Do any of you have "free" foods that you don't add in your calorie count?

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  • rheddmobile
    rheddmobile Posts: 6,840 Member
    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.
  • Coffeelover1264
    Coffeelover1264 Posts: 16 Member
    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.
  • ImmaSheerioAndDirectioner
    ImmaSheerioAndDirectioner Posts: 1 Member
    I don't count tea, black coffee (help curb my appetite), hot sauce, yellow mustard, and seasonings
  • MeganD1704
    MeganD1704 Posts: 733 Member
    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.
  • Carp614
    Carp614 Posts: 191 Member
    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.
  • durhammfp
    durhammfp Posts: 494 Member
    edited July 2020
    jclement2 wrote: »
    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.
  • jlval1989
    jlval1989 Posts: 89 Member
    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.
  • PotatoHead_
    PotatoHead_ Posts: 290 Member
    jlval1989 wrote: »
    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!
  • megan119721
    megan119721 Posts: 3 Member
    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.
  • gallicinvasion
    gallicinvasion Posts: 1,015 Member
    I log seasonings sporadically, I generally don’t log black coffee, i log tea and seltzer as water, I often eyeball garlic and ginger and lettuce, etc. sometimes I’ll log diet drinks, sometimes I won’t. Sometimes I’ll pull apart my takeout to weigh the ingredients, but sometimes I go by what I had the last time.

    I have been logging since May 2018 and I’ve been keeping to my goals, so I will tighten up if my weight starts to creep up.
  • Pittgirl3
    Pittgirl3 Posts: 69 Member
    tgillies003 wrote: »
    I use a generic ‘garden salad without dressing’ to log raw vegetables regardless of the vegetable.

    That’s smart. I should try that especially since I hate logging tomatoes and other veggies I put in my salad.
  • katierthanmost
    katierthanmost Posts: 25 Member
    Diet coke, but I'm also not drinking litres of it.
  • sakurablossoms82
    sakurablossoms82 Posts: 62 Member
    Sometimes when I take a few cherry tomato's or snack cucumbers I don't log them and
    lettuce I just eye ball it when needed. Same goes for drinks that are like 2 calories a glas or tea. I also never log the seasoning I add like cinnamon to my oatmeal or a pinch of salt and pepper.

  • tnh2o
    tnh2o Posts: 161 Member
    I don't log coffee, tea, spices, herbs or vitamin gummies (yeah, there's some calories there) or the electrolyte supplements I use when hiking. That's where my laziness begins.
    I try to log everything else even if it isn't pretty.
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    There are no free foods in my system but there are foods that need not be logged separately. If I am putting mustard on a sandwich I do not log the mustard but some calories for mustard are included in my log somewhere.
  • johnbhusted
    johnbhusted Posts: 7 Member
    Since it's summer, and our garden is going like crazy, we generally don't log fresh veggies. Onions, squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers. . .

    We do log high-sugar stuff like sweet corn.

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