Simple Nutrition for Fat Loss

I’m really glad to see you cover this. I’ve had many, many arguments with a friend about the benefits of nuts and fruits in a well rounded diet. I had recently read some info on fruits being horrible for weight loss because of the sugar. Thank you for this post.

Fruit and nuts have been stigmatised somewhat in recent times.

There are many commercial diets which attribute point values to foods as part of the process. These diets do not seem to distinguish between food types, be it processed or not, and can penalise fruits and nuts with a relatively high point value.

I agree with what Craig is saying, I feel much more satisfied when incorporating fruits, vegetables and nuts into my diet, I also feel my body responds much more favourably to these foods than it does to more processed foods.

In my efforts to be more conscious of what food is good for my body, I’d have to say that it prefers natural better.

I can confirm all of these, I’ve been eating like this for a year and no fat gain whatsoever. I eat fruit before I go to sleep and no fat gains EVER! Same goes for nuts and cottage cheese.
I got one for you all, this is my evening meal: 250gm of fresh low fat cheese, one scoop of protein powder, some almonds, dry cranberries, Flax Oil.
I even throw a cookie at the end of it, and no I haven’t gained any fat.

I’m allergic to nuts and anaphylacticly allergic to peanuts. Is there another food that has the same nutritional value that I can have instead?

Great post! I couldn’t agree more about the fruit. This is the first and only thing I really miss when restricting calories by cutting back on carbs. You can take away my pasta, rice, grains and even bread if you have too (although it hurts a little), but don’t take my fruit! It helps me stay focused, energized and it helps alot in varying your diet.

One question about nuts though. Isn’t the main argument that you should be careful about eating nuts when trying to lose fat with regards to their high calorie level and that it’s easy to eat to much. I love nuts as well, but I find it hard to know how much I’ve really been eating, which is why I always weigh them before.

As always, Craig brings the simple truth to the masses. I think we’ve made nutrition too complicated with all the hormones and macronutrients and micronutrients and stuff. It’s all fairly simple. Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. And you’re done! But I think the other way sells more books ;)

what a misleading article.
The question was does fruit make you fat and the evidence presented to the contrary was that eating fruit AND vegetables doesn’t make you fat. True enough if the vegetables outweight the fruit. But instead of talking FAT you then say the subjects who ate fruit and vegetqables “weighed less” which would be true if they also lost MUSCLE!
Remember, fructose from fruit doesn’t go into the boodstream as sugar but comes straight from the liver as FAT! and if your activity level is not high enough to burn that fat, it WILL be stored as body-fat.

To Pam Robinson: spot on girl. That’s the truth of the matter. Fruit does cause the bloodstream to carry more fat and just like any fat, if it’s not used for fuel it can be stored as body-fat. In your case, excessive fruit during pre comp is not a great idea.

Great article Craig (and Joel). Short, precise, to the point. Well said. I’ve munched on fruit and nuts for years now while maintaining single digit body fat year round since 98…keep the good info comin…

Great post. I’m a vegetarian myself and I look and feel amazing. Veggies do a body good, lol.

Joel, I completely agree with Craig. I have lost close to 20# over the last 3 months by eating fruit-and-vegetables, nuts and seeds (sunflower mostly) during the day in 2 hour blocks instead of larger breakfast/lunch meals. I dont have hunger attacks and eat reasonable portions of meat and cooked vegtables at dinner. Along with an exercise plan and plenty of water have gone from 185 to 167 pounds in the three month period.

Like the post and I agree on the need for fruit and nuts in your weight loss program. There is no question they have key health benefits. I like to make sure i have some lower glycemic food with my fruit though. Like cottage cheese.

Hi Joel,

I liked the article, especially the part about being able to add whole grains to the diet.

There still seems to be a debate about this with some nutritionist, is it fine to have whole grains in the your diet or is it something one should save for a cheat day?

I understand that grains are very calorie dense, so it’s easy to over do it when even eating the smallest amount. When do you eat whole grains, if any at all?

