Reply To This Post         Return to Posts Index           VegSource Home

From:	Claudia (conpx06.cms.hhs.gov)
Subject:	Re: 6-Week plan - unlimited fruit? and legumes?
Date:	August 21, 2007 at 5:26 am PST

In Reply to: Re: 6-Week plan - unlimited fruit? and legumes? posted by Soils4Peace on August 19, 2007 at 5:23 pm:

Well put, Soils4Peace.

My only caveat would be that while 8 fruits might sound like a lot to have every day, the size of the fruits are a factor to be considered as well. Personally, I generally have 7 fruits a day, and am maintaining a weight of about 90 pounds (I'm 4'11"). This is also the same amount of fruit I was eating while losing weight. The catch is that my fruits are small. I'm convinced that what some people count as 7 servings of fruit would actually be closer to what I would count as 14! For example, if I eat apples, I buy them by the bag, and they are much smaller in size than some of the huge ones that can be purchased individually in the store. A long time ago, we learned in weight watchers that a large apple has about twice as many calories as a small one. We were also taught that bananas count as 2 fruits rather than 1 because an average banana has around 150 calories (thats not even a big one).

Buried somewhere in the ETL literature (and I'm not sure where) I read that fruits have about 250 calories per pound, and that there are about 4 servings per pound. So, to get really technical, I figure that an average serving of fruit is generally about 4 ounces, and roughly 62 calories. So, basically my point would be that if someone is eating 8 large pieces of fruit, it may be more calories than they would think, and if it is displacing the other plant foods, then I would say that they are eating too much fruit. As Soils4Peace has pointed out, the greens and leafy greens are the most important component, and you need to try and fill up on them as much as possible in order to really maximize your weight loss.

Reply To This Post         Return to Posts Index           VegSource Home