Does eating fruit make you fat?
Q: A woman at my gym who competes in local fitness shows told me that to lose weight I need to cut out all fruit! I thought fruit was healthy. Is this good advice?
A: Well, the local fitness competitor is sort of right, but a little too overzealous with her advice. The reason a lot of physique competitors avoid fruit is because fruit contains the sugar, fructose. Fructose has a good side and a bad side for your physique. Fructose is a sugar that the body can not use. Therefore, when you consume fructose it doesn't go immediately into your bloodstream the way that glucose (or dextrose) does. It must first go to the liver where it is converted into glucose and then eventually enters the bloodstream. This is good for your physique because it means that fructose does not rapidly raise your blood glucose (blood sugar) levels and therefore does not spike insulin levels. Remember that high insulin levels increase fat storage and decrease fat burning. So keeping your insulin levels low can help you to keep fat burning on track and avoid storing fat. This property of fructose also means that it will provide a long-lasting source of energy, so you don't bonk out during workouts. This is why we recommend fruit as a good preworkout carb, not to mention that it won't interfere with fat burning during the workout. However, the fact that fructose must be converted to glucose in the liver is also the reason why fructose can be bad for your physique. The liver will only convert fructose into glucose if the liver is not full of glycogen (the storage form of glucose). If it is already full, the liver will convert the fructose into fat. That is why many physique competitors avoid fruit altogether. We don't suggest you go to this extreme. After all, fruit also provides critical antioxidants and other micronutrients and phytochemicals that your body needs to stay healthy, lean, strong and muscular. Instead of avoiding fruit, we suggest you eat no more than 2-3 servings of fruit per day. Good times for fruit are in the morning and before workouts. This will allow you to get all the benefitis of fruit without getting any of the negative effects. Get the majority of your antioxidants and phytochemicals from vegetables that are low in fructose. Following this plan along with a good diet, such as the many you can find in hers will help you to lose body fat.
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