I remember growing up and eatting 6-10 chips ahoy or oreos at a time. They go down real quick eatting them in milk. next stage... I then would make ice cream floats, warm coolaide over vanilla icecream made a great treat. The coolaide would crust over the ice cream. Then I went into a peanut butter stage...Peanut butter and yellow mustard, or a pj sandwich stuffed with fritos, or still my favorite, dipping each hersheys square in the peanut butter... I at one time would eat an entire bag of dorittos at once. Well, i would start with a bowl. Then I would think, that was yummy...soon I would eat another bowl, but not remembering any of it, so I had to get more. But I couldn't stop unless I knew the bag was gone. Kinda like a Sarah Lee Cheesecake. But only the ones with the strawberries... I wonder why I have a weight problem. True...I am more aware now of what I do, but it is a hard habit to break. Thank goodness no binges in over a month. I know not to get dorittos in the house, no frozen desserts like cheesecake, no bagel chips, no chex mix, no nutterbutters...ho hum...why or why did I not learn years ago??? Now, if I could stop fast food...I am trying!

My children must ask for snacks. I think I am trying to prevent them for eatting non stop. Ri is notorious for eatting when he is bored. Cameron just eats too much at once. But both are fit (so far), I just don't want them having my same problems!!! What bad habits have you had to get you wear you are today?

As a child I would beg to stop to eat out when out with my family, driving to the cottage... Hamburgers and Fries. When I dated John same thing. Even if we had already eaten, I'd convince him to stop at Tim Hortons or McDonalds...

Going out meant putting something into my mouth! And coming home too.

I haven't had a real issue with my weight, mostly since age 30, but I see my weakness as inability to moderate what I'm eating. A whole bag of doritos or a large bowl of icecream. A large fries instead of small.

I do much better now. We don't go to fast food places much at all, too much $ with 4 kids and the older ones eat like adults. Pizza makes me feel like I've eaten a moose. Heavy and gross.

Singapore Noodle is still hard, and chocolate at work. One of my co-workers eats giant bags of doritos for lunch and supper. It's torture to have them there on the counter... I take salt and vinegar rice chips by Quaker instead. Satasfies my need for chips.

I tell her not to take her metabolism for granted.....

Lam

love these emoticons!

Eating out and take out food has always been my downfall. I have never been a binge eater... but I tend to eat too large of portions, which is obviously easy at restaurants. At home I eat very well, and a bag of chips or oreos can last a week or two with me. DH and I work different schedules so we rarely eat together... its just way too easy to pick something up. I always thought that eating out was a treat when I was young, and we rarely did. When I started working at age sixteen, I spent a lot of money eating out. That is when my weight started to climb. I don't eliminate any food while losing weight, and for me it is the only way to go or I feel too deprived. I have managed to lose this weight so far eating healthy but allowing treats (only when I am hungry though); plus I just eat MUCH smaller portions of everything. So far so good.

I have learned over the years that my weight problem exists because I avoided exercise for many years-and now I am doing it full force. As far as food-I am the type that certain foods trigger me to overeat, and I am better off if I don't even take a bite, because I have a hard time stopping myself-some of these are: Sara Lee Carrot Cake-in the frozen section-I would eat a whole one in the little foil package, not being able to stop, Fazoli's breadsticks...I also had the habit of eating too large of portions, which has helped a lot. I still eat the occasional fast food, but if I do I eat the healthier offerings, and if I have the occasional fry, order a small instead of a Super Sized.
Aphil

I was actually a normal & healthy weight until I went away to college... I was finally able to buy & eat whatever I wanted, which was all too often pizza, Doritos (which I don't like anymore), Mountain Dew and other chips/crackers (anything I didn't have to cook). I used to order a medium pizza and eat the entire thing by myself & polish it off with like 3 big glasses of Mountain Dew! My mom is a binge eater, well, my dad is, too - I would watch my mom eat an entire bag of chips over the course of an evening (in bowls, of course!) or my dad eat half a gallon of ice cream at one time - and I just went nuts in college because I was finally "allowed" to do that (my mom never let us kids eat like that).

