Do I count vegetable calories?
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Scherba1969
Posts: 5 Member
yesterday I made yummy Thai Chicken Curry with Veggies - the Veggie were broccoli, carrots, onion and snow peas which equaled 395 calories. I consider these good calories and in WW you don't count these calories. What's your thoughts?
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Replies
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"Good" calories or "bad" calories are still calories.
If you used My Fitness Pal to get your calorie goal, then yes you count veggie calories.
WW gives you a lower starting value so you get your choice of "free" foods. It's just a gimmick to "help" you make the decision they want you to.15 -
A calorie is a calorie when it comes to weight loss. Even though the vegetables have more nutrients, when it comes to weight loss, 395 calories of vegetables are exactly the same as 395 calories of ice cream.
WW adjusts their point system to account for your "free" foods. That is not the case here. You have to count every calorie.9 -
Scherba1969 wrote: »yesterday I made yummy Thai Chicken Curry with Veggies - the Veggie were broccoli, carrots, onion and snow peas which equaled 395 calories. I consider these good calories and in WW you don't count these calories. What's your thoughts?
There are no such things as good calories and bad calories. All of the calories, regardless of whether they come from veggies or pastries, count when it comes down to weight loss.
A lot of people have similar confusion when switching from WW or Slimming World, which accounts for calorie counts in an arbitrary point based system, where certain foods are "free" to encourage you to eat more of those and less of the calorie dense ones. MFP and calorie counting in general doesn't work like that - even though broccoli, carrots, onion and snow peas may be relatively low cal in individuality - the consumption of several servings of vegetables per day can add up (and of course this is important I'm not discouraging the consumption of vegetables) and have an impact on your total calorie alotment.
So yes - you should count them - the recipe builder will help you with that. Having as comprehensive and accurate log of your intake as possible will also help you avoid confusion if/when you hit a weight loss plateau - you need to know what you've been taking in so you can make adjustments.
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Your body counts them so why wouldn't you?8
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To your body, a calorie from a vegetable is the same as a calorie from a chocolate bar. You should always count all calories from food. There are no "free foods" here, as to your body there is no such thing.3
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Well then I’m going back to ice cream. Thanks for your help11
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There is no such thing as a free food. Not just on mfp, but in real life.
Weigh and log everything you eat. Period. 👍0 -
I see the issue. When I scanned the stir fry veggies bag (easy and fast for after work) and I put in 3 cups (over estimated for sure) i got 395 calories but when I put it in manually I got 167. Interesting - what do you think?
2 cups of broccoli
1 cup of carrots
.5 cup of snow peas0 -
Scherba1969 wrote: »yesterday I made yummy Thai Chicken Curry with Veggies - the Veggie were broccoli, carrots, onion and snow peas which equaled 395 calories. I consider these good calories and in WW you don't count these calories. What's your thoughts?
Calories are calories...it doesn't matter of they're "good" calories. A calorie is just a unit of measure.
WW uses a point system, which isn't calories, nor is it based on calories. They make some foods "free" by inflating the points of other foods and providing a lower total point target to compensate for "free."
Calories are calories are calories...Scherba1969 wrote: »I see the issue. When I scanned the stir fry veggies bag (easy and fast for after work) and I put in 3 cups (over estimated for sure) i got 395 calories but when I put it in manually I got 167. Interesting - what do you think?
2 cups of broccoli
1 cup of carrots
.5 cup of snow peas
167 sounds more reasonable for the veg...2 -
Scherba1969 wrote: »I see the issue. When I scanned the stir fry veggies bag (easy and fast for after work) and I put in 3 cups (over estimated for sure) i got 395 calories but when I put it in manually I got 167. Interesting - what do you think?
2 cups of broccoli
1 cup of carrots
.5 cup of snow peas
167 seems more likely, but the answer to this is to compare your bag to the information you used.1 -
Scherba1969 wrote: »I see the issue. When I scanned the stir fry veggies bag (easy and fast for after work) and I put in 3 cups (over estimated for sure) i got 395 calories but when I put it in manually I got 167. Interesting - what do you think?
2 cups of broccoli
1 cup of carrots
.5 cup of snow peas
Many of the bags of stir fry veggies have seasonings and things added. I would go with the nutrition information on the bag.
On another note, scanning bar codes is extremely inaccurate. You are better off typing in the item and finding an entry that matches the info on the bag.4 -
As others have said, a calorie is a calorie. It all depends on how strict you want to be when counting calories as a whole (i.e. if you don't track on certain days, etc.)0
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Scherba1969 wrote: »I see the issue. When I scanned the stir fry veggies bag (easy and fast for after work) and I put in 3 cups (over estimated for sure) i got 395 calories but when I put it in manually I got 167. Interesting - what do you think?
2 cups of broccoli
1 cup of carrots
.5 cup of snow peas
Many of the bags of stir fry veggies have seasonings and things added. I would go with the nutrition information on the bag.
On another note, scanning bar codes is extremely inaccurate. You are better off typing in the item and finding an entry that matches the info on the bag.
It was not seasoned veggies it was plain. From the fresh veggie cooler.0 -
Scherba1969 wrote: »I see the issue. When I scanned the stir fry veggies bag (easy and fast for after work) and I put in 3 cups (over estimated for sure) i got 395 calories but when I put it in manually I got 167. Interesting - what do you think?
2 cups of broccoli
1 cup of carrots
.5 cup of snow peas
did you eat all those veggies?
if so, did you weigh all those veggies, then find an accurate listing on mfp (many listings aren't accurate) and log? if you personally didn't eat all of them, how did you guess what percentage you ate?
did you weigh the oil you cooked them in and everything else?
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"Good" calories or "bad" calories are still calories.
If you used My Fitness Pal to get your calorie goal, then yes you count veggie calories.
WW gives you a lower starting value so you get your choice of "free" foods. It's just a gimmick to "help" you make the decision they want you to.
Sneaky B@STARDS! Well played..0 -
If I have to log those 20 calories for 2 tootsie roll midgees, I have to log those 19 calories for that zucchini.5
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Scherba1969 wrote: »yesterday I made yummy Thai Chicken Curry with Veggies - the Veggie were broccoli, carrots, onion and snow peas which equaled 395 calories. I consider these good calories and in WW you don't count these calories. What's your thoughts?
Someone please alert my *kitten* that veggies are "free". It didn't get the memo, and my pants don't fit.4 -
Basically, if you didn’t need to count vegetable calories there would be very few overweight vegetarians!
I’m one of those vegetarians and at least 60-70% of my intake is from vegetables (and fruit) so I’d be in a bit of a pickle if I didn’t count those calories! 😊3 -
Count everything, everything has calories, except water, and your body counts them.
Weight loss is all about eating less calories than your body burns no matter what kind of weight loss program you follow, even WW. Someone has figured out calorie count and tells you what to eat, and how much. We can figure it out ourselves.0
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