Counting Fruit and Veggies

nnicole117

Hi Everyone,

I'm curious, do you track your fruits and veggies if you eat them plain or with zero cal spices/sauces? I subscribed to weight watchers before and fruits and veggies were a free kind of food but here you can actually search an orange and track the 60 some odd calories. So, I personally have decided to not track fruits and veggies themselves since it's a healthy choice compared to - for example - 60 calories of goldfish! Anyways, post your thoughts, I'm interested to hear what you all have to say!

As another note, I'm here to lose about 50lbs or more so maybe when I have much less to go, I'll be more strict? Idk! We'll see!

Thanks!

lynn_glenmont

Whether it's goldfish or an orange, 60 calories has the same effect on your weight loss.

TeaBea

Weight Watchers gives you a lower starting calorie goal so you can enjoy "free" foods. This is just a gimmick to encourage WW members to eat their fruits & veggies.

As lynn_glenmont pointed out.....calories are what matters for weight loss, not gimmicks.

Susan3758

Always track fruit and veg. Never could understand ww free foods. Calories are calories no matter what your eating.☺️

TeaBea

There are a couple WW groups here......

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/107250-weight-watchers-support-group

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/718-weight-watchers-points-plus

Hollis100

Calories are calories, whether they come from a Twinkie or an apple.

Another note: I'm a vegetarian. If I didn't log fruits and vegetables, my food diary would be almost blank. Right now I have about 700 calories from fruits and veggies for today.

snickerscharlie

If it has calories I track it.

emmamcgarity

I track everything in myfitnesspal. WW is a good program but it has a different strategy for helping you reach a calorie deficit. By not counting fruit and vegetables in MFP you are not providing yourself with enough data to evaluate it as a tool. Having all of the data input will help you make decisions about what yo change if you don’t reach your goals.

Florida_Superstar

Weight loss is all about eating a calorie deficit, so while skipping one 60 calorie orange won't affect your long-term results, omitting 60 calories in your food log, multiple times a day, day after day, will add up to big inaccuracies in your logging and pounds on the scale/body fat you can't lose. Log everything. You may be able to lose weight at first without being as accurate simply because you've increased your awareness of what you're eating, but this will become more difficult as you get closer to your goal. When that happens, it will be helpful if you have an accurate history of what you were eating along the way. Good logging habits now will set you up with good information to use later.

kimny72

In the summer, I can easily eat 300-500 cals of fruit. Not logging that would mean not losing weight.

If it has calories, I log it. Low cal veg like leafy greens I might estimate the serving size rather than put it on the food scale. But the fact that it's healthy and I want it in my diet doesn't mean the calories don't count.

I also like to track my fiber, so logging produce is important to that. And I want my diary to be an accurate representation of what I'm eating, so if I want to troubleshoot appetite or digestive issues etc I'm dealing with the truth rather than part of the story without random exceptions I decided to allow.

LyndaBSS

I log everything I eat, down to the last garlic clove. There are no free foods.

If I'm to eat at a calorie deficit, I can only do it by adding up all of my calories.

missysippy930

Everything has calories except water.
I count it all. A lot of my calories come from fruit and vegetables.
Not much point in doing this if you don’t count everything.

AnnPT77

Like some others above, I frequently eat several hundred calories of fruit/veg in a day, and would have trouble managing my weight without counting them (particularly now that I'm maintaining).

But here's another thing: Let's say you can lose weight without counting them, as many people are able to do. When you reach your goal weight, how do you know how much more you can (and need to) eat in order to maintain your weight? Accurate logging is a helpful input to that thought process. (I'm not saying there's no other way; just that sound data is helpful.)

Also, some of us use the weight loss process as a way to improve the healthfulness of our overall way of eating. While the database has limited accuracy for micronutrients, it does have some data; and the macronutrient and fiber data tends to be pretty good. You sound like you're interested in eating more healthfully. Logging your veggies and fruits gives you a somewhat better picture of your daily nutrition, so more insight into what improvements in eating will be most helpful.

It's certainly possible to lose weight without logging at all, so I'm sure it's possible to lose without logging fruits/veg. But my point is that complete logging has side benefits even beyond weight loss, that might be worth considering as you make your decision about how to proceed.

nighthawk584

free calories? where do I sign up?! just like healthcare, nothings free. I would log them and quit WW. you don't need it or any other fad diet.

MikePTY

WW is a way of eating that very much believes in "good" and "bad" foods. So called good foods are rewarded and bad foods are penalized in their points system. It may work for some people as a behavior modification to make better food choices with regards to nutrition and calorie content. But it's also part of the reason why a fair amount of people struggle on weight watchers. A calorie is a calorie, no matter where it comes from. You dont gain any more or less weight from a "good" or "bad" calories.

