Is there anyone who just eats normally?

[Peanutss]

I can't believe the amount of threads where the OP claims to eat only a boiled spinach shake for breakfast, plain cous cous for dinner and a salmon fillet with veg for tea. With of course, only an apple as a snack in between.

Is there anyone like me who just has a bowl of cornflakes for breakfast, a meal deal for lunch and then whatever I can be arsed putting in the oven for tea? I'm beginning to wonder if I'm massively unhealthy in comparison to most or whether people are just making this up.

DonCorleoneTheThird my sandwich had salad on it?!

I'm not sure I know many women who eat without stressing or worrying about it in some way.

I know some very slim older women who have what I think of as a disordered way of thinking and talking about food and who I find it a bit uncomfortable to go out for dinner with - it's not fun....

I think what the op is saying is that the norm day to day for people in rl is cereal/toast/ fruit for breakfast, meal deal lunch, spagbol/stew/ fishcakes whatever for tea. I agree that's how most people I know eat.
They will have fruit but also chocolate biscuits. I only know 1 or 2 people in RL who restrict certain foods.
I personally don't think a sandwich is bad food (?!) and don't know what ds would eat for a snack if not a sandwich..besides, there's sandwiches and sandwiches. Plastic sliced bread and ham or homemade sourdough with hummus?
We eat a lot of stews here ( much to ds disgust) and stir fry because I like green vegetables but I cba obsessing over carbs or sugar in fruit.

This is what I mean, only on MN would a sandwich for lunch be met with absolute disgust.

I ate porridge and fruit for breakfast . For lunch I had a salad, a small amount of Stilton crumbed in, a large banana and a yogurt. For tea I'm having roast chicken with potatoes and veg.

That's normal, I think?

It always makes me laugh too.. yes, I aim to eat 'healthy' but actually, what we all need is everything in moderation (although I would very much like to have a really fast metabolism so I could eat what I want!).

Breakfast: Quorn sausages, beans and eggs
Dinner: Scrambled eggs on a bagel
Tea: Quorn chicken wraps and chips
Snacks: so far a banana and a tomato (just because I love them!) might have a bit of ice cream later

People who eat "normally" tend not to be obsessed with food and so don't feel the need to judge themselves or others. I think most people have a pretty good idea of what's healthy they just don't fuss about it.
I am 60 and weigh the same 10ish stones as I did at 20. I'm a size 12 and eat what I like.

Breakfast always cereal and coffee. (Unless I'm in a hotel them I'll eat the works )
Lunch a sandwich or soup or just bread and jam if I fancy it. Greek yoghurt.
Dinner anything from meat and veg to curry, pasta, chips. Ice cream. Fruit. Nothing is off the menu.
Evening tea and cake or wine and crisps. And chocolate.

The only "rule" I follow is to avoid anything low fat / sugar free/ labelled healthy or diet food and to eat loads of fruit and veg.

What really winds me up are people who talk about every morsel as good or bad and refer to themselves as being naughty.

Today I've had:

Breakfast: Porridge with sugar!
Lunch: Soup with three part-bake rolls, each with butter on!
Dinner: TBD
Dessert: A caramel bar or a kitkat chunky!

This sort of eating leads to me maintaining my weight (size 16/18 just now). Binge-eating, which I frequently do leads me to gain and then my good days where I stick to 1500 ish calories lead to a weight loss of 1-2lbs per week.

only on MN would a sandwich for lunch be met with absolute disgust.

only on MN would a sandwich for lunch be considered the "norm".
Some people cannot comprehend that others do not live the same way.

only on MN would a sandwich for lunch be met with absolute disgust

indeed, food fun sponges are incredibly dull

bad sandwich, bad sandwich

Food is lovely why use it as a method of punishment?
Yeah this x 100.
And this idea that you have to stuff "veg" into every meal whether it goes or not. Whether you want it or not.
I'm a trained chef, I grow vegetables fgs, but if I make eggs hollandaise it's not going to have kale in it. I might make a miso soup with dandelion greens and kale though. Food should be pleasurable not a source of anxiety.

