SOOOO confused about fruit sugars.....

Mitramonday
Mitramonday Posts: 48 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I have been trying to research whether fruit sugars actually do turn to fat and am tearing my hair out :s at all the conflicting 'evidence'. I have a sweet tooth and always add fruit to my green smoothies to make them more palatable to me - and I really do enjoy my nutri-blasting diet! But, whilst I always count the calories of the fruit (AND weigh everything before logging), I am now being told that fruit sugars always turn to fat more readily than veggies etc....
These are links to three conflicting websites:
http://shape.com/weight-loss/food-weight-loss/ask-diet-doctor-fruit-really-free-diet-food(I know this one is advocating that you don't use fruit as a 'free' food....and I don't!)
http://bodybuilding.com/fun/issa14.htm
http://builtlean.com/2014/07/15/fruit-gain-fat/

PLEASE can anyone give me a DEFINITIVE ANSWER to this?????? Whilst I am losing weight (a little) each week, I know I have a lot of belly fat to go!

Replies

  • Unknown
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  • CorneliusPhoton
    CorneliusPhoton Posts: 965 Member
    edited July 2016
    snickerscharlie wrote: »
    Noel_57 wrote: »
    When I was in Weight Watchers, where fruit is considered a "free" food, a member once said she was concerned about her love of pears and was worried they would make her gain. The leader said, "Honey, none of us ended up here at Weight Watchers from eating too many pears". I would not worry about your fruit consumption.

    It *is* entirely possible to become overweight (or fail to lose weight) from consuming fruit - especially in juice form.

    There's a lot of fad juicing diets going around and people naturally think they're doing themselves great, healthy favours by doing these fruit/veggie smoothies instead of simply eating the foods they are made from. A lot of these smoothies can actually be a calorie and sugar bomb, and for me, did nothing as far as longer-term satiety went because I was drinking my calories instead of actually eating them. ;)

    Yes, you definitely need to make sure you are eating enough protein, fiber, and fat for satiety and nutrition, but becoming overweight is because of too many calories, period.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    Sifting through all the evidence will get a lot easier if you stick to scholarly articles using double blind studies and published in peer reviewed journals. Extra points if the study results were duplicated.

    You can also check the expertise of your nations health department, or the WHO. (The health organization not the band).

    Try google scholar.
  • SassyMommasaurus
    SassyMommasaurus Posts: 380 Member
    Just eat the damn fruit.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited July 2016
    Mitramonday wrote: »
    I have been trying to research whether fruit sugars actually do turn to fat and am tearing my hair out :s at all the conflicting 'evidence'. I have a sweet tooth and always add fruit to my green smoothies to make them more palatable to me - and I really do enjoy my nutri-blasting diet! But, whilst I always count the calories of the fruit (AND weigh everything before logging), I am now being told that fruit sugars always turn to fat more readily than veggies etc....
    These are links to three conflicting websites:
    http://shape.com/weight-loss/food-weight-loss/ask-diet-doctor-fruit-really-free-diet-food(I know this one is advocating that you don't use fruit as a 'free' food....and I don't!)
    http://bodybuilding.com/fun/issa14.htm
    http://builtlean.com/2014/07/15/fruit-gain-fat/

    PLEASE can anyone give me a DEFINITIVE ANSWER to this?????? Whilst I am losing weight (a little) each week, I know I have a lot of belly fat to go!

    Think about it--how is it even logically possible to gain net fat in a calorie deficit? To do that you'd have to find a way to magically make your body need less energy to run than it currently does. While there are metabolic adaptations that can happen from an overly aggressive calorie deficit, eating fruit or not has nothing to do with that, and metabolic adaptation doesn't mean adding fat while burning more than you are consuming (which again makes no logical sense.

    What happens when you eat fruit at a calorie deficit (or any other carb) is that your body will normally fill up glycogen stores, which are unlikely to be full. IF they are momentarily full (again, not that likely), then your body may add fat, but so long as you are in a deficit you will nonetheless burn more fat than is added.

    The scare mongering about fruit is one of my least favorite things about certain players in the current diet industry (although it's worth noting that even an anti-fructose type like Lustig says don't worry about fruit.)

    All that aside, of course for nutrition it is important to make sure that you eat adequate vegetables (fruit doesn't substitute for vegetable consumption), protein, and healthy fats, and that you are at a deficit if you want to lose fat. Many find that too much juice makes it harder to do that, since they don't find juice satiating. (I don't drink calories since I find them less satisfying that way.)


  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    Your three articles:
    Shape - agree, nothing is a free food if it has calories.

    Bodybuilding - (are you a bodybuilder?) They seem so wrapped up in the academic mechanics of sugar digestion that they forget that you are constantly shutting fat into and out of your fat cells depending on when you have finished digesting your last meal and/or activity. If you are in a calorie deficit you will have a net loss of fat over the course of a day. That some fructose may end up going into fat storage really doesn't matter if you are taking more fat out of your body stores than you put it.

    Builtlean - nice summing up:
    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.


    Keep it simple, don't go looking for scary stories on the interwebz.
  • michelleepotter
    michelleepotter Posts: 800 Member
    snickerscharlie wrote: »
    Noel_57 wrote: »
    When I was in Weight Watchers, where fruit is considered a "free" food, a member once said she was concerned about her love of pears and was worried they would make her gain. The leader said, "Honey, none of us ended up here at Weight Watchers from eating too many pears". I would not worry about your fruit consumption.

    It *is* entirely possible to become overweight (or fail to lose weight) from consuming fruit - especially in juice form.

