What do you guys think about all fruit diet?

[bazera]

Hey,

I just found out that there are people who only eat fruit and nothing else.

There is also a YouTube channel from that type of guy:

https://www.youtube.com/@TheFreeMelonSociety

What do you guys think of this? How healthy is it?

Maybe it's worth trying in case of some autoimmune diseases. But I worry about a lack of protein intake and too much sugar. This just doesn't seem natural.

[John Paul]

I’d follow your train of common-sense thinking and say that it isn’t natural. Eat some meat, some vegetables and throw in some grains if it works for you. Do some light exercise every day. 
that’s it. Go to sleep at night instead of partying. Masturbate or get some sex. That’s it.

[LoneWonderer]

I'd dramatically increase your fruit intake and maybe even make it as much as half of all the food you eat but the other half would be nuts, seeds, legumes, vegetables and whole grains. The key is to eat a clean diet devoid of processed foods, sugar (except natural like that found in fruit), reduced salt and if you want to or not include meat in it. Another key is variety, eat as much variety as possible to make sure you are getting all the micronutrients you need.

This is the healthiest diet for the majority of humans on this planet but it does depend on many things.

[Jannes]

You can eat a lot of fruit and be healthy. But all fruit won’t work. You will lack essential fats, proteins and other stuff and maybe that much amount of fructose might actually be unhealthy. (Fatliver) Why do you want to do it exactly? If there is a certain disease you want to deal with then there are probably better ways of dealing with it and if you want a generally healthy diet then you should look for a more balanced approach. 

[Lyubov]

No, need protein if you want to be strong and do anything 

[bazera]

@Jannes

Quote

If there is a certain disease you want to deal with

I have an autoimmune condition called psoriasis, and I wanted to test if an all-fruit diet would make any difference. But I'm kinda afraid that I'll be lacking essential nutrients that I get from other food, like proteins and fats.

[Michael569]

Psoriasis is a multifactorial condition with multiple suspected causes.

Fruit all diet might improve it temporarily but if you won't be able to stick to it for long term, it may come back.

I agree with guys above that a more balanced approach that includes both lifestyle and dietary adjustment and potentially some supplementation might work better and be more sustainable.

Stress and sleep disruption are common mediators as well as vitamin D deficiency.

 

[bazera]

@Michael569 Yeah I agree.

And what do you think of eating only fruits in general? Even if you don't have any autoimmune conditions, do you think that eating only fruits can give you all the micro and macronutrients that the body needs?

I mean, how are those people on the above YouTube channel healthy? As I know, protein is like a building block for our bodies, not only for the muscle tissues but for all the other things as well. Also, as I know, some fats are necessary, like essential fats that our bodies need to absorb vitamins better.

And also from the evolutionary perspective, people ate a more balanced diet, not only one category of food. Protein, carbohydrates, and fat were balanced. Doesn't only eating fruits disrupt that balance? (in case you don't have any special condition and can eat other things as well)

Edited January 6, 2023 by bazera

[Michael569]

@bazera it can disrupt the balance indeed if not planned properly.

It depends on your lifestyle, if you are not very active and can get away with borderline levels of protein, you can get that, with some planning even on raw diet. 

With inclusion of a little bit of fatty food, even fats can be obtained at the RDA levels. 

Some deficiencies can occur after some time but you can choose to supplement things like vitamin D and Omega 3s.

Whether fruitarian diet os optimal for humans for long term is questionable, I'd say we benefit from some cooked food. 

On the other hand, a lot of raw foodies online look emaciated and many have been, in the past, exposed for lying to their audience. So also bear in mind. Extreme weight loss and lean muscle tissue atrophy can happen if calories are not sufficiently compensated for. 

Maybe go raw food rather than fruit only and include at least nuts and seeds.

Or try a more Mediterranean approach.

[Asayake]

@Michael569 When talking about a Mediterranean approach, what do you mean by that? Because I think that's associated with a lot of different things for people. Do you mean largely whole food plant based with some fish?

