Mark Cooper wrote:I think the questions arising this week in relation to fruit perhaps might benefit from further discussion. Clearly, Dr. McDougall has sufficient experience with patients who need to pay attention to their fruit consumption; hence the advice to minimize fruits is included in the MWL guidelines.
Keep fruits to one or two a day. Fruit is largely simple sugar and people can easily eat 10 to 20 servings a day without a guilty thought – after all, fruit is healthy. In truth, fruits should be thought of as healthy desserts, made largely of sugar and water (but with lots of wholesome nutrients). Vegetable juices (carrot, celery, tomato, etc.) are only slightly less detrimental to your weight loss than fruit juices. Dried fruits are even bigger "calorie bombs." They are concentrated into a small volume by the dehydration processes, so you can eat 20 dried apples in the time it would take you to eat 2 whole fresh apples.
Let me be clear - I don't disagree with any aspect of that guideline. I do, however, think our group discussion can be aided by some nuance and perspective. I can imagine that overconsumption of fruit may very well be an issue for some of us, and I don't want to discourage anyone from being honest with themselves and attending to that. In that same spirit, I would ask that we all take a
thorough, informed and honest look at our adherence to all 10 points of the MWL 10-Point Checklist. Practicing this way of eating requires a significant expenditure of dedicated effort, and it feels important to me that we direct our efforts where they can provide the most leverage.
Are calorie-dense and highly processed foods still making an appearance among your food choices? What about animal foods?
Or high-fat plant foods? Have you been drinking your calories? Again, I point this out not to discourage anyone from giving needed attention to their fruit intake, but out of concern that some of us may be fretting about cherries or apples, while still consuming cookies, crackers, cake, &c. In regard to more calorie dilute foods, I think Jeff made a very important point in
this thread; one worth generally keeping in mind.
JeffN wrote:In the end, if someone has a tendency to overeat on a MWL approved food, then switch it for another one but don't not eat if one is truly hungry. For some people it may be grapes and bananas or even brown rice, but not apples, grapefruit or potatoes.
As always, do the best you can to be totally honest with yourself about your current efforts and what you are capable of achieving. Think about your overall pattern of behavior, and whether it is congruent with your personal goals. Ultimately, we are all working to build a way of life for ourselves - a way of life that supports our health and well-being, and that bolsters our energy, enthusiasm, and happiness. If we are fortunate, we can inhabit that wonderful way of life for the longest duration of time possible. Developing a broad understanding of the concepts we discuss here can seem daunting and involved, as illustrated in
this discussion of satiety and calorie density.
JeffN wrote:It is important to always discuss satiety per calorie so we always have an equal/standardized comparison and in regard to short term (~1 hour) vs long term (~3-4 hours) satiety. While fruits and veggies have high short term satiety, they don’t have high long term satiety
Water as part of food is included as in soups, oatmeal etc. where as liquid calories as in juice, non-dairy milk isn’t.
There are many factors to satiety that are more like finer details such as chewing, fiber/kcal, %fat, texture, degree of processing etc that matter when comparing foods of equal or similar calorie density.
If some of you are interested in taking a "deep dive" into the numerous interesting and complicated factors that contribute to
Passive Overconsumption: The Unintended Intake of Excess Calories, I highly recommend the following threads:
Finding The Sweet Spot: Balancing Calorie Density, Nutrient Density & SatietyQuestion about Ramen noodles?3-5 lbs of food a day?food really unlimited??The
Jeff Novick, RD subforum is filled with fascinating and valuable information on a seemingly infinite number of topics, and the answers to many questions are contained therein.