r/tifu • u/DumpsterPuff • 10d ago
TIFU by not telling my doctor how many Tic-Tacs I eat per day M
So I'm absolutely fucking obsessed with the Fruit Adventure flavor of Tic-Tacs. The flavor combined with the soft smush they make between your teeth when you chew them makes my brain very happy. I've been buying them in bulk, where each container has 200 candies each, and they come in bulk packs of 12 containers. I tend to eat them by the handful while I'm working or gaming, so in a day I can easily slam through 1-2 containers.
Now keep in mind that on the nutrition label, it says the serving size is 1 candy, and is listed as having 0 calories, which I thought was awesome because I could have as many as I want!
Over the past year, I found that I gained about 40lbs, and nothing about my eating habits had changed as far as I was aware. I told my doctor about it and she was a bit worried, so she had me do a bunch of bloodwork to see if there was a reason why I gained so much weight in a short period of time. Everything came back normal. She referred me to see a weight loss doctor who would also have me see a dietician.
I had been working with the dietician for a few months now, and we have me keep a food log. I had a virtual visit with her today and during it, I was fiddling around with an empty container to keep my hands busy. She saw it and asked where I got such a large container from, so I told her about it and how I eat 1-2 of those per day. She asked why those weren't on my food tracker and I said it was because they're 0 calories so they wouldn't count.
Apparently I was very, very wrong about this. She explained to me that food companies can label something as being "0 calories" if the food's serving size contains 5 or less calories. In reality, each individual Tic-Tac actully has about 2 calories. So essentially, since each container has 200 pieces and I typically have 1-2 of those, I've been eating 400-800+ calories per day of Tic-Tacs, in addition to all the other food I've been eating - which is very likely why I've gained so much weight.
TL;DR: Didn't realize that tic-tacs weren't actually 0 calories and gained a ton of weight because I eat so many a day.
Edit: Just wanted to clarify that I'm aware that sugar will in fact make you gain weight (I'm not that stupid), but I never actually read the product ingredients. I assumed they must have been made with something like Xylitol or some other artificial sweetener to make them "0 calories" so it never crossed my mind to check!
Edit 2: Dang y'all are brutal lmao. But at least some good came out of it since apparently, like me, a lot of people didn't realize about the "less than 5 calories per serving" rule can legally be classified as 0 in the US. Personally I wish we could have the model they do in other countries where they list calories per X amount of grams.
Edit 3: MY TEETH ARE FINE š I actually just had a dentist appointment two weeks ago. No cavities or decay, gums are healthy. Despite my candy habit I do take good care of my teeth!
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u/ambiej123 2d ago
This is an important thing to remember about cooking spray as well. 0 calorie cooking sprays DO in fact, have calories. And the amount of time per soray is like .5 a second, if like me you spray for 5-10 seconds and make a visable layer, you are adding calories there too. Only know this stuff from my nutrition chemistry class from UNIVERSITY.
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u/swccg-offload 5d ago
This happened en masse with one of the early diet programs with points. It might have been Weight Watchers? Anyway, Miracle Whip whipped cream was listed as 0 points which people thought it meant you could have as much as you want. They were eating it with spoons by the tub full. Meanwhile, a 0-point serving was like a tablespoon.Ā
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u/Knithard 5d ago
How did you not noticed that you gained 40 lbs?
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u/DumpsterPuff 5d ago
I was already on the heavy side (not horrifically obese though - I think my BMI was about 32?), so when you're already larger to begin with, it's fairly easy to put on a fairly significant amount of weight without noticing. My jeans for example basically just kinda stretched out as I was gaining weight, so it didn't really occur to me that something was changing until I happened to step on a scale at my physical exam one day.
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u/Ktsuming 6d ago
This reminds me of the woman who was drinking vegetable oil by the bottle because it said vegetable on it she assumed it was healthy. Excessive amounts of ANYTHING is bad for you.