@bazera I don't think current protein recommendations are accurate for humans. I eat 90/5/5 ratio of carbs/fat/protein and seem to be doing very well on this ratio so far. But we've yet to see how I do long-term, maybe I crash on this, who knows. But personally I don't think humans require more protein than can be found in fruits & grains. I'm not a fruitarian though, I think that would be difficult to sustain long-term simply because you would have to eat huge amounts of fruit to not get too thin, or add in many fat fruits like avocado, durian and olives. And I don't think fats are the best for human health. Not to mention that fruit quality in many countries is poor af. I add sugar on much of my fruit to compensate for the fact. I don't see why a more balanced macro ratio would be better necessarily. Fruitarians often think humans are designed to eat fruit, for them 90/5/5 is what proper macro balance looks like.

 

Edited January 6, 2023 by Asayake

[bazera]

@Asayake

Quote

I don't think current protein recommendations are accurate for humans.

Why? From your experience? Maybe 90/5/5 is doing some damage that will show itself in the future. 

I'm not sure either, but it doesn't seem natural to only eat fruits. 

[Michael569]

9 hours ago, Asayake said:

 When talking about a Mediterranean approach, what do you mean by that? Because I think that's associated with a lot of different things for people. Do you mean largely whole food plant based with some fish?

Something along those lines, yes. Basically 80% plant-based diets with small amounts (if desired) of low-fat dairy, eggs and oily fish. Lean meats are optional, while sugar-sweetened beverages, refined grains and junk are limited. Basically a guidelines diet. 

But there are many possible modifications to this. 

Edited January 6, 2023 by Michael569

[UDT]

@bazera  Since the dawn of time we have 3 macronutrient categories. And somehow humans believe that cutting out one of the three will be the answer to all problems. 

No.

Sorry. 


Just dont. 


I mean come one read one book on biochemistry. Why do we have books when no one reads them?

...

[bazera]

@UDT Yes, I also intuit that a more balanced diet is healthier if you don't have any intolerances.

I think the benefit of these kinds of diets is, if you have any autoimmune disease or something that doctors can't treat, maybe you can try just eating only fruits for 3 months, and see what happens. 

In the long term, yes I would agree that a diet with balanced macronutrients seems more reasonable.

[Asayake]

On 2023-01-06 at 3:04 PM, bazera said:

@Asayake

Why? From your experience? Maybe 90/5/5 is doing some damage that will show itself in the future. 

I'm not sure either, but it doesn't seem natural to only eat fruits. 

Yeah, I would say mostly based on my limited experience, but there is a comprehensive logic to it as well.

My experience so far is that I feel very good eating this way, it makes room for a lot of high energy food, I have increased mental clarity. I eat whenever I want and as much as I want, I slam down the calories but am not gaining weight. I have noticed many benefits so far such as lowered stress levels, improved sleep, more energy throughout the day, lowered anxiety, increased motivation, improved mood overall. I'm not excercising much currently, just some cardio. I am weighing myself regularly and I'm maintaining weight so far, not gaining weight despite pouring sugar on my food and eating til I'm full 2-3 times per day, sometimes more. I eat a lot of fruit and fruit smoothies with added sugar and supplement with Vitamin D3, K2 & B12. When I'm tracking my micronutrients I'm getting good amounts of vitamins and minerals, pretty much the only thing that is considered low is my protein intake, but so far it seems like a non issue. If I notice any concerning downsides to my low protein intake I'll start adding in beans & chickpeas. I do like how those foods taste but I definitely prefer how low protein foods make me feel, I notice a different on a day to day basis in how I feel depending on what I eat. Fruit smoothies with 6-8 ripe bananas, 250 grams of frozen blackberries and 1 deciliter of white sugar make me feel the best.

