Is table sugar the same thing as the sugar found in fruit?
Is processed sugar more fattening than fruit?
Let’s find out…
Is the sugar found in a coca cola the same thing as the sugar found in something like an apple?
Of course not, these are two very different things because the sugar in a soda is grown, processed down, concentrated and then added to that specific beverage, whereas the sugar found in a whole piece of fruit is a single ingredient whole food in its quote unquote ‘natural’ form.
It’s got vitamins, minerals, fiber, all sorts of whole food goodies, whereas the sugar in a coke is just purely refined sugar and nothing else. Also, it’s worth mentioning that there may be other things found in whole fruit or just whole foods in general that science hasn’t even identified yet…that’s entirely possible because…
We often assume that we have all of this stuff figured out, but we actually don’t, nature is incredibly complex and our nutritional knowledge is always evolving…we’re discovering more and more about the nuances of nature every single day!
Does sugar make us fat? The answer is it depends…
If you overeat it just like anything else, you can accumulate body fat as a result however, let’s break down this down a little further and look at processed sugar vs. the sugar found in whole fruit in regards to fat loss.
Processed sugar is far more likely to promote fat gain because it comes in a hyper-palatable package, for example…
Are you likely to eat more calories from gummy bears or strawberries?
Obviously the gummy bears because they’re not nearly as satiating as the strawberries. 10 gummy bears is 100 calories…that’s insane to think about considering how tiny gummy bears are! On the other hand, you can have 2 cups of strawberries for that same 100 calories. It’s a no contest in regards to what is going to fill you up more, in fact…
The gummy bears might even stimulate your appetite, which sounds kind of wild, however you may identify with this…if you have 10 gummy bears, chances are you’re going to want 10 more and 10 more and 10 more and all of sudden a tiny handful turns into 5!
Let’s say that you have 50 gummy bears which might sound like a lot, but those things are really small and realistically 50 gummy bears is about 2 handfuls…you could have had 10 cups of strawberries for the equivalent amount of calories!
Someone might say, you can just portion control the gummy bears and equate for calories and avoid fat gain or even lose fat in the context of a calorie deficit and in theory, that’s absolutely true, however…
In the real world that’s just not how things tend to pan out for a bunch of reasons, but the biggest one being…
How long is it going to take you to feel hungry after 20 gummy bears vs. 4 cups strawberries? The strawberries are probably going to keep you satiated for a good while, whereas you might be ready to eat more food right after you chomp down on the gummy bears. Also…
If you’re not ready to eat right after 20 gummy bears, chances are you’re going to have a pretty significant blood sugar crash 30-60 minutes later and all of sudden you’re ravenous and when you’re ravenous ya don’t want single ingredient whole food, ya want something like a chocolate bar…you can see the potential snowball effect at play here!
This is why there is still so much confusion and debate around the calories in vs. calories out concept. Calories matter, they are the deciding factor in whether you lose fat or not however, our food choices have a huge impact on how many calories we eat and so when folks ask…is a calorie a calorie, in a vacuum yes, but we don’t live in a vacuum!
What matters more, quality or quantity of calories?
The answer is both, for example…
If your maintenance daily calorie intake is 2000 and you eat 1500 calories of solely gummy bears you will lose fat, but…good luck maintaining that because you’re going to be starving, not to mention that your health is going to take a huge hit because you’re going to be missing out on basically every essential nutrient that your body needs.
Point being, you have to be in a calorie deficit to lose fat, but we also need to keep adherence and health in mind because eating 1500 calories of whole food is so much more manageable (and healthy) from a satiation standpoint than eating 1500 calories of highly processed food.
So essentially, it’s the same calorie deficit more or less (there are some nuances here), but it’s infinitely harder to adhere to the 1500 calories of highly processed food because they’re not nearly as filling and therefore, you’re just going to be hungry all day long…and hunger is not sustainable…it’s miserable and again, we’re barely even touching on the health detriments at play in regards to eating so many processed foods!
Another quick example, a typical burger and fries at a restaurant is going to clock in at easily 1500 calories, probably closer to 2000, but let’s say 1500 for the sake of our previous example. If you need to eat 1500 calories to lose fat and you go eat a burger and fries, you’re done for the day and that burger and fries ain’t gonna keep ya full for 24 hours…but on the other hand, a well formulated whole foods diet made up of 1500 calories is going to keep you super satiated and you can eat 3 really filling meals!
