Bread, "heart-healthy" margarine, pasta, fruit juice, yogurts with equal parts sugar and mlik. I never figured out why I got pasta headaches until I went gluten-free.

Wholewheat pita bread, hemp seeds, industrial amounts of cottage cheese,grapeseed oil for frying.

Excessive amounts of canned Red kidney beans, Butter beans, chickpeas, canned diced tomato, loads of olive oil :( Cooking with olive oil too.

Soy milk, Diet Coke, and whole wheat pasta in low-fat white sauce were staples of my "healthy" diet (and I had unlimited access to all three in our college cafeteria... ugh).

Whole grains and soy milk..... sigh

low-fat dairy (could never get myself to embrace the no-fat), skinless chicken breast, steamed veggies, cooking with vegetable oil instead of animal fats or butter, tofu and edamame, soy yogurt and soy ice cream.

you'd think that the fact i'd wake up in the middle of the night RAVENOUS and making concoctions of sweet potato and coconut milk would have given me a hint as to the fact that i was not eating enough for my activity level. interestingly, i remained at the high end of the "healthy" weight range.

Rice cakes and quinoa are on the top of my list. Never again.

Soy milk, almond milk, sprouted bread, organic peanut butter, sunflower oil...beans and legumes are debatable.

I started eating oatmeal because it was a healthy breakfast, even though I would nearly gag at the bland taste and horrible texture. I had to buy flavored types or add tons of fruit to be able to eat it. So glad I got over that one!

Yogurt. It's fine for some, but it messes up my stomach, yet I've tried repeatedly to consume it because it's "healthy" and good for my digestion (despite the stomach cramps??).

Total/Special K cereal. I used these to get all my daily vitamins. Of course, I couldn't stand either unless I sprinkled in sugar and added other things for flavor.

Beans. I don't like beans, but I always saw them as a way to up my vegetable count for the day. Now I'm happy to bypass them.

Whole grains. I've never been big on breads, but when whole-wheat pasta got popular I was all over that!

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with reduced fat cape cod potato chips and a glass or 2, or 3 of 1/2% milk.

Kashi cereals gluten free cereal canned soup corn because I thought it was a veggie Total and Wheaties cereal 100% Whole Wheat Bread Spaghetti imitation meat foods that are mostly made up of soy protein isolate and gluten (yikes!)

I could go on forever...

In my 20s when I was working and on my own for the first time, my most healthful dinenr was a giant bowl of angel hair pasta mixed with tomato sauce and cooked spinach - 3 things I would never touch right now. (I love tomato and spinach and don't dispute them being good vegetables, but both currently disagree with me a lot.) Since I cooked it with zero fat (because I wanted to be HEALTHY) I was never full and would keep refilling my bowl.

Weight Wathcher/Lean Cuisine frozen meals Anything by Kashi, Morningstar Farms, Boca 100 Calorie Snack Packs Beans and rice with everything Reduced Calorie/High Fiber Bread Anything with Light/Low Carb/Reduced in the name

Yikes!

I was actually tried low fat diets, I was a vegan for 5 months, and tried some other fads when I was seeing a reproductive endocrinologist to try to have a baby after they suggested I try to lose some weight....needless to say it didn't work. I didn't get pregnant, until I gave up and started eating what I wanted (which ultimately looks almost exactly like a paleo diet).

Spray butter, because it was "calorie free". I would drench my morning egg beaters and low carb/low calorie toast with that stuff.

Flaxseed oil. I'd read somewhere that it was soooo good for you. I would add 2 tablespoons of it to my smoothie each morning until I suddenly had a whopping great goitre popping out of my neck. Only then did I do more research and find out how goitrogenic it is. I cringe at the thought now, though it did start me on my quest to eventually find the paleo way of life.

SOY MILK. I thought it'd regulate my hormones, lol. Funny how it sprung out of my "cure things naturally" inclination, but "natural" isn't really the right word...

Canola oil (so glad to see that go, you don't even know. It made everything soggy and what I remember of the taste is pretty gross), beans and whole wheat bread too... Nothing really crazy, just the most common SHAD recommendations, and I so like my new version of "healthy" much better. At least it's actually do-able; "Healthy" used to be such a daunting, boring word that I didn't even adhere to it most of the time!

Tofu and Seitan. I even made them both from scratch, I liked them so much. I don't miss the Seitan, but I do miss miso soup with tofu.

Get this...used to think that snacking on JU-JUBES was a good idea, because they were fat free!

