So I am AWFUL about getting enough fruits and veggies. Really, I'm awful at getting ANY fruits and veggies into my diet. Part of my problem is that when I'm counting calories I get really anal retentive about it, which means I want to know EXACTLY how many calories are in something.

This leads to eating far too many prepackaged foods (nutrition labels, right there! how convenient!), cooking far too little (too hard to figure it out) and giving myself an excuse to skip the fruits and veg because I hate having to guestimate how many calories I'm eating.

So I'm toying with the idea of just allowing myself any amount of fruit or veg as long as it's raw/unsweetened. Obviously I would be counting anything like light ranch dip or things like that, but the broccoli or carrots or apples, bananas, what have you... those would not need to be counted.

I'm doing really well keeping in my 1400-1800 goal, and have actually been on the very low end of that, which isn't ideal since I've been exercising.

Anyone tried this approach? Did it work for you? Do you think I'm just fooling myself?

I don't count fruit/veggie snack calories - only if they are part of a meal. And I just guess calories for non-starchy ones - broccoli is only 25 calories per cup. I'm not going to gain weight because I ate 1.5 cups. I've never run into problms doing this. And some things I never count like onions, unless I'm using huge amounts.

That makes sense.

I suppose I could just do that with veggies (since that's my big downfall) and still count fruits, since they're not as hard for me to include AND they tend to be higher cal.

I tend to do things like "120 calories? for an APPLE? Why would I do that when I could have 12 peanut m&ms instead?!?!" I'm only in my first week back on the wagon though, so I'm just going to have to push through that and start making the correct choices though, eh?

You can try and see if it works for you, but it's important to remember that even if you don't count the calories in fruits and vegetables, they do still count and you have to remember that you're actually eating more calories than you're counting.

For example, if you want to be eating about 1800 calories per day, and your calories from fruit and vegetables averages say 500 calories a day - you would want your daily target of counted points to be around the 1300 mark.

If you're not a fan of fruits and vegetables, having them "free" may encourage you to eat more, but that of course can backfire if you end up bingeing on "free" calories (because no calorie is "free" to the body).

You really have to know yourself, and know if the psychological benefits of having a "free" food will outweight the risks of having uncounted calories. If you're prone to bingeing on "free" foods, this might not be the option for you -or you may have to modify it, by setting a "cap" on free foods. For example in many exchange plan diets some foods may be set as "free" (such as condiments), but you're only allowed 3 to 5 "free" items per day).

I can't do "free" fruit, because I can easily eat hundreds of calories of fruit without a problem (well, aside from the digestive side effects of eating that much fruit). I once ate 3 lbs of cherries in a single day (spent a lot of time in the potty with a very bad tummy ache). Watermelon is another fruit I can easily binge on).

Free low-calorie veggies have never been a problem, though. Now I don't really consider them "free," but I'm not as strict about low-calorie veggies as my other exchanges. And I don't stress if I'm over my limit on veggies by a serving or two.

I use an exchange plan to count calories, because the calorie counting is done indirectly, so I don't stress about the exact calorie count so much. Also I can lose sight of the big picture, so an oreo (50 calories) can sound like a better bargain than an apple (70-120 calories). I also tend to go on "food jags" so exchange plan dieting helps me eat a balanced diet.

With exchange plans, all the foods within an exchange calorie have approximately the same calorie count, with a 10 to 20 calorie variance (For example fruit exchanges contain about 70 calories, and dairy contain about 90).

For example my food diary page (1600 - 1800 calories) would look something like this

Protein OOOOOOOOO
Fat OOOOOO
Veggies OOOO
Fruit OOOO
Dairy OO
Bread OOO

And as I eat my foods, I check off or fill in the O's. When I've filled in or checked off each of the O's, I've met my limit for that exchange. Except for veggies, I consider all my exchange limits "hard limits" meaning when I've eaten all the allowed servings, I don't get any more.

However, I consider my veggie exchange alotment a minimum rather than a maximum - but I still "count" them all by putting additional checkmarks in the margins after the filled in O's.

If I go over another exchange, I also put additional checkmarks after the filled in ones. This way, I can see how much I've overeaten, if I eat over plan.

I just consider myself to have "gone off plan" if I eat extra of any of the other exchanges, but don't consider myself off plan if I eat an extra serving or two of veggies.

And yet, I have a record of my eating and calories, so that if I'm not losing, I can see if it's because I've been eating any extras (I just don't worry about an extra serving of vegetables as much as extra servings of the other types of food).



That all may sound more complicated than you want to deal with. And quite honestly it's why many people are drawn to the simplicity of "pure" calorie counting. However, the advantage of straight calorie counting and exchange plan counting, is being able to look back on your food logs and see where you need to make changes.

If you allow some things to be "free" and uncounted, that can work - but if it doesn't, it's less obvious where to make changes.

If you can look back and see that you've been exceeding your alottments for calories or exchanges, it's a lot easier to see that as the cause for a stall. If you're stalling because of "free" foods, it's harder to see what's going on, because you don't have a record of it.

