Does Fruit Make You Fat?

A few days ago a client was explaining to me that she was feeling frustrated that her fat loss isn’t happening as fast as she expected.

She asked me if I thought it was late-night snacking that was preventing her from dropping fat.

“What are you snacking on?” I asked in response.

“Fruit. Cherries mostly,” was her reply. She told me she eats fresh cherries a few times per week.

“Do you put anything on them? Dip them in anything? Have anything else with them?”

“Nope. Just plain cherries. I think they might be the reason because, you know, sugar,” she said.

I reassured her that it’s not the cherries.

I wish I knew how to get rid of the misinformation about fruit making people get fat.

It’s incorrect for a few reasons. First, fresh fruit doesn’t have a lot of calories per serving.

The number one reason you are having difficulty shedding body fat is you are consuming too many calories relative to the amount of calories you burn, on a consistent basis.

Is there sugar in fruit? Yes. But there are also things like fiber and vitamins. Let’s stick to cherries even though that holds true for other fruits.

A cup of cherries has about 50 calories. You can eat an entire cup of cherries and it’s 50 calories. If we’re talking about a daily calorie intake of 2000 calories, that cup of cherries is 2.5%.

Let’s pretend one day you wanted to eat only cherries in order to meet your calories for the day. Assuming that same 2000 calories per day target, that would mean you’d be eating 40 cups of cherries. Can you even imagine doing that?

Okay, let’s say that you’re trying to cut back on your food intake so your calorie target is 1600 calories per day. That’s still 32 cups of cherries.

I want to be crystal clear, I don’t fault my client for not knowing. The ultimate fault isn’t with the person believing a lie, it’s with the person telling the lie.

And anyone telling you “fruit makes you fat” is lying.

Fruit is healthy for you. It’s full of nutrients and it’s low calorie.

I did my best to express to my client that having cherries as a snack (late night or any time) is a great idea and it’s in no way impeding her progress. She seemed relieved, and if you were worried about eating fruit, then I hope you are too.