Not logging salad okay??

2

Replies

  • eileen0515
    eileen0515 Posts: 407 Member
    I prepare a similar salad, I log it.
  • tincanonastring
    tincanonastring Posts: 3,944 Member
    My lunch salads are 450-515 calories, so I definitely log them! Just create the meal as others have suggested.
  • Nikion901
    Nikion901 Posts: 2,467 Member
    Here's an idea ... make a recipe on MFP of your basic salad ingredients. You only need to weigh/measure the basics once for the recipe. The recipe builder does not allow multiple choices for servings ... like 1 cup, so, if you made a salad that came to 6 cups total, that might be 6 servings. Then when you have the salad, you can use your recipe to log it and just add on whatever else you put in, like the salad dressing and any extra's like cheee, meat, nuts or seeds.

    This way it's quick to do and you will get a better count of your nutrition and fiber. That's what I've been doing with my soups, salads, and breakfast porridges because they are usually the same from one cooking session to another.
  • dbanks80
    dbanks80 Posts: 3,685 Member
    My lunch salads are 450-515 calories, so I definitely log them! Just create the meal as others have suggested.


    Yeah my salads are 480 cals. I always log it.
  • ksuh999
    ksuh999 Posts: 543 Member
    I no longer log lettuce, onions, raw tomatoes, carrots nor cucumbers. Last time I weighed lettuce for a salad it was 2 calories.
  • BarbieAS
    BarbieAS Posts: 1,414 Member
    edited February 2016
    dbanks80 wrote: »
    My lunch salads are 450-515 calories, so I definitely log them! Just create the meal as others have suggested.


    Yeah my salads are 480 cals. I always log it.

    Of all raw vegetables????? I'm truly impressed. She said she logs her dressing separately.

    My lunch salads range from about 325 to maybe 500 calories...but they usually include several ounces of meat and/or cheese, a full tablespoon of olive oil in the dressing, sometimes fruit or nuts or avocado or bacon or croutons...obviously all that stuff gets logged. And I, personally, log my vegetables in my salad as well, but I doubt my 11 calories of romaine and 7 calories of cucumbers and 4 calories of green peppers would send my efforts into the crapper if I didn't. I don't think anyone (including the OP) is disputing whether or not to log toppings, starchy vegetables, etc.
  • AlisonH729
    AlisonH729 Posts: 558 Member
    Today my salad comes in at 460. It has avocado and cottage cheese in it. Among other things.
  • Katie_Y89
    Katie_Y89 Posts: 330 Member
    BarbieAS wrote: »
    dbanks80 wrote: »
    My lunch salads are 450-515 calories, so I definitely log them! Just create the meal as others have suggested.


    Yeah my salads are 480 cals. I always log it.

    Of all raw vegetables????? I'm truly impressed. She said she logs her dressing separately.

    My lunch salads range from about 325 to maybe 500 calories...but they usually include several ounces of meat and/or cheese, a full tablespoon of olive oil in the dressing, sometimes fruit or nuts or avocado or bacon or croutons...obviously all that stuff gets logged. And I, personally, log my vegetables in my salad as well, but I doubt my 11 calories of romaine and 7 calories of cucumbers and 4 calories of green peppers would send my efforts into the crapper if I didn't. I don't think anyone (including the OP) is disputing whether or not to log toppings, starchy vegetables, etc.


    Exactly right. Everythng i put ON the salad, i log (dressing, cheese, meat, ect). I just haven't logged the veggies.
    Not sure how many "servings" we make because we just dump and mix it into a giant glass bowl.

    Next time it's made, I will try and track the cals the best i can :)
  • snowflake930
    snowflake930 Posts: 2,188 Member
    Log everything you eat and drink.
    Everything has calories and they add up.
    If you are honest, log everything you eat and drink and stay within your calories for every day, you will lose.
    It may save you from having to ask why you are not losing weight, a question that is asked here every day.
  • elaineamj
    elaineamj Posts: 347 Member
    I log it all. I've been making cobb salad for the past few days. I enter each individual ingredient (by weight) into a meal (say lunch). Then I saved it as "saved meals". The next time I made the Cobb Salad, I

    - added the saved meal.
    - weighed each ingredient (since I use slightly different quantities each time I make it)
    - corrected the weight/serving size of each ingredient

    And got an accurate calorie count without having to manually enter each ingredient and double check that it is accurate.

