Do you count non-starchy vegetables in food diary

RachelSteeners

Hi guys! I was wondering if you include non-starchy vegetables in your food diary. I include potato, yams and avocado. Should i be including all vegetables to ensure my calories are correct? I noticed non-starcy veg are 'free' according to Weight Watchers and my nutritionist wasn't concerned about counting the carbs in vegetables due to the high fiber content.

I'm interested to hear what you guys do!

R

traceywoody

I count everything. It does add up.

PinkCupcakes84

I count it all

stevencloser

Depends. If you eat greens by the pounds every day, maybe you should.

ChrisM8971

Logging everything gives you a much better picture of what you are eating and allows for easier dietary adjustments in my opinion

Wondering what your nutritionist has against other types of carbs though

hiba_84

I log everything

mockchoc

I do. This is why Weight Watchers failed me.

Oxxygi

I count all !

Catlady87

It is kind of the whole point of calorie counting to log everything you eat and drink. Just because they aren't starchy doesn't mean they don't have calories. Yes some are very low, but things like sweetcorn and peas have a higher calorie content than say asparagus.

Edit spelling

kirili3

Better to, I guess.

I tend to leave out coffee and tea. But not milk and sugar, if you see what I mean.

That said, veggies can have calories. Not much, but for example there's about 90 calories in a medium stalk of broccoli.

HelensBeads

I do, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, carrots, onions, mushrooms, green beans, lettuce, cucumber, beetroot, peas (starchy), sweetcorn (starchy), beansprouts, bamboo shoots (go in my sweet and sour); all get counted. Not only do they have calories (OK not many but when you have half a plateful a couple of times a day that's a couple of hundred calories) but it's an easy way of keeping track of my 5 a day (minimum).

Edit: And I track my fibre as well, so they all add up there.

daynerz

You answered your own question.

Yes and Yes.
What if you didn't add up? The Calories that you didn't think mattered would be 200 calories by the end of the day.

brevislux

Yes, it's food.

wannakimmy

Yep, this isn't WW, it is MFP and I believe it is designed to log everything in order for it to work properly. So, yes, I log everything.

debbiewsharpe

definitely! If it goes in your mouth, log it. You dont want to be fooled by the extra calories.

di36

I log everything that goes in my belly
EVERYTHING
Including drinks

BeginningAgainMay14

I do, not that I'm terribly concerned with the caloric value of the vegetables I eat (I tend to eat a lot of lettuce, celery, chard, and tomatoes, all of which are pretty low calorie) but because it gives me an accurate record of what I ate. That way I can see at a glance if I'm getting enough fruits and vegetables (I aim for 7-9 per day) and I have a good record. On some days I find I'm not hungry enough to eat all my calories, and on some days I want to chew my left arm off, so by keeping an eye on my food diary I can tell what kinds of food are keeping me satisfied. Leaving out the veggies would render that worthless.

anasazirose

i log it all. even though the veggies are low in calories, for me i like being able to look back and see what i've eaten on those good days when i come in under my calories, yet i'm not hungry

darla1123

I log everything as well.

kethry70

I log everything except for spices, mustard, and water/tea. Veggies have calories and I try to eat several servings a day so that adds up

lemurcat12

i log it all. even though the veggies are low in calories, for me i like being able to look back and see what i've eaten on those good days when i come in under my calories, yet i'm not hungry

This. I use the diary as a record of what I ate, so I can see what's changed when I do better vs. when I struggle.

I also like to track how well I do at meeting my micros and macros and, especially, getting a wide variety of vegetables, so logging them allows me to see that and also makes me more likely to get in more vegetables--it makes me happy to log them and I think I eat more when I do (I guess the WW theory is different, but I don't get the purpose of points vs. calories anyway).

Plus I often cook them in a little olive oil (I log spray as .1 or .2 of a TBSP, depending on how long the spray was), and want the diary to make sense.

