HELP! I love fruit...what can I eat?

[DLD]

Since starting my diet I have been getting confused about sugars. I love fruit so much and I am confused about the sugar in fruit. Some people have told me it is ok since it is from fruit. What fruit is ok? How much can I eat?

Another thing that throws me for a loop is ALCOHOL SUGARS found in some of the sugar free products. Are these sugars? How does the body react to these in comparison to simple sugars. Are these ok?

Lastly, I would love someone to outline CARBOHYDRATES for me. Which carbs are ok? Are complex carbs better than carbs found in fruit? I am completely lost on this.

I guess I want to be educated on my diet and what is happening.

Someone with this knowledge help a fruit addict out...

 

[bigbutnottoo]

For fruit go for low glycemic. I like all kinds of berries personally. And stuff like plums, peaches,etc have very little calories regardless of the sugar content. Thats all I can really think of now, but since I only exist on the internet, I am sure I will find some more info and other stuff.

 

[tru4u27]

DLD, I Love oranges especially tangerines!!!!!Not sure about sugars and all that but if it tastes good and rich in vitamin C then i say its all good!!!!!!

 

[bigbutnottoo]

I eat a fruitcup everyday with Peach, Plumb, Nectarine, Apricot,tangarine, Banana, Blueberry, blackberry, rasberry, strawberry, and kiwi.

 

[jGman]

Fruit is our most perfect food. Eat as much as you want of what's available in your area. Obviously, fresh is best. I'm a fruit addict myself. I try to eat 4-6 pieces a day. I also each a lot of raw vegetables.

For info, check out vegetarian sites. There's also people that practice what is known as Natural Hygiene. They eat as much raw food (fruits and veggies) as they can.

Some good books to read are: Diet for a New America and May All Be Fed by John Robbins. Food for Life by Neal Barnard, M.D. I also like Fit For Life by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond. I pick up these books at yard sales and give them away to people.

 

[Shafty]

Fruits are obviously high in fructose, and that's a double edged sword.
Fructose is a slow absorbing sugar, but I've heard that it is generally bad for your insulin balance and overall health. Some bodybuilders swear that they never eat ripe fruit because of this. I can't remember exactly what makes it such a no-no, though.

You can minimize your fructose intake by opting for green bananas instead of the yellow-brown ones, for example. Green apples, pears and watermelons are also relatively low in fructose.

Fruit isn't that bad even for dieters, if you consider that it is low in calories. If you eat the fruit along with other, low glycemic food, it won't make any difference what kind of fruit you're eating since the overall glycemic index of the meal still stays low, and you're not adding much to the overall calorie count of the meal.

Watermelon, for example, is in the same family as cucumber, so it's pretty much 98% water. I wouldn't sweat it too much with eating fruits. If you are serious and dedicated with your dieting regime and exercise, no amount of fruit eating is going to topple your plans!

 

[9cyclops9]

Yeah fruit is one of the best things you can eat. Also try eating the seeds if you want. There's something in the seeds that is a strong antioxidant and they are also anticarcinogenic (anti cancer). Some seeds taste a little bitter, but not too bad. Apple seeds are nice, and apricot seeds.

 

[DLD]

What an awesome forum...I ask a question and get lots of help Keep it coming guys this is really helping me.


*Runs off to eat some green bananas and oranges*

 

[ctmwm]

What an awesome forum...I ask a question and get lots of help Keep it coming guys this is really helping me.


*Runs off to eat some green bananas and oranges*

Diets and Healthy eating Site

There is 6 or 8 of the popular diets there and they have great forums. Go check them out you'll be hooked!! Great info and Resources. You dont have to do a complete plan of any of them Heck just do a modified one and it will work!!!

 

[philadelph]

If you are trying to stay low g.i. DLD, which is a good plan, check out whatever you want to eat on this website.

http://www.glycemicindex.com/

 

[DLD]

If you are trying to stay low g.i. DLD, which is a good plan, check out whatever you want to eat on this website.

http://www.glycemicindex.com/

This is a great site. I copied some of the info to post in this thread. The diet part is music to my ears

What is the Glycemic Index?