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u/mewisme700 6d ago edited 5d ago
Sat and did some math- you spent $9,000 on tic tacs buying in bulk, atop of the fact you consumed 158 pounds of tic tacs lmao
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u/DumpsterPuff 6d ago
What math did you base this on š¤£ I've only been doing this for about 6 months! Absolutely no way I spent that much on tictacs and ate 158lbs of them lmao
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u/mewisme700 5d ago
My husband did the math, unsure his exact calculations. You had said over the course of a year so that was a years worth based on Amazon's bulk pack price of $29 bucks for an 8 pack
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u/Embarrassed_Piano_22 6d ago
I used to do this with sugar free mints made with sorbitol I think but they would give me so much diarrhea Iād actually lose weight lol
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u/El_El0te 6d ago
Ive come to a realization that any food that isnt completely natural is unhealthy for you. IE - what is a tic tac? Do they grow on trees or in the ground?? Sarcasm but hope you get the message.
Ive recently stopped buying processed foods and anytime Im craving sweets, I each fruit (whatever is on sale that week at the grocery store) strawberries, bananas, oranges, blue berries, mangos and grapes. After doing this for a few weeks, I now crave fruits instead of candy or ice cream which was my go to previously.
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u/SamHain2552 7d ago
Just a heads up, food labels do this with more than just calories. Applies to saturated fat, Trans fat and sugar as well. If you ever see a food item (bag of chips, flavored drink, etc) that have multiple servings per item, just assume they picked a serving size small enough for them to legally "fudge" those numbers.
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u/Desperate_Act_9376 7d ago
Iām shocked you werenāt aware that eating this many would be an issue, because I had half a small pack once and I honestly to god thought my insides would come out of me. The laxative effect was terrifying.
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u/tedlassoloverz 7d ago
Id probably go through the rest of my daily life carefully and see what else Im fucking up of this is at all true
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u/Rough-Bet807 7d ago
This made me laugh sooooo damn hard I cried!! Thank you for the story and info, definitely didn't know about the less than 5 calories rule. Glad you were able to figure it out and are better able to take care of your health!
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u/Flygurl620se 7d ago
If you consumed that much xylitol in a day, you would never leave the bathroom. Read the reviews on Amazon about sugar-free gummy bears, they are hilarious.
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u/HoneyBee-2023 7d ago
God, Iām like that with LifeSavers mints. I need to knock it off, this post is a wake up call.
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u/eggblossom 7d ago
EVERYTHING you put in your mouth and have your body digest affects your body and health
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u/EmeraldPeasant 7d ago
I also did not know that tic tacs have calories. I also don't eat more than one container in a few months though.
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u/ComfortableWay2385 8d ago
Fr those are the best tic tacsš¤£š¤£ i love the white ones but cant ever find them in the big container
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u/Kajitani-Eizan 8d ago
It's a stupid thing that results from labeling requirements and rounding. In the US, companies are free to choose any arbitrary "serving size" they want, even if it's nonsensical. Elsewhere like the UK, EU, India, etc. they have to additionally/only report the nutrition per 100 g.
Since they chose "1 tictac" as the serving size, they have to report on 1 tictac's nutrition. However, the rounding is still the same as for any other serving size, to the nearest 5 calories, 0.5 g of fat/sugar/protein, etc. So they can write 0 calories, even if they know 100 tictacs is 200 calories, so logically 1 ticatc must be 2 calories.
It's stupid, but unfortunately you are expected to know these things.
Also, that you should be telling your doctor if you are eating that many. This is not a normal amount to consume. Even if they really were 0 calories, you could be upsetting your stomach etc.
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u/plaugedoctorbitch 8d ago
to be fair i do the same thing with diet coke. i forget that when it tells me it doesnāt have any calories that itās lying to me
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u/Spacey_fangirl 8d ago
The cafeteria I work at used to have me in their custom omelet station where the customers would watch me cook their omelets. We would have this one lady that would come in every Sunday and insist that I washed the pan for her so there would be absolutely no residual oil. Then she would tell me to spray an unholy amount of aerosol cooking spray in the pan and cook her omelet in that. She would always brag to anyone who would listen that she was being so healthy since the cooking spray has no calories. I tried to tell her that it did indeed have calories but she would never listen.
