Tracking carbs from fruits and veg vs. other carbs

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gwenster89
gwenster89 Posts: 48 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hey y'all,

Any tricks for tracking carbs from fruits and veggies vs. other carbs? I've decided I don't want to count carbs from fruit and vegetables towards my carb goal (but I do want to count them towards my overall calorie goal). Not arguing that carbs are carbs or that sugar is sugar, I just don't want to limit those things... especially vegetables.

Thanks!

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  • ccrdragon
    ccrdragon Posts: 3,365 Member
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    There are no options in MFP to do what you are requesting... curious as to why you would want to do this?
  • goal06082021
    goal06082021 Posts: 2,130 Member
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    There's a couple of ways you could do this.

    1. Use the Notes feature in the diary to keep track of your carbs from produce vs non-produce. The diary will show you carb counts for anything you put in (assuming that you choose an entry with macro information, sometimes it's just calories), you just add up the carbs you want to count and put a note in your diary.
    2. Look for database entries without macro information reported. This will be more work up-front, and you run the risk of having inaccurate calories reported, but once you've logged something it's much easier to find again in your recent lists.
    3. Create database entries for the fruit and vegetables you like to eat that skip reporting the carb content. This will be the most cumbersome up-front, but once you've added something to the database, you can find it again very easily under the "My Foods" tab.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    If I wanted to do this, I would create custom, carbohydrate-free, entries for the fruits and vegetables I was eating. Make sure not to make them public, as you don't want others to accidently use them and think they actually don't have carbohydrates.

    I don't think this would work great if you were also using the recipe builder a lot, because it doesn't (to my knowledge) have a way to database search just your custom entries.

  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,521 Member
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    The only point in excluding carbs is when they are actually cellulose, and thus aren't absorbed (and supposedly slow the absorption of other carbs contained in the food). So, you might prefer to eat whole fruit than fruit juice, for example.

    MFP (premium) will already track "net carbs" (carbs - fiber) for you, if you pay for it.

    https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032622531

    But, at its heart, MFP is neutral on what you choose to eat. If you want something that encourages certain behavior, I suggest Noom.

    Best of luck!
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
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    IMO, some good options would be to estimate carbs from fruit and veg that you normally eat and increase from whatever you decided your carb goal should be, or maybe ignore carbs and focus on getting sufficient protein and fiber (fruit and esp veg will have fiber, so unless you eat a lot of fiber not from whole foods but supplements, sufficient fiber will signal you are getting more carbs from more nutrient dense foods).

    Personally, I eat lots of veg and some fruit regularly anyway, but if I were trying to increase those I'd just focus on counting servings of veg/fruit and have that as a goal.

    Depending on your total cals, I probably wouldn't use the MFP default goal for non veg and fruit carbs and then eat veg and fruit beyond that (esp fruit), as that could make it tough to get sufficient protein or include healthy fats in your diet.
  • Strudders67
    Strudders67 Posts: 980 Member
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    Another option is to change your Diary categories and have one 'meal' just for logging fruit and veg each day. Then just deduct the carbs number for that 'meal' from the overall total. It won't probably work if you build recipes that have carbs from different ingredients though.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,910 Member
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    You could basically make your own version of WW Free Foods by figuring out how much fruit and veg you eat on average, reducing your calorie goal by that amount, and not logging those foods.
  • dragon_girl26
    dragon_girl26 Posts: 2,187 Member
    edited February 2021
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    Strudders67 wrote: »
    Another option is to change your Diary categories and have one 'meal' just for logging fruit and veg each day. Then just deduct the carbs number for that 'meal' from the overall total. It won't probably work if you build recipes that have carbs from different ingredients though.

    I think this is how I would do it, if I were trying to track this way. I mean, it wouldn't physically show on the MFP app that I subtracted the carbs, but...in my head I guess I would know. Are you a spreadsheet geek type, by any chance? If not, maybe you should start!
  • gwenster89
    gwenster89 Posts: 48 Member
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    ccrdragon wrote: »
    There are no options in MFP to do what you are requesting... curious as to why you would want to do this?

    I just want to focus more on limiting carbs from grains and added sugar, and less on carbs from fruits and veggies. I'm a big foodie and love to cook and eat delicious food, but I also tend to get a little bit obsessive about MFP, so if I'm going to do this in a sustainable way, I need a way to tell my brain to not obsess about the carbs I'm getting from fruits and veggies.

    I think what I'm going to do is just count it manually day to day. With recipes, I'll air on the side of caution. I did also splurge for the premium plan, so I can at least go by net carbs.

    Thanks for your input, all!

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