Vegetables

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jessicaflanders3
jessicaflanders3 Posts: 23 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Does everyone add vegetables into their daily calories intake? For eg when I do a salad sandwich I only put in the bun, cheese and butter, I don't bother putting the calories in for the cucumber/ lettuce/carrot/ beetroot. Or if I do a home made pizza, I add the bread, the leggo sauce , the cheese. I don't put in the broccoli, capsicum ect.
in any other " diet" Ive never had to calculate the veges Ive always been told they don't have calories really. And you can eat as much as you want?
I do count the calories on fruit though.
What are your thoughts?
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Replies

  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 17,959 Member
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    I count them because they do have calories, and I eat 200-300 calories of veggies a day. I don't always weigh them, and tend to guestimate but I put them in, not just because of the calories but also so in later weeks/months I can go back and see an accurate representation of what I ate.
  • Seffell
    Seffell Posts: 2,222 Member
    edited May 2017
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    Depends how many calories these veggies are.
    A leaf in the sandwich is like 1cal. A tomato salad is 40cal.
    Also veggies totally DO have calories (easy to check how many in google or in the mfp database). You can't eat as much as you want.
    Weigh everything you eat and log it.
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 9,082 Member
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    Depends - one leaf of lettuce in a sandwich - no, not worth adding that .

    2 roast potatos - yes, definitely. I would weigh and log them.

    Other things like carrots I log but just estimate at, say, half a medium carrot without weighing

  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    Vegetables do have calories - some more calorie dense than others.
    If you don't count them you won't learn portion sizing and calorie loads.
    in any other " diet" Ive never had to calculate the veges Ive always been told they don't have calories really
    Sounds like those diets weren't successful in achieving long term weight management. Don't repeat mistakes of the past, learn from them.
  • rianneonamission
    rianneonamission Posts: 854 Member
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    If you are on a calorie controlled diet then you should add them. Yes, most vegetables are low calorie, but they are certainly not without. A clean eating diet is different in that respect as you normally cut out certain parts of your diet and work with a points system. Yesterday I ate over 100 cals in veg, which isn't a great deal really. So if you are really eating a lot of veg then you may need to reduce your non veg intake.
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
    edited May 2017
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    Alatariel75 wrote: »
    I count them because they do have calories, and I eat 200-300 calories of veggies a day.

    This.

    I made a recipe with equal grams of the vegetables I eat most and then set number of servings to the total number of grams. When I eat raw vegetables I just use that recipe to log them instead of weighing each separately.

    Note that I used vegetables like cucumbers, tomatoes, etc and not starchy vegetables such as potatoes in this recipe, as the latter tend to be higher in calories. I still eat potatoes but weigh them separately.
  • HeliumIsNoble
    HeliumIsNoble Posts: 1,213 Member
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    The standard issue salad-dodger can lose weight without counting vegetables. :D However, if you eat a lot of fruit, you'll need to count them.

    At the moment, I log my vegetables meticulously, but I'm doing that to check I meet my protein and vitamin goals, not because I'm concerned a small bag of salad and a tomato in my sandwich might make me overweight.
  • ChristopherLimoges
    ChristopherLimoges Posts: 298 Member
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    I usually put in every item used for the recipe/meal.
  • kazminchu
    kazminchu Posts: 250 Member
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    I make a "fried rice" which is almost exclusively vegetables. Excluding the sauce, chicken and egg I add to it, it's easily 250-300 calories. Of pure vegetables. My lunchtime salad has 96 calories of vegetables. I cram as much veg into my main meals as possible, so I easily get 2-300 calories of vegetables a day, which is a fair portion of my 1400 total. So yes, I log them. I generally don't weigh the lower calorie ones like lettuce/cucumber precisely, but things like carrots/butternut squash/sweetcorn/peas do get weighed as they have enough calories to make a fair difference.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited May 2017
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    jessicaflanders3 wrote: »
    Does everyone add vegetables into their daily calories intake?

    Yep, always have when I am bothering logging at all. When logging one thing I want is my TDEE and my macros, and I eat a lot of vegetables, so it would be really off if I did not include them. Also, I like to see that I am eating a good diet, including enough and a variety of veg, so see logging them as helpful for that goal. Looking back to see when I struggled and when I did not, without logging veg two days would look the same if one were low cal but no/low veg and one were normal cal/lots of veg, and it's IMO good to be able to see the difference. Besides I like using logging to focus on nutrition, not just calories.

    Currently I log for another reason -- I'm low carbing and vegetables are my main source of carbs. I'd have no clue how many I was eating if I didn't log veg. But that won't apply to everyone. It can be interesting to see what your macro ratios are, though. Also, you do get some protein in veg, which helps with that count.
  • trigden1991
    trigden1991 Posts: 4,658 Member
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    My vegetables of choice are normally low calorie, high volume ones and therefore do not log them. This coupled with a healthy TDEE means that I have no issues with underestimating my intake.
  • Zinka61
    Zinka61 Posts: 563 Member
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    I'm aiming for the recommended 10 servings of fruit and veggies a day, and that can certainly add up--Yes, I log them!
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
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    I sure do log them. 200-300 calories is a decent chunk of my daily calorie budget.
  • Lorilynn_37
    Lorilynn_37 Posts: 87 Member
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    Some of the veggies have very few calories!
    So I can see where you would think it's ok not to log.
    But I've realized that sometimes the raw veggies are my go to snacks so if they are only 5 cal or even 25 cals they add up fast when you have them a few times a day..
  • CiaIgle
    CiaIgle Posts: 72 Member
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    I use the same rule for almost any food: I log if I understand it's more than 5 cals.

    Under that rule, even the simplest side salad (no dressing) should be logged.

    I exclude coffee, tea and sweeteners.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    If someone isn't eating very many vegetables, I think they can probably get away without logging them. I'd still want to see them because I like to know how many calories I'm actually eating (I log low calorie condiments and coffee too). But it would never work for me because I can eat hundreds of calories of vegetables in a day. Vegetables, even those that we think of as lower calorie, do have calories. I ate 80 calories worth of iceberg lettuce the other day and when someone is working with a small deficit, that can make a difference.
  • jessicaflanders3
    jessicaflanders3 Posts: 23 Member
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    Thanks all. I have found i am finding it really hard to stay under 1200 calories already, thats without counting vegetables.> And I would probably find myself swapping out vegetables for something more filling like bread for those 200 calories. I guess i just need to keep working at finding myself low calorie food that I like.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    jessicaflanders3 wrote: »
    Thanks all. I have found i am finding it really hard to stay under 1200 calories already, thats without counting vegetables.> And I would probably find myself swapping out vegetables for something more filling like bread for those 200 calories. I guess i just need to keep working at finding myself low calorie food that I like.

    Why is your goal under 1,200 calories? 1,200 is generally considered to be the lowest that a woman should go.

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