Calorically Irresponsible

I call this blog, "Calorically Responsible" because for years, I wasn't. For years, I was calorically IR-responsible. If I thought back to the way I was eating up until a month or so ago, it's amazing my heart kept beating!
A typical day would be a big bowl of oatmeal with butter and brown sugar. I fooled myself into thinking that because it was oatmeal, it was good for me. And oatmeal IS good for you... just not in 2 cup portions, swimming in butter and sugar.
If I had my oatmeal at 8am, then by 10:30 or so, I was ready for a mid-morning snack. A snack would be either 2 top ramen packages, or maybe a couple hot dogs, wrapped in a couple tortillas with American cheese and mustard.
Let's see... how many calories are we up to for the day? Maybe 500 for the breakfast, and another 600 for my "snack"? But we've only just begun.
I leave for work around 1:00, so before I would leave for work, I'd have a little something. After all, I'm in my work vehicle all afternoon, and don't have time, usually, to break for a snack.
So before work, I'd have a sandwich. Peanut butter and jelly? How about 2? Let's make it healthy... let's say peanut butter and banana. Considering peanut butter is 190 calories for 2 tablespoons, and I would put probably 3 tablespoons on a sandwich, a banana is 100 calories, and the bread is another 200... There's another 600, give or take, for that little morsel.
Then I'd head to work. I have a little soft-side cooler bag I carry with me to work. In the summer, it's full of half-frozen water bottles, and very little food. I'm not happy eating when I'm hot. But wintertime... well, that's another story.
Sometime around 2pm, I'd start feeling hungry. So I'd reach in my bag and have a granola bar... 200 calories. Then around 3:00, maybe another snack... cookies? There's 300 calories. I always brought a diet soda and sometimes another sandwich... 500 more calories. At the end of my route, I'd have 2 cheese sticks. At 90 calories each, there's another 180 to add to the list.
Once home, I'd make dinner. We would usually start with a salad, with cheese, croutons, and lots of ranch dressing. Fried chicken, enchiladas, Rice-a-roni, burritos, Hamburger Helper, or pizza. If I had been to the store that week, I would have dinners ready to make up when I got home. If not, there would be nights we'd go out. Primo's All You Can Eat Pizza. Or the Sizzler for salad bar. That sounds healthy, but on that salad bar, there are chicken wings and nachos.
Let's say on an average evening, including a bowl of ice cream or slice of cake, I was eating nearly 1700-1800 at one sitting.
Add that to the day's totals...and you realize that I was eating over 4500 calories a day. Some days it would be less, some days it would be more. There is no doubt in my mind why I gained over 50 lbs in the last 3 years.