Why did nobody tell me vegetables have calories!!!

I have been going to weightwatchers for years and given up on it now...far too commercial. Anyway, as a result I always thought I could eat as many veg as I like all day and they were ' free'. I now have been given 1050 calories a day with calorie count plus and I am shocked at how easy they get used up even though most foods I am eating are rated A or B!!!

Worried this website will have me eating salads all day as the only way to stick within my calories. Even lettuce has 4 calories.

all foods have calories, there are no magic "calorie free" foods out there. even things like spray butter and PAM have calories if you use enough. just because a food is rated A or B doesn't mean you can eat an unlimited amount of it. i think weight watchers calling vegetables "free" is their way of saying you can snack on things like celery, cucumbers etc, without having to count them because they are so low cal. but if you are eating huge amounts, the calories will add up.

CC + gave you 1,050 cals a day - are you sure?  I'm not even sure that's possible, as the guidelines on CC specifically go by mainstream recommendations, which is a minimum of 1,200 cals a day for adult women.

And I'm sorry that WW gave you misinformation - veggies are most definitely healthy and should be the mainstay of any eating plan, but calorie free they are not (although some are lower than others).

I suggest you go back into tools and recalculate your suggested calorie consumption.  If you entered a weight and goal date so agressive that the calculator returned 1,050, I'm surprised that it didn't turn up as an error.  At a minimum, you should be consuming 1,200 cals a day, after exercise, to have a healthy intake.  And it is possible to achieve that with foods other than salads.

BTW:  the food grade is not just based on calorie content, but on nutritional content.  There are quite a few low calorie foods out there that CC rates low because of cholesterol, sodium, or other food components that are not healthy.  There are quite a few high calorie foods that have very high grades because they are nutritionally dense and have very low sodium, cholesterol, saturated fat, etc.

Don't worry about the 4 calories in lettuce!!! I eat tons of veggies all day and I'm happy to look at my Food Log and see how they are only double digits instead of triple. A whole zucchini is like 30 or 40 calories. So much better than if I had sometime else. 

Its wonderful that you are already used to eating so many veggies. It'll make things easier for you. For me, it was a struggle to start liking them. But you won't be eating salads. I hate salads, lettuce makes me want to puke. On a daily basis I usually have milk for breakfast or occasionally cereal or eggs, and then a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch, with veggies for my snack. Then some meat and whole-wheat pasta for dinner with fruit for dessert. Doesn't that sounds good? My total calories daily are usually 1400. But if I have a low-cal meat or a lower-cal lunch I can pull it down to 1200.  

A cup of cooked broccoli has 54 calories.

You would have to eat 22 cups of broccoli to get 1200 calories.

That would be impressive.  And you would poo like nobody's business.

But do you really think it's vegetables that are adding up or could it be other foods or condiments?

I've never met anyone who got fat from eating too much broccoli...

Original Post by bride08:

I now have been given 1050 calories a day with calorie count plus and I am shocked at how easy they get used up even though most foods I am eating are rated A or B!!!

Worried this website will have me eating salads all day as the only way to stick within my calories. Even lettuce has 4 calories.

Can you link the calculator that you used to determine 1050 calories a day? 

Calorie Count Plus's mission is to promote healthy and sustainable weight management.  The minimum calories needed is 1200 for a woman and 1500 for a man.  This increases the taller/heavier you are as well as the more active you are. 

To lose weight, you need to take in less calories than you consume.  A healthy deficit is 500-1000 calories.  The less weight you have to lose, the smaller your deficit will get.  A good way to maintain a healthy deficit is to keep an eye on your Burn Meter (as well as log all your exercise) and Eat Meter.  Your Burn Meter (top number) should be more than your Eat Meter (bottom number) but no more than by 1000 calories at most.  Most people have a 250-750 calorie deficit.

Original Post by nomoreexcuses:

That would be impressive. And you would poo like nobody's business.

 -snickers-

 

More than likely, your calories from veggies are going to be the calories you're going to love the most. cucumbers = 40, for an ENTIRE cucumber.

One tiny tangerine is almost 40 calories, and 40 calories doesn't even cover a tablespoon of peanut butter.

Think about it. 

So many vegetables have a 'negative calorie' condition.  What that means is:  You burn MORE calories DIGESTING the raw form, than the vegetable (itself) contains.

Celery might have about 7 to 15 calories a stalk, but it you BURN about 55 calories digesting it.

If you choose those types of vegetables (and about 70% are in this category), you can see why they're recommended so highly.

Key is eating raw - nothing on them (not even salt).  I've maintained my weight for 65 years - LOVING RAW VEGETABLES JUST PLAIN.  I'm guessing I never knew WHY I didn't gain weight, but this could be the reason.  Diane

do you ever accidently swallow a lil toothpaste? might as well count that too lol

Like everything should be in moderation my motto is veg and fruit iS free. If I get caught up in the (low) calorie content of fruits and veg then I will just as easily go for the bag of "low cal" cookies or chips.  It keeps me snaking on the right things so I call them free.  Again, in moderation.  That's just what works for me.

I think it's quite worrying that you're worrying about 4 calories in lettuce, you do need calories to exist!

EVERYTHING except plain, unflavored water has calories.

If your really worried about 4 calories...your in trouble.

Original Post by santonacci:

CC + gave you 1,050 cals a day - are you sure?  I'm not even sure that's possible, as the guidelines on CC specifically go by mainstream recommendations, which is a minimum of 1,200 cals a day for adult women.

CC+ can't tell you to eat 1050 - the only way she could have arrived at that number is if CC+ told her she burns 1550 in a day, and so she subtracted 500 (or 2050, minus 1000).  But, Bride08, if you use the Calorie Target tool, you will learn that you need to be eating at least 1200.