    I haven't used "saved meals" or "my foods" much at all and definitely found this a time saver. Also felt less daunting logging 10 different salad ingredients. That said, depending on how tight your deficit is, logging raw veggies may not always need to be spot on.

    My salad today broke down to:
    Fresh veggies - 33 cals
    Egg, avocado, and deli turkey - 269 cals
    Dressing - 183 cals
    Total - 485 cals

    I could prob have gotten away with not really logging the fresh greens. But definitely not the heavier proteins.
  • AmazonMayan
    AmazonMayan Posts: 1,168 Member
    Lettuce is something I never weigh and estimate at 1 cup or 2 cups, etc instead. I did weigh it long ago and quickly realized I didn't need to ever again lol.

    I do log it though.
  • beemerphile1
    beemerphile1 Posts: 1,710 Member
    I've always just done a rough estimate on salad since it is so low in calories. The big calories are in the dressing.
  • tincanonastring
    tincanonastring Posts: 3,944 Member
    Katie_Y89 wrote: »
    BarbieAS wrote: »
    dbanks80 wrote: »
    My lunch salads are 450-515 calories, so I definitely log them! Just create the meal as others have suggested.


    Yeah my salads are 480 cals. I always log it.

    Of all raw vegetables????? I'm truly impressed. She said she logs her dressing separately.

    My lunch salads range from about 325 to maybe 500 calories...but they usually include several ounces of meat and/or cheese, a full tablespoon of olive oil in the dressing, sometimes fruit or nuts or avocado or bacon or croutons...obviously all that stuff gets logged. And I, personally, log my vegetables in my salad as well, but I doubt my 11 calories of romaine and 7 calories of cucumbers and 4 calories of green peppers would send my efforts into the crapper if I didn't. I don't think anyone (including the OP) is disputing whether or not to log toppings, starchy vegetables, etc.


    Exactly right. Everythng i put ON the salad, i log (dressing, cheese, meat, ect). I just haven't logged the veggies.
    Not sure how many "servings" we make because we just dump and mix it into a giant glass bowl.

    Next time it's made, I will try and track the cals the best i can :)

    I just added up the veggie calories in the salad I ate for lunch today. Around 150 calories.
  • AlphaCajun
    AlphaCajun Posts: 290 Member
    I generally don't. I'll log the dressing but that's it. But what do I know, I've only lost 80 pounds since January 2015.
  • hazleyes81
    hazleyes81 Posts: 296 Member
    I would save it as a meal not a recipe then you can adjust things, like add or subtract or otherwise adjust ingredients if you need to.
  • BarbieAS
    BarbieAS Posts: 1,414 Member
    edited February 2016
    Katie_Y89 wrote: »
    BarbieAS wrote: »
    dbanks80 wrote: »
    My lunch salads are 450-515 calories, so I definitely log them! Just create the meal as others have suggested.


    Yeah my salads are 480 cals. I always log it.

    Of all raw vegetables????? I'm truly impressed. She said she logs her dressing separately.

    My lunch salads range from about 325 to maybe 500 calories...but they usually include several ounces of meat and/or cheese, a full tablespoon of olive oil in the dressing, sometimes fruit or nuts or avocado or bacon or croutons...obviously all that stuff gets logged. And I, personally, log my vegetables in my salad as well, but I doubt my 11 calories of romaine and 7 calories of cucumbers and 4 calories of green peppers would send my efforts into the crapper if I didn't. I don't think anyone (including the OP) is disputing whether or not to log toppings, starchy vegetables, etc.


