calories in fruit and veg???

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  • ray1112014
    ray1112014 Posts: 1 Member
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    Excess calories cause weight gain. If you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight no matter where the calories come from. So does fruit make you fat? It can in the sense that if you eat too much of it (or too much of anything) you will gain weight. If you eat higher calorie fruits like bananas you will be more likely to put on weight than if you eat lower calorie fruits like strawberries.

    Fruit is packed with nutrients, has a high water content that makes it filling, and contains fiber. In moderation, fruit is an excellent choice as a healthy source of carbohydrates.

    Fructose found in fruits, like any other form of calories, will cause weight gain when over-eaten, but doesn’t have magical fat storage powers, and it doesn’t damage your liver at low-moderate consumption levels. While regular fruit eaters don’t have anything to worry about, but it’s worth noting that regular eaters of refined sugars like high-fructose corn syrup or sucrose can reach unhealthy levels very easily.

    First of all, it’s important to understand how we really measure the sugars in fruit. We don’t actually take a piece of fruit, examine it in the lab, and quantify the grams of sugar in each portion. What actually happens is that we measure the effect that that fruit has on our blood sugar levels. There are two ways to represent this – Glycemic Index (GI) and Glycemic Load (GL). First I’ll explain how these measures work, and at the end of article I have included two tables with the numbers for various fruits.

    GLYCEMIC LOAD IS A MORE USEFUL MEASURE THAN GLYCEMIC INDEX

    The Glycemic Index of a food is a numerical unit describing how far eating a food will raise one’s blood sugar level; effectively, it represents how ‘sugary’ the food is. The Glycemic Index uses a scale from 0 to 100, where 100 is pure glucose. A food which has a high GI will cause a large increase in blood sugar, while a food with a lower GI will not have much impact at all. As a rough basis, mid-50s to mid-60s in a food’s GI is considered average, while 70 and above is considered high. Foods with a GI of less than 55 are considered to have a low glycemic index, and thus will have smaller impact on blood sugar levels.

    The main problem with the Glycemic Index is that it does not factor in typical portion sizes. In fact, it standardizes each food to include 50 grams of carbohydrates. This leads to some peculiar distortions. For example, to obtain 50 grams of carbohydrates you would need either 2.8 ounces of a Snickers bar or 35 ounces of pumpkin. It hardly seems fair to compare the two when these portion sizes are so unrealistic!

    In 1997, researchers at Harvard University introduced the concept of Glycemic Load with the aim of solving this problem. The Glycemic Load seeks to balance the Glycemic Index by accounting for serving size. Let’s take a watermelon as an example. It has a high GI, as the carbohydrate will increase blood sugar levels rapidly, but it contains a relatively small amount of the carbohydrate, meaning that it has a low glycemic load.

    A food’s Glycemic Load is calculated directly from its Glycemic Index. We simply take the food’s Glycemic Index, divide it by 100, and multiply it by the grams of carbohydrate (excluding fiber) in a typical serving size. A GL of above 20 is considered high, the 11-19 range is considered average, and below 11 is low.

    Let’s look again at watermelon. It has a Glycemic Index of 72, which is relatively high. However, a typical serving size only has 5 grams of carbohydrate. This means we can calculate the Glycemic Load like this: 72/100*5 = 3.6. Although the Glycemic Index is high, the Glycemic Load is relatively low. Which one is more useful to us? The Glycemic Load.

    Watermelons are an unusual case, insofar as they have a high Glycemic Index (above 70 is considered high), yet have a low Glycemic Load (below 11 is low). This is not common, as most foods with a high GI will have a correspondingly high GL. As long as u eat fruits in proportion considering how they will spike your insulin levels as mentioned above you should be fine. Hope this helps
  • kami3006
    kami3006 Posts: 4,978 Member
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    arditarose wrote: »
    kajalpoit wrote: »
    Whats recomp? Sorry if its a silly qn

    It's changing your body composition. Weight training to try to lose fat and gain muscle. It's a long process as you can't typically gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. So, I always question my choice lol.

    LoL. There's just no wiggle room for calories.
  • arditarose
    arditarose Posts: 15,573 Member
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    kami3006 wrote: »
    arditarose wrote: »
    kajalpoit wrote: »
    Whats recomp? Sorry if its a silly qn

    It's changing your body composition. Weight training to try to lose fat and gain muscle. It's a long process as you can't typically gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. So, I always question my choice lol.

