Hi Welcome back!!

Firstly no matter what the food is if you eat more than your body requires then you’ll eventually slow your metabolism and store the excess calories as fat.

Regular readers will know that certain types of food are more pre-disposed to easier storage as fat than others, but in the main too many calories in = more fat stored in your body.

I have heard some so-called weight loss (notice not fat loss!!) ‘gurus’ say that you should avoid fruit to drop weight.

Their rationale is along the lines of:
Fruit contains fructose. Fructose is a type of sugar. Sugar is bad for weight loss therefore you should eliminate fruit from your diet when you are trying to lose weight (or fat)

Now fructose is a fairly unique sugar – it does not appear to trigger insulin surges, nor does it seem to create the energy ‘slumps’ most sugars do about an hour after ingesting them. Fructose also can only be metabolised in the liver, whereas all other sugars can be metabolised by any cell in the body. This means that during glycogenesis – where your body converts glucose to glycogen for storage in your muscles and liver – glucose tends to by-pass the liver and go directly to the muscles to top up their glycogen stores. Any excess is then shunted into fat storage. So fructose is great for topping up liver glycogen stores, but not so great for muscle stores.

Why does this matter? Well an important part of losing fat & reconditioning your metabolism is exercise. Exercise depletes glycogen stores (primarily) in the muscles and this needs to be topped up. There is a window of about an hour after you finish strenuous exercise where you can direct nutrients directly to your muscles – in other words what you eat during this hour will be preferentially used for muscle repair and glycogen replacement.

So the smart folk take in lean protein and make use of this window by taking in simple carbs as well. This window is the only time that you can safely eat simple carbs whilst trying to lose weight. Believe it or not chocolate milk (low fat preferably) has just about the ideal ratio of carbs to protein for this muscle repair.

But having an egg and a piece of fruit will be less effective in repairing your muscles. Fruit remains important in our quest to recondition our metabolism and to lose fat because most fruits are low on the Glycemic Index and contain a reasonable amount of fibre, phytonutrients, vitamins and antioxidants. Fruit tends to be a nutrient dense package with a relatively low calorie count attached. Fruit is a great way to hold off sweet tooth cravings and is handy to carry around with you during your day.

On top of that because fructose is liver specific it will not be stored as fat unless excessive calories are ingested from large amounts of fruit. This last point is important because fructose has a different metabolic path from glucose it does not have the same feedback mechanisms and so excessive eating of fruit can lead to an increase in fat storage. Mind you it takes a lot of fruit…

Fructose from fruit should not be confused with High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) which is an artificial sweetener that you can find in just about every processed food on the planet. HFCS is made by processing corn syrup to increase the level of fructose to between 42% and 55% of the total sugar, with the balance being glucose. Because of its long shelf life, HFCS can be found in just about anything these days, including sodas, salad dressings, breads, and cookies.

The fact that HFCS is only found in heavily processed foods should probably be your first clue that it’s not likely to be good for us. Critics of this ‘Frankenstein’ mix say that people who eat a HFCS-heavy diet have a greater risk of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and coronary heart disease. These results may not be 100 percent conclusive, but more and more studies are coming to light that suggest cutting out HFCS can only lead to better health.

Here are some of the types of fruit that are an acceptable part of any fat loss regime.
• Kiwi Fruit
• Berries – Blueberries / Strawberries / Raspberries / Blackberries
• Apples
• Pears
• Avocados
• Stone Fruits – Plums, Mangoes, Cherries
• Paw Paw, Papaya
• Citrus fruits – Grapefruit, Oranges, Mandarins, Lemons, Limes Pomegranate
This is not an exhaustive list – really it is up to you which fruit you eat. The old adage about an ‘apple a day’ does indeed seem to hold up.

Try to concentrate on this fruits with a higher fibre content (remember TEF) but in general unless you are overindulging enormously then fruit will do nothing but good for you in your fat loss quest.

So eat your fruit as a part of your fat loss fuel and don’t forget you low GI veggies as well!

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