Getting annoyed when entering fresh vegetables MFP

BuffingButtons

I take losing weight as serious as any other user on here, but I'm getting annoyed more and more when entering negligible caloric fresh vegetables into MFP. It's gets to the point where MFP logging can become more of a burden when you have the pressures, deadlines and challenges of careers and family. I don't want it to frustrate me and I quit altogether.

For example today I made myself a vegetable banh mi sandwich for lunch. I prepped everything from scratch. While I obviously logged the bread and siracha mayo into MFP, also included were cucumber slices, radish slices, carrot slices, jalapeno slices, onion slices, a slice of lettuce and a sprinkle of cilantro that I would also need to log. To do that I guess I would have to weigh out each vegetable, calculate the nutrients manually, create/divide the serving sizes and do this 7 times for the 7 vegetables and create a MFP recipe. (I suppose I don't have to create the recipe as I could just swipe if I had the same/frequent food later that week - fine, but this step isn't really the problem).

I just simply don't have the time to breakdown 7 vegetables. With the time prep it takes to eat healthy and working a full-time job plus balancing family I can't sit and calculate all this just for lunch.

Do I just make up an estimated macro outline for the vegetables? Say I had 30 calories in sliced vegetables? Or, not log it altogether with the understanding I probably walked off the 30 vegetable calories on my 7 minute hike from the parking garage into the office?

Chef_Barbell

You don't have to enter them if it frustrates you so much.

janejellyroll

I log vegetables all the time and it really doesn't take that long once you get used to it.

Why are you having to calculate the ingredients manually? Once you find a reliable entry (look for the USDA ones), you can use that one (and the nutrients attached) every single time you have the vegetable going forward. All you have to do is weigh it and enter the quantity.

If it is vegetables you eat together often, you can even create a "meal" for them to batch them together -- that makes it even easier. If I prep a bunch of vegetables for a specific meal (like a bahn mi sandwich), then I'll create it in the recipe builder and then I hardly even have to think about it for subsequent meals.

Is it entirely effortless? No. But I don't think it is as onerous as your post makes it sound.

That said, if you really don't want to log vegetables individually, you could just create a generic entry for low calorie vegetables, weigh all those (or even do a rough estimate if you want) and use that. It's your log. If the time is worth more to you than the accuracy, that's a trade-off that you can decide to do.

T0M_K

I don't enter a lot of veggies. I know i have room in my calorie intake for them and i don't put things on them like butter and cheese. I do weigh/measure salad dressing and things like croutons and cheese if i use it.

I"m talking green veggies. I weigh potato's before cooking. usually just a baked potato is what i'm eating.

yskaldir

Just remember what each serving of some vegetable looks like (take a photo if you have to) and then you can use that as a basis to estimate.

Jruzer

Just eyeball the veggies or use estimates. 1/4 cucumber, 1/3 of a tomato, 1/4 head of lettuce. It's tens of calories at the most.

AliceDark

I don't bother weighing very small amounts of veggies, like the one leaf of lettuce or slice of onion on a sandwich, but I do usually guesstimate the amounts for my log. In your case, I would probably enter something like 50-100g carrots and figure it covered the whole thing. If you really wanted to be more accurate, I don't see why you wouldn't just use the Tare button on your scale and add/record the veggies one by one.

OhMsDiva

Chef_Barbell wrote: »

You don't have to enter them if it frustrates you so much.

That part

lemurcat12

BuffingButtons wrote: »

also included were cucumber slices, radish slices, carrot slices, jalapeno slices, onion slices, a slice of lettuce and a sprinkle of cilantro that I would also need to log. To do that I guess I would have to weigh out each vegetable, calculate the nutrients manually, create/divide the serving sizes and do this 7 times for the 7 vegetables and create a MFP recipe.

I don't create a recipe. What I do is while I am cooking drop each ingredient on the scale (on a plate or bowl on the scale, really) and write down how much it is (or just remember, depending on how many there are -- it's also exercise for the brain!). The weighing adds no time to the process.

Then I go to log and usually -- this happens once you've been doing it for a couple of weeks -- the right entries are in my recent or frequent foods. That means it takes no time. When I have to add something new, yeah, it takes a couple extra minutes and adding 7 new things at once would be annoying, no question, but that part of it is only at first.

I also mostly don't cook using tiny amounts of things (I don't really do sandwiches and when I cook vegetables it's usually more, although sure I sometimes add some onions or a jalapeno). The things I add just a bit of, like spices or herbs (including cilantro) or garlic (beats me why I do this, I guess because I add it to lots of things) I tend to not log. Not advising this, but it works for me.

If you do make a recipe, then you only have to do it once and it's easy to modify (I often do the same by repeating a meal and then modifying the ingredients).

