Do any of you have "free" foods that you don't add in your calorie count?

rheddmobile

I don’t log dill pickles. Just can’t be bothered to keep track of them, and knowing I can eat a pickle if I still feel peckish helps me mentally.

Coffeelover1264

I don't count small amounts of non-starchy veggies. For example a slice of tomato on a burger. A few lettuce leaves, etc. But as soon as it's a serving size of veggies, then I count it.

Wendyanneroberts

Tracking everything, over time, with frequent weight loss records. Has taught me what calorie levels "I need", in my current lifestyle to lose or maintain, my current weight. It finally helped me to lose 59lb. Looking back I knew I had accurate data to compare, as everything was logged. If foods were missing from the logs, it wouldn't have helped.

I'm currently maintaining on 1,600 calories per day, for a couple of years; it works for me.

yelpat1976 wrote: »

Sometimes I don't count bananas or milk. I did not get fat eating these things.

Before using mfp, I saw my GP, my weight gain was mentioned. (My calories out dropped over night, as I became physically disabled). He didn't mention exercise or how much my CO had changed. Said weight loss was more about diet than exercise. He asked about diet changes. I told him my diet, was virtually the same. Except I drunk an extra glass of milk & had a bananna, about 3 times a day, to take new medication.

He replyed, "he didn't think it was the milk & banannas" that caused the weight gain. That in my situation, it was a good, healthy snack.

Shortly after I found mfp & learnt a lot, here on the forums. At first I tracked a few average days, as a starting point.

"Milk & banannas" alone was easily between 600 to 1,000 calories a day! With my total daily burn being only 1,600 calories now, not logging would cause me to get fat.

(Even 600 calories per day extra = 3,500 extra calories, every 5 days = 63lb gained in 1 year!)

ImmaSheerioAndDirectioner

I don't count tea, black coffee (help curb my appetite), hot sauce, yellow mustard, and seasonings

MeganD1704

Hum- I dont log spices, water, lettuce, mustard, vitamins.
That's about it. Sometimes I forget to log a coffee, but I log the milk if I add.

Carp614

Everything I put in is whole food organic, but I'm too lazy to enter all that. I just put in searches like "Chicken Broccoli casserole" and pick something I think is probably close to what I ate. My punishment for this laziness is that I find verified boxed foods that look like the right portions and about the right macros. So some days MFP tells me I blew my sodium or my macros when actually I didn't. That's ok. This is a lifestyle change, not 20 pounds in six weeks.

durhammfp

jclement2 wrote: »

It's not so much the calories, it's the sugar of any type and the carbs. Carbs turns to sugar in the body and that turns into fat. Eliminate all sugars including the fake ones, limit your carbs to under 50 grams and less if you can stand it. So no sugars, no grains of any type, (no bread, pasta, bagels, you get the picture) no potatoes. I eat lots of eggs, steak, pork, chicken, and salads with lime juice and olive oil. Also use only Extra virgin olive oil, butter or avocado oil and drink lots of water.

I've lost 45 lbs eating an omnivorous, eclectic diet that is much lower in animal products than most people. I have not had beef, chicken, or pork in about a year or so; though, I do eat dairy on a regular basis and a little fish now and then. Also, looking at my diary, it looks like I eat around 250-300 grams of carbs every day--especially potatoes! They are packed with potassium and a lot of other great micronutrients.

So you say potay-to, I say potah-to. There is more than one way to get to a calorie deficit. I am coming up on two years since I found this way of eating that suits me (and helped me lose weight) and I don't see changing anything I do.

---

To answer the OP's original question: There are days I take off from logging just because I am tired of it but that is very infrequently. I tend to log everything, including vitamins and spices. I do that because I eat things intentionally and want to make sure I remember to eat them. Sometimes, like with a leafy green salad, I may estimate the calories.

jlval1989

I don't tend to log spices or seasonings, and don't often log little bits like garlic, ginger, chilli that I'm using in a dish because they tend to be tiny.

I also don't log (but probably should...) any oil I cook in.

PotatoHead_

jlval1989 wrote: »

I don't tend to log spices or seasonings, and don't often log little bits like garlic, ginger, chilli that I'm using in a dish because they tend to be tiny.

I also don't log (but probably should...) any oil I cook in.

Agree that it's a faff to log spices and seasonings, and will be minimal calories. I would log things like ketchup though.

Oil is one that should defo be logged. A tablespoon is a large amount of calories.

I've changed to making chicken stirfry without oil and it's more than 200 cal less a portion. The pan washing afterwards is a nightmare though!

megan119721

I don’t log seasonings, spray oil for cooking, I can’t believe it’s not butter spray. I don’t stress about logging my exact weight of lettuce, tomatoes and such. I choose a size for my fruit instead of weighing. I’m at a weight though that it wouldn’t necessarily matter, if I was closer to my goal weight I might be a bit more strict. At the same time though, I also don’t subtract what my kiddos eat off my plate from what I’ve tracked.

gallicinvasion

I log seasonings sporadically, I generally don’t log black coffee, i log tea and seltzer as water, I often eyeball garlic and ginger and lettuce, etc. sometimes I’ll log diet drinks, sometimes I won’t. Sometimes I’ll pull apart my takeout to weigh the ingredients, but sometimes I go by what I had the last time.

I have been logging since May 2018 and I’ve been keeping to my goals, so I will tighten up if my weight starts to creep up.

Pittgirl3

tgillies003 wrote: »

I use a generic ‘garden salad without dressing’ to log raw vegetables regardless of the vegetable.

That’s smart. I should try that especially since I hate logging tomatoes and other veggies I put in my salad.

katierthanmost

Diet coke, but I'm also not drinking litres of it.

sakurablossoms82

Sometimes when I take a few cherry tomato's or snack cucumbers I don't log them and
lettuce I just eye ball it when needed. Same goes for drinks that are like 2 calories a glas or tea. I also never log the seasoning I add like cinnamon to my oatmeal or a pinch of salt and pepper.

tnh2o

I don't log coffee, tea, spices, herbs or vitamin gummies (yeah, there's some calories there) or the electrolyte supplements I use when hiking. That's where my laziness begins.
I try to log everything else even if it isn't pretty.

NovusDies

There are no free foods in my system but there are foods that need not be logged separately. If I am putting mustard on a sandwich I do not log the mustard but some calories for mustard are included in my log somewhere.

johnbhusted

Since it's summer, and our garden is going like crazy, we generally don't log fresh veggies. Onions, squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers. . .

We do log high-sugar stuff like sweet corn.