Why the old school 'snack on fruits' is the best way to get

[Olivier 2 GA]

Hi everybody,

I have a question about multi-meal diet.

In a post on snack: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=810

Ido said “Forget the old school 'snack on fruits', it is the best way to get fat and feel sluggishâ€

Could you extend on that?

I thought that fruits like apples pears, figs, kiwis, apricots, lemons, cherries… were good carbs because of there low glycemic index / load.

Thanks,

Olivier

[Richard Duelley]

I think its because of the high sugar content of most fruits. If you are trying to lose fat carbs are a bad thing. Now I am not saying that you have to not eat carbs at all, there are just specific times when carbs are better for you, for example right after you wake up in the morning or right after a workout.

Instead of typing everything here I will just point you to a series of articles that I think gives a good break down of diet without flooding you with tech talk.

http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1793585&cr=

http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1795045&cr=

Of course its good to collect a wide variety of opinions about diet and then come to your of conclusion, I just found the above articles quite helpful.

[Olivier 2 GA]

Thanks niftyvt for the links.

Some precise details quite useful. I more or less have the response to my question.

Expept for the breackfast and post workout, it seems to be best to snack on vegies, meat/fish and nuts for the other meal in order to avoid insuline pikes.

Olivier

[Gregor]

With Fruit you refill your liver glycogen (anabolisem). You can have daily intake of 50-70g of fructose and nothing will go in fat. The only time it's true this is when you overfill the liver glycogen (from that on it goes straight to fat).

So few fruits a day with good daily caloric intake wont get you fat!!!

[Siamang]

The glycemic index or load has little relevance to real life. It is determined by feeding overnight-fasted subjects isolated portions of carbohydrate from a single food and then tracking their blood glucose levels for 6 or so hours. Under these circumstances the subjects are in a strongly hypocaloric state. If the fed carbohydrate enters the bloodstream quickly (as glucose or as starch that has been made readily available in the cooking process), it will be used for energy sooner and blood glucose levels will drop significantly after an initial significant rise. If it enters the bloodstream slowly (as fructose or not-so-readily-available starch), the body will use its energy reserves (fat, glycogen or even muscle) for energy until the newly ingested carbohydrate becomes available. Sucrose is a 50-50 mixture of glucose and fructose. Things are different in real life when people are not fully fasted and are eating fat and protein as well.

Starch is just the plant equivalent of glycogen, and breaks down into glucose. Glucose will usually be stored in the muscles as glycogen, provided that glycogen turnover is high enough to create a vacancy for it. If muscle glycogen-storing capacity has been reached, the muscles put up a "no vacancies" sign, become insulin resistant, and the glucose accumulates in the blood to produce hyperglycemia or is used either to refil liver glycogen stores or (if they too are full) be converted into visceral fat. Fructose is sent straight to the liver to refil liver glycogen stores. If the liver is already full of glycogen, the fructose can be released into the bloodstream as glucose and directed into the muscles for storage as glycogen (a long-winded process). If there are no vacancies in the muscles or the blood, it too can be converted into visceral fat.

If glycogen stores are full and turnover is low, it's probably a bad idea to snack on any carbohydrate. If not, and if you're not eating weird isolated portions in a fasted state, it probably doesn't make much difference what its exact composition is. Orange-coloured fruits (e.g. oranges, apricots, canteloupes) usually are higher in sucrose (50-50 glucose-fructose); other fruits (and honey) contain fairly even amounts of separated glucose and fructose (with small amounts of sucrose).

[Olivier 2 GA]

Thank you guys for you answers and Siamang for the detailed information.

Now my (naive?) question is: How do we know that liver and muscles are full of glycogen? And when can we say that turn over is reasonably high?

For example I went through a 2 x 2h30 of cycling to go to work yesterday, I guess I really took the glycogen off my muscle but how can I feel that I filed it back?

Olivier