Zero Cal Vegetables/ Weight Watchers: Help the constant grazer!

HeySwoleSister

The WW point system is useful for people with certain eating habits. (Namely people who eat a fair amount of processed/prepared foods and who crave sweets alone)

It is not a good tool for someone like me, who already avoids processed crap and fast foods (including"fast casual" places like Applebees/Olive Garden/Cheesecake Factory) and who honestly doesn't have a sweet tooth. If I logged my food using the WW plan, I could easily go over my MFP caloric goal and come in at about 5 points.

I'm adept with smart devices and so logging in MFP is easy for me. My "zero calorie/point" choices are the under 10 cal veggies (celery, radishes, lettuce) and lots of tea. So glad my friend -- a WW leader, no less-- pointed me this way!

sweetdixie92

There's no such thing as zero calorie vegetables...or food period.

WeightWatcher's point system is a bit confusing to me, but they take into account the fiber, calories, etc. in each food to determine the points. For instance, a 120 calorie piece of bread with 1g of fiber might be 3 points, while a 120 calorie piece of bread with 3g fiber might be 1 point. They take into account how each food is digested/used by your body. I never liked the system because I would much rather count calories and watch the nutrients myself. But my grandmother did it and explained some of it to me.

sweetdixie92

But just remember, vegetables are a food that can rarely be overeaten. Certain types should perhaps be limited, depending on your dieting needs and/or health needs. But cutting out vegetable calories is the last thing anyone should do.

imfittted

I think the point is that it encourages you to eat more healthy foods. I'm not a paying WW customer, however, I am following the plan and it does indeed encourage me to eat more veggies and fruits --- because they don't count against my point total. Their philosophy is that you should only be eating these things until you are satisfied NOT full and they build in a lower allotment of points because they are listed as zero. They definitely have calories. I am pretty sure if you did not add fruits and veggies you would be quite hungry doing WWs.

I am actually logging all of my foods on weight watchers to see how the calorie count comes out including all of the zero point fruits and veggies. I'm pretty sure you can over do it on those foods if you over-indulge. But I'm curious to see how that works out.

The main thing is to lose weight you need to burn more calories than you eat.... no matter what their macros are comprised of.

Anyone on WWs looking for friends please feel free to add me!
Brittany

hannahcall2

Water is zero calories.

Also it regulates your bodily functions, makes you feel a bit energized, it keeps your metabolism spinning, it lubricates joints and is excellent for your muscles, and it also helps prevent an entire array of health/physical problems...

Again, 0 calories

HappyHealthNE

I ran into this when I started using MFP because I had previously done weight watchers with moderate sucess. I was pretty shocked at the calories in fruit and some veg. But in my first few weeks cutting back my food intake I found I wanted to snack ALL the time. I was used to snacking on bags of sweets and chocolate and it's like it was a habit and I just wanted to be eating something, almost like I just needed to be doing something with my hands and chewing. So weird. Anyway, I found that replacing the sweets and chocolate with carrots and celery and other low calorie veg really helped and I just logged it. Eventually, I was able to decrease the snacking and now I've managed to break the habit. I still have a snack in the afternoon between lunch and dinner, but I don't have that same urge to just be mindlessly eating something all the time as I used to.
(yay, first post!)

Zetera

ILiftHeavyAcrylics wrote: »

jennidee12 wrote: »

Vegetables are still calories, but they count as 'zero calorie foods' because they're good calories for your body and burn fat. So really, when you eat those vegetables you're burning calories.

This is a common dieting myth. It's true that digesting food burns calories (it's called Thermic Effect of Food), but to my knowledge there are no foods that actually burn more calories than they contain. According to wikipedia, even celery (the most commonly referenced "negative calorie food") contains 6 calories per stalk and takes only half a calorie to digest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative-calorie_food

Also, the calories burned digesting food are part of the calculations MFP uses to come up with your calorie goal.

That's exactly what I was about to post. However, in the case of celery, it also contains a lot of water, so 6 calories from celery won't have the same effect as 6 calories of something else, as a lot of it will go straight through you.

That being said, sadly there is no food which actually has 0 calories :-(

JengaJess

I googled "zero calorie foods" because I was curious about what science has been able to create hah.
But I did find this list of low cal foods, most are veggies, some are drinks (which I don't consider food...)
I'm not exactly sure about how accurate the listed calorie count here is but it might give you an idea of what veggies you can snack on and not worry too much about going over on calories (raw mushrooms are my favorite!)

http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20640804,00.html

godswill206

MelissaHopeG wrote: »

Hi all,

I tried Weight Watchers in the past, and they said that vegetables on this list wouldn't give you any points: http://www.weightwatchers.com/util/art/index_art.aspx?tabnum=1&art_id=59781

However if you log them in MFP they definitely have calories! Anyone have experience with any zero to no calorie vegetables? I think after some time I'll get use to eating less calories again, but currently its like I want to snack all the time.

Zero points doesn't equate to zero calories as others have stated.