Do vegetables matter as far as portion control ?

Technically, they matter. Realistically, it would be really hard to eat enough green beans for their calories to be much of an issue.

I think it really depends on how you cook them. I would say measure the butter/oils and salts just to be safe

If green beans cause you to go over your calorie goals for the day, it will still impact your weight. All foods count, although some foods are much more dense in calories and can cause you to exceed your goals with smaller portions.

segacs wrote: »

Having said that, very few people are overweight because they ate too many green beans.

Though, as someone pointed out above, for someone like my mother-in-law who douses green beans with about a stick of butter (and yes, they are DELICIOUS!) it might be possible for them to have a significant impact on your calorie count.

Like someone else said, technically they matter, but realistically, I'm not sure that you could have enough of them that it would hurt aything unless they're made with a pound of butter or something. My mother used to put a strip of bacon in the pot.

Weight Watchers wants people to have 8 servings of veggies a day. As long as it's not a starchy vegetable, and something like lettuce, green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini - the relatively healthy veggies, I don't usually count them on my food diary. I may make notes as to what veggies I had that day in the notes area, but that's about it.

One of the Weight Watcher leaders I knew (MANY years ago) teased about having "green-bean-itis" because at that time, she didn't like many other vegetables, so she got her 8 vegetable servings in of green beans every day. LOL

Every thing has calories!

I weigh my fruit and vegetable - much to my mum's amusement (she thinks I have serious issues) but I like being on point with my calories and I'm down to the last 8 lbs to lose, so tightening up the tracking and counting is vital for me right now. Having said that, I lost 30 lbs without measuring ANY of my portions before now, so a lot of it IS common sense. I'd say - vegetables you'll generally be okay with, but other foods such as cereal, pasta, rice, meat - weigh!

JasFrancis95 wrote: »

Do Green Beans Matter when it comes to portion control ?

@JasFrancis95 if you are asking if low calorie vegetables such as green beans help with portion control of higher calorie foods, the answer for me is yes. That's how I eat less pizza and pasta - adding low calorie vegetables to the meal.

I'm not sure I understand the question.

All calories count when you're counting calories. However, if you're over your limit for the day, it is unlikely that it was the extra cup of green beans that did you in.

If you're cutting back on food, vegetables aren't really the first place to cut back. They're super low-cal, have vitamins and minerals and they bring lots of fiber along for the ride. They're very healthy. And, again, low-cal. Veggies are the last place I'd cut back.

If you're drowning them in butter, cheese or cream sauces, that's the place to do some cutting back.

But all the calories count. If you're counting calories, count them all.

Does that answer what you were asking? I don't mean, "Is my answer the right one?" Just wondering if addressed what you were trying to ask.

I log everything, it is a choice I make because I like data. If I don't keep accurate data, then conclusions I draw can be skewed. It is my back ground in research. Frequently records are created to track one thing but end up being used to research another. For example, US census records, they are collected to count the number of representatives to assign for each State in congress. They are used decades or centuries later to identify family members. Today I am collecting data to make sure I am eating at a deficit, next week I may be using them to see if I am hitting a micro nutrient goal over time. Green bean consumption might not change my deficit too much but it could make a big difference in achieving a fiber or vitamin C goal.

Whitezombiegirl wrote: »

Yes. Of course. I'm also sceptical of people who eat huge volumes of low cal foods. I'm sure I read that continual over stretching of the stomach leads to less sensitivity to the hormonal signal for fullness - so in the end you always need huge volumes of food in order to feel full.

I'm not sure that volume eaters are eating "huge" volumes of food - enough to stretch the stomach and mess up their satiety signal. I consider my mom to be a volume eater and in the past few decades she's hovered just above underweight.

@PeachyCarol - I seem to remember that you are a volume eater - care to weight in?