Giving up fast food is one of the best things you can do for your health. Before long you won't even be able to eat it at all because it will make you sick.
I'm curious, have you had trouble getting rid of your appetite? I know that whenever I try to cut down on foods with tons of saturated fats I feel hungry almost constantly.
It wasn't that frequent I think... let's look at the most recent transactions...
http://imgur.com/ZYKA3. Actually, never mind. That's absurd. Ugh. I was unemployed for some of that time, so I think I was self destructively eating gas station hot dogs. In the months before that I was eating too much fast food because I would sometimes buy it for lunch at work.
A month or two ago I started to weekly prepare awesome lunches and bring them to work (examples:
http://i.imgur.com/r3HHs.jpg). My workplace has free snacks, so I would supplement my healthy lunches with baggies of cheezits, chips, poptarts, and more processed crap.
I would also often supplement my main lunch with a warm side entree. Beans and rice, homemade squash tart, etc. It was more filling, but definitely added a lot more calories. But it didn't keep my away from the snacks. They were free! And right there! And so tasty!
So this week I decided to go cold turkey on work snacks (apart from string cheese. It isn't always in stock anyway), because for me that's easier than moderation. This week's lunch (middle and left picture; the evening before I would add the pineapple and avocado) was supplemented by one small container of yellow rice/peas/chorizo/onion that I made up, and if I was still hungry an hour after lunch, I would heat up half a cup of it. Turns out there was only one cup of it, so it's a good thing I only needed it twice!
It hasn't been that bad. Lot of my eating isn't because I'm hungry, but because food is there, and free (either free because I've cooked too much, or free because it's legitimately free). Another example of a change is from this Friday. There was a ton of free Papa John's at work. Which has practically 300 calories a slice after you add the super delicious garlic dipping sauce. Normally I would have at least three slices (that shit is NOT filling) in addition to my lunch. Instead this time I removed myself from the situation by going on a six mile bike ride (to run an errand) during lunch. I did end up treating myself to 3 Papa John's bbq wings, but since on Friday I biked about 20 miles and took a kettlebell class, I suppose I can afford it (I added them to MyFitnessPal afterwards... three wings is also practically 300 calories! Absurd. But wings are definitely a huge weakness for me).
I drink a ton of water anyway, so that probably helps with hunger. I'm also not completely avoiding fats; just cutting down on calories. In those pictures you'll notice that avocado is pretty prominent, and there's also some non-low-fat yogurt, and 4% fat cottage cheese. And feta cheese. So there's definitely a good amount of fat. I've realized there's too much dairy so this week's lunch is going to be a bit better in that respect. I'm pretty excited about it, actually. Ceaser salad with a tiny bit of chicken (I've got one breast cooked up to spread out for the week), cottage cheese and frozen blueberries (this will be the first time I've gone with non-fresh fruit) in the small container, and the medium container is going to be a mini whole wheat bagel, cream cheese, capers, tomato, and smoked salmon. Nom nom nom. Certainly not as cheap as a lunch of, say, just beans and rice, but I think the happiness, variety, and the fact that it's hopefully healthier are worth the money. I generally spend under $15 a week on lunch; last week it was $13. I don't know how much salmon costs, so even though I'm cheapening it up my salad it's probably still going to be much more expensive than usual; but hey, I'm saving $80 a month by bike commuting, I can spend a bit on fish.