Finally, I'd prefer not to leave out things that end up contributing calories (even if a relatively small number, although they do add up if you eat a lot) and sugar and fiber and so on. And I find I learn things by seeing what comes up when I log vegetables--I wouldn't have known how the calories in Brussels vs. asparagus vs. broccoli or carrots vs. butternut squash vs. parsnips compared without logging everything (parsnips are pretty high in calories vs. what I would have thought, actually, if only because they are pretty dense, although certainly worth eating).

The one thing I do different with vegetables is that I often eyeball amounts and log them as cups for greens, especially salad greens, since it makes little difference. I weigh everything else, including greens I cook usually, just because it always seems easier to me to weigh than try to estimate volume when the scale is being used for other things anyway. But I don't worry overmuch if water from rinsing them is inflating the weight--it's not going to make much difference.

RachelSteeners

Thanks guys! Ill start counting all vegetables from today onwards

RachelSteeners

I'm pre-diabetic, so I'm closely monitoring my carbs, however my nutritionist said I don't need to count carbs for non-starchy vegetables due to their high fiber content.

lemurcat12

I'm pre-diabetic, so I'm closely monitoring my carbs, however my nutritionist said I don't need to count carbs for non-starchy vegetables due to their high fiber content.

Oh, I see. As to this, I believe there are specific net carb entries that people who monitor their carbs for those purposes have put in the database. You might want to find a type II group to ask about that, as I can see why there'd be additional confusion from logging under those circumstances. You probably could also just save to your personal foods (NOT the main database) vegetables that you eat a lot with the carb number replaced with a zero.

spirit095

I count everything that I eat in my diary, since they have calories.

Ang108

Better to, I guess.

I tend to leave out coffee and tea. But not milk and sugar, if you see what I mean.

That said, veggies can have calories. Not much, but for example there's about 90 calories in a medium stalk of broccoli.

Saying that veggies " can " have calories implies that there are veggies that have none, which is not true. All veggies , or better yet...all food has calories.
I think what we log and what not depends on us and the smart choices we make in regard to our food intake. I log 99% of what I eat ( the 1 % is from the stuff I forget). I log all vegetables & fruit ( I eat fruit to a lesser degree, but I love veggies ), because I often eat 350-500 plus calories worth of them a day. I also log herbs and spices and it is not unusual for me to add maybe 70-100 calories to my count. If I would not log vegetables and condiments I would never have lost a pound, because it would have used up my deficit.
I do however understand why some people ask, because so many eat next to no vegetables or fruit that not logging the 15 calories from the two lettuce leaves on the hamburger, or the half cup of spinach makes really no difference .

seltzermint555

Yes. Not to be snarky or anything...but I consider that the entire point of this website, to count ALL of my food calories.

The only things I do not count:

pepper
vanilla
cinnamon
most ground spices, actually
chewing gum
one fish oil capsule per day
toothpaste ;-)

That's it.

AllOutof_Bubblegum

This is not Weight Watchers. You need to count everything.

ninavalentine

FWIW, I don't count them by design, although I agree with those who say that's the whole point of the diary. But going into this I hated vegetables and I knew if I had to subtract their value from my total calories (which seemed soooo low at the time), I would never eat them. So I created personal foods for non starchy veggies (spinach, lettuce, broccoli, etc.), counted their calories as 0, but added nutritional information so I could keep track of that.

I didn't really know what I was doing at the time but it has worked well for me. I do eat (and enjoy) veggies now and I don't worry about how many I eat and it hasn't seemed to hurt me up to this point. In fact, it has helped a great deal to keep me full and satisfied, and to get the vitamins I need. I can understand why others may think it's not the way to go, but in my situation I think it's been one key to my success so far. Whatever works ...

However -- I'm currently at a plateau and I might need to rethink this strategy. Ugh.

MissBabyJane

Yes, I even count cucumbers.

dopeysmelly

Yes. They can have a surprising amount of protein and fiber for not many calories.