Navigating healthy eating can often be straightforward, but figuring out what’s healthy and what’s not can be hard.
Fruit-based snacks often come across as the healthier option but in reality could be undermining your weight loss efforts, according to one expert.
Dr. Liu, who shares health tips on her YouTube channel “Healthy Immune Doc,” recently highlighted that certain fruity snacks are among the “worst foods that sabotage your diet.”
She specifically pointed out that fruity yogurts and fruit bars can be major culprits due to their high added sugar content.
Fruity yogurts often contain more added sugar than ice cream,” Dr. Liu stated. “Added sugar raises your blood sugar and insulin levels, which makes you pack on fat,” she said.
READ MORE: Nigella Lawson’s ‘effortless’ pomegranate ice cream is creamy and sweet
“Added sugar raises your blood sugar and insulin levels – and that makes you pack on fat.”
Eating sugary foods isn’t a problem if you exercise, but she said if you don’t “use up your sugar”, it can be packed on as weight.
The expert explained: “Insulin is a natural hormone that helps you gain weight by storing calories into fat.
“Both proteins and sugars can stimulate the release of insulin, but fat in the muscle or liver prevents the normal action of insulin.
“Fat makes the tissue insensitive to insulin and this phenomenon is called insulin resistance.”
Fruit bars, much like fruity yogurts, are frequently “packed with added sugar.”
Dr. Liu pointed out that added sugars come in many forms, including honey, maple syrup, agave juice, brown sugar, and fructose. Regardless of the name, these sugars negatively impact metabolism when consumed in excess.
The doctor also warned about the sugar content in flour, noting it contains “more sugar than table sugar” due to its high glucose molecule content.
Slimmers should also be cautious of fructose, which can irritate the liver.
For those who enjoy snacking on fruit bars, Dr. Liu suggested refrigerating or freezing them overnight before consumption.
This process reduces their sugar content by causing the amylopectin to bind with another starch called amylose, forming resistant starch.
“Resistant starch won’t raise your blood sugar and is healthy for the body,” she noted.
A journal published in the National Library of Medicine supports this, stating that resistant starch “has many attributes which could promote weight loss and/or maintenance.”
These benefits include increased release of gut satiety peptides, enhanced fat oxidation, lower fat storage in adipocytes (cells that store energy as fat), and preservation of lean body mass.
Dr. Liu recommended opting for whole fruits over processed fruit-containing foods for better weight loss outcomes.
