Do any of you have "free" foods that you don't add in your calorie count?
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It's not so much the calories, it's the sugar of any type and the carbs. Carbs turns to sugar in the body and that turns into fat. Eliminate all sugars including the fake ones, limit your carbs to under 50 grams and less if you can stand it. So no sugars, no grains of any type, (no bread, pasta, bagels, you get the picture) no potatoes. I eat lots of eggs, steak, pork, chicken, and salads with lime juice and olive oil. Also use only Extra virgin olive oil, butter or avocado oil and drink lots of water.
Thanks for your comments.
Years ago I cut out sweets. Not sugar, per se, or carbs or anything, just treats that were sweeter than an orange. I dropped 20 pounds without doing anything else.
Two years later I was still having serious cravings for sugar. After a little research, I started eating natural sweeteners: brown rice syrup, honey, evaporated cane juice and so forth.
My cravings went away and I started eating moderate amounts of sweets with no problem. Not only that, but my cravings for other snacks, like potato chips went away as well.
I do think that unnatural sweeteners are not good for you but I also think that our bodies crave the sweets because they need something.
These days I put one spoonful of evaporated cane juice in my coffee in the morning and feel no need to eat any other sweets. Overall, it helps me control my intake. I'm certain it's good for me because I feel good.0 -
I don't add rocket, garlic/onions/vegetable base in home made sauces. Nor the bit of oat milk in the few small cups of coffee I have. I'm always under my calorie goal anyway.
I don't really like the idea of WW's free foods though - all food has a calorie and nutrient content, and I want to learn about what I eat whilst losing weight. The first time I weighed my mayo I had a nasty shock! (not saying that anyone's free food is mayo of course). Personally for me, the concept of free foods wouldn't help me stay under my goal.
Good point. I'm actually tracking my fiber intake as well because higher amount of fiber helps me limit my overall calorie intake. If I didn't log these foods, I would lose the ability to track my fiber intake. I hadn't thought about that.0 -
There are a few things I don't log (like the maybe 1/16 slice of a lemon or lime I put in my daily matcha), but generally I weigh and log all the veggies, fruits, etc.
I don't think it's necessary for everyone to log everything, that, to lose weight. So, I think what you're considering can work. If it helps you get the right amounts of some nutrient-dense foods, that's a bonus. Sometimes people are able to loose-log the whole way through weight loss; some find they need to tighten up logging for the last 10 pounds or something because the wiggle room is less at that point. No reason not to try that approach, see if it works.
For me, there are 3 main reasons why I prefer to log everything:
1. One of the things I wanted out of the weight loss process was a solid, experience-based estimate of my maintenance calories. More precision in logging is needed, for that. The advantage of that knowledge is that if I change my eating style, I still know what my calorie budget needs to be. (I do eat really large amounts of veggies and fruits, often several hundred calories of them daily, sometimes hundreds just from the low-calorie, non-starchy ones. I can and still do eat a whole head of cauliflower or cabbage in one meal, for example. Lummesome veggies.)
2. I like having some idea where I am on macronutrients and micronutrients. Because of the crowd-sourced database, MFP has some inherent limitations in accuracy, especially for micros, but it's still a help to know what I might need to take a closer look at, to know whether I'm on target when it comes to good overall nutrition, on average.
3. This is super individual, but I make fewer mistakes when I just weigh and log everything, kind of on autopilot. It also is less annoying to me, because autopilot takes less cognitive bandwidth for me than thinking "do I weigh this or not, do I log this or not" continually. Other people will differ greatly, in which habits of mind are most congenial, but this is true for me.
My impression is that WW makes certain foods free in part to encourage people to eat more of them, which can be a worthy goal, if someone is inclined to lowball the nutrient dense foods WW has on the free list. That is not, and never has been, me. I got obese and stayed that way, getting quite adequate amounts . . . and then some! . . . of mostly nutrient-dense foods (not just the free ones, though).
