Not willing to count veggies and healthy drinks?

I've only started here today, so I'm madly adding everything I've eaten. However, it goes against my principles to count foods/drinks that are considered very healthy. What I mean is, things that I NEED in order to thrive. I need vegetables like lettuce, tomatos, etc. and I need milk, real orange juice, etc. Is there anyone else who discounts the calories from these items? I just don't feel the need to watch the calories that I ingest from foods/drinks that ONLY have nutritional benefit.

Jamie

And yes, maybe OJ was a bad choice because of the sugar, but I honestly cannot make myself feel guilty drinking that over a can of sprite.

Jamie

I don't log my calories out of guilt

I log them to monitor my input/output balance

it all adds up...

I don't think I'm smart enough to log some foods and keep track of others in my head...  I like to keep it simple  :)

If it works for you... more power to ya!

i usually count them, but if i exercise during the day, i allow myself a piece of fruit w/o counting it, kinda to reward myself for exercising :P

(sometimes i have a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice in place of the fruit lol)

there are such foods I consider 'free foods' (so little cal) like lettuce and pickles ect, just quickly glance at the label and see if its worthy of including....I think you'd be shocked about the cal and carb in OJ!  something i do is just mentally add @100cal onto my tally at the end of the day to represent all the little things that aren't worth the effort to log...

just be careful, every calorie counts! if you are losing, i wouldn't worry about it, but when you hit that first plateau, you may want to take count to see if you are eating too many (or too few)... good luck!

it all depends on how you utilize the "counting," ie, if you see it as a 'regulation' which it sounds like you are, then you will naturally want to 'cheat' and not count things.

for me, personally, i use the counting to review my balance of different types of foods and to ensure that i am getting enough good foods like vegetables and such, so for me, i count everything -- even splurges.  after all, i am discovering how sometimes a splurge isn't as bad as i think it is!

but again, it just depends on your personal approach -- some of the weight management systems like weight watchers consider veggies to be free.

juice, different story b/c of the high sugar content.

By all means, don't count them if it's against your principles, but don't come whining when you're wondering why the weight isn't coming off.

The point of logging calories is not to vilify foods for being too high in calories or to give free pass to other types of foods because we consider them healthy (however you may define that). The point is that all foods have a certain caloric count and whether you take in more calories than you burn by eating fruits and veggies or by eating Chicken McNuggets, those calories are still extra and will still show up as extra weight.

By all means, eat as many fruits and vegetables as you want, especially over fast food and junk food, but just because it's considered nutritious doesn't mean it's not going to show up on your hips.

I guess I see it also as active vs. passive intake. Such as today I drank a V-8 so I could get some nutrients (which is probably a joke, but at least it was an effort), so I counted that. However, I don't count the milk that goes on my cereal because a) It's just part of the deal and 2) There's nothing wrong with milk, at least not the milk I drink.

I don't mind saying that this is absolutely a guilt issue for me. I'm not overweight, but I'm uncomfortable. I know the reason I'm uncomfortable is because I've been to frivolous for the past year or two. As a result, it's time to buckle down and if inflicting guilt upon myself by tracking the CRAP I eat is the way to do it, then so be it!

Jamie

i personally count everything. and i mean everything! a calorie is a calorie... and it's good to know if u're overconsuming a particular food if u plateau at some point.

counting even the healthiest and lowest cal foods also help u avoid getting your portions out of control.

The milk I have with cereal adds up to

220 calories
240 mg sodium
18 grams of protein.

That's for 1% milk. Okay it's 500ml but still that adds up.

220 calories a day for a year is 80,300 calories. Or 23 lbs. So how would you feel about not counting 23lbs a year?

Does this mean you need to go nuts and count every single crumb? No. OTOH ignoring things is a good way to end up wondering why the needle is going the wrong way.

I guess it depends on why you are tracking your calories.  If you really want a true picture of how you are eating- either for nutritional or calorie purposes, you have to enter everything- otherwise you are just tracking what you "think" are bad foods.  Its not that foods like lettuce and milk are good or bad, its that you can't get a true picture without entering everything.   Every food has its good points and bad points- even foods high in nutrients. If you aren't entering everything, why enter anything? You'll never get a true picture.   

