Low carb fruits for weight loss – which fruits are allowed in the low carb diet?
Are you looking for low carb fruit that you can eat in your diet without a guilty conscience? Then I wrote this article just for you. Here I will introduce you to the best fruit for weight loss.
Basically, I am against leaving fruit out of a diet. After all, it has some valuable ingredients that you shouldn’t be without. Most people don’t even know how many fruits and vegetables they should really be eating in order to live healthy. This applies of course and especially of course in a diet. However, if you are on a low-carb diet that is heavily reduced in calories and carbohydrates , then it makes sense to at least choose the types of fruit that are low in carbohydrates and sugar.
I will deal with the following questions in this article:
- Fruit for weight loss – can you eat fruit in the diet?
- Is fruit also allowed in a low-carb diet?
- Which fruit is low in carbohydrates?
- Tips for preparing low carb fruit
And finally, as a bonus, there is a list of 44 low-carbohydrate fruits and their detailed nutritional values:
- Fruit carbohydrates table for a simple nutritional overview
If you have any questions at the end of the day, please feel free to write me a comment, as always, and I’ll try to answer them quickly. 🙂
Fruit for weight loss – can you eat fruit while on a diet?
Many successful diet concepts are based on the fact that few carbohydrates are consumed and thus calories are saved. Savings are made here, especially with sugar. Since fruits are generally sweet and contain sugar, they quickly land on the hit list. however, it really shouldn’t be. On the contrary, you should regularly consume fresh fruit when you are on a diet.
Fruit contains many different essential vitamins, minerals and trace elements. Many fruits are also valuable sources of fiber. Especially in the diet it is important that you supply your body with enough fruits and vegetables so that it always has enough of these substances.
You are already exposing your body to a calorie deficit in a diet. The success of any diet is basically based on this calorie deficiency. In this situation, you shouldn’t expose your body to another deficiency. You should make sure that he is otherwise well taken care of. Sufficient fresh fruit and vegetables are an essential part of the menu.
Even if fruit is mostly sweet and tasty, many types of fruit have a really low energy density. This means that they are low in calories for their weight. So you can eat a lot of it without consuming too many calories. This is something very good, especially in a diet!
The low calorie density is closely related to the high water content in fresh fruit. Drinking enough water is another factor in the success of a good diet. Since many people chronically drink too little , it certainly doesn’t hurt to eat a lot of fresh, water-containing fruit.
You may have noticed that I’m talking about fresh fruit here. I would strongly limit the consumption of dried fruits (especially in a diet). The disadvantages for the diet outweigh this and you should always prefer the fresh counterpart. Incidentally, I include frozen fruit here, as this is usually frozen immediately after harvest and has a particularly large number of valuable ingredients.
Fruit in a low-carb diet – is that really allowed?
We have already established that fruit in a diet has many advantages. But how is that in a restrictive low diet? Here you have to make sure that you consume as few carbohydrates as possible and above all avoid sugar. In this case, isn’t fruit for weight loss a contradiction in terms ?!
Here is an important question as to why you are on a low carb diet. If you’re reading this, you are probably not going to be a professional bodybuilder and want to cut your carbohydrates to near zero for competitive purposes.
Chances are you’re using low-carb as a concept that makes it easier for you to save calories and keep your insulin levels stable. Cutting your carbohydrates to zero is neither necessary nor practical.
If you think that the only
thing that matters when you lose weight is the carbohydrates and nothing else, then it can make sense to read the following article: No Carbs After 4:00 PM – Why Skipping Carbohydrates in the Evening really works so well .
In short: a reduction in carbohydrates makes perfect sense, but not without carbohydrates. The carbohydrates that you then consume should come from good sources. Fruit is definitely such a good source of carbohydrates. Nevertheless, you can and should of course make sure that you choose low-carbohydrate fruit with a low energy density.
Which fruit is low in carbohydrates (and calories)?
Fresh fruit is generally good and important for the body, so you should eat it every day. However, if you consciously avoid carbohydrates as part of your diet, then you can also pay attention to a low carbohydrate content when choosing the fruit.
Otherwise, it is generally important to pay attention to the nutritional values (calories) of fruit for weight loss. There are fruits that cannot really be described as low in calories. You shouldn’t fall into these fruit traps during your diet. Dates, for example, have around 280kcal / 100g and are therefore not a suitable diet snack.
Below I have listed my five favorite low-carbohydrate fruits that I don’t miss out on in a diet. I can recommend this to you without reservation.
My top 6 low carb fruits:
6) The apple
With the good old apple, I want to begin this list of my weight loss fruits. The most eaten fruit in Germany is tasty, full and with an average of 10g / 100g it has a little more sugar than the other types of fruit in the list, but with just 52kcal / 100g it has significantly fewer calories than you might think.
When it comes to vitamins and fiber, the apple is also right at the forefront. After all, it is not for nothing that one says: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”. Apples are also very filling. I therefore consider an apple a day to be absolutely justifiable in a diet.
The apple is also a local fruit that you can get and eat from us anywhere and at any time of the year. I think that’s very good and if you have the opportunity, then you should also eat fruit that comes from the area and doesn’t have to be shipped halfway across the world. This fact gave him an extra place in the list.