    Exactly right. Everythng i put ON the salad, i log (dressing, cheese, meat, ect). I just haven't logged the veggies.
    Not sure how many "servings" we make because we just dump and mix it into a giant glass bowl.

    Next time it's made, I will try and track the cals the best i can :)

    I just added up the veggie calories in the salad I ate for lunch today. Around 150 calories.

    I took 15 seconds and fussed with just my recent entries for lunch...granted I don't know what veggies you have, but it took me 700 grams of raw, non-starchy vegetables (100 ea of lettuce, spinach, mushrooms, zucchini, cucumber, onion, green pepper) to get to 150 calories. That's like over a pound and a half of salad. That's like....an eff ton of salad. Yeah, if you're eating a garbage can full of salad you should probably go ahead and weigh and log that because that's going to make a big difference. But a 25 calorie side salad for dinner isn't going to make or break the average MFP user.

    Don't get me wrong - I'm fully on the side of logging the salad. I just don't think it's productive to imply that the OP is possibly consuming hundreds of calories per day that she isn't logging. She's not.
  • rosebarnalice
    rosebarnalice Posts: 3,488 Member
    I regularly log my salads (usually some combination of raw greens, cabbage, cucumber, carrot, celery and tomatoes) and can easily have 130 -170 calories before I add dressing.
  • BarbieAS
    BarbieAS Posts: 1,414 Member
    edited February 2016
    I regularly log my salads (usually some combination of raw greens, cabbage, cucumber, carrot, celery and tomatoes) and can easily have 130 -170 calories before I add dressing.

    Honestly, what size bowl do you put that in??? I use a 5 cup sized tupperware and my 70 grams of romaine and 50 grams of cucumbers (totaling 20 calories on their own) are jammed in there so tightly that I usually end up dumping half of it on my desk while I'm mixing the dressing, and that's before I add anything else to it! Do you eat out of a Home Depot paint bucket? That's like 35 cups of salad! ETA: Maybe carrots have a lot more calories than I give them credit for - I hate carrots, I believe they're the devil's root, so I don't have a gauge on the calorie count.
  • tincanonastring
    tincanonastring Posts: 3,944 Member
    BarbieAS wrote: »
    Katie_Y89 wrote: »
    BarbieAS wrote: »
    dbanks80 wrote: »
    My lunch salads are 450-515 calories, so I definitely log them! Just create the meal as others have suggested.


    Yeah my salads are 480 cals. I always log it.

    Of all raw vegetables????? I'm truly impressed. She said she logs her dressing separately.

    My lunch salads range from about 325 to maybe 500 calories...but they usually include several ounces of meat and/or cheese, a full tablespoon of olive oil in the dressing, sometimes fruit or nuts or avocado or bacon or croutons...obviously all that stuff gets logged. And I, personally, log my vegetables in my salad as well, but I doubt my 11 calories of romaine and 7 calories of cucumbers and 4 calories of green peppers would send my efforts into the crapper if I didn't. I don't think anyone (including the OP) is disputing whether or not to log toppings, starchy vegetables, etc.


    Exactly right. Everythng i put ON the salad, i log (dressing, cheese, meat, ect). I just haven't logged the veggies.
    Not sure how many "servings" we make because we just dump and mix it into a giant glass bowl.

    Next time it's made, I will try and track the cals the best i can :)

    I just added up the veggie calories in the salad I ate for lunch today. Around 150 calories.

    I took 15 seconds and fussed with just my recent entries for lunch...granted I don't know what veggies you have, but it took me 700 grams of raw. non-starchy vegetables (100 ea of lettuce, spinach, mushrooms, zucchini, cucumber, onion, green pepper) to get to 150 calories. That's like over a pound and a half of salad. That's like....an eff ton of salad. Yeah, if you're eating a garbage can full of salad you should probably go ahead and weigh and log that because that's going to make a big difference. But a 25 calorie side salad for dinner isn't going to make or break the average MFP user.

