What is your experience with fruit and weight loss?

[friendly7]

Hello. I've been reading many comments about fruit and weight loss and it looks like the majority feels that fruit is packed with sugar and bad for weight loss. Looking on the net the opinions differ but it's also widely suggested that better limit or stay away from fruit. I'm hoping that there are some good success stories with having fruit as a part of healthy weight loss. I'm not a doctor but I think fruit is a very healthy option and it's packed with vitamins, minerals and healthy sugars which we need for our bodies. I'm trying to loose weight and stay size 10 dress. Currently tight size 14 or 16 depending on the style of the dress. I'm doing light exercises mainly dancing to disco music and similar energetic tracks and do some very moderate, without weights exercises and walking. Trying to have healthy meals and normal dinner with the family with added salad and reduced portions. Anyway, my question is about the fruit and success stories. Please kindly share. Thank you. Happy Sunday to all!!!

Fruit is full of sugar, that's why it is so sweet! Vegetables are as equally packed with vitamins and minerals but without the sugar. Fruit is only necessary if you eat insufficient veg. What do you mean by healthy sugars anyway?

No such thing as a 'healthy sugar'. Yes, fruit does have vits, fibre etc but so does veg. There's nothing you can get from an apple that you can't get from broccoli! To your body, sugar is sugar is sugar, whether it comes from a banana or a mars bar. (There is also a theory that fructose (fruit sugar) is actually a bigger baffle than eg sucrose, but I can't remember the details so won't go too far down that road!)

I eat small amounts of low-sugar fruit eg berries and some types of melon. But large amounts of fruit in the diet will not aid weightloss or health.

baddie not baffle, bloody iPhone

Thank you everyone who replied. Well, as for good sugars, I didn't make up the term, I see it in some articles. Here is one, not sure if the link is possible to post here but here goes:
www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8775067/Why-good-sugar-is-the-secret-to-a-slim-figure.html

I personally think (based purely on experience and not on science!) that different people's bodies react to different types of food in a weight loss/gain kinda way. For example, I can eat pasta and potatoes all day and not gain weight - but I only have to think about bread and I gain a pound.

I have done WeightWatchers twice (once when I was 23 and realised all my friends were young, slim and lovely and I was a chubster and once to lose my last stubborn bit of baby weight after DD) - I've never found fruit to be a problematic snack for me. I wouldn't eat too many bananas but I don't like them much anyway - fruit is now zero rated on WeightWatchers but there is 'guidance' that you shouldn't stuff yourself with it, and that sticking to the 5 a day principle is about right.

Unless you're eating too much of other things, I would be astonished if you gained weight by eating fruit... If I eat too much fruit I just get what my DMum would term 'the wild shites'. For me, I can eat 2-4 portions (portions, not pieces - a big bunch of grapes could be 3-4 portions) a day and still lose weight. I am actually quite shocked that people think fruit is 'unhealthy' and could prevent weight loss - really? You would have to either be eating a serious amount of fruit or be stuffing yourself with too much of everything else for that to happen surely?

I eat about 3 portions of fruit a day, and lose weight at a nice steady rate. I would suggest to just use common sense. Natural, unprocessed foods are good IMO.

I had fruit cravings when pregnant. I ate countless satsumas and apples. Everyone thought it was a healthy craving. My weight gain was 2.5 stone. my baby was 10lb 2 and had blood sugar issues. If only id known then what I know now about supposed healthy sugars. I barely touch fruit now, the occasional strawberry and that's it.

Nobody said that fruit was 'unhealthy' or would prevent weightloss. But it's unlikely to aid it given the amount of sugar most fruit contains.

Nothing about any type of sugar is 'healthy' - it's just that sugar in fruit comes in a package of stuff that is good for us (vitamins, etc) so I guess you could say that in most cases it balances out. As I said, I do eat fruit in small amounts and enjoy it, because fruit is delicious! But the idea of 'good sugars' is really misleading, is all!

Thank you again for all the advice and sharing your experience. The fruit and berries I'm having:
apples (cox and green apples)
grapes (red, black, green)
kiwi
occasionally bananas
watermelon
rarely melon
mango
pineapple
apricots
peaches
blueberries
raspberries
strawberries
blackberries

Yes, definitely as a part of healthy diet, I have veg/fruit in my breakfast, veg and fruit mixture of salad/home made veg or chicken and veg soup for lunch and family dinner with salad and smaller portion of other food I used to have

Snacks: fruit/nuts/veg

Drinks: included now herbal teas, fruit teas, 1 to 2 cups of coffee with 1 spoon of honey per cup

Dancing to music, walking, light work out

Fruit very definitely aided my weightloss (of over 5 stone, though a stone has subsequently gone back on). Eating an apple or banana for breakfast kept me away ffrom a croissant or two, having a couple of punnets of grapes/strawberries/raspberries on my desk at work kept me from nipping to the canteen for crisps or chocolate, and a banana in my bag stopped me from diving into a cafe when hit with fainty hunger whilst out and about.

When people say fruit is full of sugar and doesn't help weight loss, they are possibly overlooking the fact that the sort of people thinking about this are not likely to be planning to replace raw carrots in their diet with fruit, they're going to be replacing crap. And so regardless of the sugar in fruit, the chances are they will lose weight.

