What’s the general consensus on Watermelon? Too much sugar?
Thx…Randy
Watermelon is a relatively high GI fruit and like grapes, has most of it’s sugar as dextrose instead of fructose and as such would best be eaten after activities where muscle glycogen is ready to be replaced.
Am I correct in thinking bananas have a lower percentage of their sugars as fructose as well (and are therefore acceptable in the post workout meal to replace glycogen)?
Bannanas are a great post workout food. I suggest you read “forbidden fruit” by Cy Wilson.
When I was preparing for a contest back in 1993, I was eating quite a bit of watermelon and mangoes. I still got LEAN and ripped. Am I correct to assume that how watermelon effects you is all individual? I can eat a TON (well, not literally, but ALOT) of watermelon and it doesn’t do a damn thing to me.
As a rough rule of thumb, you can judge the sugar content of fruit by it’s corresponding glycemic index, with lower GI having a higher fructose content and higher GI having higher dextrose content. To my knowledge, watermelon, pineapple, bananas, and grapes/raisins have higher dextrose contents and make good snacks during periods of activity. This was also one of the theories when it was recommended to mix your creatine with grape juice for quicker uptake (due to the dextrose initiated insulin spike of the grape juice). Raisins appear to have a large effect on blood glucose also and was witnessed by a friend who had a daughter with juvenile diabetes who would get into trouble with high blood sugar very quickly when eating raisins and it didn’t take very many raisins.
Great feedback…Much obliged.
Well, although watermelon may have a higher GI, it’s named watermelon for a reason. It has a huge water content, thus you can eat a lot of it and not really take in a huge amount of calories.
Dried apricots are a surprisingly low calorie food (well, relative to dried fruits). Do you happen to know their GI?
Also, more generally, is there a low GI dried fruit you’d recommend? If your whole grain uncooked oatmeal needed some livening up, what fruit would you use? Thanks as always.
I figured as much. I have been known to practically eat a whole watermelon in one sitting but afterwards, spent alot of calories running to and from the ladies room due to that water content…
Apricots are a really interesting fruit in the fact that dried apricots have a lower GI (31 on glucose scale) than fresh apricots (GI of 57 - in the middle of the pack for fruits). This is the only fruit I’m aware of where the dried fruit has a lower GI than the fresh fruit. Normally, I wouldn’t recommend eating dried fruit as dried fruit normally has a higher GI due to the sugars being more concentrated. I would probably make an exception for apricots but the thing to be aware of is that with dried fruit (even apricots) you may tend to eat more than 1 serving without realizing it because the dried fruit is more compact and concentrated than the fresh fruit. I still prefer fresh fruits and believe the nutrients are probably better preserved in fresh fruit and fresh fruit is more filling and satisfying.