What bad food habits have you had to break to help you lose weight and become healthy?
One biggie for me was getting in the habit of rushing out the door and not taking my lunch (I leave for work at 6 AM). Where I work there is no place close to get food unless you drive or walk quite a ways down to a store. At work they have free "Cup O Noodles" thingies that we can eat at any time. So I would get in the habit of eating those things for lunch! Yikes... not good!!! I haven't had one now in months and in fact took the couple I kept at my desk back and put them in the lunchroom cabinets because I certainly don't intend to eat them now!!!
Not eating chocolate bars during commercial breaks on TV - I used to run across the road to the shop in the middle of a programme and be back for it starting.
Not eating junk at the cinema. I very rarely eat something, and if I do, it's Malteesers that I've taken with me and a Pepsi Max
Not eating Mac D's, KFC, Burger King, just because we are out and about. Now we eat Subway or get things from supermarkets
Not eating Haagen Dazs when I feel depressed
Not baking cakes/cookies/crumble as a reward/because it's weekend
I'm sure there's more... Oh yeah, a packed lunch does not consist of sandwich, crisps, mini roll (ho ho), can of coke. It consists of sandwich, apple, raisins, nuts and a Pepsi Max!!
Oh and I don't eat sausage rolls any more because they used to be the only thing in the chiller cabinet that I liked (when we stopped at services stations or ready-packed sandwich shops).
I am now willing to try new vegetables, tastes, textures and sandwiches!
Eating without thinking and scarfing stuff because it's there. Did you know that you can be nicely satisfied without that uncomfortably stuffed feeling? Something I had to learn.
For me the biggest one is cutting out fast food. I haven't had any fast food in a month. This was a hard one for me. There were days that I would eat McD's for breadfast, Wendy's for lunch and Pizza for dinner. YUK.
I too like dance have had to force myself to take a lunch everyday.
I have also stopped drinking soda. It's been about 2 weeks and actually it hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be.
Oi vey!! I had to break A LOT of bad habits!!! LOL
I would NEVER bring my breakfast to work. I always go to Wawa for coffee in the morning, so I would always grab either 2 to 3 chocolate doughnuts or a HUGE apple fritter thing that was covered in sugar glaze!!
Whenever we went out to eat, I would get a HUGE LOADED baked potatoe...with everything on it. Even at home, I would drown my baked potatoe in butter AND sour cream.
Ice cream....we always had to have icecream in the house. I would eat ice cream just about every night. I could eat a half gallon of ice cream in two nights and one of those Ben and Jerry's pints in one sitting. Sometimes, I would crumble potatoe chips in with the ice cream! And I couldn't stay away from McDonald's strawberry milk shakes.
Oh, there are so many others, but those are the main ones at the moment!
I actually had kept a lot of good habits (but not all) from my South Beach endeavors from a couple of years ago, so this time I was already off of fast food, was cutting back on fats and sugars, and eating whole grains. This time I've concentrated on eating smaller portions, not allowing dessert every night, and we have cut WAY back on eating out.
I'm not a great cook, really, so we liked to go out a lot to avoid that, but... it's too much food, you never know what they're cooking with or slathering on, and there's always the temptation of some kind of bread to (over) fill up on.
Oh, and I'm learning to eat slowly, put my fork down, chew, enjoy, savor... I used to just wolf everything down and I'd be past full before I even knew it was coming.
I am also fighting the fast food battle. With my little ones at home I can never seem to find any time to sit and eat a meal, I am always grabbing and going, except now instead of grabbing a steak bagel or a big mac from McD's, I grab a low fat, reduced calorie yogurt and a string cheese from my fridge.
pizza four times a week. mcdonalds big value meals, breakfast out whenever i felt like it, potatoe chips, regular sodas every day.
i still have pizza and i still eat at mcdonalds on the weekends, but i have cut back to a happy meal and diet coke. i also buy chips, but i buy pringles and only have a couple a day. i have maybe half a serving once a day. but i don't even eat them everyday. just when ever. i try to have diet coke even just once or twice a week. mostly i just try to drink water. i have been allowing myself a coffee drink but i bought the sugar free creamers to go with it.
oh, i know of something i really did have to give up....gas station cappacchino's. i just know they are FULL of calories. but i do love them. but i have learned the ones i make can be just as satisfying as one full of calories. and i always crave a donut when i see them, but i have to refuse. i have to stand firm. i don't eat alot of chocolate and can pass that up pretty good, but donuts are hard to pass up. i haven't had a donut in ages.
Last edited by lumifan4ever; 03-09-2006 at 10:36 AM.
What bad food habits have you had to break to help you lose weight and become healthy?
Letting go of the fried stuff. That was the hardest for me and still is. Anytime I'd go to a food buffet, the fried stuff is the first things I'd go for. Anything deep-fried, it didn't matter. Like on a Chinese buffet, for example - I want the egg rolls and the fried wontons and the sweet and sour chicken and the war sue gai and all the little deep-fried appetizers. Now, for obvious reasons, I pass all that stuff up. But it's not easy.
Oh, and I won't even TALK about how much I'd eat at fish frys.
That fried stuff has just always appealed to me and still does. On rare occasions I'll eat an egg roll or allow myself one small piece of fried fish. But that's it.
Another bad habit I had to conquer - not eating breakfast.
Soda was my worst enemy. Although the vending machines on campus do have bottled water my warped mind refused to pay the same amount for water as for soda. I'm a little strange, but I bring my own bottle of water and fill it up for free. So I'm saving my pocket book and my waist line.
Bad Food Habits
mcdonalds big value meals, breakfast out whenever i felt like it, potatoe chips, regular sodas every day.
