Skip to main content

In Defense of Fruit

I know that for most people, fruit is usually an afterthought - a garnishment or filler that you can easily do without. I can't think of the last time - or the first time - I've ever craved it.

But, let me tell you: fruit is one of the great, underrated foods of all time. It has become the anchor of my diet. It's never exactly what you want, but it's cheap, low calorie and nearly impossible to overeat.

Ignore the naysayers who say they contain too much sugar and you should limit how much you eat. They are natural, unprocessed sugars and contain very few calories. No one ever got fat eating fruit.

Fruits require about zero prep time and add quite a bit of bulk to an empty stomach. Also, with an assortment of different fruits and a little skim milk, they can be blended into a smoothie that'll easily hold its own against any high calorie dessert. Some frozen berries mixed into some plain Greek yogurt is also a pretty awesome snack.

Some fruits are sweeter than others, so don't be afraid to experiment. I find that bananas add quite a bit of natural sweetness to my smoothies, but if you don't have any or don't like them, you can add some artificial or a couple teaspoons of sugar if you think it needs it. Try some different blends and find the one that works best for you.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Second Look at Exercise

I'll be a first time dad in the next week or two, and I'm already dealing with the time crunch and cheapo routine disruptive life events. Being a cheapo means improvising, so sometimes you need to rethink methodologies to adapt to changing circumstances. My 9 month pregnant wife has been joining me on my dog walks in order to get some exercise herself, and she can't go as far as I can for as far along as she is. Also, she has a hankering for dining out more often than we normally do, so it adds a little more guesswork to my calorie estimates when my margins are already running pretty thin. Add in doctors appointments, chores and other prep tasks, and a lot of my extra time for walking is just vanishing. It's only going to get harder once this baby gets here. It's my fault for allowing my weight to run away from me such that I'm in a position now to where I'm trying to lose a lot of weight quickly before the baby arrives. I'm losing weight steadily...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Mechanics

Ok, now that you've read through the high level stuff, let's get down to brass tacks: The reality is, you're going to want to make some changes to your daily routine, but how much you do depends on how much you want to lose and how quickly you want to lose it. There's nothing wrong with going at a slower pace, but I would just advise that you adjust your diet enough that you're seeing enough consistent enough gains that you stick with it. Remember, as long as you're still logging food, odds are you're still losing weight. I've already mentioned that you'll need a pedometer or fitness tracker. That needs to become a permanent extension of your body. You don't need to be a gym rat (in fact, you should have already cancelled your gym membership by now), but it's hard to be completely sedentary and still run calorie deficits. Or, put another way, a little bit of activity will give you a lot more wiggle room in your diet every day. A 10,000...
Post a Comment
Read more

Chopping Down Costs & Fat

I've spent a lot of time talking about how gym memberships are a complete waste of time and money. For most people, they make about as much sense as skipping all your errands to spend the day taking joyrides up and down a toll road. The fact is, we all have chores that need to get done around the house which all represent opportunities for exercise and cost savings by not paying someone else to do them for you. They may not be as physically demanding as splitting wood, but they all involve doing things that need to get done anyway and, more importantly, occupying your time by doing something other than eating, the leading cause of fatness. Now, I'm not proposing that you start tilling your garden with a fork just to keep yourself out of the kitchen. There's always a delicate balance between efficiency, exercise, cost savings and enjoyment of the task at hand when deciding where to spend extra money for efficiency's sake. For example, I know that I could get my...
Post a Comment
Read more