what's the funniest "diet" food you ate before you knew about calories?

Sometime around my freshman year of high school, i heard that peppermint was a good weight loss supplement. I was a starbucks addict, especially because i had a crush on the hot barista there, so i decided to start getting an iced peppermint latte. DAILY. Grande, with 2% milk...or a VENTE if i was feeling "extra good". it tasted terrible, but i was obsessed with trying to lose weight so i kept getting it! once i started counting calories, three years later, i factored it in as NEGATIVE calories because i thought it was helping me out hahah

turns out, it had 200 calories, & i had been eating around 2000 a day on top of that. go figure.

Probably avocado!  It's a vegetable, how fattening could it be..... ?

That's a really funny story. In my family, they believe that a lot of weird stuff is good for you - like lettuce with like an entire cup of full fat dressing. Or an entire box of mac-n-cheese. Cheese is really good for you. And veggies are still just as good for you when they're fried in like 2-3T of oil and covered in suggary, buttery sauce. And 4T of peanut butter is totally normal for a sandwich - with another 2T of butter. Yes, butter. America's families need a serious re-education if mine is any indicator.

Nuts!  I used to munch on them all the time especially when studying.  I thought   if they were unsalted they were healthy and full of protein.......I nearly fainted when I calculated how many calories I had been eating per day from nuts alone!

 

Hahah-- I counted french fries and potato chips as "vegetables"

I thought that fast digesting carbs were better than complex carbs -- so I'd have white bread and think I was being good (I always preferred whole wheat, so I was happy when I found out it was better)

Twizzlers/Sour Patch Kids/Sweedish Fish have no fat, so they must be okay!

Well, not so much "funny" as a total misconception on how many calories are in something.  My common items were:

Muffins (the giant ones) - of course, now I realize the most of the time this is the equivalent of having a large piece of cake, but I recall thinking "oh, I think I'll go light for breakfast and only have a muffin."

Cereal - this actually is healthy and can be a part of a weight loss plan, but not when it's 2 huge bowls, the equivalent of 4 servings, of Lucky Charms with whole milk.  I remember thinking "But cereal is good for you, one extra bowl will be okay."

Olives - I would eat jars of them, under the guise of "but they say olives are good for you!"

Salads - with a ton of cheese and doused in creamy ranch dressing.

Like Heather, I fell for "Fat Free" - I always chose Skittles or Starburst as the "best" choice from the vending machine.  HA!

i can totally relate on the cereal...my dad ate grape nuts every single day on his diet...turns out his body burns way more calories than mine, and he went off to work and didn't eat til after 3 every day..whereas i'd go off to school and eat normally, or MORE food because i was eating something that was helping my dad lose weight! plus, my bowls were HUGE, probably 2 cups worth, and i'd literally open the bag of sugar & pour it in. EEK.

I used to think eating an entire baguette with tomatoes, lettuce, and oil & vinegar dressing was a very healthy snack option.  an entire baguette.

i used to drink tons and tons of fruit juice, thinking it was basically the same as eating the fruit... oh, the amounts of sugar i used to ingest....

When my brother and I used to get our weekly (!) large Pizza Hut pizza (between two of us), my MOM used to think it was ok because "it's not too bad... there's bread, cheese, veggies... could be worse!" :|

The late 90's FAT FREE trend fooled me too. Nutrigrain bars are good for you because they're low fat, right? Except they have more calories and sugar than a chocolate bar! haha.

And I once drank a 1.5 litre jug of orange juice because it was "good for me". Same with massive quantities of cereal and skim milk. For me, portion control didn't exist until a few years ago.

ohh man i remember early on in high school thinking "fat free" meant i could eat as much of whatever it was as i wanted. guess what, soda is fat free! that won't make me gain weight! so is bread! better eat as much of that as i want!

i also remember going to the movies with friends, and getting a big bag of craisins as a snack, eating the whole thing thinking "they're fruit!" i probably could have had a whole box of rainsinettes and a slushy for that many calories!

guess that's why when i finally learned to eat in college i dropped 30 lbs and have kept it off since!

eek! i can totally relate to the fruit juice too!

and raisins & crasins...good god, i must have eaten a big bag of those every few days!

OH, and i totally brought one of those jumbo jars of peanut butter to school one day sophomore year. i ate it with a spoon. okay, so i only ate HALF, but YIKES!

"Diet Coke"

Tsk tsk.. =[

still guilty of that one

I used to think corn muffins were a healthy breakfast option.  Like the huge ones from dunkin donuts. 

And I thought peanut butter was so good for you that it was okay to eat a bowl of it.  I'm talking like at least 1/3 of a cup!  With granola mixed in!!! It's health food! 

Picking banana bread instead of a slice of toast. Picking a blue b erry muffin instead of a chocolate one. Picking thigs made of fruit like strawberry poptarts instead of chocolate ones. My boyf eats battered potato cakes and says they're a vegetable so they're healthy (despite being deep fried...)

AHH!

When I FIRST started worrying about weight loss, I would order the NON FAT pastries at Starbucks

Ohhh boy.. that was before I realized some of them have MORE calories than the regular pastries!

I used to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches everyday, but would use way too much peanut butter, not knowing it was so high calorie. I used to eat cereal and bananas a lot too, which are also high calorie. I used to drink probly 400 calories a day in juices, back when i didn't know what calories were.

Fried chicken breast with bone in and skin on, but it was the white meat without any fat or so I thought.....

I'm guilty on the raisin and juice front. I used eat tons and tons of raisins when I was a kid, and thought that I should drink as much juice as I could. I also used to think if you ate 5 of the same fruit that would count as 5 portions of fruit, where as it only actually counts as 1.

So many people I know still count potatoes as a portion of vegetables, so eat 5 portions of of potatoes saying its healthy!

Potatoes DO count as vegetables for the 5-9-a-day thing.  But that is POTATOES, roasted or baked or maybe even lower-cal mashed, not fries and chips.  And they are starches as far as the exchange system goes.  But yes, they are a vegetable, despite their bad rap!