So as I was throwing together a big salad, and weigh and writing down every healthy raw veg I was adding to my salad I had an idea. I know that weight watchers now has some raw veggies end up being zero points. I am not following weight watchers but was thinking it would be so great to not have to count all these little vegetable additions. I know that measuring and counting is all part of the process, but when I dont feel like counting a dozen ingrediants its sometimes so tempting to open a can of healthy request soup and scan the barcode with myfitnesspal app rather than log and count all the healthy veggies.

I know calories are calories, and not accounting for things could really be a slippery slope.

But maybe I can lower my allotment by say 200 calories and make raw (not cooked only raw) veggies "free" calories. Of course I'd still count dressings and nuts and cheese and that higher calorie stuff I like to throw on my salads. I feel this would be a great motivator to eat more veggies? Since eating veggies could be done without having to measure and enter.

Any thoughts from fellow calorie counters would be great. I know raw veggies are awesome for you (and I love them) but I also want to be sure I'm not just finding excuses to not do the process properly. Is choosing to not count these very healthy foods the potential to a slippery slope of making excuses not to accurately count all the time?

I'll sometimes skip it, 1/2 cup of mushrooms is like 17 calories, 1/2 cup of zucchini is slightly more. If I'm making an omlet with a bunch of veggies, I'll usually just pick one veggie and track that, but track a whole cup of it.

wannaBfitnessbuff,

With salad veggies I estimate... a plain tossed salad is around 40-50 calories the way I make it. Perhaps you can also make an estimate.

Eat more celery- Thats actually a really good idea. Or even just count it a few times exact and average? I could even save the meal and use it anytime I make a veggiefull salad.

seagirl- Thats an excellent idea. Even just taking calories of the most caloric dense veggie and using it for the measurement of all of the veggies?

These are probably such better suggestions than not counting the raw vegetables.

Thanks.

I hardly ever count veggies unless it's corn or potatoes or something like that.

I don't count the vegs if I am just grabbing a few baby carrots as a snack, or throwing a few grape tomatoes and slices of cucumber onto a salad, but I do have an entry in my Lose It app for 2c. of field greens at 44cals, so I usually use that as my "base count" when I am having salad. A couple of grape tomatoes or slices of cucumber don't end up getting counted, but any fatty additions like dressing or avocado do. It sounds like that is what most others do as well.

Same here and it hasn't hindered my progress in any way.

I do the same thing as a previous poster. I don't count unless its more of a starchy vegetable (corn, potato etc...) I have been doing CC for so long that I can kind of guesstimate how many are in a salad that I've made. Usually though my salads don't have many cals. It's usually lettuce, a little spinach, a little tomato and broccoli. I of course account for the dressing too.

I usually count my non-starchy veggie salad as 50-60 calories. Even if it's a bit more, I figure my workouts and activity levels it out.

I use myfittnesspal too, and was getting tired of inputting every stupid detail all the time :P

If you're like me and have a set of typical meals you eat, like a routine salad, you can also make and save it under "my foods". That way when I'm having my same old salad I don't have to input each thing everytime but can stay on track with tracking

I always count everything including supplements

I eat a lot of veggies so I do count them but not as precisely as I used to. If I overeat broccoli or cauliflower there's only so much calorie damage I can do.

If there's one thing that can be terribly hard to overeat, it's certain raw veggies.

That said, I count them. I don't exactly sit there and measure them, but I do count and usually go with a ballpark estimate. I figure if I'm off it wouldn't be by that much.

I do have one exception though: Things 25 calories and under do not get counted unless I have excessive amounts. Even then I'll just tack on 100 calories to my count and call it a day in that case. Usually I overestimate things (for example if something is 180 calories, I count it as 200) so I figure if I don't count a small item here and there, it evens out.

I do add veggies into Fitday when I'm plugging in my menus, but it's mostly because I want to see the breakdown of vitamins and minerals that I'm getting during the day rather than calories. I find that if the menu is a little over my calorie budget (say, 1366 instead of 1350) but I know I have a ton of veggies in there, I don't worry about it.

I just always think it's important to flip to the RDA table tab in Fitday just to see what my vitamin and mineral intake is. I don't follow the RDA religiously, but I like to know . Part of the issue for me, though, is that I am a vegan, so it's important for me to see where I might be falling short, like Vitamin D or calcium or Vitamin E. So that's a different situation, I guess.

Djuna

I don't count veggies unless it's starchy. tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, ucumbers, onions, mushrooms - these are my usual vegs - I don't count em at all. I do 1250 calories a day and have lost 20lbs so far not ever counting those veggies.