Understanding Fruit: The Key to a Balanced Nutritional Intake

Follow up to my previous post about fruit: I stand by what I said; however lets clarify for all those that got a little bent out of shape with that post. Eating fruit is one of the best ways to help you maintain a healthy, balanced nutritional intake. They are loaded with vitamins , minerals and FIBER your body needs to functional effectively. That being said, there are some choices that are better than others. Trying to pick fruits that are lower on the glycemic index is an excellent approach. The glycemic index is a measure of how foods affect your blood sugar. Examples of fruit low on the glycemic scale include berries( strawberries and blueberries), green grapes, watermelon,apples, and even a medium sized banana. Bananas get a bad rap, but they are actually on par with grapes and berries in terms of their index score. Just for clarification, I am talking about a medium sized banana that is not as ripe. Ripeness matters…the more ripe the higher the carb load.

The American Heart Association recommends 4-5 servings of fruit per day. This is equivalent to 2-2 1/2 cups. A serving can be a medium sized fruit or 1 cup of chopped fruit. Let’s simplify it….a cup of berries, 20grapes, a small orange or apple (fist size), 1/2 banana all are about 60 cal with 15g carbs….

Here’s the real key….I believe how much fruit you consume should be determined by the following:
1. What type of activity am I doing that day?(If I’m sitting at a desk all day and not doing much activity, I should take in fewer carbs- pieces of fruit that day)vs if I’m working outside doing landscaping) or doing a heavy cardio day
2. What time of the day will I be having the fruit?
3. What will I be eating with the fruit or will I be eating it alone?
4. What does my DNA say about my sensitivity to carbs and what should be my percentage of carbs vs my total calorie intake (#idlifeDNA)

*****GET IN TUNE WITH WHAT YOUR BODY IS TELLING YOU…THIS WILL INVOLVE SOME TRIAL AND ERROR…BUT AFTER YOU DETOXIFY YOUR BODY, IT WILL TELL YOU WHAT IT NEEDS….YOUR HEAD HUNGER WILL BE GONE ….WHEN YOU ARE HUNGRY YOUR BODY WILL TRULY SIGNAL YOU

******NEXT POST: CARBOHYDRATE TIMING/WHAT YOUR DNA WILL TEACH YOU/ HOW YOU CONSUME CARBS MATTERS