I overate my calories today... I planned to be on the higher end of my budget and I found myself grazing on some roasted peanuts and had an unplanned small cookie... adding about 150 calories. I had planned on eating some fruit today, it's now the end of the day, if I eat the fruit I'll be over on my calories... but if I don't eat it, I will have had no fruit all day.

I think I'll have a kiwi for 45 calories and skip some of the other stuff... but I wonder if you think the nutritional benefits of fruits & veggies outweigh going over on your calories? What would you do in my situation? Skip the fruit or eat it anyways?

I'd eat the kiwi this time and skip the cookie next time unless it fit into my calories after eating all my veggies and fruits.

I would eat some fruit. It's health benefits far outweigh a couple of extra calories. If you are concerned about the calories maybe you could go for a walk, climb some stairs, or do some jumping jacks to burn a few extra off.

I would eat it... I agree with the other posters.. the benefits outweigh the small amount of calories.

For me, I just refuse to trade calories for nutrition. In other words, produce is stuff I need to eat every day. If I eat to much of other stuff, then the consequences of that are that my calories are high. The consequences are NOT that I compensate by leaving out the healthy stuff!

I think about it this way: If I compensate by skipping produce, I don't really have a lot of incentive not to repeat the experience. Sure, not eating healthy doesn't feel as good as eating well, but it's not that strong, loud and immediate of an incentive. But, if the consequence is unneeded calories that stall me out - *that* is an incentive not to do it again.

On the other hand, I wouldn't stuff down produce if I wasn't hungry. Not eating when I'm not hungry and stopping when I'm full are high-level priorities for me. But if I at all thought I had the room (without stuffing) for a piece or two of fruit, some raw veggies, or veggie juice, I would. And it's not too often I don't have room for that.

And after a while, the yucky feeling I get from not eating lots of produce actually starts to be a pretty loud incentive

Thanks for your responses... I ended up having no fruit--I just wasn't hungry. Instead today I'll eat double portions of fruit to make it up.

I don't like to eat fruit - fructose affects your body the same as sucrose and I would rather not have that. I just take vitamin supplements and eat lots of veggies. If I have a sweet craving, I'll have a yogurt because of the benefits of probiotics.

Is that true? I thought the sugars in fruit didn't effect blood sugar spikes the same way, hence why they don't trigger sugar cravings like the white stuff does? Can anyone elaborate?

I couldn't live without fruit--I love it so much. I'd eat the kiwi and the cookie and cut something else out..heh.

on the above post: when I eat a sweet treat such as icecream I eat far less icecream if I have it with a few slices of fruit.

I think fruit is definitely lower in glycemic index than most sweet treats and it has the added benefit of fiber.

I completely stopped drinking juice because it has all the sweet and no fiber...fiber slows down the sugar dump into your bloodstream so does protein and fat.

From Britannica online: "Most scientists agree that the metabolic effect of consuming fructose in natural foods--or HFCS in processed foods--isn't much different from consuming sucrose, since natural foods with the highest concentration of fructose, like apples, still don't contain much more than the fructose found in sucrose."

I would link some articles, but I don't have enough posts yet. So here is a clip from the LA Times:
"The long reign of trans fats as worst dietary substance may be nearing an end. Trans fats are still very, very bad, mind you. But lately, researchers have pointed to a new culprit in the country's battle with obesity: fructose. A study published in the new issue of the Journal of Nutrition suggests that one of the reasons people on low-carbohydrate diets lose weight is that they reduce their intake of fructose. Fructose, a type of sugar found in fruit, can be made into body fat with stunning speed."

And from UK Dailymail:
"Scientists at the University of California put 33 overweight adults on a diet comprising 30 per cent fat, 55 per cent complex carbohydrates such as bread and rice, and 15 per cent protein for a fortnight.
For a further ten weeks they were moved to a diet in which a quarter of their energy came from either fructose or glucose, New Scientist reports today.
Both groups put on the same amount of weight - 1.5kg or 3.3 pounds.
However, volunteers on the fruit sugar diet put on more intra-abdominal fat, which wraps around their internal organs and causes pot bellies. .....

Experts point out that this does not mean we should stop eating fruit.
Fresh fruit contains relatively low levels of fructose - and the risks are outweighed by health benefits."

Of course fruit has lots of benefits too - vitamins, fiber, etc. - but in the end, sugar is sugar in the body, and I can get the benefits from other sources like supplements and veggies.

I find that the more fruit I eat, the better I feel and the better I eat in general. It definitely reduces my cravings for processed desserts and keeps my sweet tooth very sensitive. If I'm making sure I get plenty of other healthy foods (especially veggies), and don't eat when I'm not hungry, I'm not gonna eat boatloads of fruit. But I do generally have at least 3-4 servings per day, and not infrequently more. It's most definitely not making me fat! I recognize that it may affect others differently - and that others might call what I eat "boatloads of fruit" . TBH, I simply don't believe fruit is anything but super healthy for me to eat in whatever quantities I'm inclined to (within the above setting - lots of veggies and beans, paying attention to hunger & satiety).

This thread is making me want to eat fruit only before a workout!...

Heh, but seriously even if it's converted fast most of us don't eat more then 100 calories of fruit at one sitting. Not much damage there especially if your in a calorie deficit.

I eat 3-4 servings of fruit a day, which works out to roughly 15% of my daily calorie intake depending on the fruit. I figure the amount of fiber and vitamins and energy I get from the fruit far outweighs the potential evil of the sucrose (note: which is not in high evil concentrated doses like HFCS.)
I feel like the day we start vilifying fruit is a bad day for our health overall. It's not scientific, but it just seems like common sense.
Amma