Bananas are killing my macros

I eat a banana almost every morning. It's delicious, filling, but man does it kill my carb intake for the day.

Fruit constitutes most of my carbs for the day, especially if I eat an apple in the afternoons.

Usual carb additions throughout the day include brown rice, whole wheat tortillas and a fiber granola bar. Usually, I need these to meet my calorie goal.

Just wondering if anyone else has run in to this problem, and want to know if you reduced your fruit in take, or you just said to hell with it.

It wasn't until I eliminated all carbs except low-starch veggies that my fat loss took off running. I eat no grains (i.e., no bread, tortillas, zip), no fruit, just veggies for my carb source. I eat 2 servings of veggies for Lunch and also again at dinner. This keeps my carbs to about 30-40g for the day. And 1g protein for each pound of lean body mass. When I get to my goal weight, I'll re-introduce some fruits to my diet. But they do nothing to hasten fat loss. Check my diary for examples.

If you don't mind me asking, where do you get your potassium from? It's one reason I keep fruit in my diet.

Beef, chicken and low-starch vegetables are all great sources of potassium -- but without the unnecessary carbs. On a calorie restriction it's difficult for anyone to get the 4,700mg minimum rda. I also supplement with a powder potassium citrate, 800mg 3x daily (add it to drinks). Doing this under supervision of a Dr and I perform regular lab tests. Note: MFP food entries rarely have accurate micro-nutrient values...some do, but absence of potassium info doesn't mean the item has none! So it is good you check alternate sources. Most often you can just google "foodname potassium" and it will show you the amount in a serving. (works for other nutrients as well)

I also do short duration high-intensity strength workouts 3x weekly and HIIT cardio 3x weekly, alternating strength/cardio days. When I was eating fruits, sweet potatoes and whole grain rice, my weight loss had plateaued, even with calorie restriction. After I cut them out, and now get all my carbs from healthy vegetables, the weight loss resumed (at a very nice pace -- 2+ lbs. weekly).

It takes a couple of weeks to acclimate to a low-carb (ketogenic) diet. Most people have their bodies used to running mostly on glucose, and so they have to constantly eat carbs. If you want to hasten fat loss, you have to switch it over to burning fat instead. When first starting low-carb, people often report a horrible energy crash, even cold/flu-like symptoms and they just give up. But they don't realize that's a normal process during the switchover to burning fat, our bodies were designed to switch to burning fat when under a calorie restriction. And that's exactly what you want to do to lose your fat. Sometimes new things make you feel worse before you feel better ... a similar thing happens when you begin a new workout: you might have some aches and pains. But do you stop? Only if you don't know any better and think that continued workouts will just cause it to get worse. But we all know they don't. I believe the same applies to the low-carb eating.

Once you are at your optimal weight, you can eat a moderate amount of fruit and other carbs, so long as you don't overdo it in individual servings, and you won't gain fat. Fruits and starchy carbs are good for you in moderation, they have many nutrients that are healthy. But eating them when trying to lose fat is simply subverting the natural fat-burning process...you can still lose weight while eating fruits and other carbs, but it will not hasten the fat loss.

I've read posts in this thread stating "cutting fruit is stupid" and "it's recommended xx% of carbs...in your daily diet". They believe they are correct, but for me I have proven otherwise with my experience, and my results confirm -- both through weight loss and the positive results revealed in lab tests -- that fruits and other starchy carbs are unnecessary and are counter productive to a fat loss endeavor.

Potatoes have more potassium than bananas...oh wait, there's carbs there too. Carrots are good for potassium too...damn, sugar. Greens it is then.

Screw it. I'll go on the all kale diet.

All kale. All the time.

Bananas get the blame because they're the most "extra" in my day. I'm probably fine with just yogurt for breakfast. But if I don't eat some kind of rice/carb with lunch, I get light-headed in the afternoon, and it affects my workout.

Tortillas usually get added to dinner to make my calorie goal.

I guess I could swap the tortilla for banana....but they just don't wrap around my veggies in the same way.

I would spread peanut butter on that tortilla and wrap it around my banana.

Go for the bananas! In East Germany, they were almost impossible to get, so don't take them for granted!

What a weird thing to say. This isn't a socialist country, and it's not the 80s...

Along the same lines, don't take your car for granted because they didn't have cars in 1850...