Hi everyone,

I'm new here! *waves* This is a great thread.

It's frustrating to think what I used to be like, because I've always liked healthy foods and wholefoods, maybe even more than junk. I just fell into the trap of eating whatever was most delicious and indulgent, who cares about the consequences! I think I enjoyed being "naughty". I put on a lot of weight over the last year during a stressful time at work. Here's how I did it:

I used to drink 5-6 pints of beer whenever I went out (3-4 times a week) and eat whatever rubbish the pub served (chips, pizza, burgers). Then I'd go in to work with a hangover, get a Pret chocolate croissant on my way in, a large cappuccino, and a Ribena for later. Lunch would roll around and I'd go out for something like a burrito and nachos, or a plate of fried chow mein, or a lasagne, or a curry. Once or twice I got some Chicken Selects from McDonalds because I was still hungry after my Chinese. I'd always bring back at least one treat for the afternoon, usually more than one: something like a chocolate bar, a hot chocolate, a coffee, crisps, or a whole bag of salted cashew nuts. Then dinner would come around - the stuff I cook at home was always healthy enough, but if I went out again, the cycle would repeat itself... Lots of my friends are big beery blokes so I was keeping up with them I guess.

Now I feel amazing - I have been having fruit and yoghurt for breakfast, bringing in a healthy lunch (leftover lentil curry or tuna salad or quinoa, that sort of thing) with lots of healthy snacks to pick at. I've been having my usual home cooked dinners (roast chicken, stir fries, veggies, home made curries) and if I go out I've been drinking white wine like a proper lady, and making sure we go somewhere where I can get a healthy dinner. So far it's been pretty easy - I think because I was ready to do it. I'm really happy.

I actually think I must have a pretty decent metabolism underneath all of this not to have got bigger than 210! Here's hoping.

P.S. I hope it doesn't sound like I've got a drink problem. I'm just British!

Breakfast - nothing.

Lunch - spicy meal loaded with butter and cream.

Dinner - order in pizza/burger + fries/Indian/Chinese 4 -5 days a week.

5 cups of coffee with creamer and sugar. At least a bar of chocolate.

And then of course the binge days.... Ugh. Lol.

I used to have 2 pork sausage links & 2 whole eggs, fried I butter, for breakfast daily.

Lunch would be whatever I wanted, usually Jimmy Johns or a field tenderloin & fries.

Dinner would be beef something with potato or pasta.

Now, we have egg whites only with turkey sausage; grilled chicken and salad, turkey burgers and broccoli, on the average day. We really like the food we eat, we also love the way we feel now.

This was a great post!

Morning: nothing or chips and coke zero

Lunch: sandwhich with mayo and cheese and all kinds of stuff with a bag of chips and coke zero

Dinner: pizza-easily a whole one, often with hot wings, or Thai curry with crab Rangoon, or another sandwhich and chips, or a fast food burger, or tacos and chips and salsa. Or tapas. Always with coke zero.

Snacks..white cheddar popcorn, kettle corn, flaming hot Cheetos, etc. More coke zero.

I never ever brought my lunch to work or cooked at home.

It depends on how I felt. There were stages where I literally binged every day and other times where I only binged say once every 5 days.

My worst binges were generally based on a lot of secret eating. In my room, one way to university, between lectures, on my way home etc. I'd eat packs of donuts, packs of cookies, packs of biscuits, tubs of ice cream etc and feel no shame. Other than thinking "where will I hide the packaging?"
The thing that made it worse was that it got to a point where me
An a group of friends would overeat together! We would go to get a shawarma and then to McDonald's for a big tasty and then dessert etc. We would constantly eat together!
I never really ate proper meals. I just ate when I saw food. I never saw what I ate as an energy source, it was just because it tasted or looked good!

I get sick if I eat a deep fried meal anymore. It helps me avoid it so I'll take it lol. Used to be real bad on them!

Haha that made me laugh, I know what you mean though....

Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate, with plenty of fizzy drinks to occupy me in the quiet times in between chocolate treats. Chocolate bars, cakes, cereals, biscuits, pastries....so long as it had chocolate I had to have it!

Once I got my first car I discovered the joy of drive thru mcdonald's/BK and that did nothing at all to help me. I ate 'normal' food too (my mom cooked dinners that I had to eat or else!) but mostly it was the chocolate and soda. Even now when I slip up it's for a flake and a cola. Maybe it'll never leave me, who knows.

One day i had 4 Cadburys Creme eggs for breakfast, 4 for lunch and 4 for tea. I was hardcore! hahaha! :devil:
Maria

Loving this thread! I don’t think I’ve ever really admitted how much I used to eat before but here goes…

Breakfast: At Uni I’d head to the cafeteria after morning lectures for a £2.50 6 piece fry up with my friends. When I started work I’d either skip breakfast or have about 4 crumpets with margarine and cheese, or a sandwich/wrap from Tesco on the way to work.

Lunch: At Uni it’d be a freshly baked hot baguette from the sandwich shop stuffed full with mozzarella and pepperoni or cheese and coleslaw…damn they were good! At work it’d be a store bought sandwich or wrap (usually cheese and onion sandwich or southern fried chicken wrap from Tesco), crisps and some kind of chocolate. I’d often head over to Starbucks aswell for a large sugary drink.

Dinner: Lots of fast food. Sometimes shared a pizza with my other half…usually half a large pizza each with potato wedges, garlic bread and some kind of chicken dipper things. Sometimes it’d be McDonalds but I’d have a large meal to myself along with a double cheeseburger and share 6 or 9 McNuggets with my other half. Sometimes it’d be a simple take away from across the road of a burger and cheesy chips and onion rings. When I did cook for myself I’d have pasta with tomato based sauce (but ruin it by drowning it in cheese!), lasagne or stuff from the freezer (processed chicken things, fatty potato products etc.)