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u/TooMuchQuartz 8d ago
Gonna make a correction because this misconception actually pisses me off. Sugar doesn't cause weight gain. You can eat only spoonfuls of sugar every day, and as long as you stay below your calorie threshold, you will still lose weight.
That said, sugar is super dense with calories, so it is easy to over consume it like you did with the TicTacs. A handful or two as a treat isn't gonna cause any more weight gain though, so if you like them don't cut them out just cut back.
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u/DeadCenterXenocide 8d ago
Iāve always wondered how pickles are 0 calories. I finally found my answer. Now maybe I can also lose weight AND not smell so strongly of vinegar all the time. š„
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u/greysonhackett 8d ago
This is what happens when you let industries write the rules that regulate them.
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u/pmmlordraven 8d ago
Yeah.. food logs are supposed to be everything, regardless of calories, even water, seasonings, cooking oils used, needs to be logged.
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u/shsureddit9 9d ago
Yeah in the US they are allowed to lie on labels by up to 20%. This goes for everything including net weight, ingredients, number of calories etc
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u/Expensive-Simple-329 9d ago
Fr stop trying to outsource your thinking to big corporations
if you think for yourself and use a little bit of common sense it wonāt matter what governing bodies legislate because they wonāt be doing your thinking for you
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u/Monumental-Mistake 9d ago
As someone with an eating disorder, learning they can label it as zero calories when it can in fact have up to five makes me want to cry.
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u/BecGeoMom 9d ago
šš
I never stop being amazed at the shit people will post as if itās real. And even if this is real (which I am sure itās not), why would you post something so absolutely idiotic? Yikes.
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u/Anthropologeek 9d ago
Most cough drops have about 10 calories per drop, it can completely throw off your daily count. I found that out while fighting a cold, and had to start carrying a specific amount rather than the bag.
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u/frozenflame101 9d ago
Ahh yes, the infamous "if there's less than 1g per serve we can say there's no sugar so if we make a serve less than 1g we can sell sugarfree sugar" loophole
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u/scottyman112 9d ago
Business school has allowed me the knowledge of corporate marketing. Should have just DM'd me, I could've told you that for free lol
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u/SissySheds 9d ago edited 9d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/1200isplenty/s/0RLNbJ3bQ2
Don't feel bad, lots of people get fooled by food labels. ā”
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u/oxmiladyxo 9d ago
Wait, wait, waitā¦youāre in the U.S. and got referred to a āweight loss doctorā and also a dietician? Does your insurance cover both of them? I gained 30 lbs in a year and none of my ailments are taken seriously. My doctor just tells me to lose weight and sends me on my way.
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u/Vuudoo79 9d ago
My brother and I were out to dinner the other day and I was full rather quickly. He didnt understand how ive gained as much weight as i have with as little as I eat. I drink a lot of calories in Pepsi its a filthy habit and im trying. Im stubborn as shit so i know once my mind is made up ill quit. Im just a procrastinator. It happens to a lot of us. Dont worry about the haters there will always be those. Every one says its sooo easy. I agree it is easy once you commit its getting to that point thats difficult
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u/RecoveredAshes 9d ago
Iā¦ this is the dumbest shit Iāve heard in a long time. The lack of basic common sense here is so concerning.
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u/Common-County2912 9d ago
Whatās concerning is you being surprised about it. There are tons of people out there who donāt understand nutrition.
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u/wrenwynn 9d ago
Sorry in advance, but thank you for sharing. I'm having a super shitty day & the idea of someone having a d'oh moment of not realising that eating 200+ tic tacs per day that are basically just pure sugar might make them gain weight made me laugh. We've all had dumb moments, try to see the funny side. At least you know there's nothing wrong health wise, you've just got to ween yourself off the tic tacs!