Not counting fruits and veggies is what kept me at my starting weight. I wasn't counting calories then, but I ate way too much of everything, even it was healthy. I thought that fruits and veggies didn't "count" so I kept eating them and didn't portion them out.

Whoops.

It's actually pretty easy to find the calorie counts of fruits and veggies seriously just plug "calories of ______" into google and you can find just about anything.

Most things I eat rarely have ready calorie counts since I don't eat many processed things, so I have to look up the info on my own. I know the count isn't completely accurate then, but at least I have an idea.

I always count fruits and veggies. Between tracking in WW as well and certain goals suggested by my trainer, I have not just a daily calorie goal in mind but a minimum of 5 servings of fruits & veggies for WW's good health guidelines (and try to get a balance of both in), and the trainer's goals for protein and fat. (And well, because I can sometimes get irregular, I keep an eye on my fiber as well.)

So if I had a package of candy and a piece of fruit in front of me, it's not just about them potentially being the same # of calories, it's about which one will get me to my daily nutritional goals. That usually makes the choice pretty obvious.

I think when you are just getting started out and adding good habits, there's probably more leeway. If it's what you need to get you making better choices, then you gotta do what you gotta do. But after you lose for a bit, it may become more important if you start experiencing slow losses, stalls, etc. But by then those good habits might be better ingrained.

If you want to count calories, than thats what you should do... do it for a week or two and you'll know how many calories on average are in your banana or apple or plate of broccoli. It's not hard once you get into it and memorize the numbers.

I always count my veggie/fruit calories. A lot of my calories come from veggies & fruit so I probably would not be losing if I didn't count them.

Exactly. Is it the "this or that" of calorie counting, rather than not counting the fruit/veg? You know 12 peanut M&Ms have the same calories as that apple? Count everything. Don't get sidetracked by the amount of calories in fruit and veg that, instead, you'd rather eat candy.

You don't have to eat boxed crap only, either. Apps and the internet have made this easy for you--use your tools, and good luck.

I count fruit but with veggies, I just estimate. Maybe it would help you to just eat the veggies and figure out the calorie count later, so you're not tempted to swap it out for peanut m&m's. On the other hand, you may try this and have it all go great. After all, it sounds like Weight Watchers to me...you eat fruits and veggies until you're full. I wasn't able to do WW because of this fact....somehow, I just couldn't handle that kind of freedom, but I do have a huge binge eating issue.

I’m really not a veggie person, and I wasn’t eating veggies/fruit either when I first started losing weight. So I did exactly what you suggested and decided not to count most veggies so that I could give myself an incentive to get in my 5 servings a day. (Although I did count starchy ones like potatoes, sweet potatoes and corn, and veggies that were in a meal already, like soup. I also counted fruit because I like fruit a lot and could eat a lot more of it). I also decided to stick to the low end of my range so that I’d still end up in my calorie range, even with the veggies added on.

For me it worked. Honestly, there was no chance that I was going to overeat vegetables, because I just don’t like most veggies that much and my favorites happened to be the starchy ones that I was counting. But it really did give me an incentive to include more vegetables in my diet, and after a few months I was used to eating more veggies, so I started counting them.

If you think it might help you, I’d say try it for a week or two. If you find that you end up eating tons and tons of veggies every day, then you know you’ll have to count them. But if you just eat a few vegetable servings and stay in the lower end of your range, then you should be fine for a while until you’re glad that veggies are part of your diet. Then you can count them and hopefully that’ll stick

I'm the same way, have to know every little calorie (and for me, fat gram) in EVERYthing. Otherwise I either overestimate or underestimate - which is bad too. Lately I've been mostly eating Lean Cuisines - which I'm personally not opposed to pre-packaged foods at all, but it does get boring. What I used to, and need to get back into, is making up my own "packaged" foods. I'd make up containers with servings which I knew the calorie and fat count for, so I could grab those just as easily. Just took a bit more work in the beginning, but as someone else said, once you get used to it, you start remembering how many cals in something. I also keep a little pocket size notebook in my purse, so anything I've had before is written down and I can easily just look it up if I can't remember.

No. Huge amounts of veggies are the center of my meals, not afterthoughts or side dishes. They comprise the bulk of my calories.

I can binge on fruit much too easily so I track everything that goes into my mouth. Evewn something small like a single grape tomato gets tracked.

The current version of Weight Watchers makes most fruits and veggies zero point -- that is they don't count. I do WW and I calorie count. On WW I don't count them...but I do count them in my calorie count. The veggies are never really a problem (starchy veggies are counted by WW). The issue is really fruit. I'm not a big fruit eater so it is not much of an issue for me either. Making them zero point does encourage me to occasionally eat fruit. That said, there are people who have trouble with the current WW program because they don't eat a reasonable amount of fruits and veggies. Particularly the higher calorie fruits -- such as bananas -- can be eaten to excess.

If you aren't going to count them you need to probably lower your overall calorie count. I think WW assumes that with zero point fruit/veggies that people will eat 250 calories of them a day. So, if you thought you would eat 250 calories of fruits and veggies and were otherwise going to plan to eat 1400-1800 calories you could lower that goal to 1150 to 1550 and then just not record the fruits and vegetables.