thoughts/experience/research on occasional junk food

hello!

background: i've been skinny-ish my whole life (i'm 28 now), but by dabbling in GST within the past 5 years, with varying levels of consistency and quality work, i've been able to put on some muscle and strength with little fat, resulting in a lean, defined, but not terribly muscular physique, but feeling healthy and not terribly weak. during this time, my diet has probably been 85-90% fruit/veggies/meat/whole foods, with the remaining 10% being "junk food" - pizza, candy, cookies, ice cream, fried chicken, you name it. i certainly find junk food tasty, but have had enough discipline, and experience knowing how good it feels, to eat properly most of the time..the occasional periods where i ate sufficient junky stuff, i did lose definition and strength, and got some roundness in my belly, but nothing really all over my body, and would be quickly reversed back to my leaner state when i went back to eating well. 

so my question: does anyone have thoughts/experience/research on how having junk food occasionally, versus never, affects athletic performance (GST specifically, of course) and long-term health? given my situation, i can certainly "get by" by eating junk food here and there, and have always been able to calibrate how i feel and look, at least body fat-wise, by eating appropriately as needed. but i've always been curious if it's worth it to cut out the junk food completely. if i knew for sure that cutting out junk food completely would make a significant difference, i would do it, but with my current knowledge, i'm not aware of that being the case, especially considering that i remember coach sommer saying in one of the podcasts that it's not uncommon for elite athletes to have terrible diets (maybe irrelevant since i'm not an elite athlete). i guess i'd feel silly and annoyed by cutting out junk food completely if it didn't give any significant benefit (besides the exercise in self-discipline)

p.s. and i understand that given my situation, i might be dealing with minutiae until i build consistency in my training, i.e. that decent diet and consistent and quality training is more important than perfect/near-perfect diet with haphazard training. but i do ask the question because i have had more consistency in GST recently than before, so i am also considering my diet more as well.

thanks!

depends on what you mean by "occasionally," but I highly doubt cutting out the seemingly small amount of calories you derive from "junk" food is going to change anything at all.

You'll be fine. 

Junk food is usually the highest in calories. I was also very skinny few years ago, and I was eating as much junk food as I am right now. The main difference i did to gain weight was adding more carbs with every meal. I guess when you ingest 500+ carbs a day you are very likely going to be in a caloric surplus, and if you are training properly you will gain weight, mostly fat and some muscle.

The most carbs i ate came through whole foods. The reason why I jumped into this is because of the importance of the energy. You will feel much more alive and energized by eating whole foods. Carbs play the key role for the energy, especially the complex carbs, such ass oats, yams,sweet potato, etc. Junk food is mostly made out of simple carbs which give you a short lasting energy and they make you feel full because they are caloric.

However, as Sean said above the bigger the amount of junk food the bigger the difference. My advice for you is to eat as much clean as possible for the best results, of course from to time give your body a break and eat that cookie.

Caveat: I haven't attempted to seriously focus on nutrition until the last 6 months or so; I'm now 36. I don't have particularly impressive barbell lifts or GST levels; I am not an "elite" athlete. I'm more athletic than 99% of the people in my office ... but I'm just "a normal guy."

That aside ... I'm of the opinion now that Calories are the #1 influencing factor, with macronutrient ratios being second. This seems to be true in my last 4.5 months of focused nutrition (my focus has been weight loss without strength loss). I have a hunch that if you did track, you'd find that when you let yourself indulge in junk food, your overall Calories are higher than when you don't, and it's just that simple. I suspect that you're naturally able to oscillate between periods of surplus & deficit to maintain your "normal" weight & look. I think it would be very informative to you if you were to actively track, and either confirm or refute this hunch. (note: you don't have to track perfectly, but do track consistently. You're comparing relative values here, not necessarily absolute values, in conjunction with your weight/strength changes). 

thanks for all the respones!