Fantastic, thank you so much for sharing!!! I feel so inspired now! I'm definitely going to stick to 5 portions a day having the fruit and veg + healthy eating in general. I'll keep you posted :) Please feel free to join me, will be fun to exchange experience.

friendly Iam on the Paul Mckenna eating plan and we know that it's not WHAT you eat it's HOW you eat it that makes the difference. So we eat slowly and consciously (not shoving down any old shxx). I differ from P.M. in that IMO eating really healthy food makes you less hungry etc. I eat fruit a lot but ALWAYS on an empty stomach as northey says I have delicious smoothies for breakfast e.g. half an apple, whole apricot and peach, couple of strawbs or whatever plus ground almonds whisked up with water or fruit juice. This may sound fattening but it's all I have (I can't finish it and put in the fridge for later)

Oh i nearly forgot I've just lost 3 stone doing this I was similar weight to you friendly

A few things:

1. Different people have different tolerance levels to fruit
2. Quantity makes a difference - ie how many portions, how much fructose
3. Some fruit much higher in sugars than others per potion, and some higher in fibre
4. Fruit might be slowing down weight loss efforts rather than actually stalling it

The reason I posted the other post is that for people who eat a lot of fruit and find that their weight loss has stalled then this is something to look at.

I find that I don't gain weight while eating 2-3 portions of fruit a day (mainly apples) but I don't lose either. One piece a day wouldn't stall weight loss.

As I said my aunt was eating 3-4 portions of mainly tropical fruit (pineapple/mango - ie high in sugar) every day and this (combined with low fat calorie controlled diet) was enough to keep her very overweight.

Maybe because your aunt was eating her fruit AFTER her meal forever pineappple works as a diuretic for me but as i said only if I eat it before my meal.

Thank you everyone, very interesting points. A lot to think about. Well, I suppose I'll try my plan for a month and if I don't loose say 2 kg, I'll have to rethink. Thank you for sharing your experience and thoughts. Anyone would like to join me? The ideas are easily modified to suit your goals. The main idea is to include fruit in a healthy diet along with some work out. Any work out will do.

I eat a lot of fruit (some with my porridge in the morning, and more as snacks mid-morning, afternoon and sometimes evening) including the "dreaded" bananas (almost every day) and am slim and healthy. The key word here, in my opinion, is "healthy" as lots of ladies here seem to advocate eating large quantities of animal protein on everyday basis in place of fruit and healthy carbs. In my opinion, it is a recipe for health problems in later life...

When I needed to shed weight in the past, I always ate several (2-3) portions of fruit and it definitely helped my weight loss. I excercise (mainly run) a lot and I think you need unprocessed healthy carbs (including sugars in fruits) to keep you going.

So I would say listen to your body and if you are using more energy then taking in, you WILL lose weight. Good luck!

I agree with northey.

I've lost 6.5st since last October (SW), and I eat 3-5 portions of fruit a day. It's replaced the rubbish I used to eat.

God made fruit (or evolution or mother nature or whatever), I don't think it can be that bad for you.

I am pretty sure she wasn't eat after a meal probably more as snacks or meal replacement. But I am pretty sure it was 4 portions plus a day, she was buying mountains of pineapples, melons, strawberries, mangos.

Wow, I was truly hoping for the success stories and now I can read them with such pleasure! Thank you so much for sharing!!! I agree, fruit helps me keep my mind away from cakes and chocolate. And ice-cream too! While my family was enjoying vanilla ice-cream with berries and just had berries for pudding. I know it will take a while to loose weight but I'd rather do it slowly and try to maintain, I really feel so cross with myself that I've lost 11 kg and gained 13! I'll try my best not to repeat this. I so hate my love handles!!! Why are they called love handles? They should be called something else LOL. Anyway, than you to everyone who posted. I'm always interested to hear what you think. I'm a little worried about sugar in fruit and danger of diabetes. Will see what the Internet comes up with but if anyone knows this please kindly share.

foreverondiet, hi, just saw your post. Well, I have some fruit for breakfast and some veg salad/soup or both for lunch, fruit salad if I'd like pudding and fruit/veg, nuts for snacks. I don't get mountains of fruit :)

I find it really really hard to believe that someone who is genuinely eating a low-calorie, low-fat diet plus lots of fruit (even tropical fruits) could become 'very overweight' as a result. I have been known to eat 2 entire pineapples in one sitting and quite often eat a whole melon - usually an overindulgence in fruit just gives me a bout of diarrhoea. ..

Well, I don't think I'm having low calorie and low fat diet. I have family dinner every day which can be lamb chops, beef steak, fish etc with steamed veg and some pots. Some diets say low calorie is good, some suggest fat helps to get rid of fat. So confusing! I suppose it's true, what might work for one person wouldn't work for another. I personally know people who don't eat for the whole day on a regular basis, I couldn't do that, I'd just pass out, I know that. Even if I eat very little I can pass out so it's not good for me to starve and it might be good for my friends. At least I hope it's good for them.

I was referring to the other poster who said her aunt ate 4 portions of fruit and a low-fat calorie controlled diet and was 'very overweight' as a result. I would think this was either due to the aunt being a bit frugal with the truth about what she ate or possibly a medical problem.

Oh, I see. Thank you for clarifying emsyj :)