Original Post by sixtyfivealive:

So many vegetables have a 'negative calorie' condition.  What that means is:  You burn MORE calories DIGESTING the raw form, than the vegetable (itself) contains.

Celery might have about 7 to 15 calories a stalk, but it you BURN about 55 calories digesting it.

Negative calorie foods are a myth, myth, MYTH, because your body does not know or care where the calories come from while utilizing them.  It does not sort and categorize calories by source ... it doesn't know whether you ate a piece of broccoli or a whole crown of it, just like it doesn't know if you had a pat of butter on your toast, or a whole stick of it.   Your body doesn't say "wow, that piece of lettuce has 4 calories, but I'm going to use 10 to digest it, so I'm at a negative balance." 

This kind of thinking is what gets people doing crazy things like eating nothing but celery all day, for a total of a few hundred calories, poor nutrition, a quick 2-day weight drop from all the water loss, and then an insane binge when your body finally says "I've had ENOUGH, I need PROTEIN and COMPLEX CARBS or I QUIT." 

You have to think in terms of TOTAL calories in vs TOTAL calories out, and in the context of balanced nutrition.

actually there is ONE negative calorie food, and it's celery
It takes moer calorie to digest it than what it gives you.     

Original Post by stefanau1:

actually there is ONE negative calorie food, and it's celery
It takes moer calorie to digest it than what it gives you.     

It is only a "negative calorie" food if it is the ONLY thing you eat.  If you eat anything else, the calories from the celery are just grouped in with the calories from everything else ... the body DOES NOT DIFFERENTIATE.  It does not say to itself, "okay, I'm going to digest this celery and, well, that tomato over there, I'll get to that later."  It just DOES NOT work that way unless (as I said) celery is the only thing you eat.  Which is very unhealthy and dangerous, and also why it reckless to say things like "negative calorie food."   Which is why I said this type of thinking is what influences impressionble young people (and maybe some not-so-young) to do STUPID things like eat only celery.

The concept is flawed and gives people a misguided impression.  Negative calorie food is a MYTH.  Even celery, because you can't live on it alone.

The calculator is not perfect..my goal date is january 5th of 09..but i accidentally put jan 5th of 08 which would have been a goal of like negative 10 days haha..and it told me to eat 38810 calories HAHA 

 

it's a computer..not perfect..point is..eat healthy foods and exercise and you'll be alright.. if you eat junk your body won't like you and it rebels..I promise!!  :)

Stellajo, I don't think you're getting what people are meaning about celery being a negative calorie food. The body doesnt need to discern anything about it for it to be true that your body burns more calories metabolizing celery than the celery provides once digested. You don't have to only eat celery for that to be true. Calories are units of energy, it takes, say 50 (I don't remember the numbers involved) calories (units of energy) to digest a stalk of celery, but celery only provides 5 calories (units of energy) to your body from the nutrition contained in it. That causes a NET loss of 45 units of energy when you eat celery. This is kind of like burning 5 gallons of gas driving to the gas station so you can buy 1 gallon of gas. The whole point here is that you don't  need to log the calories in celery because they really don't make any difference. I supposed you could log the 5 calories in the food log and then 50 calories in the exercise log, lol. Does that make more sense?

Yep, you should log the 5kcals of celery, it is true that it takes more energy to eat the celery than it has in it, but that energy used (ie calories burnt) is taken into consideration in your burn meter.  Even at sedentary the burn meter considers the fact that you will eat a couple of times a day and go to the toilet etc, this is all accounted for. A calorie is a calorie no matter where it comes from, if it were possible you could gain weight from eating celery alone, you’d have to eat an absolute ton of it to get to about 4000kcals in a day and have no nutritional value from it but it does contain “positive and actual” calories.

Original Post by nikidust:

Stellajo, I don't think you're getting what people are meaning about celery being a negative calorie food.

This is StellaJo, I'm having some account problems right now so I had to build a "fallback" account in order to post.

I think the issue here has nothing to do with logging in here on c-c.  I think YOU don't get what people mean when they say "negative calorie" food.  The idea of "free" foods (a la WW and such) is that these are foods that you can eat a LOT of with a negligible calorie cost.  And that is true.  But the flawed concept behind "negative calorie" foods, and this is the way it has always been touted, is that a person can lose weight by eating these things, with no other effort, because they put the body into a "negative calorie" condition.  Granted, that is the way losing weight works, you burn more than you consume, but "negative calorie" foods basically are saying " you can eat these all day and do NOTHING else and you will magicall lose weight."  And while it may be true, the person would be losing weight in a very unhealthy way.

Also, the idea that it takes "55" calories to digest a stalk of celery ... well, for WHO to digest it?  As we all know, it takes less calories per day to "maintain" a smaller mass person than a larger mass person.  So for myself, at 200 pounds, it may take 55 calories for me to digest a stalk of celery, or to pump my blood for 1/2 hour, or to breathe 40 breaths, or whatever.  But my daughter would burn WAYYY fewer calories doing all these things because she's 9 and weighs 65 pounds!!  Also, you wouldn't log digestion enery in the exercise log, as it is included in your BMR.  A person's Basal Metabolic Rate is lower the smaller they are, and digestion effort and energy expenditure is included in "basic body function."  The whole "log the celery, log the digestion calories expended" is just splitting hairs to prove a point (that still isn't proved.)

So you see, the "science" is even flawed and in no way uniform.  Of course, this is all somewhat off the topic of the OP, but you will never convince me of the accuracy of "negative calorie foods" because it just isn't true.

and thank you sunnybra for a breath of fresh reason!  you said it well, and more clearly than me (I'm getting a bit reactionary here, partly because I'm sick and not feeling well, and partly due to my frustration at people who insist on pushing nutrition myths as reality)

Everyone have a Happy Wednesday.