I am just wondering if its ok not to count fruit. What I try to do is eat about 1500 calories a day without counting fresh fruit and steamed or raw veggies. I am not talking about sitting down and polishing off a whole bag of apples, but do you think that I should start counting my afternoon snack when its a banana or an orange. I know that all foods have calories but I am assuming that as long as I am not going overboard on the fruits and veggies that I should still be in a pretty decent calorie range. I would really like to hear some opinions on this.
Yes, definitely DO count fruit. We could get in the whole discussion here about how not ALL calories are created equal. But yes, definitely DO count it.
Oh, my yes! If I had started down the slippery slope of not counting fruits and veggies, I never would have made it to goal. Just a 100 calories a day (a SMALL banana) adds up to over 10 lbs per year.
If I didnt count fruit I could end up gaining weight fast!! Same goes for veggies. 1 cup of grapes is 70 calories, a banana 110 , I never eat just one serving of any veggie,so those calories add up fast!!
YES!!! Count that fruit. It actually has a lot more calories than you would think. Many fruits have 100-150 calories per serving, so that weight could add up fast.
Definitely. I had an enormous, healthy salad with dinner tonight (no dressing) and was surprised to find that it added all the way up to 167 calories. I also had raisins (23 cal), blueberries (53 cal), pumpkin (39 cal), a banana (124 cal), and 2 radishes (8 cal) throughout the day.
That's 414 calories in fruits and vegetables -- ack! If you were to throw that on top of the 1500 that you do track, you can see how it could easily throw what could have been a weight loss day into possibly more of a maintaining day. Other than the big salad with dinner, none of these servings was particularly large. 23 cal of raisins is like 9 raisins or so, for example.
Last edited by newleaf123; 05-27-2009 at 08:03 PM.
I'm not going to disagree with everyone and say that you shouldn't count fruit and vegetables in your calories for the day. However, I wanted to let you know that when I first reached my maintenance weight (40 lbs down from beginning), I had never counted fruits or veggies in my calories. And I eat A LOT of them!
I think there's a big difference between not counting the calories, and the calories not counting. If you don't count fruits and vegetables (or any food, for that matter), but eat a consistent caloric level of the uncounted food - you can still lose weight. For example, a person counting 1200 calories and eating a consistent 600 additional uncounted calories in fruits and veggies - would lose the same amount of weight as if they ate the same, but counted all 1800 calories.
Another way to count without counting, is an exchange plan. Well, I guess that's really just another kind of counting. It's still a calorie-controlled, and indirect counting method (as each exchange serving contains approximately the same calories). It's a less precise method, and daily calories can vary by a couple hundred calories (or more if you use a few optional exchanges, but it's not much different than allowing yourself a range of calories.
Everyone decides how precise they have to be, and ultimately the scale tells you. If you're not losing, and sticking to your plan, you have to tweak - and often that means choosing to be more precise than you had been.
Personally, I chose an exchange plan to count my calories, because I don't eat consistently without forcing the structure. I tend to eat a skewed diet, if I don't remind myself to make choices from all the food groups - exchange plans provide that reminder for me - but ultimately I know that calories are the "bottom-line." However, I also have to watch carbohydrates, especially high GI carbs, as I do lose better if I eat fewer carbs. There may be a few reasons for this, and those that seem most plausible to me are less water retention, less hunger, increased energy level, and perhaps metabolism differences.
Without monitoring intake, I might eat two fruit servings one day, and 10 the next - so I'm not a good candidate for not counting fruit. However, because the calories are much lower, and I'm less likely to gorge myself on non-starchy vegetables, I have lost when I counted all calories except non-starchy vegetables.
Another important factor is how close you are to your goal weight. Having more than 150 lbs to lose, choosing not to count low calorie/starch vegetables is unlikely to hamper my weight loss. However, even at my weight, if I consider potatoes, squash, peas and other higher calorie and higher starch veggies as "free," I can hamper my weight loss. Likewise, I wouldn't recommend that anyone not count fruits unless they always eat a consistent amount, otherwise the calories add up really fast.
Ultimately, the scale will tell you if you're deluding yourself about your uncounted foods. I think it's simpler to count everything in some way (whether it be calories directly, or exchanges which count calories indirectly).
Should I count fruit?
