> i don't know how american culture got to this point.

Time. People don't think they have time to cook, and they may not. They also don't know how to reclaim their time for themselves from various work and social obligations.

Advertisement. Starting with TV dinners in the 60s (?) and fast food restaurants (also 60s), we have "cheap" and quick ways to get meals that don't require a great deal of personal effort, and it's shown to us constantly on television.

EDIT: Words. I can use the right ones sometimes.

This is a constantly perpetuated myth. It is the image that advertisers sell us. If it's something Americans have it's time. Do you know how many hours of TV is watched every day, on average?

Up until about a month ago, that was me. I literally never turned on my oven for weeks on end. My stove was primarily used for boiling the Cup-O-Noodle water. I got fast food (or slow-but-still-bad food) for ~ 90% of my meals.

I also have a belly that needs to go, so I decided to start counting calories and staying completely out of the drive-thrus. This has been a real eye-opener! By best estimate is that my former diet was probably about 3,000 C a day. Now that I'm watching what I eat, I'm easily running at 1,800 and not feeling hungry.

if you haven't already, get a cast iron pan. get it nice and hot, throw a chicken leg and some vegetables or fruit (cauliflower, brussels sprouts, tomatoes, potatoes, whatever) in there, season and sear, and then throw it in the oven for 30 mins @ 350 and eat. make yourself an adult beverage, or not, while you wait.

prep and cleanup is literally 2 or 3 minutes. you don't even have to wash cast iron, you just wipe it off. ~500 calories even if you douse everything in olive oil, and filling.

i do this like 3 or 4 nights a week. it's SO much better than a sad sack of takeout.

Thanks. I'll try that. Chicken and I have become real close friends recently. My usual dinner is some sort of seasoned chicken breast with vegetables and sometimes rice, maybe with bread crumbs if I have the caloric budget for it. I thought it would take a lot of willpower to have "only" that for dinner, but to my nice surprise, it only takes a teeny bit. (I still have thoughts about a nice juicy burger, but those thoughts are easily pushed aside).

The only fear I have now is that this is some sort of phase and that I'll slowly revert to my old ways in a few months. I've been eating like shit for my entire adult life (~20 years now), so I know I'm going to have to be vigilant for a while to make the new habits stick. On the other hand, I was genuinely ignorant to the amount of calories I was eating before. I had greatly underestimated it. Now that I know what 2,000 C really looks like, my perspective has changed. And that's something that is impossible to unlearn.

3k calories is exactly where i was before i started paying attention, and on my cheat days (i do sensible low-carb with periods of keto to get back on track when i regress a bit) that's exactly where i end up. i log everything i eat on MFP.

i think 3k is where most people in the US eat at. it's basically the pointless snacks and carby/sugary crap that make the difference between 2k and 3k. that extra 1k calories is easy to eat, and hard to cut.

quite honestly it's amazing i didn't weigh 300 pounds... a lot of people do weigh 300+. being overweight (and i still am over by about 15 lbs, slowly losing the rest) gave me a serious appreciation for the bad psychological state one must be in to really let it get that bad.

Are you me?

I'm the same way. I'm not hugely overweight (6'0", skinny frame, 188 lbs). I'm also using MFP to track this stuff, and I had the same appreciation about truly obese people the moment I saw how much I was really eating. I had that same, "wow, I should be much fatter than I am!" thought.

The only reason it has taken me this long to change is because my 20's body was able to handle whatever I threw at it. My 30's body now is not so capable.

yeah, i think a lot of people embark on this journey in their early 30's because things start to look bleak if you project your current behavior into the next decade.

it was basically the 'am i or am i not going to seriously be a lifelong fatass. like for real though.' point in my life. like you kind of know, if i let this slip a few more years, there's probably no going back.

i'm also doing weights with a trainer and that has drastically improved my general appearance, especially in my upper body/shoulders. simply losing weight would have produced a weak and skinnyfat version of myself.

I've noticed this with my friends as well. A frozen burrito is cooking to them.

When I have a friend house sit, he complains because I "don't have any real food [in the freezer]" despite cabinets full of pasta/rice, a freezer full of chicken, and dairy products and vegetables in the refrigerator.

I made apple/orange juice from concentrate and my gf of the time (we're late 20s) had never seen it done before (she had only bought bottles of juice).