Just_Nigel

Fast Foods... I started eating healthy in 09. More fish, less red meat. But I'm on the road 90%. So I'd get off the plane and on the way to the hotel being short on time, I'd hit McDonalds to "save time". But I wouldn't just get a burger and fries... my deal was a quarter pounder with cheese, large fries, fish sandwich, oh and a "diet" coke!

April of this year, I had a Come to Jesus meeting with my doc...got serious and since then IF I go to McDonalds it's for a grilled chicken salad or a snack wrap if I just need something quick.

I still have a burger sometimes but it's the exception. I make time now to have a real meal at lunch. It's less stressful and I enjoy it much more.

Other than that, I haven't given up much... just move more, eat less...

bdinger

It has been eight months now since I've had just about anything "unhealthy". No desserts, no ice cream, no cake, no doughnuts, no hot dogs, no fast food at all, no chips and salsa (perhaps the hardest for me), no caloried sodas, no.. nothing. Rarely do I have bread, and I mean rarely. It just doesn't taste good to me at this point.

In fact I don't think anything like that would taste good. I had a bite of cake a couple of weeks ago and frankly, it was too much. Total sugar overload. I had a bite of low sugar ice cream and felt the same way. I frankly could care less.

As of last Saturday it's also been two years since I've had alcohol, and again, don't see that changing.

All it takes is to redefine what a good meal means. For me a good meal is some grilled chicken on corn tortillas with a healthy dose of salsa and a salad on the side.

1855Cru

I was a card carrying member of the low carb club. Like many others I was convinced that carbs were bad unless before exercising when they provide fuel.

But having been in rance now for almost 2 months, I'm just not sure. The French eat carbs like nobody's business, breakfast, lunch and dinner. You never see a French person eating a meal without eating bread and in some cases like breakfast, bread is the only thing eaten (or croissant etc.) Also I have yet to have a dinner where potatoes were not served. Add to this the heart stopping amounts of cheese they consume and all the rich sauces, I'm having a hard time understanding why obesity is not more prevalent. Also meals here are huge and most people never skip dessert. Even a simple lunch is often 3 courses. Indeed if you look at the world league tables for obesity, the US leads by a considerable margin with 33.6% of the population obese, interestingly Mexico is in 2nd place with 30%. France is way way down the list with just 9.4% and are one of the lowest in Europe.

I know that French bread does not have any preservatives so you buy your bread twice a day as it gets stale in about 3-4 hours. I wonder if this a contributary cause? Also the French do not drink as much sugary carbonated drinks as the US but in line with many other countries.

I'm actually wondering if genetics have more to do with it and if the there has been a slow change in the way Americans process sugar/carbs over many years?

Looking from a different perspective just brings up a lot of new questions

Black wallnut 

Serious question: Why corn tortillas?

ETilton

Interesting thought. I would guess it has more to do with fat and less to do with carbs. However, to argue against my own point, countries like Ireland and Cuba deep fry just about everything they eat... Anyway, I'm no biologist but I'm relatively certain that if it was a change that took place since the founding of America, it is an extremely fast change, evolution-wise.

GROWLR

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned going paleo. I have given up grains, sugar, beans/lentils and starchy vegetables. I'm down 85 pounds in a year and I don't really miss anything that much at any given time. (Tortilla chips and salsa is what I miss the most.)

To me it's really a question of eating fresh, wholesome and unprocessed foods. Meat, veggies, fruit and some seeds/nuts are all we really need. I know that Cordain has admitted that certain grain-based carbs are necessary for endurance athletes, but for the vast majority of us we can do without.

bbeasley

Alcohol
Caffeine
Red Meat
Size 42 waist pants
XXL shirts
Wheezing
50 lbs
Avoiding mirrors and cameras

chandltp

My guess? From your description, it sounds like the fat satisfies their appetite and they aren't incline to snack on sugary and / or low fat white flour products between meals. Do they snack between meals?

Also, does their food contain vegetable oils and HFCS, or do they eat foods with olive oil, real butter and real sugar? Are they eating whole foods, or items that come in plastic with a shelf like of 3 years?

rumrunn6

I gave up potatoe chips and double meals, meaning breakfast at home and then something else on the road, or something at MD's on the way home and then having dinner when I got home.

jmccain

Processed foods.

goldfinch

Choosing quality over quantity and savoring it is a good rule of thumb!

I read that the French are becoming fatter, especially the kids, and in a decade or thereabouts they will be a fat as us. And people say McD's isn't an "evil" force.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2665194/

chandltp

To be fair, McDonalds isn't the only fast food place that contributes to cheap, easy, high calorie, nutritionally deficient food.

Fastflyingasian

ive given up so much that i feel like a recovering drug addict. except i happen to have all my drug dealers advertising in front of me all day. i live a "mostly" vegetarian diet now but do eat meat once or twice a week. i do that so i dont get sick if i eat meat. my diet got so strict that it took a month for me to eat meats again without getting sick or being nauseous. a number of years ago i did give up soda. i drink more soda but only at restaurants and on long bike rides if i need a quick up or help with a headache or upset stomach. a good friend of mine brought some onion rings to work and said have one. against my better judgement i had one............. then the whole box. yea im better off with a strict diet. i do think about the days where the pizza boxes beer and baconators were just endless. i didnt care how much Chinese take out i had. the only thing green in my diet was the money i paid to get my monster burger. i could go on forever. what i do know is with exception of fast food, i have tried most things i used to eat and found it a big let down in how it didnt taste as awesome as i thought it would. i refuse to go to fast food. im worried ill get sick eating something like that after all this time away. aside from the weight loss i just simply feel soo much better over all just with the diet change. yea i get hungry and crave something crappy but the legs complain and dont want to go on too. im happy to ignore them both

tony_merlino

After fighting the battle of the bulge for nearly 45 years, playing yo-yo in a range of 90 lbs, I finally figured out that overeating was an addictive behavior for me, and needed to be dealt with like any other addiction. I couldn't give up food, but, like Goldfinch, I recognized that certain foods triggered the obsessive/addictive overeating behavior for me. So my list of "never eat foods" now contains:

All sugary foods and desserts, e.g. cake, donuts, candy, cookies, chocolate, pie etc.
All "calorie bomb" foods, i.e. foods that contain so many calories per bite that I can consume a days worth of calories before my stomach has figured out that I put anything in it. This list includes things like french fries - in fact any fried, deep fried, breaded and fried, yada-yada food. And (sigh) pizza. That one was really hard. I LOVE pizza. But I can't eat just one slice of it. And it not only makes me want to pig out when I have it, but it makes me want to keep on pigging out the next day.

So far, I'm still losing (slowly), but am really on maintenance now. I'm 5'7" tall, and have gone from 227.5 lbs in January to 149.2 lbs this morning. BMI is 23.4, body fat percentage is 17.2%. I'm pretty happy, working on keeping it off now, and I believe that sticking to this "never eat list" is essential.

st3venb

Frozen Yogurt, beer, pizza, mexican food, 5/7 of my daily coffees (two times per week, instead of seven), Subway, Chipotle, Eating out, alcohol of any form.

My cycling coach is a hard ass... but I'm improving.

The_DK

Grains. I virtually never eat them now. It's done all but cure my IBS.

fatpunk

Soda (huge diet coke fan), fast food, Marlboro lights, fried foods, desert, chilli cheese hot dogs (paramedic's best friend at 2 am when you haven't had lunch or dinner and the gas station is the only thing open), Sugar, Candy bars, cheap beer.

Never had a problem with alcohol, have a nice collection from over the years of buying a bottle here or there but it takes me years to drink a bottle so the liquor cabinet is stuffed.