Do you track salad etc

13

Replies

  • TonyB0588
    TonyB0588 Posts: 9,520 Member
    claireashj wrote: »
    Do I need to track EVERYTHING?
    Salads and veg etc

    Yes. And a lot depends on what you mean by salad.

    One of my "pet peeves" is the fact that salads have evolved over the years from a plain mix of vegetables, to a combo containing meat, cheese, oil, nuts, fruits, eggs, croutons.
  • jennifer_417
    jennifer_417 Posts: 12,344 Member
    You'd be surprised how many calories a salad has.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    edited March 2019
    TonyB0588 wrote: »
    claireashj wrote: »
    Do I need to track EVERYTHING?
    Salads and veg etc

    Yes. And a lot depends on what you mean by salad.

    One of my "pet peeves" is the fact that salads have evolved over the years from a plain mix of vegetables, to a combo containing meat, cheese, oil, nuts, fruits, eggs, croutons.

    Not actually a recent thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salad

    When I was a kid the standard side salad we'd have at home sometimes had some kind or kinds of greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, etc., but also maybe olives and definitely dressing (and the dressings were mostly high cal).

    Also, while we didn't have them at home in my family, you could go to a nice restaurant and get a formal salad with lots of different ingredients -- most of the common named salads have been around for a while (I watched an old Julia Child episode where she taught a nicoise).

    More family-style restaurants would commonly have salad bars, which would have a ton of different ingredients available. Given how much I loved a good salad bar as a kid, I will give it a little credit toward my love of vegetables today, as it made eating vegetables not just something you had to do, but fun and exciting.

    There are probably more crazy super high cal salads today, especially at some chains (from what I've heard), but you can also make or easily find salads similar to what have been common forever, and they also often have high cal ingredients.

    Fruit salad was as common when I was a kid as now, same with chicken salad and egg salad -- however, in normal American usage, at least, I would not think "salad" without a modifier meant those kinds of salads, but instead the greens and veg based ones that might also have high cal ingredients and dressing.

    That aside, I agree that it definitely depends on what OP means by "salads." I assumed OP was mainly referring to the non starchy veg components (which personally I at least estimate since I want to know about nutrients and so on, when I am logging). As someone who adores salad as a meal, it's a good thing it's not just veg and almost no cals, but can become a full meal (mine aren't crazy high cal, but tend to be basically normal meal cals, so it would be a shame not to count them when counting).
  • zeejane03
    zeejane03 Posts: 993 Member
    edited March 2019
    echmain3 wrote: »
    Danp wrote: »
    That kind of illustrates the point I was making. Some can maintain a healthy weight while doing exactly zero tracking. In fact most of the world does just that.

    They aren’t in these forums.

    No really.

    There's some of us who are in maintenance now, that don't track our intake intake regularly. My daily weigh-ins are my biggest weight management tool, along with mental calorie math throughout the day. I spot check my calorie/micros intake over on cronometer once in a while, but I'm not a daily tracker anymore.

    I always recommend for people to start out by tracking and continue doing so into maintenance for a while (3-4 years).

  • zeejane03
    zeejane03 Posts: 993 Member
    edited March 2019
    InAbsentia_3 wrote: »
    If no dressings or toppings on it, you can generally ignore it if male (negligible calories i.e. 60-70). If you're a female or otherwise have a tight calorie budget, log it because that might be 1/12th of your calories for the day.

    Generally, log everything, but logging only matters if you can do it for the rest of your life without hassle.

    No, it means you're learning skills that you can then use for the rest of your life without hassle. By tracking/weighing my food for a few years I learned how to accurately estimate portion sizes for a lot of foods. It also created the habit of counting calories and I now do it mentally throughout the day without even having to think about it. It also gives you a solid foundation so when you start to see your weight change beyond your maintenance range, you can easily go back into a more structured phase and track, with minimal fuss.
  • meatsweats73
    meatsweats73 Posts: 5 Member
    edited March 2019
    InAbsentia_3 wrote: »
    If no dressings or toppings on it, you can generally ignore it if male (negligible calories i.e. 60-70). If you're a female or otherwise have a tight calorie budget, log it because that might be 1/12th of your calories for the day.

