Necessary to count cucumbers/celery/grape tomatoes?

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cloverdaisy
cloverdaisy Posts: 64 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi everyone, I'm new here and this might be a dumb question....but is it really necessary to log raw veggies like cucumbers, celery stalks, grape tomatoes I eat as snacks throughout the day?

Thank you!!
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Replies

  • cloverdaisy
    cloverdaisy Posts: 64 Member
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    trackercasey76 wrote: »
    Be honest and log everything. Those won't make a huge difference, but getting in the habit of logging everything you put in your mouth can't hurt.

    Thanks, pal!
  • Ready2Rock206
    Ready2Rock206 Posts: 9,488 Member
    edited January 2017
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    Of course. They have calories. I don't see the point in logging at all if you're only going to log selective items. In the beginning when you have a lot more to lose being 200, 300, 400 calories off due to unlogged foods might not be a big deal but when you get close to your goal those extra calories can easily wipe out any deficit you have. Best to get in the habit of logging them now. Also if you ever decide to track your nutrients/macros by leaving out big chunks of food you're consuming your info will be inaccurate.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    edited January 2017
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    It depends.

    Are you eating enough of them to impact your deficit (assuming weight loss is your goal)?

    Is the rest of your logging totally accurate?

    Is your deficit small anyway?

    I personally can eat enough vegetables to cancel out a deficit, so I log them all. Others here have had success with not logging certain vegetables. I personally don't see the point of only logging some foods, but I know my way isn't necessarily the only one.
  • cloverdaisy
    cloverdaisy Posts: 64 Member
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    Ready2Rock206 wrote: »
    Of course. They have calories. I don't see the point in logging at all if you're only going to log selective items. In the beginning when you have a lot more to lose being 200, 300, 400 calories off due to unlogged foods might not be a big deal but when you get close to your goal those extra calories can easily wipe out any deficit you have. Best to get in the habit of logging them now. Also if you ever decide to track your nutrients/macros by leaving out big chunks of food you're consuming your info will be inaccurate.

    Moving my axx over to log all the cucumbers I just ate...lol
  • cloverdaisy
    cloverdaisy Posts: 64 Member
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    janejellyroll wrote: »
    It depends.

    Are you eating enough of them to impact your deficit (assuming weight loss is your goal)?

    Is the rest of your logging totally accurate?

    Is your deficit small anyway?

    I personally can eat enough vegetables to cancel out a deficit, so I log them all. Others here have had success with not logging certain vegetables. I personally don't see the point of only logging some foods, but I know my way isn't necessarily the only one.

    I meal prepped 2-week worth of food yesterday. Everything was weighed and portioned out so it should be accurate. But I'm gonna take all the advice to log my veggie consumption from today. XD
  • dbanks80
    dbanks80 Posts: 3,685 Member
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    They are low calorie but i still count them. And depending how much you eat the calories can add up.
  • AFGP11
    AFGP11 Posts: 142 Member
    edited January 2017
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    I'll be honest. I lost 60 pounds by fudging my vegetable amounts on my log. I still logged them, but I approximated the amount instead of measuring.

    This time around I am very focused on macros and I weigh everything down to the salt and pepper. As long as you are fairly honest with yourself, you can probably fudge a little, but if you don't trust yourself, it can't hurt to weigh it.
  • zyxst
    zyxst Posts: 9,134 Member
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    I would log them, but I'm not you. If you don't want to log them then don't.
  • EricaCraigie
    EricaCraigie Posts: 1,396 Member
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    Yes.. nutrients add up and are important to track as well
  • Reaverie
    Reaverie Posts: 405 Member
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    I log raddishes and they only have 1 calorie each.
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 9,014 Member
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    For me it would depend on how many I ate and whether I was tracking micro nutrients (I am not)

    From a weight loss point of view, I dont think the aim is to be as accurate as possible - the aim is to be accurate enough for it to work.

    So, if I were eating a small amount of such things I would aproximate them or even omit them altogether.

    Or if you eat around same amount of them every day just measure once and then put that in every future time without weighing them daily.
    I do that with lots of things
  • serindipte
    serindipte Posts: 1,557 Member
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    If I just toss a few spinach leaves in, I don't count it. If it's more than that, I log it all.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    When I logged, I logged them, but I wasn't super fussy about it
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,986 Member
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    I don't usually bother if it's a single lettuce leaf or a slice or two of tomato on a sandwich, but anything beyond that, yes.
  • yayamom3
    yayamom3 Posts: 939 Member
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    I do log really low-cal veggies. However, after I weigh them several times, I get a good idea of what a serving size is and no longer weigh them, I just use the saved info on my app. I don't do this with any of my other foods, just low-cal, non-starchy veggies that I eat on a regular basis.
  • OhMsDiva
    OhMsDiva Posts: 1,074 Member
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    Ready2Rock206 wrote: »
    Of course. They have calories. I don't see the point in logging at all if you're only going to log selective items. In the beginning when you have a lot more to lose being 200, 300, 400 calories off due to unlogged foods might not be a big deal but when you get close to your goal those extra calories can easily wipe out any deficit you have. Best to get in the habit of logging them now. Also if you ever decide to track your nutrients/macros by leaving out big chunks of food you're consuming your info will be inaccurate.

  • OhMsDiva
    OhMsDiva Posts: 1,074 Member
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    OhMsDiva wrote: »
    Ready2Rock206 wrote: »
    Of course. They have calories. I don't see the point in logging at all if you're only going to log selective items. In the beginning when you have a lot more to lose being 200, 300, 400 calories off due to unlogged foods might not be a big deal but when you get close to your goal those extra calories can easily wipe out any deficit you have. Best to get in the habit of logging them now. Also if you ever decide to track your nutrients/macros by leaving out big chunks of food you're consuming your info will be inaccurate.

    I agree with that. I log, but i dont weigh them. Kind of an oxymoron. I pretty much have a good idea of how much I am eating by now. Also I was surprised when I started logging what the different nutrients were in certain veggies.
  • mjbnj0001
    mjbnj0001 Posts: 1,091 Member
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    I take coumadin, and I unfortunately don't eat as much leafy greens as the rest of the family. So, I have a recipe entry that I call "salad veggies mix" (since 85% of my raw veggies consist of a similar assortment of tomatoes, cukes, peppers, etc. - the family adds in their leafy stuff on top of this) - and this one entry reduces the bookkeeping for the individual listed items. The slight variances in macro/micro counts based on the absolute proportion of the veggies - which does vary somewhat over time - isn't enough to make me fret.

    On the other hand, when I do something special - this week I made an heirloom tomato salad as a side - I log the specific stuff. Celery, carrots, etc., snacked on usually get their own entries as well (usually there's hummus or sunbutter or something else involved as well).

    It gets tedious logging, and I try to make it easier if possible. So I look for "decent enough accuracy" - I grew up with slide rules, rather than calculators, LOL. One of the other posters above noted that MFP offers easy access to your recent entries, so that if you have some consistency in your selections (one of the main theories of the app), then a prior entry is waiting for you to simply pick it (and perhaps re-size for what you actually ate).

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