Do I just make up an estimated macro outline for the vegetables? Say I had 30 calories in sliced vegetables? Or, not log it altogether with the understanding I probably walked off the 30 vegetable calories on my 7 minute hike from the parking garage into the office?

Sure, you could do either of these. I like to be able to see I had 80 g of radishes or 150 g of broccoli or whatever, less for the calories as having a complete understanding of my diet, but for a small amount it might not matter.

I really think this is a "just got started and don't have recipes saved yet or foods in recent or frequent" problem, and not something that you have to deal with consistently every day.

JenHuedy

janejellyroll wrote: »

I log vegetables all the time and it really doesn't take that long once you get used to it.

Why are you having to calculate the ingredients manually? Once you find a reliable entry (look for the USDA ones), you can use that one (and the nutrients attached) every single time you have the vegetable going forward. All you have to do is weigh it and enter the quantity.

If it is vegetables you eat together often, you can even create a "meal" for them to batch them together -- that makes it even easier. If I prep a bunch of vegetables for a specific meal (like a bahn mi sandwich), then I'll create it in the recipe builder and then I hardly even have to think about it for subsequent meals.

Is it entirely effortless? No. But I don't think it is as onerous as your post makes it sound.

That said, if you really don't want to log vegetables individually, you could just create a generic entry for low calorie vegetables, weigh all those (or even do a rough estimate if you want) and use that. It's your log. If the time is worth more to you than the accuracy, that's a trade-off that you can decide to do.

This^^^^

For instance, if I made that particular sandwich fairly often, I would save it as a meal so I can add all the ingredients at once and adjust the amounts easily. Then next time I made the sandwich, I would add that meal to my diary, then I would build it right on the scale, taring to zero between each ingredient. Then I would adjust the amounts in MFP as needed if they altered from the original meal as it was saved.

I have a generic "garbage salad" meal that has just about every veggie I normally buy in the portion size I normally use. Using the "Meal" function I can add the whole lot to my diary with one click, then delete the items I didn't use and adjust the remaining amounts to reflect the ones I did use. With just a bit of initial prep, I can now log a salad with over a dozen ingredients in just a few seconds.

annacole94

Sometimes I enter everything.
Sometimes I just enter the higher-calorie items, whether that's the ones I ate the most of, or just the ones I know have a few more.
I will skip entering things I know are negligible. If I snack on a couple slices of cucumber, or throw a pickle on a sandwich... I have bigger sources of error.
In the case of a veggie bhan mi, I'd probably just pick a ballpark entry for the whole thing together.

avadahm

I only track veggies for the nutrients. If you're logging them for calories, don't bother. If you make a recipe (with leftovers), create some recipe in your foods that you can access for the next few days- especially if you make that recipe often.

I also don't have a scale to weigh veggies. I estimate them on cups and divide from there. The calorie difference is pretty negligible that way but I can eyeball it when I'm cooking pretty well as a result.

If you have time to weigh it, you should have time to log it. If not, take an educated guess. You could get pretty good at it!

Theo166

I usually end up logging some mixed vegetable entry, I know it's not exactly what I had but it's a swag and captures some of the fiber etc. Don't need to be perfect on the low cal items I believe.

Perhaps you should create a veggie recipe that is a mix of what you normally use. Then it would be quick for you to enter a serving or several.

ritzvin

If it's a recipe, and using the recipe builder on the computer, then press the "Add recipe manually" button instead of the "New recipe button". It will give you a box where you just list the amounts and items (all items), and then it will attempt to match all of them at the same time. For vegetables, add the terms "raw" and "USDA" - mor elikely to match correctly on first try.

ritzvin

If it's all negligible calorie items, and not mixed in with higher calorie items, then I would probably just skip. (In my case, my recipes all include meat, beans, etc along with the list of veggies).

cross2bear

Jeepers, isnt THIS a first world problem.

vikinglander

I usually cook with my laptop on the counter nearby (keep it away from spills!), and I listen to some great music while I cook, and bring up a blank Word page. As I chop, dice or open and add each ingredient, I weigh it and log it on my Word .doc. While the concoction simmers, I sit down and copy and paste from the Word .doc into MFP's recipe calculator (Add Recipe Manually) and guesstimate the number of servings, then adjust the ingredient entries as needed (MFP doesn't always get them correctly).

Once my dish is completed, I weigh the finished amount by grams or ounces and enter that number into the Servings box in the recipe, to get calories per gram or ounce. Then I can weigh out what I want to eat by the gram or ounce.

Works for me...

kwtilbury

BuffingButtons wrote: »

I take losing weight as serious as any other user on here, but I'm getting annoyed more and more when entering negligible caloric fresh vegetables into MFP.

There's your answer. If you're only interested in calories/macros, don't log veggies.

BusyRaeNOTBusty

I don't log them. Not worth the effort for 7 calories.