    Generally, log everything, but logging only matters if you can do it for the rest of your life without hassle.

    What are you talking about? If 70 calories is 1/12th of a person's calories for the day that means their daily calorie allotment is only 840 calories. That isn't sustainable for almost anyone, outside of, possibly, pre-op bariatric surgery patients who are being medically supervised. MFP give 1,200 calories as the absolute bare minimum and that's only for very sedentary, older, teeny little ladies.

    Why does logging only matter if you can do it the rest of your life without hassle? What if it helps someone reach their goal, and during the process, they learn about proper portions and get their act together, nutritionally/calorically speaking? They might choose/need to keep logging when they hit their goal, or they may not, but it's a learning process in itself.
  • Nicky5547
    Nicky5547 Posts: 1 Member
    I didn't used to track veggies or fruit, but since using this app I have come to learn how high in carbs and calories apples are. I really had no idea and would eat 2 or 3 a day. I have changed that now.
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
    InAbsentia_3 wrote: »
    If no dressings or toppings on it, you can generally ignore it if male (negligible calories i.e. 60-70). If you're a female or otherwise have a tight calorie budget, log it because that might be 1/12th of your calories for the day.

    Generally, log everything, but logging only matters if you can do it for the rest of your life without hassle.

    I would respectfully disagree with the bolded. Logging teaches you what a serving looks like, many of us found that by logging accurately to start we became much better at visualizing serving sizes when weighing wasn't an option. It is actually fairly common for those who weighed religiously during their weight loss to wean themselves off once they're in maintenance and find they either no longer need to log at all or can log more casually.
  • KimberlyCapone
    KimberlyCapone Posts: 42 Member
    debrakgoogins wrote: »
    funjen1972 wrote: »
    I don't track lettuce, raw spinach or seasonings, but track other veggies & salad toppings. Sometimes I'll log all the other veggies combined as red peppers, even though it might be a combination of cucumbers, onions, carrots, peppers, etc... Other toppings are logged separate - dressing, fruit, proteins, grains, etc....
    I'm glad this works for you but for a new person who is trying to understand calorie counting, it's not a good way to get started. Depending on how often they eat salads and what they are putting on the salad, it would be easy to over or underestimate the calories being consumed.

    Absolutely! I was looking at the Applebee's calorie menu and some of their salads had more than I'm allowed in a day!! The more you log, the more accurate your picture is - the more successful you will be.
  • ceiswyn
    ceiswyn Posts: 2,253 Member
    If you start by logging absolutely everything, then that gives you a lot of information about your eating patterns and food calorie densities, and you can make informed decisions about what you might not need to log going forward.

    I tend to log everything (except the milk in my hot drinks shutup), but I'm a lot more likely to estimate tomatoes and peppers without weighing than I am, say, sweetcorn.
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 8,967 Member
    KimberlyCapone wrote: »
    debrakgoogins wrote: »
    funjen1972 wrote: »
    I don't track lettuce, raw spinach or seasonings, but track other veggies & salad toppings. Sometimes I'll log all the other veggies combined as red peppers, even though it might be a combination of cucumbers, onions, carrots, peppers, etc... Other toppings are logged separate - dressing, fruit, proteins, grains, etc....
    I'm glad this works for you but for a new person who is trying to understand calorie counting, it's not a good way to get started. Depending on how often they eat salads and what they are putting on the salad, it would be easy to over or underestimate the calories being consumed.

    Absolutely! I was looking at the Applebee's calorie menu and some of their salads had more than I'm allowed in a day!! The more you log, the more accurate your picture is - the more successful you will be.

