Today I want to talk a little bit about fruit and how consuming too much of it can be hinder weight loss. I want to start off by saying I absolutely love fruit. When I was in college and needed a little pick me up from studying (mainly my economics classes), I would swing by a health food store and pick up a cantaloupe, chop it up and eat the whole thing. It is so delicious! I have been known to eat six plus pieces of fruit a day and not ever think twice about it. I LOVE fruit.
Super cute.... Right?
As I’ve been on my journey to meet my health goals I've found that eating this much fruit regularly has actually been hindering my progress. Let me give you an explanation. For a healthy person eating one to two pieces of fruit a day is not going to hinder their health. Fruits contain vitamins, minerals, and those wonderful anti-aging antioxidants that will keep us young, longer. However, fruit also contains fructose. Fructose is a simple sugar that is metabolized to fat in your liver. As I have mentioned have before, too much of a good thing can be bad and there is no exception when it comes to fruit.
When eating fruit, one typically doesn’t see an increase in their blood sugar levels because of the fiber in fruit. This fiber works to balance the sugars in fruit and keep your blood sugar in check. However, when you go into fruit overload like I enjoy doing, your liver has to metabolize all of that fructose and your body doesn’t have a need for all the metabolized fat so it goes into storage. Another issue we run into with fructose is that it doesn’t stimulate insulin or leptin production. For those of you who might not have heard of leptin before, leptin is the chemical that is released after you eat to tell your body you are full and to stop eating. It also regulates fat storage.
In closing I want to say I don’t believe eating fruit is THE major cause of weight gain. In America we consume fructose in sweetened beverages, and in many processed foods (mainly high-fructose corn syrup). If you are struggling to lose weight this might be something to think about. Some of the side effects of eating too much fructose include:
- Insulin resistance (See Too Much Good for more on this)
- High blood pressure
- High triglycerides
- Impaired glucose tolerance
- Leptin resistance
- Obesity
- Metabolic syndrome
- Oxidative stress
I hope this post put one more tool in your toolbox to help you meet your goals and have faster results!
Hope
xoxo
References:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/11/29/why-large-amounts-of-fruit-may-not-be-healthy.aspx
No comments:
Post a Comment