someone made the comment to me the other day that the calories in fruits & veggies don't count since they are mainly made up of water. does anyone know if such thing is true? this whole time i've been counting the calories of every fruit & veggie i eat...
No it isn't true. Fruit and veggies have calories. Some (avocado) have quite a lot.
Were you talking to my parents?! They are amazed I weigh fruit and veggies. Last week my dad saw me weighing lettuce and he called my mom out to the kitchen, "Look at her! Shes weighing lettuce!" and my mom was like "Why are you doing that? Its lettuce" Lol, they wouldn't believe me lettuce has calories.
lillysmom - it's really funny how ignorant some people can be about food. Like me, for example. I honestly thought up until yesterday when I joined this site that lettuce had ZERO calories! That's amazing. Actually, up until about a year ago I never even thought about stuff like calories. Sure, I was ganing weight (who wouldn't after 2 kids) but I never cared so much. Now that I got almost 30lbs extra, I realize that basically EVERYTHING has some calories in it. I even thought stuff like cucumbers, carrots, spinach, etc didn't have calories either. 
Original Post by lillysmominpa:
Were you talking to my parents?! They are amazed I weigh fruit and veggies. Last week my dad saw me weighing lettuce and he called my mom out to the kitchen, "Look at her! Shes weighing lettuce!" and my mom was like "Why are you doing that? Its lettuce" Lol, they wouldn't believe me lettuce has calories.
lol...that's too funny because it was my parents as well who said that. they can't believe i measure everything and count calories, so they make fun of me saying things like "an extra grape won't hurt you!" ahhh i just wished they'd understand...
I don't weigh veggies unless I'm short on vitamins. I can look at a bowl of shredded lettuce and most veggies and guess, "2 cups, 1 cup, 1/4 cup". If I'm short on vitamins, I weigh or measure them to make sure I'm getting my nutrients for the day.
Original Post by leiann:
I think weighing iceberg is a little OCD, same goes for cucumbers and celery. I just count them at 10 and move on...seriously, weighing something to get 12 calories instead of 8 is a little over board, IMO.
It may seem OCD, which I have by the way anyways, but I've lost 37 pounds so 
. I weigh everything just because it amazes me how much my guesstimates are off, because I will be like "I bet this watermelon weighs 100 grams", Lol its more like 200 grams. Plus it really helps if you trying to divide things up. I was using the lettuce for my chicken tacos which were excellent by the way. My sister stole a bite and decided she is going on a diet too! Imagine that one! 
I think veggies and fruits are the hardest things to guess at.
I'm sure I would have lost the weight too because I am stubborn enough to make myself be consistent with things I think matter such as weighing my food/portions. I'm not saying everyone should weigh their food or that I won't eat anything unless I can weigh it. The entire point of this post was that veggies and fruits do have calories. I was only saying I weigh my things because I like to have accurate measurements of what I log. Also, if you too many "insignificant" things in one day without logging them then obviously thats going to add up into a significant amount of calories. Wow, what you said just rubbed me the wrong way so I'm going to stop because I think its for the best.
I think a good answer to someone who tells you that fruits and vegys are 'mainly' water so they don't have any calories, is that yes, they have water and water doesn't have calories but they have other things that have calories in them too. If they didn't they'd be...water! Fruits and vegys have carbohydrates, some protein, and even fats (as in the aforementioned avacado).
I do, however, measure my other snack veggies, like carrots, sugar snap peas, and cherry tomatoes, cuz I'm horrible at guessing. I'm always way off lol.
And to the OP - if weighing your lettuce makes you feel in control over what you're eating, do it. I'm the same as you - now that I've started counting, I hate not knowing how many calories I'm eating. Going out to eat is sometimes a bit stressful for me, so I stick to restaurants that have their nutritional information on their website. Maybe it's a bit OCD but hey, better then going out of control in the other direction lol.
There is a diet my Dad or sister went on once, I can't remember if it was Atkins or the Carb adicts diet, but which ever it was, their was a list of veggies you could eat as much of as you wanted and didn't count toward your carb, or calories or whatever it was they were counting. So on some diets for some veggies that is true. Never heard it be true for fruit. Fruit tends to be higher in calories than veggies do.
NOT TRUE
Fruit and vegetables do count as calories.
DiabetesWhy managing blood sugar is so important.
