I don’t eat breakfast, though I do have coffee sometimes(decaf usually, sometimes regular). The coffee is black always. The soup is like 200 calories or less, I think. Yes, it fills me up adequately.
It’s my biggest meal, for sure. I have no idea how many calories it is, but big. I only have a 20 minutes lunch, by the way. That may help explain the soup situation. Dinner is my favorite meal by far and I pretty much always have two servings of what we’re eating.
I ain’t looking it up calorie wise right now, but a typical dinner for me would be half a Bertolli or Contessa meal with a small salad or half a can of vegetables or a patato on the side. Not exactly a giant pile of food by anyones measure.
This is why a get a bit peeved when people give me the “you are just lucky and don’t have a weight problem”. Uhhhh thats because even my BIG meal is probably less than your big meal and my other two meals are almost snacks compared to what your other two meals are.
LOL, there’s a bit of difference between black coffee and a can of soup for breakfast and lunch and “half a pig” and “half a cow” for those meals, respectively. But I getcha. 
Yeah, you don’t sound like you eat much.
I f-ing plateaued weight loss for three f-ing weeks on 600-800 measured calories per day. And I weigh over 200 pounds. I know those calorie calculators say I need more than that to maintain, but apparently my ass didn’t get the memo. Just shoot me.
Eventually, my body realized that I wasn’t giving up this time and I started losing again. Didn’t change a thing, just won the battle of the wills with my cellulite. Down 33 pounds since May 1st. Yay, me! But I do only eat one meal a day (dinner with the family), about the equivalent of a frozen meal and a half, and I get another 115 calories throughout the day from fiber supplements. A whole can of soup at lunchtime would have me feeling uncomfortably bloated today.
Not diet soups have about 250-400 calories a can (120-200 calories per “serving”), depending on the variety. That’s a pretty reasonable lunch for most women even of average weight. Diet soups weigh in around 120 calories a can, but they’re mostly salty water. 60 calories or less per serving gets you a Weight Watchers 0 Points seal.
I’ve never been able to enjoy canned soups, far too much salt. I love soup.
I agree. I usually have one or two cans of soup on hand for those rare occasions when none of my homemade soup is in the freezer. I also keep a couple of boxes of chicken stock because I can use it to make a very quick soup. But I find them awefully salty now that I’ve changed my diet. Making my own stock is easy because I can do it in the crock pot when I’m away at work. Once I’ve got stock, I just add a few more ingredients and viola, chicken soup! Or potato soup. Or chicken chili. Or a whole lotta nummy warm foods.
Never understood people saying fast food is mediocre. McDonald’s burgers or fries, sure. Anything else, not really. Sure, you get tired of fast food if you eat it too much, but it’s not mediocre. One of my largest laments of the gluten free diet my doctor put me on was how much fast food I had to give up. And then I started to discover that all my homemade food tasted somewhat the same.
I’ve gone this whole year without either eating FF or eating a beef hamburger (I kinda cheated and had a bison burger). Mostly to see if I could do it, but also because I was eating way too much of it. Too many quick hamburger trips or trips to Taco Bell.
Can’t says as I’ve missed it that much. Although I would like a sausage Mcmuffin every once in a while.
My most recent experience at Taco Bell made me swear them off forever. Kind of a bummer when it is one of the few places where I can get a mostly gluten-free meal.
I was also shocked the last time I had an egg McMuffin (in a pinch, I will eat gluten). It wasn’t nearly as good as I remembered. I make better at home with gluten-free bread.
Not eating fast food is a serious challenge but it can be met. Especially with all the available fruit and nut bars and yogurts that can be bought at convenience stores around most of the country. Not everywhere though, Florida convenience stores are sorely lacking in real food choices IMO.
Not as much as you might think. Even their “corn” tortillas have gluten in them. Seriously. The only gluten free options are Nachos or Cheesy Nachos (but not Nachos Bell Grande or Volcano Nachos), Cilantro Rice (limited availability), Mexican Rice and Pintos and Cheese. http://www.tacobell.com/nutrition/allergens
In my books it is.
<pulls out the budget spreadsheet>
We budget 718 dollars a month for food. Included in that:
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Snacks
Toiletries/Cleaning products
So, there are four of us (granted, two are kids but they actually eat more than we do). We usually eat out two meals a week.
718 / (4 people x (3 meals a day x 30 days in a month - 10 eating out))= 2.25 a meal
And that’s if we don’t take out the money spent on snacks and cleaning stuff.
Also note that we have been under budget for the last two years.
I know they have gluten in them. But it is less gluten than a breaded item or sandwich so I would occasionally give in to them. I dislike the cheese sauce they use on their nachos so I generally end up with pintos and cheese and rice. But, given the horrible glop they called pintos and cheese the last time I went there, I don’t go there any more at all.
We moved 15 miles out of town 15 years ago. I lost 35 lbs. No more pizza, no more fast food. Life was good. We now live in a town with no fast food places and don’t miss them.
Once you stop eating a ton of grease, sugar,salt and artificial flavoring, you break the addiction. I can’t drink a whole can of coke anymore or eat a bag of Doritos. Just tastes nasty.
Disagree STRONGLY. I stopped eating that stuff. Now, in the rare times I DO indulge…simply heavenly. 
So I don’t know what families do, but for me, one person who doesn’t eat a ton and doesn’t buy fake food, which – despite what some people will insist upon – costs a fuck of a lot more than real food, I don’t spend much on groceries monthly. Seriously, something like $50/month. So while $5 isn’t much, and $5 for lunch also isn’t much, $5/day for lunch adds up, and lunch alone becomes 3x more costly for the month than I pay for all groceries.
But anyway…
Ha! I gave up fast food a few years back, and my shits have been awesome. I will occasionally venture back that way when it’s the best food option, but in those cases, I can guarantee that my shits will be all messed up. Recent example: I was in a shitty hotel in the sticks of Alabama, and the only things around were fast food joints. Got some Burger King, wasn’t awful, but my bowels were very angry. Hey, this isn’t TMI. We’re all friends here.
You need to get better at cooking then, because you suck at it.