Do you include/count calories from fruits &a veggies?

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Replies

  • karahm78
    karahm78 Posts: 505 Member
    edited September 2017
    I log them and if home ill weigh (yes even salad using the bowl/Tare/repeat method. In addition to calories I also track my fiber so I like to include fruit and veg.

    I used to be a huge WW fan but the free fruit and veg sabotages and no longer meets my goals. My dad is currently making bowls of nice cream out of bananas using this Yonanna machine that people in his group told him about (ZERO POINT!!) Of course his losing has stalled :-/
  • estherdragonbat
    estherdragonbat Posts: 5,283 Member
    I find that I may not always weigh out or log vegetables I grab to snack on like a handful of cherry tomatoes or a chunk of English cucumber sliced, but I also don't eat either in large enough quantities to really make much of an impact. The 15-30 calories I didn't log probably got burned off by slicing the vegetables. If I'm doing a salad from a recipe, I'll weigh everything out, though.
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,011 Member
    I eyeball low cal veggies. I weigh fruit and higher cal veggies. It all gets logged :smile:
  • TonyB0588
    TonyB0588 Posts: 9,520 Member
    Fruit yes, veggies usually no. It's not worth the effort to log 7 calories of spinach (which is a whole salad's worth).

    I count everything. It really isn't much effort to click a box next to an item when selecting the foods that made up a meal.
  • Bluetail6
    Bluetail6 Posts: 2,985 Member
    jdlobb wrote: »
    Everything that goes in my mouth gets counted and logged, even if it has zero calories.

    This^^
  • Spiderpug
    Spiderpug Posts: 159 Member
    yup - only takes 2 secs!
  • savithny
    savithny Posts: 1,200 Member
    I log it all, but I don't weigh salad greens (or greens in general, actually). I eyeball those and use a generous estimate. The difference that even a cup of baby spinach or even kale makes is so small, compared to the difference a tablespoon vs. two tablespoons of oil makes.

    Fruit is almost all worth logging, because it really can add up fast.
  • AMV91
    AMV91 Posts: 86 Member
    Yes and no.

    If I forget to weigh a handful of spinach or like a lettuce leaf, I'm not going to stress it. But they do still have calories and some more than others. A banana can easily be over 100 calories, forget to do that x 7 and thats an extra 700 calories in the week just from a seemingly innocent banana.
  • Agent_Freckles
    Agent_Freckles Posts: 79 Member
    Tomatoes have a surprisingly high amount of calories. Bananas aren't necessarily low calorie either.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    Tomatoes have a surprisingly high amount of calories. Bananas aren't necessarily low calorie either.

    Huh? 20 calories for an average tomato. I'm not sure what entry you've been using.
  • bagge72
    bagge72 Posts: 1,377 Member
    edited September 2017
    If they're made with Aspartame then no... If they have no added sugar definitely...
  • bagge72
    bagge72 Posts: 1,377 Member
    The problem with calorie counting for life, like a plant-based vegan diet, is that when it is suggested to people trying to lose weight, they will either refuse to do it, or try it and fail. That is the reality, like it or not. Just because most posters here have succeeded (like most posters on a plant-based vegan page have succeeded), doesn't mean you are going to get more than a tiny fraction of the population to try it and/or succeed.

    Calorie counting is actually a great concept, because most overweight people have absolutely no clue how many calories they are eating. The lack of awareness is frightening. But again, the idea of counting calories for life is a total turnoff for most.

    You could get a lot more people to count calories if it was suggested as a short-term solution. So let's say you count calories for two months and are successful in meeting your goals. But your sick of counting calories. So you just stop counting. Or, if you like counting, you can be a calorie counter for life.

    And because you stop counting, it doesn't mean you are going to start eating 1,300-calorie fast-food lunches, and giant pieces of cheesecake for desert at dinner. In those two months, you have learned what you can eat, and what you can't eat to meet your goals.

    Make sure you weigh yourself every few days. If for some reason you gain a couple of pounds, you can start counting again.

    Stating that they have to count every morsel of food (including lettuce and spinach) they eat for the rest of their lives is not exactly going to bring lots of newbies onto the calorie counting bandwagon, no matter how easy it is to count.