I think it is a bit down to culture and generation...I work in a university and lots of my foreign colleagues bring in amazing cooked lunches (reheat in microwave) and most of us Brits have a sandwich or soup, crisps, and a bit of fruit. I basically still eat a similar lunch to the packed one i took to school and I also make for my daughter! With 2 young kids dinner is always quick and easy or something pre-prepared in the slow cooker, or a portion of something reheated from the freezer (I batch cook chilli, bolognese etc) We try to do a decent portion of veg with dinner but don't calorie count ...life is too short in my opinion.

Judging by the lunch selection in supermarkets and workplaces I've been employed in, sandwiches are a perfectly normal lunch food for the majority of the population. It certainly isn't an MN only thing. The U.K is far from being the only country that consumes them either, in one form or another. There's nothing wrong with wholemeal bread with some protein and salad in them, or with fruit or vegetables. I personally have little desire to prepare a full cooked meal for lunch most days.

Okay... in my experience working in large offices, a sandwich is up there with the top 5 usually seen lunches.

Miso soup is lush.

Still trying to contemplate a sandwich free existence, it looks woeful.

only on MN would a sandwich for lunch be considered the "norm".
really?
Go to any lunch serving establishment. Do all of them serve some kind of sandwich arrangement?
I'm thinking yes.

It's definitely down to obsessing and fuss. Good hint their eating habits aren't normal or healthy.

Such as diet threads where one poster declare something like Slimming World as being desperately bad (and admittedly it can be twisted about by a person on a SW to be unhealthy) but they then they go on to say only eating naturally occurring foods that start with the same letter as the day of the week is good for you.

Its tomatoes and turnip stew today

Yes I'd put my money on sandwiches in some form being the most popular lunch item sold in the majority of U.K cafes.

what you quote in your first post is normal for me, kind of.

I don't eat rubbish cos it makes me feel rubbish.

Porridge with almond milk and blueberries or two eggs.

Homemade soup or cold meat, tuna, sardines, eggs, etc (ONE OF) with salad for lunch, and a piece of fruit.

Dinner- chicken, fish, meat, loads of veg, steamed, Greek yoghurt.

One square of 70% dark choc.

If I eat normally it would be something like
B 2 crumpets
L sandwich with bag of crisps
D pasta and garlic bread
With couple snacks Inbetween

I'm sticking to 1200 calories a day Mon to Fri for the foreseeable though as need to lose a stone

Still not sure if you mean normal as in not disordered eating, or normal as in same type of foods as you eat OP.

I eat normally in the sense that don’t diet or overeat. But what I regard as normal diet may not be the same as others. I don’t eat ready meals, junk food, sandwiches, crisps or chocolate bars for example. So perhaps you wouldn’t regard that as ‘normal’?

Yes OP when I read the, what have you eaten today threads I think, wtf who eats some of these things! Am I the only one that has a bit of toast for breakfast every morning!

What's normal? Normal weight I guess.

I don't think I eat particularly normally.
I've always had to monitor everything I eat, and calculate the carbs, for my diabetes.

I cook healthy meals. I can still put away a frightening amount of crisps and chocolate though!

But I make sure ds's do. Both play football and do dodgeball and the gym. So they need constant food.

My favourite sandwiches and variants in no particular order:

cheese and pickle
pastrami/greens/tomato/gherkin (pref bagel)
banana
chicken mayo salad
boxing day sandwiches
pb and j
cheese on toast
ham/mustard/salad
BLT
ham and poached egg on toast
sardines on toast
scrambled eggs on toast
fish finger sandwich
crisps and cheese
cheesy beano
smoked salmon
banana and nutella
ham and tomato
pizza toast

OP, part of what I'm responding to is your comment that says if you ate tons of pizza and chocolate and drank loads of wine and maintained a healthy weight, you'd boast about it. I'm saying that's not the right way to look at things. Having an unhealthy diet and treating your body badly is not something to be proud of, and I'm speaking from experience here.

Some of these replies describe what I would call a standard, if not ideal, diet (e.g. porridge, sandwich, cottage pie). But eating loads of crisps and chocolate and pizza is just not good for you and I don't think it's something to be celebrated. We have huge levels of rising obesity in this country. The youngest generation may be the first to die at a younger age than their parents because of obesity-related illnesses. The tone of some of these comments just makes me really uncomfortable.