    There's a lot of fad juicing diets going around and people naturally think they're doing themselves great, healthy favours by doing these fruit/veggie smoothies instead of simply eating the foods they are made from. A lot of these smoothies can actually be a calorie and sugar bomb, and for me, did nothing as far as longer-term satiety went because I was drinking my calories instead of actually eating them. ;)

    This. When I first started out here, someone I knew IRL suggested that cutting out soda was a good way to cut out a lot of calories right from the start. So I replaced it with juice. Guess what? NOT BETTER! I do still drink juice occasionally (and I still drink non-diet soda occasionally), but I realize it's not a low-cal drink. But lately I've been eating a lot of fresh fruit. All of the fiber is filling, and half a box of strawberries (part of my breakfast today) was only 46 calories.
  • snickerscharlie
    snickerscharlie Posts: 8,578 Member
    edited July 2016
    michelleepotter wrote: »
    snickerscharlie wrote: »
    Noel_57 wrote: »
    When I was in Weight Watchers, where fruit is considered a "free" food, a member once said she was concerned about her love of pears and was worried they would make her gain. The leader said, "Honey, none of us ended up here at Weight Watchers from eating too many pears". I would not worry about your fruit consumption.

    It *is* entirely possible to become overweight (or fail to lose weight) from consuming fruit - especially in juice form.

    There's a lot of fad juicing diets going around and people naturally think they're doing themselves great, healthy favours by doing these fruit/veggie smoothies instead of simply eating the foods they are made from. A lot of these smoothies can actually be a calorie and sugar bomb, and for me, did nothing as far as longer-term satiety went because I was drinking my calories instead of actually eating them. ;)

    This. When I first started out here, someone I knew IRL suggested that cutting out soda was a good way to cut out a lot of calories right from the start. So I replaced it with juice. Guess what? NOT BETTER! I do still drink juice occasionally (and I still drink non-diet soda occasionally), but I realize it's not a low-cal drink. But lately I've been eating a lot of fresh fruit. All of the fiber is filling, and half a box of strawberries (part of my breakfast today) was only 46 calories.

    I replaced my occasional soda with diet soda. All the fizz, none of the calories. I was a big milk drinker, too, and just gradually replaced most of that with good ol' water. :)

    Making small sustainable changes (instead of big, dramatic ones that tend to fail as soon as your resolve falters) is a big part of what helped me lose 75 lbs in under a year.

    That and simply moving more. ;)
  • Enjcg5
    Enjcg5 Posts: 389 Member
    In a nutshell, your body recognizes sugar as sugar whether it comes from a carrot, a soda, or a bag of gummy bears. The only difference is that the carrot will give you some fiber and a nice dose of antioxidants to help "balance it out". And it won't give ya any artifical ingredients (a concern for some). Plus, think about how easy it is to consume 500 calories in candy or soda. You'd turn orange and look like a carrot before you reach 500 calories of pure carrots. People in general don't overeat "fruit sugars" and it's not usually a concern unless you are a diabetic.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    sugar is sugar is sugar...sugar does not turn into fat...consuming more energy (calories) than you expend is what makes you fat.
  • fr33sia12
    fr33sia12 Posts: 1,258 Member
    I wonder if we can go a whole day without someone asking the same old question about sugar.
  • michelleepotter
    michelleepotter Posts: 800 Member
    snickerscharlie wrote: »
    michelleepotter wrote: »
    snickerscharlie wrote: »
    Noel_57 wrote: »
    When I was in Weight Watchers, where fruit is considered a "free" food, a member once said she was concerned about her love of pears and was worried they would make her gain. The leader said, "Honey, none of us ended up here at Weight Watchers from eating too many pears". I would not worry about your fruit consumption.

    It *is* entirely possible to become overweight (or fail to lose weight) from consuming fruit - especially in juice form.

    There's a lot of fad juicing diets going around and people naturally think they're doing themselves great, healthy favours by doing these fruit/veggie smoothies instead of simply eating the foods they are made from. A lot of these smoothies can actually be a calorie and sugar bomb, and for me, did nothing as far as longer-term satiety went because I was drinking my calories instead of actually eating them. ;)

    This. When I first started out here, someone I knew IRL suggested that cutting out soda was a good way to cut out a lot of calories right from the start. So I replaced it with juice. Guess what? NOT BETTER! I do still drink juice occasionally (and I still drink non-diet soda occasionally), but I realize it's not a low-cal drink. But lately I've been eating a lot of fresh fruit. All of the fiber is filling, and half a box of strawberries (part of my breakfast today) was only 46 calories.

    I replaced my occasional soda with diet soda. All the fizz, none of the calories. I was a big milk drinker, too, and just gradually replaced most of that with good ol' water. :)

    Making small sustainable changes (instead of big, dramatic ones that tend to fail as soon as your resolve falters) is a big part of what helped me lose 75 lbs in under a year.

    That and simply moving more. ;)

    I got used to water and drink it all the time. But I also drink as much unsweetened tea and diet soda as I want. One cup of coffee per day (I actually didn't drink it all before -- started drinking it having breakfast with my husband), and the occasional juice, milk, regular soda, sweet tea, or whiskey. ;)
  • Alarae21
    Alarae21 Posts: 171 Member
    Considering I just ate my way through a whole carton of strawberries (360g), and have done on prior days and still steadily losing, I'm in the 'deficit is king' camp.

    I'm loving the fact it is Wimbledon at the moment as well, as it means all the shops do strawberry offers. Yum yum.
  • Mitramonday
    Mitramonday Posts: 48 Member
    Thanks, all! You've put my mind at rest and I shall carry on doing what I'm doing and enjoying it! ;)

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