The glycemic index is a ranking of carbohydrates based on their immediate effect on blood glucose (blood sugar) levels. It compares foods gram for gram of carbohydrate. Carbohydrates that breakdown quickly during digestion have the highest glycemic indexes. The blood glucose response is fast and high. Carbohydrates that breakdown slowly, releasing glucose gradually into the blood stream, have low glycemic indexes.
What is the Significance of Glycemic Index?
*
• Low GI means a smaller rise in blood glucose levels after meals

• Low GI diets can help people lose weight

• Low GI diets can improve the body's sensitivity to insulin

• Low GI foods can help re-fuel carbohydrate stores after exercise

• Low GI can improve diabetes control

• Low GI foods keep you fuller for longer

• Low GI can prolong physical enduranceWhat is Glycemic Load?
*
• Glycemic load builds on the GI to provide a measure of total ***glycemic response to a food or meal

• Glycemic load = GI (%) x grams of carbohydrate per serving

• One unit of GL ~ glycemic effect of 1 gram glucose

• You can sum the GL of all the foods in a meal, for the whole ***day or even longer

• A typical diet has ~ 100 GL units per day (range 60 - 180)

• The GI database gives both GI & GL valuesHow to Switch to a Low GI Diet
*
• Use breakfast cereals based on oats, barley and bran

• Use "grainy" breads made with whole seeds

• Reduce the amount of potatoes you eat

• Enjoy all types of fruit and vegetables (except potatoes)

• Eat plenty of salad vegetables with vinaigrette dressing

 

[Shafty]

I agree with most everything stated on the site, except that they recommended low G.I carbs for post workout recovery. Quick carbs would actually suit this scenario better, since your body will soak up nutrients and put them to immediate use right after a workout to correct the breakdown of the cells and replenish your depleted glycogen stores.
High G.I carbs are good for this purpose and nothing else.
Even the insulin spike which is triggered after consuming bad carbs goes to good use in this case, instead of triggering your body to store the carbs as fat.

Also, reducing the amount of potatoes you eat is good, but sweet potatoes are, ironically, somewhere in the middle of the G.I chart, so they aren't that bad. Multi grain, rye and such are always better, though!

 

[MCTFB]

Don't eat fruit with meals as the sugars will go directly into fat since you already have carbs handy from the rest of your food, but rather eat fruit as snacks so as to keep your blood sugar levels regular throughout the day.

A lot of people are confused about complex carbs versus simple carbs, the glycemic index, etc. when all they have to know is not to ingest too many easily metabolized carbohydrates in any one sitting.

So fruit is great for you for all kinds of reasons and sugar is not an evil as some low-carb nutjobs like you to think, but rather it is a function of not putting too much sugar into your bloodstream at once and instead trying to dump sugar into your blood stream at a gradual and constant rate throughout the day. To do this, the best way is to snack on fruits and vegetables throughout the day and try and eat moderately sized meals. Also, if you snack on fruits and vegetables throughout the day your brain will be more satisfied and you are less likely to ever binge eat at a meal like when you skip a meal and get so hungry that you eat 3-4 times more food than you would if you had not skipped that first meal.

And though potatoes are super starchy, they are not bad if you eat them alone just like with fruit and try not to eat too many of them. Potato skins are high in all kinds of vitamins and minerals and so make sure you eat the skins with the potatoes for the added fiber.

The proper way to do all of this is to get your blood tested to find out what your insulin levels are and then go from there as far as regulating your sugar intake, but that is probably more complicated than it needs to be for a non-diabetic so just try not to eat more than one source of carbohydrates in a major meal and do your best to ingest carbs as energy food for snacks and running around, rather than your major meals which is where you should get most of your protein and fats.

 

[Shafty]

Don't eat fruit with meals as the sugars will go directly into fat since you already have carbs handy from the rest of your food, but rather eat fruit as snacks so as to keep your blood sugar levels regular throughout the day.

A lot of people are confused about complex carbs versus simple carbs, the glycemic index, etc. when all they have to know is not to ingest too many easily metabolized carbohydrates in any one sitting.

So fruit is great for you for all kinds of reasons and sugar is not an evil as some low-carb nutjobs like you to think, but rather it is a function of not putting too much sugar into your bloodstream at once and instead trying to dump sugar into your blood stream at a gradual and constant rate throughout the day. To do this, the best way is to snack on fruits and vegetables throughout the day and try and eat moderately sized meals. Also, if you snack on fruits and vegetables throughout the day your brain will be more satisfied and you are less likely to ever binge eat at a meal like when you skip a meal and get so hungry that you eat 3-4 times more food than you would if you had not skipped that first meal.

