Topic: Too much FRUIT?!

[Keith Ferrell]

First off, Hello everyone! I am new, both to the boards and to parkour. I've been parkouring a few times a week with my girlfriend for a couple of months, but no serious training until very recently, we both decided it was an excellent way to bond and get our exercise in, forge dicipline, and to have fun, of course.

That said, I have a pretty basic question.

I am very knowledgable about eating healthy, and the fundamentals... but... in regards to taking a step in the direction of the paleo-diet, and the specific effects of carbs...

I'm curious, can you eat too much fruit? I feel amazing when I do this. But sometimes I will basically eat only lean meats, vegetables, and just tons of fruit, I mean probably 5-6 cups worth a day (mainly pineapple, apples and oranges). Outside of some squash, or broccoli, most of my daily carb intake is probably fruit. It seems weird, but my concern is that it is bad for my insulin sensitivity, or chance of fat storage? Or is it way better than eating bread, potatoes, pasta, etc, and I should keep at it?

My diet is like this:
Meal1: 1c OATS, 1c Apple, 2 eggs, handful of almonds

Meal2: 1c pineapple, bunch of grapes, fresh squeezed orange juice

Meal3: 1c pineapple, bunch of grapes, lean meat, normally fried in coconut oil

Meal4: 1c squash, 1c asparagus or broccoli, lean meat, again in coconut oil

I also drink plenty of water, tea, and my biggest vice, black coffee.

I take one multivitamin in the morning.. an ADAM NOW version. I'm also known for downing fruit smoothies with whey in them along.
I also eat plenty of fish oil and flaxseed

Well anyways, any insight would be nice. I DO seem to struggle once in awhile with fatigue, but i'm not sure if it's due to a lack of motivation, or other factors in my life, or if its from my diet. It's not overtraining i'm pretty sure, because I dont train nearly as much as i should. Perhaps its from undertraining 

Oh, and i'm very excited to have found this community!!!!

[Chris Salvato]

need meat in every meal -- and we need to know what your portions are on those meals...if they are goo portions they are fine..if u have 2 lbs of fruit to 1 oz of meat then its not good..

[Keith Ferrell]

thought i had added most of the portions, i guess i left out meat size, normally it's about an 8 oz piece of chicken or steak.  And the fruit portions are about 1 - 2 cups depending on the day, and the vegetable portions are the same.

[Chris Salvato]

thought i had added most of the portions, i guess i left out meat size, normally it's about an 8 oz piece of chicken or steak.  And the fruit portions are about 1 - 2 cups depending on the day, and the vegetable portions are the same.

Your portions seem fine, relatively..

have you considered putting your daily diet onto fitday to evaluate caloric intake?

[LittleKey]

Uhh, I didn't really see an answer, can you eat too much fruit? Like, eat so much that it becomes unhealthy for you?

[Ryan Nicolai]

When you say "lean", what do you mean exactly? A little fat, emphasis on little, is always good in every diet.

[ZacharyCohn]

UNsaturated fat is actually quite a necessary part of your diet. These are the good fats. Saturated fats are the not-so-good fats that you should try to limit.

[Chris Salvato]

Uhh, I didn't really see an answer, can you eat too much fruit? Like, eat so much that it becomes unhealthy for you?

Yes.  Fruit is very high in sugar and, if abused, can lead to diabetes just as easily as snicker's bars.

When you say "lean", what do you mean exactly? A little fat, emphasis on little, is always good in every diet.

Depending on your goals you may need quite a bit of fat...like...a hoarde of it...

Everyone needs fat, like zac said...from good fat sources.

Saturated fats are best to avoid.  Even so, from animal sources, they aren't so bad.  From things like vegetable oils, they are downright dangerous. 

Lean means allow you to make sure you get your fats from other sources that are better -- like nuts, avocados, coconuts, etc...

[Ryan Nicolai]

Of course, little is emphasized but in relation to the average person. Horde is also relative, I think I eat a lot of fat compared to the average person, but it's not like 16oz. I train and do Parkour, but I don't need a lot of fat simply because my overall diet brings it in throughout the day... and the fact I'm trying to go from 205 to 185. Regardless, fat is needed to maintain cell membranes, cushion organs, helps absorb certain vitamins, and has the highest concentration of caloric energy.

When I said lean, I meant was it naturally lean or was it trimmed. Besides needing fat for the above reasons, a lack of it by eating only lean meat((like rabbit)) can lead to bowel problems because there is nothing to hold shape and you can lose nutrients and liquids rapidly. Although that side effect is usually felt on camping trips.

Basically I'm being redundant because you did a good job explaining it Chris. I'm done.

[BearMills]

YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MUCH FRUIT! 

[Chris Salvato]

YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MUCH FRUIT! 

False -- people have made themselves pre-diabetic from fruit....

[BearMills]

Really i have never heard that before..... well I didn't mean you can eat and eat and eat... there are limitations. But its not exactly bad for you and they contain nutrients and vitamins that are vital to the body. But thanks for that note, ill have to keep that in mind

[tombb]

Really i have never heard that before..... well I didn't mean you can eat and eat and eat... there are limitations. But its not exactly bad for you and they contain nutrients and vitamins that are vital to the body. But thanks for that note, ill have to keep that in mind

In general it would be unlikely just from whole fruits just from a practical point of view (between fiber etc you would easily get full and not eat quite as much).

However it is very easy to go overboard toward type II diabetes with fruit juices, especially something pulp-free and fairly sweet like say apple juice.

Why? You probably heard of things like HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup) and how having it added in large amounts to everything can cause problems. The only bad part there is the Fructose (well and glucose too but often that's just 10%), which is the simple sugar in fruit.
It's called High-fructose just because it's like 55-90% fructose (the rest is glucose).

Even pure refined table sugar is generally better than fructose because at least you have slightly slower and more controlled absorption by first breaking it into fructose and glucose.
Corn is not necessarily bad in itself and neither is fruit (they are good for many things), it's just that it's easy to get disproportionate amounts of simple sugars from things like fruit juices and corn syrup, without fiber and other things that would help you absorb it more slowly and make you feel full if you start eating too much.

[BearMills]

Yeh but everything in my household is HFCS free so im ok on that

[tombb]

Yeh but everything in my household is HFCS free so im ok on that

My point was that 100% fruit juice is not much different than HFCS in terms of diabetes risk, both have a lot of fructose.
If you try to be HFCS-free you should understand why for the same reason having too much fruit juice is bad (it's basically like HFCS with vitamins) especially if you drink it like water.

[BearMills]

Just to point it out there i never said it wasn't bad for you... I agreed with you guys. All i was saying is a bundle of fruit is not bad for you every now and then