Fresh vegetables and calories

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spacey07
spacey07 Posts: 16 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Do fresh vegetables have to truly be accounted for as calories when they are mainly all water and don't contain natural sugar ??

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  • Soopatt
    Soopatt Posts: 563 Member
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    Yes. Still calories and they still add up. When you are eating at a deficit, every bit counts. You might be surprised to see how much your veggies come to - weight them and log them and see if you are surprised.

    Also, it is nice to have a log of your total food intake, so that you can review fiber and macros.
  • spacey07
    spacey07 Posts: 16 Member
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    I'm referring to sweet peppers zucchini tomato lettuce celery mushrooms onion
  • TeaBea
    TeaBea Posts: 14,517 Member
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    The Weight Watchers system gives you "free veggies".....but their starting calories are lower. It's a way to encourage you to eat more veggies.

    With MFP we log everything that has calories. I can scarf down a couple hundred calories in veggies easily.
  • KittensMaster
    KittensMaster Posts: 748 Member
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    Count all food

    It is in the food diary lookup log.
  • debsdoingthis
    debsdoingthis Posts: 454 Member
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    Soopatt wrote: »
    Yes. Still calories and they still add up. When you are eating at a deficit, every bit counts. You might be surprised to see how much your veggies come to - weight them and log them and see if you are surprised.

    Also, it is nice to have a log of your total food intake, so that you can review fiber and macros.
    +1
    The veg part of my lunch salad is 100 cals alone. Then I have veg at dinner time as well. Calorie counts would be off by a couple hundred nearly every day.


  • Soopatt
    Soopatt Posts: 563 Member
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    I saw this discussed on another thread recently and for the things you mention, people have different techniques.
    You don't have to weigh and log onions, tomato etc (I would and I do), as long as you have a plan for factoring them in, like eating at a slightly lower deficit each day, perhaps just a tiny amount.

    Probably still a good bet to work out your average intake at least once, just to have an idea and then you know in your head what it is coming to.
  • KarenJanine
    KarenJanine Posts: 3,497 Member
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    spacey07 wrote: »
    Do fresh vegetables have to truly be accounted for as calories when they are mainly all water and don't contain natural sugar ??

    Most vegetables contain some sugar and other carbs, and therefore have calories. As such they should all be logged.
  • mbaker566
    mbaker566 Posts: 11,233 Member
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    if it goes in your mouth, weigh it and log it. period
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited August 2015
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    You don't HAVE to do anything, of course, but I eat a lot of vegetables, so my calorie totals would be quite a bit off if I did not include them--they add up. More importantly, I see my log as a record for me of how I'm eating that will help me understand my diet and what helps and does not help. Ignoring a significant portion of what I eat would be unhelpful to that goal. And seeing the vegetables I'm eating helps motivate me to eat more and to get more variety if I see I'm doing the same thing too much -- for example, I like to eat non-starchy vegetables with every meal and greens at least once a day, so keeping track lets me follow how well I'm doing, how many total servings I'm getting, etc.

    I'm not sure why you say they have no natural sugar as of course they do. I don't worry about it (I don't really track sugar and don't care at all how much I get from veggies, whole fruits, or dairy), but since you mentioned it.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,867 Member
    edited August 2015
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    spacey07 wrote: »
    Do fresh vegetables have to truly be accounted for as calories when they are mainly all water and don't contain natural sugar ??

    uhhh...they have calories...and they do contain natural sugar. they don't have a ton of calories, but they have calories. my garden salad before dressing is around 80 calories. I'm having around 4 ounces of steamed broccoli tonight with my dinner...that's another 40 calories. just right there would be 120 calories...why wouldn't you want to account for that?

    If I'm just nibbling on a cucumber slice or something I'm probably not going to be too fussed about it...but I eat a ton of veg, so of course it counts.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,867 Member
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    spacey07 wrote: »
    I'm referring to sweet peppers zucchini tomato lettuce celery mushrooms onion

    Bell Pepper (3 ounce serving) = 1 serving of veg:
    - 24 calories
    - 2.9 grams sugar

    Zucchini (3 ounce serving):
    - 33 calories
    - 4.9 grams sugar

    Tomato (3 ounce serving):
    - 22 calories
    - 3.2 grams sugar

    etc, etc, etc, etc....

  • Markdjones83
    Markdjones83 Posts: 852 Member
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    moyer566 wrote: »
    if it goes in your mouth, weigh it and log it. period

    giphy.gif
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    Vegetables have calories. Since weight loss is created by a caloric deficit, understanding how many calories you're consuming is key.
  • Kalikel
    Kalikel Posts: 9,626 Member
    edited August 2015
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    It's your diary and you get to make the rules! If you don't want to record veggies, then don't record them.

    I count everything because i am counting the calories. I'm not counting some of the calories, KWIM? What is the point of knowing the the total of some of the calories? For me, there isn't one.

    Also, I track my micros and that's important to me. Skipping the veggies when I enter would knock all the numbers out of whack.
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 9,088 Member
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    I agree that just not logging any vegetables doesn't make sense.

    But I admit I use common sense with this.
    If I am having, for example, a sandwich with 1/4 lettuce leaf, amongst other ingredients, I probably wouldn't bother logging that bit of lettuce, calorie amount maybe 1 or 2 calories.
  • Katzedernacht
    Katzedernacht Posts: 266 Member
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    Yes,thing is it's kinda silly cos well you need a ton of veggies to make a big number,but yes I count all, except the 3 slices of onion I added to some taco cos i don't have a scale that is THAT accurate yet,that is why.

  • Linzon
    Linzon Posts: 294 Member
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    I weigh and log everything. I can easily eat 200 calories worth of veggies over the course of a day :)
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    paperpudding wrote: »
    I agree that just not logging any vegetables doesn't make sense.

    But I admit I use common sense with this.
    If I am having, for example, a sandwich with 1/4 lettuce leaf, amongst other ingredients, I probably wouldn't bother logging that bit of lettuce, calorie amount maybe 1 or 2 calories.

    I agree with this. I am also perfectly fine with eyeballing spinach or the like. When putting it in an omelet I weigh it because I'm weighing everything and it takes no time (and I like precise numbers in grams), but if making a salad I might just estimate the number of cups. But the main thing is it's in my log so I can see an accurate reflection of what I ate.

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