    LoL. There's just no wiggle room for calories.

    And it plays mind games on me! I always shave off 100 from a few days out of the week so I can eat more on the weekend, so I still feel like I'm in a deficit sometimes. And I'm struggling to find maintenance. This week I'm going to try to go a little past what MFP gives me.
  • CooCooPuff
    CooCooPuff Posts: 4,374 Member
    edited May 2015
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    Pomegranates may be higher in calories, but they are among the most delicious fruits.

    I'm really craving figs right now too.
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,627 Member
    edited May 2015
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    kajalpoit wrote: »
    I find it strange that it adds up when you eat veges as snacks and as part of a smoothie or dinner.

    its food. its not strange they have calories. what is strange, are systems NOT counting those calories.

  • MKEgal
    MKEgal Posts: 3,250 Member
    edited May 2015
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    kajalpoit wrote:
    I was amazed at why fruits and veg counted towards calories because when I did weight
    watchers in the past I was able to eat as much fruit and veg and they didn't count towards my daily
    points so any fruit and veg was zero points value. I find it strange that it adds up when you eat
    veges as snacks and as part of a smoothie or dinner.
    Well, if WW worked, people wouldn't have to keep doing it, or try other methods, right?

    Here's an epiphany from another former WW user, which is part of a larger article (which deserves to
    be read for itself, but for now, let's jump to the part about WW)    :
    "The Weight Watchers program uses points. The points equate to about 50 calories each.
    I get 26 points a day and earn extra points based on my exercise so I was (I thought) taking
    in from 1300 to 1550 calories a day (less than what I figure I need based on your maintenance
    calculator).

    So in looking at the program all fruits and vegetables are free, meaning no points to encourage
    one to eat more fruits and veggies. So I have been eating large salads and at least three fruits
    every day that I don’t count for! That’s at least an extra 300 calories or more a day not being
    counted!

    Plus I noticed I pour a little nonfat milk in my morning coffee. I never count that because it’s
    just a dab but today I measured it and its about a qtr cup or another 22 calories.

    Oh yeah, let’s not forget the frozen berries I add to my protein drink each morning… more
    free uncounted calories! Amazing!!!! I’m quitting Weight Watchers today to follow your plan.
    Will see if I can find a good calorie counting app and count everything."

    Happy for her? Definitely. Surprised? Not even a little.
    A few days later, she checks back in with an update…

    “Hi there. Just wanted to touch base after my first week following your guide to thank you.
    After getting my calorie deficit accurate I dropped 2.6 lbs this week!

    I know that won’t seem like such a big deal to your readers but it’s everything to me. I don’t
    need to adjust my thyroid meds and for the previous 6 weeks of killing myself 6 days a week
    at the gym and sticking to Weight Watchers I lost, if lucky a half pound and just couldn’t figure
    it out… didn’t know what was wrong and was soooo discouraged."
  • Calorie_Counting_K
    Calorie_Counting_K Posts: 48 Member
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    Wow, very interesting indeed thanks for sharing that. I lost nearly 2 stone on WW in the past but MFP app is alot more easier and I can do it myself rather than take time out n rush to a meeting for a weigh in.
    Plus,as im indian most of the food is within the database which is brilliant!
  • juliet3455
    juliet3455 Posts: 3,015 Member
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    @kajalpoit as a Newbie on MFP go to the link below where I previously posted a compilation of Links to Great Posts ( my personal biased opinion ) by multiple MFP users that are a great source of information and inspiration for me. Most of these have been stickied/pinned in the different Message Board Forums so they are easier to find.

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/32386842#Comment_32386842
  • Merkavar
    Merkavar Posts: 3,082 Member
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    I am pretty sure the only thing that doesn't have calories is water.

    Pretty sure everything from coke zero to apples have calories. I'm sure you could even find the calories on a box of tissues or a cup of dirt if you were into eating that.
    kajalpoit wrote: »
    How are you all getting along with MFP? Where are you guys all from?

    I like it, helps me track my food and gives me goals to stay under or exceed. I'm from Australia.

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