Joe

Great post. I talk about these things on my blog. When I eat nuts a voice says- get them from the baking aisle. The people that don’t eat fruit are missing out and deprived. Watermellon with whip cream or your 1/2 c. of ice cream- which is going to be more filling for the same calories and which one is going to induce a nap.
I tell you – you have it right- it’s our thinking on who is deprived. Keep up the good work.
Terry I have to laugh when I read your post and all I can think of is that, nuts add to weight if they are roasted salted- heavy and sitting next to a beer.

weren’t they supposed to be 3 steps? am I crazy? I can only see 2….

Joel,

Can you imagine that… “I’m not eating fruit because I’m trying to lose weight.”

It’s really sad the amount of misinformation that is out there and how ignorant the general public is when it comes to health, nutrition, and weight loss.

Chris

I would point out there is no “health consequences” to eating red meat when the meat is from a healthy source, as he mentioned, organic, grass fed, natural. In fact it is one of the more health-dense foods there is, that and healthy milk and eggs.
For those who can’t eat the nuts, a good substitute would likely be a protein/fat blended snack. So I’m thinking dairy, some kind of cheese perhaps.

As to the fruit/dieting question, of course you can loose weight. But as someone mentioned, fructose goes strait to liver and mostly converted to fatty acids/triglycerides (plus uric acid byproducts). This doesn’t make you fat, as the body ALWAYS maintains a stream of free fatty acids to use for energy needs. However, when losing weight, of course the fatty acids you WANT floating around are the ones from your fat cells, and not only supplied by diet. If your diet supplies the fat energy, it doesn’t have to come from your fat cells, thus no fat loss.
No matter, 2 or 3 servings of fruit a day never hurt anybody, the fructose content is fairly low, plus it comes with fiber and starches to slow down absorption. A fruit juice, on the other hand, is highly concentrated fruit sugar water sans fiber and starch, and is WAY more concentrated than if you just ate a piece of fruit or two. Plus the type of fruit matters. A banana has a lot of carbs, but a bunch of strawberries don’t. When dieting, I’d stick to berries primarily, and citrus fruits, and then some tropical, but still limit the bananas, and high GI fruits.
Some good advice I like are two fold:
1) Make every plate a proper blend of carb/fat/protein. But make the staple your protein, and then mostly carb OR fat, but not a lot of carb and fat together, as this is a good recipe for fat gain, the fat floats around, the insulin spike pushes into cells. So mostly protein/fat meals or protein/carb meals.
2) Make your plate colorful. The veggie/fruit servings should give you a nice color sample. Greens, yellows, reds, blues, oranges, etc… The more colorful the better!

Peace

i wish someone would comment on eating meat causeing cancer and especially colon cancer. i have always eating protein and tons of chicken for protein and i recently was reading a book by dr. fuhrman called EAT TO LIVE he makes many good points but the part that bothered me the most was the chapter about Meat Protine The Dark Side. I have a hard time with this and i know u can not be a bodybuilder and be a vegan. For yrs i have opposed vegan but after reading this i strongly struggle now and really have a trumoil going on inside. I wish someone could talk about this. Also especally eating chicken?? I have already given up tuna yrs ago and bad meats like bacon, processed meat, but now all natural chicken? Grasss fed beef? help????

Kuigi Kleinsasser wrote:

Remember, fructose from fruit doesn’t go into the boodstream as sugar but comes straight from the liver as FAT! and if your activity level is not high enough to burn that fat, it WILL be stored as body-fat.

That s so not true and that s pure misinformation. Fructose does enter the glucose degradation cycle at a later step through the fructose-6-phosphatase and follow the exact same path as regular glucose. Entering at a later step makes it easier to turn it into fat but it will only turn to fat if all the krebs cycle are running full speed (which makes it a damn load of fructose) , all the exceeding glucose/fructose turned to acetyl coA will then turn in acyl coA in the liver and then stored as bodyfat.

I like your comment about “fruit doesn’t make you fat”. Back in the day when I had superpower will-power (I was a teenager at the time), I ate mostly fruit that I would pick right off the vine. Although I didn’t lose actual weight, I lost inches and felt so much healthier with more energy. That says something.

For whatever reason, the images are all messed up on this blog

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Glad you enjoyed the list! I think I’ve read Blondish before… I’ll have to check it out again.