"That's not food, that's what food eats!" page

[Klynch44]

I used to laugh at my friend who always said this because he hated veggies.

I've been on the program for about 2 weeks and I'm loving all the meat. AND, I'm already down 9 lbs. NOW I'm kinda worried about getting enough veggies and fruits to be healthy. But not too much to stop losing the weight.

Can anyone tell me how much 50-100gr. of carbs really is? What do you eat for veg/fruit a day?
I'm want to have my diet vary from day-to-day, but on the other hand it would be great to have a guideline that I don't need to do research every time I eat.

Thanks.

[melodious]

For me, if I avoid grains and sugar, the carbs automatically stay low enough. On the other hand, I don't go seeking potatoes and other starchy foods. I just eat. If/when you stop dropping weight, calculate it out, but I figure my body pretty much knows what it's doing even better than I do, most of the time.
I follow my hunger. I follow my cravings (even when I desperately want sugar, I might indulge in a sweeter-than-average fruit), within reason.
I'm sure there are those who will disagree, and more who will give you run-downs on what they eat. I figure, if it's working, don't sweat it.

[Lojasmo]

Eat as many colorful veggies as you want. Stick to berries for fruit, and you will never go over a hundred grams of carbs.

[mayness]

If you stick to non-starchy veggies most of the time, and throw in some starchier veggies and fruit occasionally, you probably don't need to worry much about counting. Maybe plug a days worth of food into a tracking web site (fitday, dailyplate, sparkpeople, etc) every once in a while to make sure you're on track.

If you want to be more careful, you could look up carb numbers for some of the veggies and fruits you eat most often, so you get an idea of how much you can eat and stay in that range.

Some veggies are so low in carbs that you don't really need to worry about them - for example, raw spinach has about 1g of carbs per cup. Others you might want to be more conscious of how much you're eating, like butternut squash with about 20g of carbs per cup, or carrots with 12g per cup (raw). Fruits vary, too... a cup of strawberries has only about 10g of carbs, while a cup of mango has 30g.

[lil_earthmomma]

I never worry about veggies, but don't consider tubers or squash to be "veggies" they get their own catagory!

Vegetables (like asparagus, spinach, kale, broccoli, cauliflower etc etc etc) are VERY low carb.

[gottaluvalab]

I'm far from the Primal Poster Child, but I've done the math again and again--

If you avoid the grains and sugars, you can eat all the green veggies you want, almost all of the raw veggies you want, a serving yogurt or milk, and a small piece of fruit (or half a banana) and a small or half serving of a starchy vegetable, and be between 50 and 100 grams of carbs. If you want to be closer to fifty, choose between the fruit and the starchy veg.

[kcult]

I don't think I've counted or measured at all and I started in May and lost 25lbs in 4 months.

I don't eat taters or pasta or desserts and seem to do just fine.

[AndreaReina]

My fruit and veg intake basically come from a big salad for lunch (two leaf varieties plus up to two from tomatoes, avocado, bell pepper, cucumber), and some sort of vegetable side with dinner. Big portions of both, since calorically they're really insignificant. Like many others here I don't bother to count carbs since most of the carbohydrate content of vegetables is indigestible fiber. I avoid starchy stuff since most of it is fairly bland, but I just got a pumpkin with my CSA so I might be trying that soon.

[iniQuity]

Eat as many colorful veggies as you want. Stick to berries for fruit, and you will never go over a hundred grams of carbs.

THIS.

I made the AWFUL mistake of getting worried over carbs coming from veggies and ate very little variety. For a long while I ate nothing but kale, broccoli and spinach and though I was pretty happy that way I'm much happier now including more veggies. Please don't do what I did and just eat them up. The only veg worth worrying about in my opinion is white potatoes and I don't even sweat those too much if you're having them every other other other day.

[tfarny]

Stick to one or two, max, fruits per day and only have a starchy veg at one meal, max, and you'll be totally fine and very low carb no matter how many colorful veggies you eat. Avoid fruit juices and sweetened yogurt like the plague though.