One can speculate all they want about wether eating 90/5/5, all fruit diet or carnivore is good or bad but the only way to find out if it's worthwhile is to try it for yourself. I would rate 90/5/5 fruit/rice/potatoes/sugar/pasta diet highly so far. Probably pretty bad for bodybuilding lol, but the question is if bodybuilding truly is healthy. Sure a lot of guys want a muscular & ripped physique, but how come it's so difficult to maintain such a physique, perhaps it's not the natural or healthy physique for most humans.

On 2023-01-06 at 8:49 PM, Michael569 said:

Something along those lines, yes. Basically 80% plant-based diets with small amounts (if desired) of low-fat dairy, eggs and oily fish. Lean meats are optional, while sugar-sweetened beverages, refined grains and junk are limited. Basically a guidelines diet. 

But there are many possible modifications to this. 

Ok, I believe that makes sense. I believe that's probably a pretty healthy diet and a safe bet that's going to work pretty well for most people.

[bazera]

@Asayake

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I slam down the calories but am not gaining weight.

Strange. I thought eating above your maintenance level would cause weight gain. So if you eat like 4000 calories of fruits, you don't gain any weight? How come?

[Asayake]

2 hours ago, bazera said:

@Asayake

Strange. I thought eating above your maintenance level would cause weight gain. So if you eat like 4000 calories of fruits, you don't gain any weight? How come?

If I was slamming down 4000 calories daily I probably would start to gain weight if I didn't do a lot of cardio. But when you eat no oils or fatty food gaining weight is difficult, I eat below 10 grams of fat most days currently. First of all there's a lot of calories in a small volume of fat, foods without fat generally require much more volume for the same amount of calories which means you'll get full a lot quicker, it's harder to eat as many calories. Also, eating 4000 calories per day on purely fruit is not realistic unless you're eating  many fat fruits like avocado, durian or including nuts in your diet. Eating 40 bananas per day would leave you nauseous on your bed unless you're running an ultra marathon, or so I believe, I've yet to try that lol. I eat 1 deciliter of added white sugar per day to my fruit and that sounds like a lot but it will only amount to roughly 300 calories. I believe if anything the biggest problems with eating only fruit is that it's hard to get in enough calories if you don't add in the fat fruits and nuts, many fruitarians get unhealthily thin because they can't manage to get enough calories in. They basically live in starvation mode similarly to someone who restricts their calories to drop weight does. This is not good, it leads to high cortisol levels and burn you out and cause fatigue. This is why I eat cooked foods and sugar too, not just fruit. 

Restricting calories is not a good mindset imo, that's why I phrased it as slamming down the calories, I don't really count calories at all but I eat til I'm full and often even beyond that. I will track a couple of weeks of eating sometime in the future to see more clearly what I'm actually eating but I would estimate I hit atleast 2000 calories per day of almost pure carbs, probably I'm more like in the 2500-3000 range. Calories In/Calories Out is an oversimplification of how things really work. When you think about it it's obvious that 3000 calories of protein, fat or carbs are all going to make you feel completely different and do different things in your body. Your day is going to be completely different depending on what you eat, what you end up doing and what you'll burn off will change. 

Eating a lot of calories from sugar/carbs will give you energy and increase your motivation, it will increase your metabolism in multiple ways both direct and indirect. It will also improve your sleep by lowering your cortisol levels. Blood sugar spikes are vital for our well being because they crash cortisol. Blood sugar spikes are the body's way of knowing that we're not in starvation/survival mode. When the body thinks we need to gather food to survive it will give us cortisol spikes, blood sugar spikes plummets the cortisol. Fat decreases the body's ability to handle sugar spikes by blocking the insulin receptor site. This is why fat people are a lot more prone to Diabetes type 2 than slim people, they will have increased levels of fat in their blood. But someone who eats a lot of fat will also have higher levels of fat in their blood. When the body can't regulate the blood sugar properly blood sugar spikes turn into elevated blood sugar, which is bad. 