Costco size jar of Skippy's Extra Crunch and stack of rice crackers. Thought I was really doing myself a nutritional favor.

A mix that is made here in Brazil with 7 grains (whole barley, whole rye, whole oat, whole rice, wild rice, whole wheat, whole triticale) plus whole soy beans.

these. lol. as a bonus, you could microwave them in the package.

Roasted nuts, with salt. I didn't realize they were often done in canola oil.

There was a time where I salsa thought low fat yogurt sweetened with splenda was a healthy food.

Fat-free mayonnaise and fat-free cream cheese (aka "spackle"). Fake-meat products. Steel-cut oats (which to this day I still find appetizing, drowned in butter, brown sugar and cinnamon! But I daren't). Glue-y fat-free dressing on ginormous salads with whole-grain croutons and a can of cheap tuna. Soy milk/cheese/bacon/tofu/chips/snax. N-grain breads that, texturally, were made with crushed gravel and iron pellets. Heaps of slithery whole-wheat pasta doused with fat-free sugary sauces with a little bit of turkey sausage. Egg whites cooked in PAM. Heart-healthy canola oil. Pots of 12-bean soups made with fat-free industrial chicken broth and a fat-free turkey kielbasa for a little flavor.

And who can forget the SNACKWELLS! craze?

Surprised I made it this long...

EGG WHITES... never the yolk because of all the naughty cholestrol. I also used to trim the entire outside of the chicken breast off so I could be sure I trimmed off the fat, I would be left with this dry wimpy sliver of chicken, maybe 2 ounces and that was dinner!

Oh this sucks but oatmeal 3x a week for breakfast (with a side of eggs) for all of junior and most of senior year of high school.

Then again, I was desperate to gain as much muscle as possible. Epic fail.

ugh, LOADS of Kashi and oatmeal! nonfat yogurt. nonfat everything. i will never go back!! the horror!

As a vegetarian for 10 years, I ate and defended soy sausages, schnitzels, hot dogs and not-bacon. I would even try and force my meat eating family to have them, and couldn't understand why they wouldn't give up their real meat.

My junk food days:

• Sugary cereals
• Fast food crap... ugh, so much of it
• Soda
• Chips, a big bag at a time
• Candy bars
• Hostess cupcakes

My CW attempt at eating "healthy":

• Whole wheat pasta and bread
• Tofu, lots and lots of it
• Soy milk -- in, on, and with everything
• Canola oil for cooking and on salads
• "Veggies" were mostly corn, potatoes, and beans
• Big glasses of fruit juice
• I avoided eggs and bacon, because of cholesterol...
• Bran muffins for dessert
• Popcorn for snacking

Where I'm at now:

• No gluten in the house, period
• Healthy fats (EVOO, coconut, and flax)
• Sparse use of some GF grains and sprouted lentils
• Organic veggies & whole fruits
• Vit supplements (particularly B, C, and D)
• Better quality meats including wild game
• Reduced sugar intake, natural sweeteners only
• Some raw food recipes (mmm, Lemon Coconut Truffles)
• Adding in sea vegetables
• About 95% soy & corn free (damn, that stuff is hidden in everything)

Fortunately I've never cared much for artificial sweeteners (they all tasted awful to me) and I have always distrusted anything that said "fat free" when it was clearly MEANT to have fat in it, even before I knew why it deserves to be distrusted.

I seriously ate like crap for a long, long time. Although diet #2 probably looks healthy to most folks (outside the paleosphere) I felt just as crappy eating that stuff as I did when I was eating my way through the junk food aisle. It wasn't until I started down a primal eating path that I began feeling good, for the first time in 17 years.

Man, a big part of my gripe with the big health magazines out there is the fact that they peddle malnutrition as the means to a healthy life (though I was more concerned with the physique back when I referred to them as my one-stop-shop).

As a result, Men's Health, Men's Fitness & Muscle & Development had me on a steady diet of:

• oatmeal
• lean meats (mainly turkey)
• peanut butter (I would genuinely by this stuff by the kilogram, no exaggeration and consume ONLY THIS over the course of 2 days... now THAT was nuts)
• canned tuna
• cottage cheese
• whole wheat bread
• lentils, beans (I thank God I found paleo before 4HB - ugh)

I'm sure there were other goofy things, but those were the main one's which I reflect on and shake my head at periodically. Not to say that all of these are bad, just that I'd prefer a steak - fat and all - with some grilled squash, kale and avocado any day of week. I'm certainly much happier and human with the latter.