Fruits can be pretty caloric, so I would recommend against not counting them. 60 is pretty low for an orange, and would have to be a pretty small orange. I'd recommend not only counting them, but weighing them peeled to see how big they are. I tend to get large Navel oranges that are about 250 grams peeled weight. That makes them 120 calories. Large bananas tend to be similar. When I have a container of cut pineapple, that tends to be around 160 calories. Avocados can run 200 calories or more.

It's easy to rack up 500 calories or more a day from fruits. If you eat your whole calorie goal, plus that additional amount of calories from fruit, you are likely to see your weight loss significantly slow or stall.

gallicinvasion

I didn’t usually weigh leafy greens or other veggies/fruits, except at the very beginning of my weight loss journey. but I got really good at estimating the weight, and I definitely log everything.

FormB4Form

Fruit yes. Vegetables don't worry about so much.

dewd2

FormB4Form wrote: »

Fruit yes. Vegetables don't worry about so much.

Why?

unstableunicorn

In the past I’ve tracked fruits and veggies because I tend to prefer high-calorie produce. When I got comfortable with MFP and general idea of how many calories are in what I relaxed tracking certain things like lettuce and ginger because I never had more than 10 or 20 cals worth. For best/accurate results with CICO though you should track everything.

sardelsa

I would track them if you want to be more accurate. Back when I was tracking it depends on what I was having. I would usually estimate fruits and vegetables and weigh protein and fat sources. I had a high goal and lots of flexibility though so that might not work for many people.

glovepuppet

If you eat 5000 cals of veg a day, you're still going to get fat.

glovepuppet

My diet is mostly fruit and veg, with a side of protein. If I didn't log the fruit and veg, it would frequently look like I'm eating 300 calories a day!

Unknown

This content has been removed.

glassyo

glovepuppet wrote: »

If you eat 5000 cals of veg a day, you're still going to get fat.

Not if your tdee is 6000!

*ducking*

But, god, think of the bathroom breaks.

CAmy223

Thank you to those who responded. I had the same question as I transition from WW and this makes perfect sense.

wilson10102018

One of the reasons WW dosen't work so well. The so-called free foods can really add up. I think I can eat my whole daily goal in just salmon and eggs which are both among the 200 zero point foods. So unscientific.

Annie_01

I tried WW for a couple of months. For me it had the opposite effect. I found that I wasn't eating enough. I would double track some days on WW and MFP and found that I had only eaten about 900 calories even though I felt as if I was eating enough.

jenilla1

This isn't Weight Watchers, though. 60 calories of an orange is the same as 60 calories of goldfish, as far as energy (and a calorie deficit) goes. I don't understand why fruits and vegetables wouldn't count as food intake. Not only do I eat a few hundred calories of fruits and vegetables each day (enough to blow my deficit if I wasn't tracking them) but I also like to keep track of macros like fiber, etc.

cwolfman13

nnicole117 wrote: »

Hi Everyone,

I'm curious, do you track your fruits and veggies if you eat them plain or with zero cal spices/sauces? I subscribed to weight watchers before and fruits and veggies were a free kind of food but here you can actually search an orange and track the 60 some odd calories. So, I personally have decided to not track fruits and veggies themselves since it's a healthy choice compared to - for example - 60 calories of goldfish! Anyways, post your thoughts, I'm interested to hear what you all have to say!

As another note, I'm here to lose about 50lbs or more so maybe when I have much less to go, I'll be more strict? Idk! We'll see!

Thanks!

60 calories is 60 calories. This isn't WW...points aren't calories. WW makes fruit and veg "free" to encourage people to eat more of them, which is a good thing...but they inflate the points of other things and give you a lower point total to compensate for that.

I wasn't super anal about having everything down to the gram with fruit and veg, but I logged them loosely. I can easily eat 200-300 calories or more in fruit and veg in a day. It doesn't matter if they're a healthy choice or not...your body is still going to count those calories.

FocusOnNutritionHolly

I count all of them even when I was doing weight watchers

ilovekiwis

I definitely count them because MFP works on a calorie counting system, and I like to eat as much as I can (reasonably) throughout the day while staying under my calorie limit. If there are any leftover calories at the end of the day, that's an extra fruit or vegetable snack! Yum yum.

For many, it's worth considering a mindset shift around produce. Instead of adding it to your meals, add other food groups to your choice produce. Try new flavors and sauces/spices with them. You're likely to find there are many opportunities to get the 5-a-day servings reccomended in a well-rounded way. My nutritionist described a serving as "about the size of your fist."