And though potatoes are super starchy, they are not bad if you eat them alone just like with fruit and try not to eat too many of them. Potato skins are high in all kinds of vitamins and minerals and so make sure you eat the skins with the potatoes for the added fiber.

The proper way to do all of this is to get your blood tested to find out what your insulin levels are and then go from there as far as regulating your sugar intake, but that is probably more complicated than it needs to be for a non-diabetic so just try not to eat more than one source of carbohydrates in a major meal and do your best to ingest carbs as energy food for snacks and running around, rather than your major meals which is where you should get most of your protein and fats.

This is one approach... but there is the problem of having high insulin levels throughout the day if you snack on something sweet all the time (even fruits, if not moderated by the presence of good fats and protein, will elevate insulin levels undesirably). Don't get me wrong- having somewhat elevated insulin levels throughout the day is better than roller coaster riding them up and down (insulin resistance and diabetes... here we come! ), but I'd still go for snacks that take a longer time to break down into glucose just to avoid this. I don't want to start an argument over this...I'm just expressing my personal opinion based on my experiences. Your approach should work just as well!

 

[MCTFB]

This is one approach... but there is the problem of having high insulin levels throughout the day if you snack on something sweet all the time (even fruits, if not moderated by the presence of good fats and protein, will elevate insulin levels undesirably). Don't get me wrong- having somewhat elevated insulin levels throughout the day is better than roller coaster riding them up and down (insulin resistance and diabetes... here we come! ), but I'd still go for snacks that take a longer time to break down into glucose just to avoid this. I don't want to start an argument over this...I'm just expressing my personal opinion based on my experiences. Your approach should work just as well!

Insulin resistance is the result of a bunch of factors, not just having insulin around all the time. The fact of the matter is, you need insulin for most of the cells in your body to live so insulin is not a bad thing but a good thing.

I don't know where you got the idea that snacking will keep your insulin levels really high. Insulin levels generally spike when you eat too much sugar and eating a moderate amount of carbohydrates per meal or snack is not going to spike it too high.

Not to be rude or anything, but I don't know what low-carb craze diet fad book you read where it said you are going to get Type II diabetes from eating fruits and vegetables, but whether your body gets its glycogen directly from a sugar source such as fructose or else it gets its glycogen from lipogenesis, you are still going to need insulin around in order to produce ATP.

It is amazing how many people would actually be in decent shape in America if they just stopped going on fad diets and fad excercise programs and just read up a little bit on some basic nutrtitional science, much of it which has been around for the last 50 years or so. In fact, I just bought my mom about $200 worth of supplements at GNC (yah I know there are probably cheaper places to get them) to help her lose weight over the next couple of months before she gets her hip replaced so that she does not do something dumb like pump herself and her blood pressure up really high in stimulants, even though stimulants are one tool which can be remarkably effective in stimulating fat loss.

 

[Shafty]

Insulin resistance is the result of a bunch of factors, not just having insulin around all the time. The fact of the matter is, you need insulin for most of the cells in your body to live so insulin is not a bad thing but a good thing.

I don't know where you got the idea that snacking will keep your insulin levels really high. Insulin levels generally spike when you eat too much sugar and eating a moderate amount of carbohydrates per meal or snack is not going to spike it too high.

Not to be rude or anything, but I don't know what low-carb craze diet fad book you read where it said you are going to get Type II diabetes from eating fruits and vegetables, but whether your body gets its glycogen directly from a sugar source such as fructose or else it gets its glycogen from lipogenesis, you are still going to need insulin around in order to produce ATP.

It is amazing how many people would actually be in decent shape in America if they just stopped going on fad diets and fad excercise programs and just read up a little bit on some basic nutrtitional science, much of it which has been around for the last 50 years or so. In fact, I just bought my mom about $200 worth of supplements at GNC (yah I know there are probably cheaper places to get them) to help her lose weight over the next couple of months before she gets her hip replaced so that she does not do something dumb like pump herself and her blood pressure up really high in stimulants, even though stimulants are one tool which can be remarkably effective in stimulating fat loss.

Insulin resistance is a result of long term negligence to keep your insulin stable. The pancreas can only take so much strain before it starts to become uncooperative. Of course type ll diabetes and it's predecessor, insulin resistance, are a sum of several factors, but irregular eating plays a major role in this. I'm also perfectly aware that your insulin levels will spike from consuming too much sugar at once. What I meant was that eating just fruit for a snack instead of combining it with protein/fat/fibers WILL trigger a more aggressive insulin spike, albeit a lesser one than what you'd get from refined sugars. Insulin is after all the primary hormone responsible for storing fat in your body. I never said that snacking in general will keep your insulin high all the time.