Whatever works for you, to motivate you to get good well-rounded nutrition, and to hit appropriate calories so you can achieve your weight goals: That's a good practice. And I think it's good to experiment, during weight loss, to find the approach that fits your personality and needs the best.
Best wishes!
Thanks! Lots of good thoughts here. I appreciate you taking the extra time to share this.1 -
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I track fiber and try to get a minimum 25g daily (usually way more than that, but that's the minimum I aim for). Hence I log all my high fiber foods. There is stuff I don't bother to log, but mostly that's stuff I use in small quantities compared to the totality of the dish I'm cooking, like spices and herbs (but I do log onion and garlic). I don't log coffee (but I do log the cream I put in it).
Everyone has their own logging "style," meaning what they always weigh to the gram vs. estimate vs. skip altogether. I think there is no one right way. It's a matter of finding a balance between effort and accuracy sufficient to meet your particular goals and also of being consistent. People with a lot to lose and a big deficit often don't need as much accuracy as those nearing goal weight with a very small deficit. If you consistently don't log some stuff, your observed TDEE for yourself will be a little lower that actual, but you will totally still meet your goals taking the desired deficit from that observed TDEE. E.g. I drink a liter of coffee every day and I don't log it. So my TDEE is actually ever so slightly higher than I think. At maintenance, I shoot for the observed TDEE (that doesn't include coffee). When I need to lose weight, I take a 250cal deficit from that observed TDEE while not logging coffee, and I will lose 0.5lb/wk.
I think it's a good practice in general to make it as easy on yourself as possible while getting the accuracy you need to reach your individual goals. If you aren't getting the results you want, increasing accuracy for a short time is a great way to see why and to course correct.2 -
The only thing I don’t log are sugar free drinks (soda and juices). Technically they can contain 10 calories per 250ml, but even if I have a litre of them it’s only 40kcals which hasn’t impacted me yet!
Food wise, it’s all added, although for leaves such as lettuce, coriander etc I’ll just say I’ve had about 50g for ease of adding and to save me weighing as they only have like a couple of calories!1 -
Ummmm.... If I forge to find it, I don't count it. Burn a lot more calories picking wild blackberries than I get from eating them.2
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There are little things I don't log but I do log low calorie foods because I want to know I consumed them so I can judge how they make me feel. High fiber things like vegetables are also good for me and I like to keep track of my fiber numbers. The things I don't log are incidental like the squirt of lemon juice I might put in a glass of seltzer.1
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No, I log everything. My main meal might contain about 100-200 calories of low cal veggies. If you're small and of a certain age this might push you from maintenance to weight gain. Plus I want to know how much calories are left for snacks
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I just used 65 Cal of zero cal per the manufacturer when used in 1g portions garlic plus spices in my 560g of frozen peas and carrots, 72g onion, and 802g of diced tomatoes that will form the bulk (word used intentionally) of my food today.
Which part of this should I have not logged?
(While the 65 Cal is an estimate due to the manufacturer lying, it is an educated guess based on less lying alternatives and closer to reality than zero)
(I don't log liquid sucralose; but do log granulated. Of course, still, a lot of things, especially those made by others are educated guesses and approximations)3 -
I don’t log dill pickles. Just can’t be bothered to keep track of them, and knowing I can eat a pickle if I still feel peckish helps me mentally.2
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I don't count small amounts of non-starchy veggies. For example a slice of tomato on a burger. A few lettuce leaves, etc. But as soon as it's a serving size of veggies, then I count it.2
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Tracking everything, over time, with frequent weight loss records. Has taught me what calorie levels "I need", in my current lifestyle to lose or maintain, my current weight. It finally helped me to lose 59lb. Looking back I knew I had accurate data to compare, as everything was logged. If foods were missing from the logs, it wouldn't have helped.
I'm currently maintaining on 1,600 calories per day, for a couple of years; it works for me.yelpat1976 wrote: »Sometimes I don't count bananas or milk. I did not get fat eating these things.
