Hey Sugar Junkie: Fresh Fruit Edition

So often I see people who decide that they are going to "get healthy" and "lose weight" and the first thing they do is start loading up with excessive amounts of fruit. What makes matters worse is when you have multi-million dollar "weight loss" companies like Weight Watchers telling people they can eat unlimited fruit on their diet plans.

FRUIT IS SUGAR!!!!!  

SUGAR!  SUGAR! SUGAR!

Now don't get me wrong, fruit has amazing vitamins and nutrients that benefit your health.  It's great to eat fruit for a functional purpose like having it with your breakfast for an energy boost to start your day or using it to recover after some grueling exercise activity. However, you are not benefiting yourself by eating excess amounts of it.




Things to consider:

1. Your body is going to use the fruit as an energy source first instead of targeting the excess fat you are trying to lose.
2. Your body is going to have an insulin response (though not as great as when you eat refined sugar but it will happen) and insulin is a storage hormone.
3. When you don't use the excess sugar, your body is going to store it.

If you're a regular Joe (which you probably are) you sit behind a desk all day and you don't have a need for excess sugar.

Now before you start with the argument "but it's only (insert some magic number) calories" know that you can't just look at your calories.  You have to look at how your body reacts to certain foods and the hormones that are released.  After you eat fruit the insulin in your body is going to scream STORE, STORE, STORE to all that SUGAR.

If you're a sugar junkie who desires to lose excess fat and you're eating excessive amounts of fruit (and hiding behind the guise of "being healthy" because you aren't eating a pint of ice cream ) I need you to do the following:

1.  Get a measuring cup.
2.  Fill it to the top with fruit. (This is your MAXIMUM ALLOWANCE for the day.)
3.  Pour the fruit out on a plate to see what it looks like.  (It looks a lot different from the picture posted and the plates you have been creating for yourself doesn't it???)