And, I went to a college with two other major universities within a half-hour drive... lots & lots of parties, football/basketball games, events where we drank lots, lol. So... my freshman 15 was more like 30 - since I wasn't exercising like I did in high school (I played basketball and ran track) and I spent most of my time snacking (i.e., binge-eating) while studying and the other part of the time I was out partying with friends - my weight gain was fast & steady. It wasn't pretty!

For those of you with kids who are on this journey - I really admire you. I don't "blame" my parents for my eating habits, because I'm an adult & I make my own choices - but I think all of this would be a lot easier had I not grown up watching my folks use food like that. I commend all of you trying to form healthy eating habits not only for yourselves but for your children... it's one of the best gifts you can ever give them.

I grew up eating a lot of pasta, stodgy British fare and not enough vegetables.

My parents limited things like chips, ice cream and pop, they were weekend treats and not a daily thing which explains why I am not a big junk food person and don't particularly like soft drinks. We also rerely had dessert with dinner unless we were having company or it was a special occasion. They rarely had alcohol in the house, usually just at Christmas, so I don't really drink much.

The bad habit that we had was always having "a cup of tea and a biscuit". Apparently you cannot serve tea in Scotland without providing something to eat to go along with it and you end up drinking about 4 to 6 cups of tea a day. If you have two biscuits per tea that adds up to .... 8 to 12 biscuits per day

After I moved out on my own it took me along time to break the tea and cookies habit.

I eat relatively well but my biggest problem is getting enough exercise on a regular basis but I am working on it.

I do however have occasional cravings for dill pickle chips or buttertarts but not as often as I used to

Lunula, like you I don't blame my parents for my weight problems over the years but I did grow up seeing them use food to stuff down emotions and as a kind of self-medication...My mom always had candy hidden and Sara Lee cake, and my dad was obese for a lot of my childhood. They would fight a lot about whether my mother was feeding me too much, and I think in retrospect she did a little. She would buy cakes and turnovers for regular weeknight desserts and give me adult portions for dinner - things that as a mom myself I would NEVER do.

She used to put candy under my pillow at naptime when I was little, as well...think I have mentioned this somewhere.

So my weaknesses have always been cookies and especially CANDY. More than pies or cakes or any fast food. Though I would gladly eat as much tempura or samosas or pizza as I could manage, in the past. I also used to eat a lot of pasta, which now I mostly avoid. I eat much smaller portions now, and less bread and pasta or rice (almost no pasta or rice).

I used to buy myself candy every day, now I get one thing once a week, on Saturday afternoon (and we have a weekly takeout Sat. evening). And that's it.

Also as a kid I was pretty inactive. As an adult I walk a lot, go running, hiking, whatever. Thank goodness my 2 girls are very active and love to swim, skate, run around, and don't overeat - they are slim and I am very glad!!

Lidian

I remember getting bread and butter sprinkled with table sugar for dinner. Or a veggie would be a slice of tomato and cottage cheese. Ho hum... We eat real veggies around here now. I wish I had more growing up so I had more developed tastes. It is hard to undo all those years. But I am trying. I adore my mom...she was the greatest, but her ideal dinner is fresh bread, cheese and a beer. My dad loves red meat and all kinds of nuts. I can't tell you how many times I would eat 1/2 a jar of nuts in one sitting! I thinned out in high school. Only to gain it back during pregnacies and the few years after that. Ho hum...off to housework we go.

I remember when my mom would go to the grocery store and come home with all the goodies. Pop, chips, cookies, ice cream, the "good" cereal; all the good stuff once a week. Of course that was gone first, then it was oatmeal, (the real kind, not instant), for breakfast for the rest of the week. For a family of 5, we would have one box of Hamburger Helper between us for dinner. My husband and I used to be able to eat 1 box between us. Yikes!

