell.

I haven't had a fast-food burger since 1974 (when I became vegetarian), and don't drink soda pop more than a couple of times a year (don't much like it), but that stuff was true while I was getting fat, then obese, and staying fat. I've eaten Taco Bell, pizza, craft beer, chips, deep fried foods, etc., through that same period, including the weight loss phase (just less than a year) and maintenance since (5+ years so far). It's just food, not some melodrama about good and evil.

The portions, proportions, and frequencies have changed some, but the basic things I eat haven't really changed much at all. If I thought hard, there might be *something* I no longer eat because it never seems worth the calories, but no example occurs to me offhand.

That said, not everyone actually even *likes* fast food, or the full spectrum of so-called "hyperpalatable" foods. I mostly don't. It was still easy to get fat then obese, and stay that way for literally decades. 🤷‍♀️

I have rarely eaten fast food. Ever. But still managed to reach 232 pounds. So clearly, its not about what you eat, its about how much you eat. But before you think I'm some kind of a health nut, I have wine and pizza every Friday. And some kind of "treat" most days. Its usually chocolate, but yesterday, after taking the dogs for a hike and then coming home and mowing the front lawn, I felt I'd earned a cold cider. So, do I eat a whole lot of "junk"? No. But some calories give me more pleasure than others so I work them into my weekly budget.

There's a lot of sandwiches that I eat for lunch that I eat a small bag of chips with. At some point I'll let that go but I get anxious if I tell myself I can't have them, so until that goes away I'll eat chips.

However, I've discovered that most of the time I personally find ice cream not worth the amount it costs, calorie-wise. I have a few single-serving cups in the freezer for occasions where Nothing Else Will Do, but most of the time, I'm not interested. That was not something I expected as a result of doing this.

I do like cookies, and I make space to eat a few every day. The trick for me is to never feel deprived, because that will trigger me to binge very quickly.

Everyday. I have chips, ice cream, dried mangoes laced with sugar, and somewhere in the week I eat fast food at least once. Had onion rings yesterday from A&W as a snack.

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I am totally one of those folks who eat junk more often than I should, but I also do try to get in nutrients. Some days are better than others, but I just move on. I also don’t believe in restricting my diet because it tends to set off a negative outlook and I enjoy tasty things. A balanced diet is great for me because I still enjoy food, but I count it. Works for me, and I’m learning that is what matters.

I meet my nutritional needs...you don't get extra credit for more broccoli (though I love broccoli). I am also a health nut, but my Popeye's Chicken that I will be having this evening doesn't magically undo all of my other nutrition throughout the day and week and month, etc. I also eat desert pretty much every night.

Good nutrition happens on a broad spectrum...it's cumulative of your overall diet as a whole, not based on an individual food item or any one particular meal.

Definitely! Sometimes I just have to grab something while I’m out, which limits my choices. Other times I just want something that others would categorize as junk (like a candy bar or a pastry for breakfast. It’s all part of a balanced diet to me. My entire day isn’t junk food, I still get all my nutrients, but if this is long term then I need to include unhealthy things as well. I lost and maintained 60lbs previously using this method, now I’ve lost all my pregnancy weight and an additional 15lbs. So this definitely works for me.

I had 2 egg McMuffins for breakfast today. Logged it.