Lowered cortisol leads to improved sleep which leads to improved hormone levels, increased motivation, mood, increased metabolism. It will give you the energy to make stuff happen in your life, give you increased motivation for things like taking a walk or a run and other fat burning activities. It will increase your mind power, ever noticed how the champion of Chess himself, Magnus Carlsen, used to drink Orange Juice when playing since when he was a child for an energy boost? It makes a bigger difference than most would like to believe. Slamming down carbs has improved my mood and emotional stability a lot. Many people today are addicted to caffeine, nicotine, weed or stimulants like ADHD meds. These are all ways to artificially increase cortisol levels, as a compensation for lack of energy. Someone who wants to quit an addiction would have a much easier time doing so if they went on a diet like this because they wouldn't have that same fatigue or trigger for their addiction, which stems from a lack of readily available energy in the body. Keep in mind that every cell in the human body runs on sugar, it's what we're best adapted to use for energy, and energy manifests itself in so many different positive ways that it's difficult to summarize in a post.

Beyond this, as far as storing fat in the body goes. The body highly prefers to store fat as fat. That's why scientists can look at your body fat and know what foods you've been eating, because the fat from the food is directly store onto the body. For the body to store sugar/carbs as fat however, a conversion has to take place due to adaptive thermogenesis where 25% of the energy is lost in conversion due to increased body temperature. I used to be cold a lot of the time, especially during winter as it's quite cold here in Sweden where I live. But since I've started eating this way my body temperature has gone up significantly. I believe this is a sign of adaptive thermogenesis/increased metabolism. If you eat 4000 calories of carbs & fat, the carbs will be used for energy and then when no more energy is needed the fat will be directly stored onto the body. If you eat 4000 calories of carbs, the carbs will be used for energy and when no more energy is needed, your metabolism will increase during the conversion of sugar to fat, so you will store less fat from eating 4000 calories of purely carbs than from eating 4000 calories of balanced macros. 

There are 2 ways to lose weight, either you decrease your calories and put yourself in starvation mode and live with elevated cortisol levels, worsened sleep, lowered metabolism(because the body thinks it's starving and tries to CONSERVE energy when in a sugar deficit), lowered motivation, lowered mental stability, worsened hormone levels, which will make your weight loss unsustainable in the longterm, the bigger the calorie restriction is, the less sustainable it is. Many people who restrict their calories by a big amount end up bouncing back in weight because they can't tolerate the lifestyle for long or end up becoming addicted to stimulant drugs like sugar free energy drinks/coffee to be functional with their mental fatigue. The other way you can lose weight is that you eat as much calories as you want from sugar/carb foods only, so you have increased energy to get more shit done, you can sleep properly at night and have no mental fatigue as well as increased emotional stability and many other benefits that increase your well being. The weight loss might be a lot slower, but it's sustainable because the journey is more pleasent, it's a lifestyle rather than a diet. I've eaten high fiber vegan(WFPB) for 4 1/2 years before but it didn't work for me personally. Back then I avoided sugar and it all worked great in the beginning, and I did become VERY slim. But I ended up becoming fatigued and had issues come up which ultimately led me back to an omnivore/bodybuilding style diet with higher fat, which worked well to begin with but ended up in health issues related to increased cortisol levels and the body not being able to relax. On this super high sugar/carb style of eating with no restriction, I feel back to my healthy peak self. It's a blessing for me!

[bazera]

@Asayake Thanks for your detailed explanation.

Right now I'm trying to lose 45 pounds. I've read in multiple books that reducing my carb intake to 50-100 grams a day will help me with that because I won't generate as much insulin and fat storage will be emptied easier. I am also trying to not eat more than 1800 calories a day (I'm a 27 years old male, 180cm in height, so maintenance calories are like 2600, and I'm doing a deficit).

I plan to do that for 3 months. But 50-100 carbs are a bit harder to sustain, and on most days I eat 100-150g carbs.

Do you think that after I lose this weight and I get back to the maintenance calories, the chances of me getting that weight back on become higher?

[Roy]

Do cardio every single day and you will lose weight, guaranteed. You could lose multiple pounds per week if you really wanted. Just have to jog/run a bit every day.

[bazera]

@Roy How much? 30 minutes?