This is a great thread! If I counted just the meals, I'd come in under 2,000 per day easy. BUT - when I add in the mega-snacking and binging, I'm sure it was well in excess of 4,000 per day. To say nothing of the fat and sugar content. The sad part is that it wasn't just the rare day that I ate so much - it was EVERY day.

Now my goal is 1500-1700 per day and some days I need to make myself eat just to get in enough calories. I took the day off on Thanksgiving, but did count calories. It totalled close to 3,000 and I was almost miserably full. How could I have eaten more calories than that every single day?

Fantastic thread!

Thinking back on my calories I think that I started out every day really GREAT! I would have cereal and milk and orange juice with my vitamins. My pitfall was visiting the workroom where every THIN person would bring high-calorie snacks to unload. Those of us who were heavy just couldn't pass up those great snacks. I'll bet I ate 1,000 calories there!

Lunch for me was reasonable. I would have a Lean Cuisine, some fat-free yogurt, and coffee. You guessed it...I would be back again a few hours after lunch for more snacking!

Around 4:00PM as I was making dinner I would find myself hitting the cheese. Then I would grab a few chips. Of course I would be sampling the foods as they cooked, too!

I would THEN eat a big dinner, have some wine and cheese with my husband as we would watch a movie and usually have a second dessert, too.

At my heaviest I had those Dove chocolates stashed several places in my house and in my office. I was probably eating a couple BAGS of them a week IN ADDITION to everything else I mentioned!

If there's anyone out there who will even TRY to guess how many calories that will add up to...well go ahead! I'm AFRAID to!!!

In the book Calorie Queens, there's a chart which shows weights and calorie amounts to maintain those weights. They don't show my highest weight of 275, but they DO show 270 lbs. To maintain that weight it said that a woman will be eating 3830 calories!!!

No wonder I weighed 275!!!! I HAD to be eating at least that many calories!

I want to get to 160. According to the book I need to eat 1,920 calories to support that weight. It seems a bit high to me, though. I'm aiming more for 1600.

Good luck everyone on your weight loss!

Cheryl

Ugh, I just put in what I used to eat on Fitday. I stopped calculating after 5000 calories. granted, that was a worst case scenario day, but how good could teh other days have been. If I'm ever tempted to blow my diet, I'm looking at this thread first. I can't believe how gross I was!!!! It's a miracle I'm still alive...I'm really ashamed!

Hey, Hood!

Don't feel ashamed! Food is good and it is necessary for life! We all are just trying to figure out how much of it will get us where we want to be, that's all. We will make it! For me I think figuring out the metabolism thing is the most frustrating. Calories in/calories out makes sense, but my metabolism seems NOT to have read the memo! I'm trying to perk up my metabolism so it will work even harder for me.

I think that this forum is great because it shakes our thinking without being mean or judgemental. This thread really opened MY eyes!

I wish you lots of success on your weight loss journey! Praise yourself for each mini-goal met. That helps me get to my next one.

Visit often!

Cheryl