Goddess Jessica's
All I Needed to Know About Weight Gain I Learned Before Kindergarten:

1. Sharing is great but eat as much as you can as fast as you can because this is going to be the only time you can have it.

2. If you can't say something nice, say it anyway but alleviate the pain with some kind of compensation, like cookies and milk.

3. You can not leave the table unless you finish what you can't and eat what you don't like.

4. The good stuff is always hidden. If you find it, eat all of it and hide the evidence, then they might forget that they ever had it.

5. Love=Food. Show someone you love them by feeding them. The bigger the portion, the more you love them.

6. Admonish bad eating habits. Then, buy custard filled chocolate donuts for breakfast.

7. "I would buy more fruits and vegetables for you but you would just let them spoil."

8. Cheap food is less filling so you must eat twice as much.

My mother used to make a salad by slicing iceberg lettuce so you ended up with a slice of lettuce with a slice of tomato on top. Slathered with catalina dressing! Canned peas... creamed corn... And boiled cabbage. We'd have boiled dinners; boiled cabbage, boiled potatoes and boiled weiners. Yuck.

I think I caused most of my own eating issues. I didn't (don't) always listen to when I'm full.

We eat a lot of stir fries, Real salads, and it's almost asparagus season!!!!!

I love asparagus on the BBQ.

Lam

My granny was born and raised in the south, so naturally she could cook the **** out of some food. The thing I loved about her cooking is the names she gave her dishes...lets see, there was...goop, broken glass, hash, junk, sh*t on a shingle...etc..etc... I lived with my grandparents when I was a teenager and I think because they did not know what to "do" with me they let me eat whatever I wanted. When I lived with my mother the food supply at out house was always strange. She would buy cases of Hambuger Helper...yet buy no hambuger. Cases of stewed tomatoes...yuck. Because I had to cook for my brother and myself, I usually made easy stuff...no one really taught me how to cook. To this day I cannot eat rice-a-roni. I am trying to teach my daughter that food is important for health reasons and to have an open mind about trying different stuff. I hope I do a good job for her sake.
blessings,
blackbird

I cannot eat pork and beans.

bletch.

L

I am a member of the clean your plate club. and if you didn't, you can bet it would be waiting for you at your next meal. Soggy cheerios for lunch...ugh (still cant eat those with milk) and as a farm family, meat...greasy meat at every meal. To this day I can not eat pork steak. we had it every other day. it gags me to think about it. and fried EVERYTHING! I mean everything! My mom will fry oatmeal! (something about making it thick and frying it , serving it with syrup...shudder) My dad would make the evening meal as my mom worked afternoons, and all he could do was fry, so...fried golfball shaped hamburgers with fried corn and potatoes, all in the same pan. (so much the better if the pan was from breakfast with bacon grease left over) I married a man who's mom is from the south. She considers bacon grease a condiment and puts it on green beans, potatoes, etc...

I got to stop, this is making me queezy...but I think that is a good sign!

Sunday nights my mother would eat buttered rolls or croissants and then ice milk for dessert - have I mentioned that besides candy what I love is bread and butter? Wonder why!

We had Hamburger Helper too, huge platefuls. And no exercise! Nothing at all. I lived in a highrise in the inner city you see...not allowed to play on the street, and at school we didn't get much in the way of gym or recess.

And I used to get huge amounts of chocolate for Easter, but I wasn't really supposed to eat it...like just one little bit per day. And I couldn't do that, I always had more, and felt guilty. Now I wonder why they got me so much chocolate (a HUGE amount, really)...and then pressured me to be thin.

I did thin down around the age of 11-12, and was fine somehow until the freshman 15 in college (I think it was exactly 15lbs I put on, come to think of it), when I filled jars full of hot chocolate mix in the dining hall and ate in all in my room with a spoon, among other things.

Lidian