    Meh, I know my picture is not accurate - but hasn't stopped me being successful.

    Success will come from a system you can adhere to long term, and that needs to be just good enough to work for you.

    Being more accurate won't make you more successful - sticking at what works for you long term will.

    The aim of the game is to lose/maintain weight - not to be the most accurate logger. Logging is a means to an end, not a goal in itself.
  • JustAMurmur
    JustAMurmur Posts: 7,867 Member
    Track everything, especially when you are new to tracking. It forms a good habit of being mindful and conscious of exactly what and how much you are eating. Seems daunting at first, but you'll get the hang of it no time! You can do it! :)
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 8,967 Member
    Or track loosely and assess after a month and if you are losing as expected, just continue with that.

    That's what I did and, sure I didn't know exactly what or how much I was eating - but I lost weight at rate expected, so that is what matters.
  • savithny
    savithny Posts: 1,200 Member
    Also: Everyone is fixated on the "salad," but I'll note that the OP said "And veg, etc..."

    Not all vegetables are wafer-thin leaves that are mostly water. If you don't log your green beans, carrots, squash, parsnips, corn on the cob, edameme, peas .... you'll find yourself wondering why you're "keeping to your allotment but not losing." Even others can add up if you eat a lot, and certainly if you add any butter or oil to them.

    And "salad."
    Just look at the calorie counts on the salads at restaurants and compare them to other menu items. Generally, they're not on the "low calorie" part of the menu == and that's for a reason. Lettuce may be nearly calorie-free, but all the other stuff that makes salad actually "SALAD" are definitely not.
  • TonyB0588
    TonyB0588 Posts: 9,520 Member
    zeejane03 wrote: »
    BattyKnitter wrote: »
    I do because I eat giant salads and my spinach and romaine can sometimes add up to a lot. Todays spinach, romaine, green onions, radishes and cucumber which are usually very low calorie amounts intake adds up to over 50 calories so it can make a difference. I mean if your talking one leaf of iceberg on your sandwich that won't make a difference but everything else yes, I do weigh and log.

    I think people have very different ideas of what a salad is and many times think it's those cute little side salads that come with meals at restaurants. When I make a salad it's game on :D My lunch salad today had 4 cups of leafy greens, a cup of cherry tomatoes, 6 sweet peppers, 1/2 of an onion, a head of broccoli, green and black olives, sunflower seeds, a serving of pinto beans, mild pepper rings, feta cheese, hot sauce and then low calorie Catalina dressing. Now that's a salad lol.

    Wow!! And what size plate did you fit that on??
  • TonyB0588
    TonyB0588 Posts: 9,520 Member
    Danp wrote: »
    echmain3 wrote: »
    People who don’t track everything are doomed to fail.

    Quick! We need to get the message out to the billions of people who maintain a healthy weight that don't have MFP that they're doomed!!

    That kind of illustrates the point I was making. Some can maintain a healthy weight while doing exactly zero tracking. In fact most of the world does just that.

    Food logging is an aid, a tool to be used to achieve an outcome and how to best use that tool is very individual. For some, dedicating the extra time and effort to meticulously logging is what they need to do to achieve their goal. Others can use the tool a bit (or a lot) less rigorously and are able to achieve their goals and doing more than they need to do is just a waste.

    My goal is to manage my weight not have the most accurate and impressive food log. So I do just enough to get what really matters and not one bit more.

    You're correct that there are very different and varied people in this world. I see people on here who have lost more weight than I've ever weighed in my life. But that doesn't mean I can be careless about my health. At this point I'm technically still a few pounds overweight, and pre-diabetic as well, and I use MFP to track my efforts as accurately as possible.
  • wintersjourney2healthy
    wintersjourney2healthy Posts: 1 Member
    I log mostly everything. If I have a piece of lettuce on my sandwich I most likely wont log the lettuce. But if I have a big salad with alot of lettuce, I usually log that.

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