Do you track salad etc
claireashj
Posts: 3 Member
Do I need to track EVERYTHING?
Salads and veg etc
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Replies
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I log and weigh everything that goes into my mouth
otherwise your calories will be off 12 -
Yes, that is how MFP is designed to work. Think of it this way - your body will count those calories so you should too.6
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Yes, everything: food, beverages, solids, liquids, shakes.2
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For the most accuracy, yes. Different people will succeed at different levels of logging from everything to not at all.2
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Yes, salads and veggies can really add up.4
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i log everything but water and saliva.2
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yes, salad, salad dress, sour cream, oils1
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Your body counts everything, so yes.
Once you get a couple of months of logging under your belt, you might find there are some things that you eat often and aren't very calorie dense that you can estimate and it's not a big deal. But if you're going into your diary to log your salad dressing or chicken, you might as well log the lettuce too.7 -
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If I eat a salad, I will often log everything with a lot of calories accurately, by weight, (oil, sauce, cheese, meat, etc.) but I might ballpark the green vegetables, especially if I forgot to weight them separately. So a bowl with 300g of lettuce, green pepper, cucumber, etc. might be logged has 300g of "green pepper" just because I'm lazy.
I often ballpark stuff out of laziness, but I always "log" everything. I prefer to live with the inaccuracy, I accept that I might be wrong by some calories a day, but I do a 750 calories deficit so I can live with it.
But I would advise beginner to log religiously for a few weeks. People often eat the same thing, so you will become good at it after a while. But I have to weight cheese, chocolate, peanut butter, … I always put more then I think, even after a few years at this.
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Log what you feel is necessary to log for your goals. But the first thing anyone will ask if you're not achieving your goals is how accurately you log calorie intake and estimate calorie burns.6
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Certainly. Particularly if your salad is more than plain lettuce. Some salads can contain things that contain a whole lot of calories. A calorie from a vegetable counts just as much as calories from beef jerky.4
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I don't track lettuce, raw spinach or seasonings, but track other veggies & salad toppings. Sometimes I'll log all the other veggies combined as red peppers, even though it might be a combination of cucumbers, onions, carrots, peppers, etc... Other toppings are logged separate - dressing, fruit, proteins, grains, etc....1
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Honestly I log as accurately as I need to to hit my goals.
at first i was guestimating veggies and some foods. not entering gum. using cooked chicken weight. as i got closer to goal in order to keep my rate of loss going i had to start logging all these things (and moving to logging chicken/meat by raw weight VS cooked).
i find weighing vegetables very very quick and easy though.
ETA: not sure if by salad you mean only the VEGETABLES in the salad, but a full salad can be super high calorie depending on dressing and what is added (nuts? protein? seed? cheese? it adds up SUPER fast)1 -
I do because I eat giant salads and my spinach and romaine can sometimes add up to a lot. Todays spinach, romaine, green onions, radishes and cucumber which are usually very low calorie amounts intake adds up to over 50 calories so it can make a difference. I mean if your talking one leaf of iceberg on your sandwich that won't make a difference but everything else yes, I do weigh and log.6
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The veggies can have a more minimal impact on daily calories, but the company they keep...yeah it adds up.5
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There aren't really any "free" foods, even though a popular diet subscription service would have you believe otherwise. That service lowers your daily calorie start value; it's a game to encourage you to eat more veggies.3
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I'm glad this works for you but for a new person who is trying to understand calorie counting, it's not a good way to get started. Depending on how often they eat salads and what they are putting on the salad, it would be easy to over or underestimate the calories being consumed.funjen1972 wrote: »I don't track lettuce, raw spinach or seasonings, but track other veggies & salad toppings. Sometimes I'll log all the other veggies combined as red peppers, even though it might be a combination of cucumbers, onions, carrots, peppers, etc... Other toppings are logged separate - dressing, fruit, proteins, grains, etc....1 -
If I'm logging (I don't always), the point is to know what I'm eating, so I log everything (I currently log at Cron and without my veg my nutrient amounts would be way off). I am more likely to estimate amounts of low cal veg if for some reason that happens to be easier than weighing. If it's really a very small amount of something, I might be lazy about logging it or make another veg a bit bigger to account for it.0
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I just ate a 500 calorie salad, (that I made at home), so yes it's important, especially when you're just starting out to track everything After you transition into maintenance and have been at it a while you may be able to 'eyeball' things a bit, but that's much further along into the process. 2
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If you consume it; log it!1
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debrakgoogins wrote: »
I'm glad this works for you but for a new person who is trying to understand calorie counting, it's not a good way to get started. Depending on how often they eat salads and what they are putting on the salad, it would be easy to over or underestimate the calories being consumed.funjen1972 wrote: »I don't track lettuce, raw spinach or seasonings, but track other veggies & salad toppings. Sometimes I'll log all the other veggies combined as red peppers, even though it might be a combination of cucumbers, onions, carrots, peppers, etc... Other toppings are logged separate - dressing, fruit, proteins, grains, etc....