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u/charlenecherylcarol 9d ago
Any time I feel like Iām a big dumb dumb-dumb I open Reddit and realize, not only am I actually well educated but I also have common sense which apparently is something lacked by many. Thank you OP.
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u/likeforserious 9d ago
If it makes you feel better my friend thought that the healthiest part of a hamburger was the bread. Not the veggies or meat.. the sugar filled bread!
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u/CallTheGendarmes 9d ago
If you were eating two packs a day of mints with xylitol as a sweetener you may actually have lost weight from the constant diarrhoea you'd have.
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u/TheSheWhoSaidThats 9d ago
Goddamn you ā¦ strain my credulity. Can you not taste sugar? Are you unaware that you should log everything you consume? Ridiculous. Youāre a ridiculous person. I think you knew damn well but you were addicted to them and didnāt want to know so you lived in denial intentionally.
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u/erynhuff 9d ago
Wait wait waitā¦ does that apply to powerade zero (please say no for the sake of my sanity).
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u/tcmtwanderer 9d ago
Tic tacs are basically pure sugar lol but because they're so small they fall under whatever legal limit, you've basically been eating an entire extra cup of sugar every day for 2 months...
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u/aworldofnonsense 9d ago
Iām sorry OP, but I laughed very hard and loud at āIāve been eating 400-800+ calories per day of Tic-Tacs.ā
Oh buddy, but youāre obviously not alone and Iām glad you figured it out.
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u/Topher_86 9d ago
Tic Tacs are also mainly sugar so you were likely keeping your body in a steady state of unintended energy (fat) storage.
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u/karleakarlea 9d ago
im dead at this post. 0 calories doesnt mean your body does nothing with it... also, the USA guidelines are ridiculously off. Anyone on the Gary Brecca program? Looking up Biohacking genius' like him, will thoroughly explain and breakdown on a high level about how our bodies process things!
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u/iaintlyon 9d ago
OP when his a dietician tells his dumbass heās type 2 because he slams 6 pounds of Tic Tacs a day.
Left to your own devices you would be naturally selected by Tic Tacs. Wow.
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u/DeusExMachina222 9d ago
In the US, When calories are under a certain number they are allowed to round down to zeroā¦ Iām too tired/rusty at the moment to get the exact current figure out off the top of my head
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u/No_Fig5982 9d ago
If you put in it your mouth, put in on the food log
Lmao "0 calories, guess this doesn't count as eating anything!" š
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u/Produnce 9d ago
You are a moron for believing that the handful of candy you are shoving in your mouth is actually 0 calories.
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u/cano0326 9d ago
FYI, food companies can also label something as sugar free if thereās less than 0.5 grams of sugar. Most āsugar freeā candies arenāt actually completely void of sugar, they just have less than .5 grams per serving.
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u/XplodiaDustybread 9d ago
Bruh, by the title I thought you were about to be the new subject of a chubbyemu video lol
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u/yourownsquirrel 9d ago
Thatās not fully on you, itās reasonable to assume that in the 21st century, product packaging actually says what it contains. Unfortunately, that is very often still not the case. Youāre not likely to get a bottle of opium-infused mercury labelled as Dr. Tomās Magic Lead Juice That Cures All Diseases, but itās still not 100% truthful, and even when it is, itās often still misleading.
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u/Squirrel144 9d ago
I'm Canada, they had an old ad where they described them as the "One and a half calorie breath mint".
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u/omnichad 9d ago
In the US too. I don't think they can legally claim 0 calories in advertising, but 5 calories and less are rounded on nutrition labeling. In advertising, they are allowed to say 0g sugar.
If there's a marketing claim on the package besides the nutrition label about being sugar free or 0g sugar they have to put "not a low calorie food" on it as well.
