People ask me all the time if fruit can be a part of an aggressive fat-burning nutrition plan. My answer is yes, but within certain parameters.

I talked with one client who was “doing everything right” as far as nutrition, but was gaining fat. Upon further questioning, he disclosed that he was eating about a flat of fruit per day (15+ pieces), thinking that since it was “healthy food” and not “fast carbs” like pasta, sugar, bread or starches, it couldn’t possibly interfere with fat loss, let along cause him to gain any.

Well, not so fast there tiger. Fruit has fructose and half of it is converted directly into fat by the liver within hours after eating. So the lower fructose fruits should be the best to eat, right? Yes, but those fruits don’t taste very good. If you are OK with eating lemons, limes, unsweetened fresh cranberries and passion fruit, then knock yourself out. Otherwise, you have to be choosy.

Fruit also has a glycemic index, which can raise your blood sugar. It has a glycemic load too, so portion size matters with blood sugar levels too. The reason blood sugar levels are so important, is because when you blood sugar spikes, your insulin elevates and when that happens, you go into a fat storing mode instead of a fat burning mode and the fat burning mode is where you want to stay if you are trying to get leaner.

So are there any fruits that taste good, but can still be part of a fat burning plan? I think so. To figure that out, I took some yummy fruits and did an analysis in them.

In the left column below, those fruits are sorted by glycemic load (GL). That represents the effect they have on your blood sugar according to the portion size listed.

The middle column represents their glycemicc index (GI), which has less importance, but it’s still significant enough to be a factor.

The third (right) column is the sum of both the GL and the GI, to calculate my top 7 favorite fruits on a fat burning plan. I also highlighted them in green. The fruits in yellow are a caution/moderation fruit to eat on rare occasions in small amounts and the red fruits are the ones to stay away from completely on a fat burning plan. I also used fructose and nutritional benefit as a factor in determining the yellow and red fruits.

I should also mention that I have never met a fat raw vegan (those who are honest, strict, 100% raw vegans with no exceptions or “cheat” foods), so with that lifestyle, the fruit won’t stick to you, even if you eat red fruits all day. The minute you combine these fruits with fats and other carbs however, is when you will start to balloon up and pop out of your pants faster than you can believe.

Personally, I like my animal products and with them comes fat that will stick to me if I eat certain fruits, so for the time being, I’ll stick to my green fruits below, but still keeping them to 3 pieces or less per day.