You're right. When I first started I counted EVERYTHING. Now, with experience, I tailored it to meet my needs. I should have stated that in the original post. Thanks for politely keeping me in check 😁3 -
BattyKnitter wrote: »I do because I eat giant salads and my spinach and romaine can sometimes add up to a lot. Todays spinach, romaine, green onions, radishes and cucumber which are usually very low calorie amounts intake adds up to over 50 calories so it can make a difference. I mean if your talking one leaf of iceberg on your sandwich that won't make a difference but everything else yes, I do weigh and log.
I think people have very different ideas of what a salad is and many times think it's those cute little side salads that come with meals at restaurants. When I make a salad it's game on
My lunch salad today had 4 cups of leafy greens, a cup of cherry tomatoes, 6 sweet peppers, 1/2 of an onion, a head of broccoli, green and black olives, sunflower seeds, a serving of pinto beans, mild pepper rings, feta cheese, hot sauce and then low calorie Catalina dressing. Now that's a salad lol. 4 -
funjen1972 wrote: »You're right. When I first started I counted EVERYTHING. Now, with experience, I tailored it to meet my needs. I should have stated that in the original post. Thanks for politely keeping me in check 😁
The great thing about forums is that there are so many people here with years of experience doing this. It's easy to forget how we all started out. Beside, I figured someone else had flogged you enough. Twice would have just been cruel.
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debrakgoogins wrote: »
I'm glad this works for you but for a new person who is trying to understand calorie counting, it's not a good way to get started. Depending on how often they eat salads and what they are putting on the salad, it would be easy to over or underestimate the calories being consumed.funjen1972 wrote: »I don't track lettuce, raw spinach or seasonings, but track other veggies & salad toppings. Sometimes I'll log all the other veggies combined as red peppers, even though it might be a combination of cucumbers, onions, carrots, peppers, etc... Other toppings are logged separate - dressing, fruit, proteins, grains, etc....
While I 100% agree with you, there are some people who upon hearing they must log every single thing they eat will feel overwhelmed and decide this isn't the right place for them. There are some people who have always logged in a relaxed manner and profited, and I think if every once and awhile someone says that casual logging helped them, it leaves the door open for those newbies as well
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Yes. I get that it's "only" 100 or so calories over the whole day for just lettuce, but then again a 30 minute medium workout is "only" 120 calories and I definitely am tracking the workouts.
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My answer would be to ask you the very same question
Do you need to log everything? That's a question only you can answer.
In the end the goal is to manage your weight and how diligently and vigilantly you need to track your food in take to achieve this will differ from person to person. The aim is to do enough to get the result you're looking.
I, for example, find that I am able to successfully achieve my goal (to reduce my weight) by logging consistently if not necessarily as rigorously as others. I usually don't bother counting condiments or if I grab a couple of lollies out of the bowl at work I'll not always bother to log them. Right now logging my food loosely is enough for me to be successful so any additional time and effort would be wasted or at the very least provide diminishing returns.
Some people on the other hand find that they need to be far more strict with their logging so will have to log everything meticulously.
So I suppose that the real answer to this question is something you'll need to discover for yourself. Log to a certain standard, a standard that you can easily stick to long term and see if it works. If you're getting results then you're level of logging is fine and if not you know that you'll need to pay more attention and log more strictly.
Also bear in mind that your approach to logging will change over time. Mine definitely has. While I am still pretty relaxed with my logging I am more strict that I used to be and fully expect to have to tighten up my logging more and more as I lose weight and the margins I'm working with get smaller.
G'luck0 -
People who don’t track everything are doomed to fail.11
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