    Don't get me wrong - I'm fully on the side of logging the salad. I just don't think it's productive to imply that the OP is possibly consuming hundreds of calories per day that she isn't logging. She's not.

    Yes, very close on the weight.

    100g lettuce
    50g spinach
    100g carrots
    100g tomato
    100g cucumber
    100g celery
    50g onion

    Not really a garbage can, but a bit more than a dinner side salad. Red onions and carrots are the two highest calorie per gram veggies in there, both of which the OP includes in her salad. It may not be a huge deal to you, but OP is eating 1200 calories a day (ran a quick search to verify). 50 calories of veggies is 4% of her total calorie allowance for the day. If I had that little margin for error, you can bet I'd be weighing everything, including the romaine.
  • BarbieAS
    BarbieAS Posts: 1,414 Member
    edited February 2016
    BarbieAS wrote: »
    Katie_Y89 wrote: »
    BarbieAS wrote: »
    dbanks80 wrote: »
    My lunch salads are 450-515 calories, so I definitely log them! Just create the meal as others have suggested.


    Yeah my salads are 480 cals. I always log it.

    Of all raw vegetables????? I'm truly impressed. She said she logs her dressing separately.

    My lunch salads range from about 325 to maybe 500 calories...but they usually include several ounces of meat and/or cheese, a full tablespoon of olive oil in the dressing, sometimes fruit or nuts or avocado or bacon or croutons...obviously all that stuff gets logged. And I, personally, log my vegetables in my salad as well, but I doubt my 11 calories of romaine and 7 calories of cucumbers and 4 calories of green peppers would send my efforts into the crapper if I didn't. I don't think anyone (including the OP) is disputing whether or not to log toppings, starchy vegetables, etc.


    Exactly right. Everythng i put ON the salad, i log (dressing, cheese, meat, ect). I just haven't logged the veggies.
    Not sure how many "servings" we make because we just dump and mix it into a giant glass bowl.

    Next time it's made, I will try and track the cals the best i can :)

    I just added up the veggie calories in the salad I ate for lunch today. Around 150 calories.

    I took 15 seconds and fussed with just my recent entries for lunch...granted I don't know what veggies you have, but it took me 700 grams of raw. non-starchy vegetables (100 ea of lettuce, spinach, mushrooms, zucchini, cucumber, onion, green pepper) to get to 150 calories. That's like over a pound and a half of salad. That's like....an eff ton of salad. Yeah, if you're eating a garbage can full of salad you should probably go ahead and weigh and log that because that's going to make a big difference. But a 25 calorie side salad for dinner isn't going to make or break the average MFP user.

    Don't get me wrong - I'm fully on the side of logging the salad. I just don't think it's productive to imply that the OP is possibly consuming hundreds of calories per day that she isn't logging. She's not.

    Yes, very close on the weight.

    100g lettuce
    50g spinach
    100g carrots
    100g tomato
    100g cucumber
    100g celery
    50g onion

    Not really a garbage can, but a bit more than a dinner side salad. Red onions and carrots are the two highest calorie per gram veggies in there, both of which the OP includes in her salad. It may not be a huge deal to you, but OP is eating 1200 calories a day (ran a quick search to verify). 50 calories of veggies is 4% of her total calorie allowance for the day. If I had that little margin for error, you can bet I'd be weighing everything, including the romaine.

    Fair enough. I think that's more than just a bit more than a dinner side salad - I said in a post above that my typical lunch is a salad about 1/6th the total weight of yours and it packs a 5 cup tupperware FULL....so you've got probably 20 cups of salad there? erring on the lower side since admittedly mine is mostly lettuce - but I fully agree with you on the margin of error. Like I said, I've always been on the side of logging the salad and I log my own salads. I just still don't think most MFP users are regularly consuming 150 calories of raw vegetables in one sitting.

    Though, I do know carrots probably pack a bigger punch than most vegetables - I think they're gross and never ever eat them so I don't have a good mental picture on what a normal salad serving would be in terms of calorie count. So maybe that's my issue.