Fruit... how much is too much?

[Julia0098]

Hi everyone!

So I am currently on day 3 and I have an insane sugar craving. I mean, I could eliminate all foods from my diet and survive solely on baked goods. I feel like I am eating way too much fruit in order to curb my dessert and sugar craving but its somehow making it easier for me to adjust to cutting it out all together. I've been eating a serving of fruit for essentially every snack opportunity I have and in a smoothie for breakfast. My question is, how much fruit is too much? And when does it become cheating?

[ShannonM816]

So, this is a place where you're going to have to consider your own circumstances and what you're wanting to get from your whole30.

You could technically eat nothing but fruit every day for 30 days and you would have done a whole30. We don't recommend that, though. 

You feel like the fruit you're eating is helping you cope, but if you ultimately want to have fewer sugar cravings, if you don't want to finish your whole30 and still crave cookies for an afternoon snack, the best way to do that is to stop snacking on sweet things, even though the sweets in question are fruit, which is a pretty healthy thing, in general. 

The recommendation is to limit fruit to not more than two servings a day, where a serving is about the size of your closed fist, and to always have fruit as part of a meal rather than on its own. You also want to make sure you're not letting fruit push the vegetables off your plate, so plate up a meal with plenty of vegetables (1-3 cups at every meal), and then add a bit of fruit if you want it.

Ideally, you shouldn't be snacking much anyway, because your meals should be keeping you satisfied 4-5 hours at a time, but if you do need to eat between meals, go for a mini meal with some protein, fat, and veggies  or at least two of the three. Leftovers or a hard boiled egg with mayo and some carrots or celery, for instance.

You might reconsider your smoothies as well. The explanation of why we don't recommend smoothies is here, just scroll down or search on the page:  https://whole30.com/2013/06/the-official-can-i-have-guide-to-the-whole30/

[Lorna from Canada]

I'm almost at the end of my third W30 and I have reconciled myself to my fruit consumption. It is generally more that 2-3 pieces per day but, I have never been satisfied using fruit to meet a sugar craving (back in my pre-W30 days, I could easily eat 3 pieces of fruit and still be craving sugary treats in an off-the-charts way). I no longer have sugar cravings at all so I'm not reaching for an orange to fulfill some unreasonable demand from the dragon - she's been asleep for months! I also eat a ton of vegetables so, it doesn't push veggies off my plate. I just like feeling full and enjoy the crunch of an apple and the juiciness of grapes and the tartness of a firm plum so much.

I might revise this at some point but, I'm meeting all my health goals and feel great so - bring on the fruit.

I hope this is an example for you to see how it's important to put Shannon's advice into action. You need to be really clear on your goals and what you're trying to achieve and, sticking 100% to the rules from day one will help you get the information you need to move forward with confidence.

 

[Jihanna]

I loved fruit as a kid, but didn't eat much of it as I got into my adult years. The most common thing for me to grab would be a banana (definitely not for a sugar hit!). During my W30, my desire for fruit skyrocketed, even after I stopped craving things like candy and treats... my brain was justifying that the fruit would be good for me. I will say that I did use mandarin orange juice (freshly squeezed) to help sweeten my hot tea for the first week or so, until I was enjoying my tea with nothing added (it was usually a fruit blend so there was natural sweetness there).

Cutting out fruit entirely, apart from using it in cooking (and I mean actually cooking the fruit, not just tossing it in on the side of a dish), made flavors pop so much more vibrantly for me. Sweet potatoes were suddenly 10x sweeter than I remembered, and other foods were sweet when I never would've called them that before. Toward the end of my W30 or maybe during reintro, I started adding a little fruit to my lunch salads -- my favorites were blackberries (which used to be so tart I wouldn't eat them without a honey drizzle!).

Until I overcame my sugar dragon, I wouldn't have been able to eat even blackberries in my salad without wanting something more... and something sweeter... it would've just been a tease. Once I no longer craved "sweet", though, I could eat it without any issues as long as I keep it to small amounts and always as part of something else.

For the record, I realized I needed to cut fruit for a while after I caught myself eating a mandarin orange -- and realized I had FOUR oranges worth of peelings on my plate.

[Lorna from Canada]

On 5/12/2019 at 6:13 PM, Jihanna said:

For the record, I realized I needed to cut fruit for a while after I caught myself eating a mandarin orange -- and realized I had FOUR oranges worth of peelings on my plate.

...amateur (my record is 6)

[ladyshanny]

On 5/15/2019 at 4:21 AM, Lorna from Canada said:

...amateur (my record is 6)

LOL!