Do you count fruits and vegetables in your calories ?

SusanMFindlay

joshperson195 wrote: »

SherryTeach wrote: »

Absolutely count everything. I eat hundreds of calories of fruit and veggie every day. If don't have an accurate log, I cannot maintain my weight. Also "healthy food" is not synonymous with "low calorie."

Same! Every calorie adds up. I never understood the concept of fruits and vegetables being "free" foods.

The idea is that having veggies as "free foods" encourages people to fill up on them to help with volumetrics. After all, 2 cups of zucchini have a heck of a lot fewer calories than 2 cups of rice. This really only works if you only treat low-cal veg as "free" though. My sister lost a lot of weight on Weight Watchers doing this - because the "free" system encouraged her to switch her diet to have lot of veggies and cut way back on starches and sugary drinks. So, it's all psychological. And, as others have noted, doesn't work if you go overboard with the fruit (or high-cal veg like avocados).

Sued0nim

champion818 wrote: »

I know every calorie counts towards your weight loss and caloric deflect , but seriously I can't wrap my head around counting my fruits and vegetables with my calorie allowance ... If I have a banana and a bowl of watermelon that should be my healthy free food , sort of the weight watcher way of thinking ... We should be encouraged to eat as much fruits and vegetables as we want .. I would dread to have to think about eating an apple or not if it might go over my calorie allowance .. Does anyone agree with me ? Oppose ? I'm open to hearing your honest opinion you guys !

So you don't want to count a Banana and watermelon? that's about 160-200 calories you want to not log ...you think that's nothing?

If you want to do it that way go back to weight watchers...but even then you can't eat fruits freely

Machka9

I count everything.

Mangoes are my favourite fruit. One mango comes in at 135 calories. On a 1350 cal diet, that's 1/10th of my daily total.

Today, I'm just having a banana and apple for fruit. That'll be about 180 cal.

amusedmonkey

Absolutely! In the past month I have eaten 9000+ calories in fruits and vegetables, and that's a low month compared to others. That's more than 2 pounds worth of calories. If I hadn't counted them, my monthly weight loss would have been off by more than 2 pounds. If you don't have much to lose, not counting them could entirely derail your progress.

I would do much better not counting my 70 calorie daily cookie or my occasional ice cream or chocolate than I would do not counting fruits and vegetables.

Edit: Note that weight watchers has you eating a very low calorie diet, 800 calories in some instances, in order to account for "free" foods. You could simulate that by setting your calorie allowance low to give a buffer for free foods, but then you risk not eating enough or still overeating. Counting everything is the best way to go for most.