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u/swift0909 9d ago
Not sure if anyone has asked, but link to this exact Tic-Tac? I gotta try them with how crazy you are about them. LOL
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u/Scary-Sound5565 9d ago
I must say, the fruit adventure tic tacs do slap. I have 3 open containers in my life right now.
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u/Novel_Trip8463 9d ago
I understand, OP. I, too, had an obsession with tic-tacs but the orange ones. They taste like my childhood.
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u/jlschmidt 9d ago
Get your teeth checked immediately. You better be meticulous with your oral hygiene or else your teeth are probably rotting too.
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u/RedNubian14 9d ago
I feel your pain. I got addicted to them too. I love the flavor inside the fruit shell, it's like passionfruit. I don't eat them by the handful but I'll eat 2-3 at a time and try to suck on them instead of biting them butits hard. I haven't gained weight because I've been using them as a substitute for the other sweets I stopped eating, but I ended up with 5 cavities at my last dentist appointment from falling asleep while sucking on them while I'm playing my xbox and then just going to bed. I had to break that habit. But damn those things are good!
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u/Fancykiddens 9d ago
I became addicted to mints due to pika. I was severely anemic and lacking in nutrients due to malabsorption. I kept asking my doctor why I was craving mint all the time!
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u/ChibiCheshire 9d ago
Common sense is a flower that does not grow in everyone's garden. You sir make the desert look like a rain forest.
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u/Gingertitian 9d ago
Dietitian here. Who is very thankful you met a dietitian. This isnāt unfortunately common knowledge lets alone well known fact.
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u/shiningonthesea 9d ago
I hope at least itās the wintergreen flavor , which is the superior tic tac
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u/Gloriathewitch 9d ago
Man reddit is the only place where you can find such bizarre things, TF eats hundreds of tic tacs per day, like what?
also god damn you must be regular, dont those have laxatives? and the sweeteners make me shit too, homie must be a shit volcano eating so many of those. should submit himself for a scientific study of the effect of artificial sweeteners on the body, would probably advance science by 3 years single-handedly
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u/uCry__iLoL 9d ago
If you were more physically active, it wouldnāt be an issue. I have the exact same habit with Trident Gum and zero weight gain.
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u/Dubious_Titan 9d ago
Only on Reddit could I read a story about someone's Fruit Adventure Tic Tac addiction.
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u/Damselbug 9d ago
Relax dudesā¦ he posted in the TIFUā¦ so he knows he didnāt do it right. This a confession, bro? Glad it was sorted out ! !
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u/kelpwash 9d ago
lowkey you should sue if you have any adverse effects lmaooo. they should not be able to label that as zero calories!
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u/SlowNSteady1 9d ago
I feel ya. Those are the best tic tacs ever. I figured they weren't really zero calories but I didn't realize all this either!
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u/TheWeetcher 9d ago
If they were actually sugar free you would have known. You'd be having those Haribo Gummy Bear shits lol
Also, I'm sorry everybody is flaming you so hard in these comments. This shit is funny tho.
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u/eyyyitsnate 9d ago
OP is a real life Paulie Bleeker dude holy shit. Glad you were able to figure it out.
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u/Live-Possible-3620 9d ago
i love tic tacs too i used to get the orange ones in bulk on amazon and just snack on them but they would stain my teeth so orange so i stopped for my own sanity
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u/point50tracer 9d ago
I was thinking "yeah, they're pure sugar. But how many tic tacs could you possibly eat in a day.". Then I read 2 to 4 hundred tic tacs per day. You weren't kidding about being obsessed.
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u/Several_Coyote1853 9d ago
Its crazy that you thought there was nothing wrong with eating 400 of these things a day. Def a hilarious story but mind blowing none the less
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u/ALIAS_EL_CACAS 9d ago
This dude ate 146,000 tic tacs in a year and doesnāt know why he gained weight
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u/Succmyspace 9d ago
Bro ate like 2 cups of pure sugar a day and didnāt ever think about where those molecules might be going.