After dinner: Whatever I could get my hands on when I got bored. Crisps, chocolate, popcorn, ice cream…I could easily demolish a large bag of cheese Doritos and a pot of dip in an evening!

Now: My how things have changed…thank goodness! Never really realised what I actually ate before I wrote all that down! Now for breakfast I’ll usually just have some fruit to get my metabolism going since eating early makes me feel a bit queasy. For lunch I have salad or a bowl of home-made fat-free soup with a small slice of wholemeal bread or a roll, along with whatever fruit is at work (they give us free fruit all week) and a fat-free yogurt. For dinner I almost always do my own cooking now. I’ve switched all the frozen processed meat products for Quorn and I’ll have plenty of vegetables and something like fresh potatoes, home-made fat-free chips, pasta or rice (in an appropriate portion size). Trying to knock the snacks on the head but if I do snack I try to make it fruit or a handful of almonds.

eek- I don't like to think about it.

Thanks for this thread... it's actually made me think about how I was eating and what was it about it, that might have been causing me to gain so much weight this time around....

Actually I don't think I was eating all that bad... But I do think I was eating too much and too late at night... I also was probably eating out too much and I definitely was NOT getting enough exercise (I mean let's be honest here, who am I kidding... I wasn't getting ANY exercise...!)

The good news though, now that I've made some changes in those departments... the weight is starting to come off....

No breakfast, if I'm at uni I'd have a cheddar ploughman sandwich for lunch and a danish with icing on.. a packet of cookies and a big mango/orange juice bottle. For dinner I'd come home and I'd just have whatever was my 'thing' at the time.. at one point it was having an entire packet of cinnamon bagel's covered in hummus.. at another point it was having 6 slices of white buttered toast with beans and extremely sugary tea.. more recently it had been almost half a bag of store bought curly fries with almost 3/4 a can of Heinz baked beans with an an unbelievable amount of cheese. Of course all washed down with about a liter of some type of fruit juice. I'd snack on whatever I saw in the meantime. A year ago I was even worse in that I'd snack all day long and have takeaway in some form, every single day.

You have to know though that I'm very picky with my food, in the way that a nursery child is. I could eat the same food every single day for a month and not be bored.

Tbh it's kind of surprising i'm not bigger than I am. I'm still in the normal range for my BMI and have never really been called fat. I just had a day where I thought I really am not happy with the way I look. Every time I ate I'd get upset with myself to the point where eating wasn't even enjoyable anymore. I'd spend all my time on tumblr envying thinner girls and doing the same in real life, comparing myself with everyone. I got to the point where I stopped buying clothes or going shopping because I hated the way I looked in everything... I just decided, I hate feeling this way so I'm going to change it.

Recently I've been going for 3 Weatabix biscuits with a spoon of honey for breakfast.. a multigrain bagle with 2 turkey deli meat slices and some feta cheese (and sometimes some tomato) for lunch.. for dinner I'd usually go for another bowl of weetabix on a day when I haven't done much but if i've worked out probably another bagle sandwich. I'd have a few cups of fruit juice (no more 500ml or LITER bottles) in the day but mostly water. No more sweets, chocolates, teas, white carbs or eating ******ed portions.

I hope it works for me. 146lbs, 5'8.. I'm wanting to get down to 125.

Skip Breakfast, Skip lunch, unless I was in Town and then It would be a huge plate of KFC / Mcdonalds/ TGI Fridays then dinner was usually at 9/9.30pm and a huge plate of something comforting, like Toad in the whole with vegetables and piles of gravy. Then I would go to bed with a full tummy :( oh yes and at least a 2ltr bottle of coke every single day

Now, If I skip breakfast then I have a meal replacement milkshake, lunch is a sandwich or some pasta or a jacket potato with homemade chilli/chicken curry and dinner is salad with chicken or Quiche, or something like that healthy that isn't full of carbs! I eat at sensible times usually dinner is between 5 and 6pm and I go out for a long walk in the evenings, About 2.5 miles over an hour with my dog. I go to bed so much more comfortable And eating more actually makes me lose weight! Its great :D

I've been reading this thread for a while... Never really properly accounted for what I used to eat and I dread to think of what could have happened if I didn't stop.

Weekdays were bad, but I was being kept busy over the day so there was maaaybe some sort of limit on how much time I could spend stuffing food into myself. Weekends/holidays were simply the worst. I'd get up really late, sometimes have a heavy brunch (like fried rice), get in the car to meet some mates, have a second usually fast food lunch, then get some snacks to 'bring home for mom'. By snacks I'm talking skewers of deep fried stuff like prawns/calamari/chicken, donuts, pastries, crispy duck pancakes, spring rolls, waffles... etc. So it'd be quite normal for me to (having had two meals already by this point) sit in the carpark and scoff down maybe 3-4 skewers of fried stuff, a couple of pastries, a whole tray of duck pancakes, a waffle, tray of sushi and a pack of prawn crackers. Stuffed to the brim I'd then drive back home...... to round the folks up for dinner. 4,000 calories in a day, easy!

I only stopped eating like that in March this year, just over half a year ago... triggered when I had a particularly huge lunch (a whole oven tray of chips, quarter of a pack of frozen breaded scampi and a whole garlic baguette, all banged into the oven and demolished) and just had a moment where I was like, what the **** am I doing to myself?

I wasn't even shocked when I put myself on the scale and found myself at 240lbs!