Diet: Building around a sweet fruit base - explanation and example

[Guest guest]

Hello all!

 

Following up on the recent carbs and cravings thread, thought I'd offer a

little something extra.

 

Many have heard the suggestion of using a " sweet fruit base " , and then

building upon, or filling in around it.

 

I typically use bananas and dates as my " sweet fruit base " , except for melon

season. So, for most of the year,

I will get a *lot* of my calories from bananas and dates. Why? not because

either of these foods is anything

special or fabulous, or have some ingredient/nutrient that I can't get

anywhere else, but because, in the case of bananas

I can almost always get them, anywhere, so they meet one of my primary

criteria: *availability,* and then they also happen

to be economical, easy to eat, etc...etc.. I use dates for a similar

reason, with a twist - whilst they are only " fresh " for a shorter

period of time, they " store " well - so I can make sure that I also almost

always have them available also.

 

so....I 've got bananas and dates (and I usually rotate " flavors " of dates,

many varieties to choose from; I heard recently that there are over

1,000 different varieties of dates! Yowser! ) to start with.

 

Then I fill in *seasonally* around this base, with what is now availalbe, or

in season. For examply, citrus is now in season for me in Florida.

Sooooo...this morning I had about 20 oz. of fresh squeezed grapefruit juice

for breakfast on my way to work (also made my wife about 12-16 oz...)

A co-worker had given me two huge bags of fresh grapefruit - they have

grapefruit trees, and don't like grapefruit! go figure!

 

so...that's about 241 cal, 95C/3P/2F....

 

then I had my " usual " 9:30 - 10:00am smoothie - ~6 med. bananas,(630 cal,

93/4/3) 3 medjool dates (LG)(199 cal, 96/3/1) , and 1 apple (72 cal,

96/3/1) (note that I added an apple here, since they are also still kind of

in season, and available, and store well...) this smoothie ended up being

about 900 cal, with a fabulous 80/10/10 ratio.

Note that it probably took me 45 minutes or so to " drink/eat " this

smoothie....it was about 50 oz total. (the size of my container....nothing

magical about the size; just what fits into the container....had a couple of

ounces left over that I drank separately...)

 

Note that this brings the day, as of ~11:15am , to about 1,142 calories,

with calonutrient ratio of 94C/4P/2F, well within 80/10/10 tm guidelines.

 

One of my thoughts is that without a lot of effort, or fanfare, this is a

good start toward building my caloric base for the day. Note that I start

many days off this way (not all! LOL!)

 

Unless others have questions, I'll probably discontinue this topic/thread

for now...it's provided as *one* way to increase our calories on a

high-water, high-fruit diet.

Does it take a while to get used to this? you betcha ya! In the

beginnning, I'd make 16oz smoothies, and while they were good, they didn't

have anywhere near enough

calories...Please note that this whole morning is not " ideal " , or " optimal "

or any of those things...can it be done " better " ? absolutely!

 

best,

 

Bob