    So I am actually pro-calorie counting. But I am also looking at reality.

    I'm puzzled by the intention behind your posts. Saying that one weighs and logs fruits and veggies *while actively calorie counting* doesn't mean that person intends to calorie count for life. I completely agree with you that many people would do fine logging for a while and then just watching the scale. I think among active posters here, it's most common to calorie count while maintaining a deficit, then stop while in maintenance, but I've never seen a bunch of people arguing that everyone needs to do this exactly the same way for success. I know that I personally find it easiest to maintain a deficit though calorie counting because the amount I eat varies throughout the week, which can make it hard to know if I'm on track from day to day. But hey, whatever works.

    Newbies post here and are told by many posters to log absolutely everything. 100%. I believe that is counterproductive.

    Plant based vegans would have much more success with newbies if they told them it's OK not be plant based for let's say four or five times a month (eggs, steak, grilled chicken, fish, etc.). But they never suggest that and in fact, will tell you that eating that food will kill you (see the bestselling book "How Not to Die" by Dr. Greger).

    And that is just as counterproductive as telling a newbie to calorie counting to weigh all the veggies in a typical salad.

    Just my opinion.

    So what you are saying is that you don't know what a vegan is. That is really the only useful information I got from that. Because even though you quote a book, you still said that people here tell "plant based vegans" (opposed to what other kind) that eating eggs, steak, grilled chicken, and fish will kill them.
  • collectingblues
    collectingblues Posts: 2,541 Member
    bagge72 wrote: »
    The problem with calorie counting for life, like a plant-based vegan diet, is that when it is suggested to people trying to lose weight, they will either refuse to do it, or try it and fail. That is the reality, like it or not. Just because most posters here have succeeded (like most posters on a plant-based vegan page have succeeded), doesn't mean you are going to get more than a tiny fraction of the population to try it and/or succeed.

    Calorie counting is actually a great concept, because most overweight people have absolutely no clue how many calories they are eating. The lack of awareness is frightening. But again, the idea of counting calories for life is a total turnoff for most.

    You could get a lot more people to count calories if it was suggested as a short-term solution. So let's say you count calories for two months and are successful in meeting your goals. But your sick of counting calories. So you just stop counting. Or, if you like counting, you can be a calorie counter for life.

    And because you stop counting, it doesn't mean you are going to start eating 1,300-calorie fast-food lunches, and giant pieces of cheesecake for desert at dinner. In those two months, you have learned what you can eat, and what you can't eat to meet your goals.

    Make sure you weigh yourself every few days. If for some reason you gain a couple of pounds, you can start counting again.

    Stating that they have to count every morsel of food (including lettuce and spinach) they eat for the rest of their lives is not exactly going to bring lots of newbies onto the calorie counting bandwagon, no matter how easy it is to count.

    So I am actually pro-calorie counting. But I am also looking at reality.

    I'm puzzled by the intention behind your posts. Saying that one weighs and logs fruits and veggies *while actively calorie counting* doesn't mean that person intends to calorie count for life. I completely agree with you that many people would do fine logging for a while and then just watching the scale. I think among active posters here, it's most common to calorie count while maintaining a deficit, then stop while in maintenance, but I've never seen a bunch of people arguing that everyone needs to do this exactly the same way for success. I know that I personally find it easiest to maintain a deficit though calorie counting because the amount I eat varies throughout the week, which can make it hard to know if I'm on track from day to day. But hey, whatever works.

    Newbies post here and are told by many posters to log absolutely everything. 100%. I believe that is counterproductive.

    Plant based vegans would have much more success with newbies if they told them it's OK not be plant based for let's say four or five times a month (eggs, steak, grilled chicken, fish, etc.). But they never suggest that and in fact, will tell you that eating that food will kill you (see the bestselling book "How Not to Die" by Dr. Greger).

    And that is just as counterproductive as telling a newbie to calorie counting to weigh all the veggies in a typical salad.

    Just my opinion.

    So what you are saying is that you don't know what a vegan is. That is really the only useful information I got from that. Because even though you quote a book, you still said that people here tell "plant based vegans" (opposed to what other kind) that eating eggs, steak, grilled chicken, and fish will kill them.

    Breathetarians. :D
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