Being in the body transformation and weight loss space, I am asked this all the time – does fruit make you fat?

NO! Is the simple answer, and in this article we are going to explore it a little further.

Whilst fruit does contain sugar, it also contains essential nutrients that your body needs in order to thrive. It also contains fibre, and that fibre within the fruit somewhat dampens the insulin response in the body, slowing down digestion and supporting with gut health.

Insulin is the hormone we so often attribute to fat storage, but it’s not just insulin that is the problem, it’s also stress, inflammation, what else is in the food along with the sugar, and a persons activity levels that dictate what that sugar will do in your body after you consume it.

And insulin can be kept much lower by eating less junk or processed foods.

If you are overweight, or diabetic, then it’s definitely important to reduce sugar intake, but I would be more worried about chocolate and junk foods that I would be about fruit. Furthermore when choosing fruit, its a great idea to choose those which are higher in nutritional value and fibre; such as berries, pears and apples. 

If you use the National Diabetes Services Scheme resources, you can decipher for yourself which fruits are best for you to consume in this situation.

If you’re not worried about your weight, and/or not needing to lose weight, you should feel free to eat and enjoy fruit because it is a health food, and we use the carbs/sugar for energy and eating fruit is a much healthier choice than eating packet of lolly snakes or a donut, because those foods have zero nutritional value.

What about the fructose!? Doesn’t fructose in fruit make you fat?

All refined sugar products break down into fructose in your body to some degree, so if you’re worried about the sugar in fruit, you should be worried about ALL sugar products; muffins, biscuits, lollies, etc – these are all sugary items that have no nutritional value outside of providing calories.

So, worrying about fruit is misguided (but common) and it’s often in the avoiding of delicious foods like fruit, that we end up bingeing on other sugary items that would be better for us to avoid.

Eat the fruit, start pushing out the junk 🙂  

If you’re interested in improving your nutrition for the better, check out Nourish & Flourish, my self-coaching course on nutrition for women who struggle to work out how to eat.

And the next time you ask yourself ‘does fruit make you fat’, I hope you think of this article 😉

Jen x