I also never stated that you can get diabetes from eating fruit and veggies (as a matter of fact, I never mentioned veggies at all!!). Actually the only reason I threw the comment about diabetes and insulin resistance in there was to lighten the mood of my post, so that it would come off as less confrontational (which was never my intention, although you obviously took it that way).

You obviously know a lot about nutrition and the workings of the human body, so kudos to you for that! I just hope you didn't get the wrong idea about my previous post. No intention to question the validity of the information you presented!

I am not a person who easily goes for fad diets. I just follow common sense and moderation in everything, dictating my own rules for dieting based on what I know. So far so good!

 

[sizequest]

hi DLD, Finally I get a chance to help you after you have helped me.

Ok first of all I am finishing my final year in Bachelor of Exercise science ,majoring in nutrition.

I dont recomend (FOR WEIGHT LOSS) bread, proccessed cereals or refined starches, which covers almost all good tasting carbs.

Instead choose from complex carbs like sweet potato, brown rice, beans and especially raw green vegetables. However nothing is absolute ,small portion of bread etc wont kill your diet. ( but be very conservative)

Sugars do present problems. All sugars ,sucrose, glucose and lactose cause insulin to peak rapidy, promoting weight gain.

Some people like to include fruit in their diets. Fruit contains both fructose and SUCROSE , although fruit has nice amounts of fiber, vitamins and minerals, removing fruit from a diet always causes visibly greater fat loss.

Fructose is not too much of a problem but most fruit actually contains more sucrose and glucose than fructose! Fructose is used by the liver two ways it can be converted into glycogen or to tryglycerides (FAT).

All conversions are enzyme driven, the liver has very little fructose converting enzyme, most individuals can only convert about 200 calories (50g) of fructose to glycogen over a 24 hr period, the rest is converted to fat.

The problem with fruit and fructose is the tage along sucrose. Sucrose is a disaccaride (2 simple sugars bonded together) Insulin has a greater effect when you eat disaccarides because not all the sugar reaches the blood stream at the same time but the insulin does. This can promote hunger.

You can slow the absorbtion of dietary carbs by adding protein and small amounts of good fats (flax oil ,olive oil) or add soluable fibers () or gums.
I prefer guar gum as it heightens insulin sensitivity (decreases output) and increases thermogenisis ( burning fat off through body heat.)

Start with 5 gms of Guar gum 3 X a day before main meals and build up to 10 grams(with water of course). You wont be hungry and insulin will be kept in check. Dont forget protein studies have shown the metabolism increases up to 30% with protein intake.

Hope this helps Sizequest.

 

[Shafty]

All conversions are enzyme driven, the liver has very little fructose converting enzyme, most individuals can only convert about 200 calories (50g) of fructose to glycogen over a 24 hr period, the rest is converted to fat.

Now you said it! That's exactly what I meant when I said that fructose is generally considered a no-no. Thanks for explaining it!

 

[MCTFB]

Yes that is why you eat fruit as snacks rather than with a meal, just don't eat 4 bananas at a time, but only one. Or eat one apple, as opposed to drinking a super-sized cup of orange juice at McDonald's.

Adding fruit into a normal meal is just overkill in the sugar department, but if you don't keep enough sugar in your blood stream then your body will burn available protein and possibly lean body tissue before going into ketosis to start burning fat.

The problem is that often before you go into ketosis, you are burning lean body tissue if you let your blood sugar get too low and by then you are about to eat your next meal unless of course you are fasting yourself of sugar for days at a time (or weeks at a time in terms of how Atkins works).

So in general you do not want to be in a state of ketosis or else you will have low energy and your metabolism will slow down. That is why people on Atkins almost always gain all the weight back and then some because ketosis is basically a biological response to starvation and unless you use drugs to interrupt the feedback loop to your brain saying "oh crap I am starving", your metabolism will slow down over time as well.

Just grabbing a banana or a kiwi or an apple out of the fridge when you get a little hungry is not going to spike your sugar levels really high, rather it will prevent your sugar levels from going too low and burning off protein for energy production when you generally want to try to force your body to use carbohydrates and fat exclusively for energy reserves.