Before using mfp, I saw my GP, my weight gain was mentioned. (My calories out dropped over night, as I became physically disabled). He didn't mention exercise or how much my CO had changed. Said weight loss was more about diet than exercise. He asked about diet changes. I told him my diet, was virtually the same. Except I drunk an extra glass of milk & had a bananna, about 3 times a day, to take new medication.
He replyed, "he didn't think it was the milk & banannas" that caused the weight gain. That in my situation, it was a good, healthy snack.
Shortly after I found mfp & learnt a lot, here on the forums. At first I tracked a few average days, as a starting point.
"Milk & banannas" alone was easily between 600 to 1,000 calories a day! With my total daily burn being only 1,600 calories now, not logging would cause me to get fat.
(Even 600 calories per day extra = 3,500 extra calories, every 5 days = 63lb gained in 1 year!)
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I don't count tea, black coffee (help curb my appetite), hot sauce, yellow mustard, and seasonings2
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Hum- I dont log spices, water, lettuce, mustard, vitamins.
That's about it. Sometimes I forget to log a coffee, but I log the milk if I add.
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Everything I put in is whole food organic, but I'm too lazy to enter all that. I just put in searches like "Chicken Broccoli casserole" and pick something I think is probably close to what I ate. My punishment for this laziness is that I find verified boxed foods that look like the right portions and about the right macros. So some days MFP tells me I blew my sodium or my macros when actually I didn't. That's ok. This is a lifestyle change, not 20 pounds in six weeks.1
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It's not so much the calories, it's the sugar of any type and the carbs. Carbs turns to sugar in the body and that turns into fat. Eliminate all sugars including the fake ones, limit your carbs to under 50 grams and less if you can stand it. So no sugars, no grains of any type, (no bread, pasta, bagels, you get the picture) no potatoes. I eat lots of eggs, steak, pork, chicken, and salads with lime juice and olive oil. Also use only Extra virgin olive oil, butter or avocado oil and drink lots of water.
I've lost 45 lbs eating an omnivorous, eclectic diet that is much lower in animal products than most people. I have not had beef, chicken, or pork in about a year or so; though, I do eat dairy on a regular basis and a little fish now and then. Also, looking at my diary, it looks like I eat around 250-300 grams of carbs every day--especially potatoes! They are packed with potassium and a lot of other great micronutrients.
So you say potay-to, I say potah-to. There is more than one way to get to a calorie deficit. I am coming up on two years since I found this way of eating that suits me (and helped me lose weight) and I don't see changing anything I do.
To answer the OP's original question: There are days I take off from logging just because I am tired of it but that is very infrequently. I tend to log everything, including vitamins and spices. I do that because I eat things intentionally and want to make sure I remember to eat them. Sometimes, like with a leafy green salad, I may estimate the calories.2 -
I don't tend to log spices or seasonings, and don't often log little bits like garlic, ginger, chilli that I'm using in a dish because they tend to be tiny.
I also don't log (but probably should...) any oil I cook in.0 -
I don't tend to log spices or seasonings, and don't often log little bits like garlic, ginger, chilli that I'm using in a dish because they tend to be tiny.
I also don't log (but probably should...) any oil I cook in.
Agree that it's a faff to log spices and seasonings, and will be minimal calories. I would log things like ketchup though.
Oil is one that should defo be logged. A tablespoon is a large amount of calories.
I've changed to making chicken stirfry without oil and it's more than 200 cal less a portion. The pan washing afterwards is a nightmare though!1 -
I don’t log seasonings, spray oil for cooking, I can’t believe it’s not butter spray. I don’t stress about logging my exact weight of lettuce, tomatoes and such. I choose a size for my fruit instead of weighing. I’m at a weight though that it wouldn’t necessarily matter, if I was closer to my goal weight I might be a bit more strict. At the same time though, I also don’t subtract what my kiddos eat off my plate from what I’ve tracked.0
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