I include plenty of fruit in all of my clients programs who like fruit, occasionally I’ll get some clients that aren’t big on it, but for the ones that are…I’d say on average we’ve got at least 2-3 servings of fruit in there per day. Some more, some less, it depends on the person, their priorities, preferences etc.
Can you eat too much fruit? Yes, however…
It’s kinda tough to do for 2 reasons…
One is that it’s just so filling and you typically get to a point with it where you’re like, ‘I’m good, I’m full, no more por favor.’
Secondly, your digestion will let you know because if you eat too much fruit it will either bloat you and/or send you straight to the bathroom and so you’re probably not going to make this mistake too many times!
So…it’s almost as if whole fruit has a built-in stop mechanism on it, in fact most whole foods do…you’re only going to want so much steak, salmon, eggs, potatoes, veggies and fruit before you hit the point where ya simply don’t want any more.
On the other hand, how easy is it to overeat on things like pizza, ice cream, donuts, pastries, cereal etc? Refer back to the gummy bears vs. strawberries example…
You could eat 50 gummy bears no problem, but you’d likely have a hard time eating 10 cups of strawberries…same calories, completely different experience from a satiation standpoint.
Also, you may have noticed that I keep saying ‘whole fruit’ and that’s because I don’t recommend folks consume dried fruit or fruit juices because they’re not the same thing. Dried fruit and fruit juice are a lot closer to the hyper-palatable processed foods end of the spectrum, for example…
If you were to drink a tall glass of orange juice, it’s not gonna fill you up very much, but if you were to eat the equivalent amount of calories from whole oranges, you probably couldn’t even finish them!
The same goes for something like dehydrated banana chips vs. a whole banana. The whole banana is far more filling so when your goal is fat loss, I’d recommend skipping dried fruit and fruit juices and instead go for fruit in its whole food form.
Side note, you also want to be sure that the fruit that you’re eating is adequately ripe because you can think about this from an evolutionary standpoint…unripe fruit isn’t nearly as visually appealing to the eye, but as it ripens it comes brighter and more vibrant and that’s because it’s enticing us to eat it.
It doesn’t want to us to eat it unripe because the seeds in the fruit aren’t ready to germinate yet and therefore the fruit is not only less visually appealing, it’s also not nearly as tasty. Take an unripe banana…it’s green, it’s hard, it’s tough to peel, it tastes super bitter and not sweet in the slightest…this is why.
Unripe fruit also tends to lead to digestive issues because again, the fruit doesn’t want you to eat it yet. Its goal is to pass on its genes and when it’s unripe, it’s not ready to do that and so as it becomes more and more ready, it becomes more and more appealing, sweet and delicious to us!
Some folks argue that it’s not evolutionarily consistent to eat fruit year round, but eating it seasonally is and I think there can be merit to eating seasonal and local foods, however practically speaking, most folks just aren’t going to do this because essentially…we want our blueberries in the winter.
If you want to eat seasonally and locally I think that that is great and if you live closer to the equator, you might even have seasonal and local fruit year around, but…I just think that practically speaking, most folks just aren’t going to eat seasonal and local all the time.
Also, it’s important to consider the alternative, for example…if someone finds that some whole fruit in the winter is just sweet enough to have them skip something like ice cream on a regular basis, that’s a huge win because they’re going to be far healthier and leaner if they favour the whole fruit vs. the ice cream…meaning, it’s really important to look at the big picture in regards to all of this stuff!
Personally, I eat fruit every day as I’m sure you’ve seen on my social…it’s really rare when I go a day without at least a few servings and fortunately right now I’m in Mexico and so there is a ton of local and seasonal delicious tropical fruits available…and I eat em’…
I’m just sure to keep my intake in check as far as my body comp goals go, but even more importantly in regards to my digestion because I find if I eat too much fruit, especially fruit that’s higher in fiber, my stomach doesn’t like it and so I pay close attention to this.
So…all sugar is not created equal, whole fruit can absolutely have a place in your fat loss approach and shocker, you’re best off to limit hyper-palatable processed forms of sugar as much as ya can.
Lastly, the real moral of the story here is…single ingredient whole food for the win!
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