Vegetables + fruit have calories. And milk + orange juice have a lot of calories. People can still "get fat" on nutritional foods.

It's up to you, but you'll be making it a lot harder to loose weight.

Jamie, you may be missing the point of counting calories VS a health diet. look at it this way.

You should have 5-7 servings of fruit and veggies a day(actually I think it's higher now)  that is between 50- 150 cals a serving depending on what you eat (and you need variety).  just for easy math let's say 100 cal each thats 500-700 calories you won't count.  Now based on your way of thinking everything else isn't healthy.  Remember, your not counting the fruit because its healthy and you need it.  So you count everything else and your at 1200 cal for the day, no,  your at 1700 1900 which puts you on average 600 cals too high, 6 days in a row thats 3600 cal and one new pound of fat on your body. You need to count it all!

Now from a healthy stand point, what you need to do is eat health with all your foods, just because you had an apple today isn't reason to slam down a big mac.  All your choices (or at least a great majority of) should be sound nutritional foods. 

Are you here to lose weight?  If you are then you need to change your way of thinking or it ain't going to work.  However if you just want to see what your bad decisions amount too thaen carry on!  

A little reality check for you:

Your body doesn't give a crap if you're getting your calories from Pepsi or milk, it's going to use them the same way. Also, 240g of Pepsi is 100 calories, while 244g of 1% milk is 102 calories.

There's nothing wrong with the milk ANYONE drinks, either.

If you eat more calories than you burn, no matter where they are coming from, you will not lose weight. That's just part of the deal.

So if I'm going to count every little thing, does that make it okay if I count sitting on the toilet as an activity?

And all I meant about the milk thing is that I drink Skim, not Homogenized, which is definitely disgusting hahahaha

i think daily things like going to the toilet are included as part of your normal calorie expenditure, which can be seen on the account home page

And all I meant about the milk thing is that I drink Skim, not Homogenized, which is definitely disgusting hahahaha


I am guessing by homogenized, you mean whole milk?   In general terms,  homogenized means to blend uniformly.  Even skim milk is homogenized, as well as pasteurized.

Anyways, regardless of whether it is skim, 1%, 2% or whole, it's not necessarily that you are having milk (which is good for you, you should have it and the calcium is good for your bones AND it has been shown it's good for helping to lose weight), however your body is taking in the calories from it - and EVERYTHING else you are eating - so if you don't count it in your food log, then you are not getting an accurate caloric count for the day, not to mention you are not getting the full picture of the nutrients that you are getting for the day (are you getting enough protein or carbohydrates, for example).... if you don't mark it, then you are getting inaccurate totals.  As someone else said, your body isn't discerning whether you get 100 calories from veggies, or 100 calories from a glass of milk or Pepsi -- all it registers is that you have taken in 100 calories and will either use it a) as a source of energy or b) to convert the unused portion of the consumed calories to fat.  Pure and simple.

Not logging in all your foods, in the long run, is cheating yourself of seeing what you are doing good, and what might need improvement.

As for activity, it really depends on how you set your 'lifestyle'.  I have mine set for sedentary and while I don't log in the little things like using the bathroom (I just don't see me burning more than about 5 calories doing that) I *will* log in stuff like doing housecleaning, laundry, washing dishes and cooking (because all of that does burn calories - especially when you're at it for 30 mins or more!) ... so again, it all depends.  I would rather have my food log/calories more accurate than my activities log.  If I missed an activity, at least it won't mean that I could possibly be gaining - just means I burned off more than I accounted for.  It's not the same with the food log.  If I forget to log something, it may mean the difference between staying within my daily caloric allotment, and going over it.

Depends on your goals to. If you're trying to gain weight then you can ignoring logging some foods but you'd want to log all activities. 

In Canada we call whole milk Homogenized, or as the classiest of kids call it, "homo" milk.

I've decided that I'll log everything food-wise, but if I'm over my limit on a certain day, and it's obvious that it's from eating 500 carrots rather than a bag of chips, I won't feel so bad.

Jamie