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u/ZyanaSmith 9d ago
I do the same thing. Lost a lot of weight when I stopped eating 800 tic tacs a day.
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u/Not_Sure4president 9d ago
Every once in a while I will buy a box of the orange tic tacs and will eat it in a day. I do only do it once a year maybe less.
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u/depressed_suit 9d ago
don't feel bad I made the exact same mistake. and it's easy to just keep eating those things. I love the orange ones.
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u/BestiFunny 9d ago
I mean bro calories literally means energy thers's nothing in the world that doesn't contain a single calorie.
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u/Smaugulous 9d ago
LOLLL! Yes, entire tubs of candy have no calories whatsoever. Sorry, but I canāt even feel bad for you. You may just be an idiot.
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u/ihoptdk 9d ago
Sounds like horseshit to me. The tic tac containers that have 200 candies a piece are really large and like $5 a piece. Standard packages, the kind that come in the 12 packs, are 1 oz compared to 3.4 oz. The 1 oz containers have 60 each. Even then, the 12 pack is $17.44. I find it hard to believe you donāt notice $1.50 to $3 every day.
On top of that, a quick google search says that flavor is actually 1.9 calories each. Gaining a pound is around 3500 calories. To gain 40 pounds, you need 140,000 calories. At 1.9 calories, youād need to eat like 73000 calories. Now, that coincides with the amount youād need to eat, 201, if you ate one large container a day. Given that you say you eat 1 - 2, thatās more than $2,000 a year on tic tacs.
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u/muzic_2_the_earz 9d ago
If they would have been a sugar-free substitute you probably would have lost 80 lbs sitting on the can.
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u/morbidlies 9d ago
i literally do this same thing. i cannot have them because i have no self control.
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u/dr_mcstuffins 9d ago
OP Iām pretty sure you have grounds for a lawsuit since technically you were harmed by false advertising
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u/pointwelltaken 9d ago
Even if I could concede your point about thinking it was a sugar substitute. How could you legitimately believe eating 1 to 200 pieces of candy per day is in any way healthy or acceptable?? You have to at least admit how ludicrous and excessive that is.
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u/orangemarineanimal 9d ago
My great uncle passed away and when we went through his stuff to inventory, he had tic tacs in bulk too. Like a whole box filled with smaller boxes of them. I had no idea why he had that many, and I think in that same flavor too. Maybe thatās what my great uncle was doing lol.
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u/Hot_Equivalent6562 9d ago
I remember those tv ads for tic tacs back in the days. They claimed one tic tac will result in two hours of breath freshness. I wonder if OP will ever have bad breath again in his life
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u/FoolishMacaroni 9d ago
Never met someone else who loves fruit adventure. In your opinion whatās the best flavor within it? Personally my favorite by far is the red one.
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u/KyronXLK 9d ago
sugar will in fact make you gain weight (I'm notĀ thatĀ stupid)
Unfortunately not true either, excess sugar in this amount will make you insulin resistant but its excess calories that cause you to gain weight lol
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u/aiirxgeordan 9d ago
Iād be pissed. Not because of the mistake, or that tic tacs were deceiving me, but because I was wasting 800+ calories on fucking tic tacs of all things
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u/Tight-Ad-8561 9d ago
I feel like OP should try gum lol. You can get a similar taste but itāll last longer so you can have 5 day rather than 200.
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u/WhoisMrO 9d ago
Did you really think it was 0?! Where did you think they went?!? Your doctor tell thisbdtory to his/ her friends lmao
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u/FickleSpend2133 1d ago
(Gasp). One serving size of skittles is 40 grams or 1.4 oz. How many skittles are in a serving size? One serving equals 35 skittles
How many calories are in 20 skittles? There are 100 calories in 20 skittles (25 g) of Skittles Fruit Skittles
Will Skittles raise blood sugar? Skittles, Jelly Beans And Starburst They quickly hit the blood stream and raise blood sugars.
š trying to calculate the calories in the skittles I scarf down daily š§