5) The winter melon
The winter melon (also called wax gourd), like all melons, actually belongs to the vegetable (I know, crazy right ?!). Because of its taste and use, however, it is socially assigned to fruit. You might think that it has a very high sugar content. In fact, a winter melon has an average sugar content of just 5.7g / 100g.
The winter melon also has an even higher water content of almost 93% than the well-known and obviously completely wrongly named watermelon.
In total, the winter melon has a slim 28kcal per 100g. This makes it very suitable as a low carb fruit for losing weight in a diet. It looks good in a fruit salad or in low-fat quark.
The winter melon comes from Asia because it is mostly grown there. However, the ones available from us often come from Spain. The fruits are best bought at the wholesale market, they come in all sizes and (especially the smaller ones) last a long time.
4) The raspberry
Berries are great fruits that you shouldn’t remove from your diet in your diet. The raspberry is a very tasty, local berry that is also low in carbohydrates. With 4.6g sugar per 100g berries, the raspberry is one of the fruits with the lowest carbohydrates.
A great advantage of raspberries is that you can get them anytime, anywhere. If there are no fresh raspberries available, you can find them in the freezer section of every supermarket. I actually always have a bag of it in my freezer.
When I think about the number of times I’ve eaten a large portion of low-fat quark with frozen raspberries in my diet … and I’m still far from full.
3) The cantaloupe melon
In the third position on this list there is a melon, which you should not expect from the name on the list. The cantaloupe melon is also known as sugar melon. Really absurd when you consider that she only has 4.2g of sugar per 100g. Nevertheless, the fruit tastes really sweet.
As you probably already know, from a botanical point of view, this melon actually belongs to a vegetable. Incidentally, this melon is even more closely related to the cucumber than to the watermelon. I found that pretty bizarre when I read about it.
Among the melons, the cantaloupe is the lowest in carbohydrates and calories. Overall, it is one of the lowest-calorie types of fruit among the fruits that are regularly available from us. The cantaloupe melon is just a real fruit for weight loss.
In addition, this melon is also rich in vitamins. Mention should be made here of beta-carotene, which is usually found in large quantities in carrots and is an important precursor for vitamin A for the body.
The melon is often served with ham, which not only tastes very good, but also turns the healthy snack into a protein-rich food in one fell swoop .
2) The rhubarb
Rhubarb made it to second place on my top list, which is actually not a fruit in the botanical sense, but a vegetable. Due to its use and taste, however, it is also socially assigned to fruit. Just think of rhubarb compote, jam, cake and Co.
Due to its fiber structure and high acid content, the taste of rhubarb takes a bit of getting used to and is not for everyone. Because of this, it only comes in second on this list. If you still have to get used to the taste, you should keep an eye out for young plants.
In terms of nutritional values, the rhubarb is a hit. The pulp is really very low in calories and does not even contain 20kcal and 1.4g of carbohydrates per 100g. It contains a large amount of healthy tannins, pectins, and a lot of iron and potassium.
Rhubarb is best eaten with dairy products because of the oxalic acid. Peeled or cooked raw, the good old low-fat quark comes into play again.
For example, with erythritol you can even make a delicious low-carbohydrate jam with rhubarb. What would you think of being able to eat a delicious jam in your diet sometimes? I think that’s pretty great.
1) The blackberry
Another berry that has made it in and even made it to the top of my top list is the blackberry. The blackberry is my personal favorite berry. Even as a child I loved to eat the little black berries, preferably straight from the hedge in my grandparents’ garden. Sometimes my grandpa was surprised that there weren’t any berries left to harvest.
With 2.7g sugar per 100g, the blackberry has really few carbohydrates, even beats the raspberry by far and is therefore definitely one of the fruits that you should have on the menu with a clear conscience, even on a low-carbohydrate diet.
Berries should never be missing from your diet. They are rich in antioxidants and a host of other substances that have health benefits. There are always studies that prove the positive health effects of berry fruits.
In recent years, because of their miracle effects , new exotic berries have been hyped as superfoods and expensive extracts have been sold. Our local berries have it all too.
That was you, my five or six favorite types of fruit, which I also and especially like to eat most of all in a diet.
Was your favorite fruit there? Which is your favorite low carb fruit? Please write me a comment!
Tips for preparing low carb fruit
In a low-carbohydrate diet, there is little variety for many. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. In the following I would like to show you a few possibilities of what you can do with the presented types of fruit.
Alone or mixed as a snack
The unprocessed classic, individually or as a colorful mixture on a fruit platter as a healthy snack in between or as a dessert.
As an accompaniment to the quark
One of my diet classics is the good old low-fat quark with fresh fruits. Quark in itself is not really a highlight in terms of taste. In combination with various fresh fruits, you can have a really simple, tasty, filling and, above all, very low-calorie meal.
In the mix as a delicious fruit salad
Especially in summer there is sometimes nothing better than a fresh, delicious fruit salad. If you choose the right types of fruit and don’t add sugar to the fruit salad (which, by the way, is completely unnecessary in my opinion), then you can get away with being really diet-friendly.
Simply cut the low carb fruit into small pieces, add some lemon juice, mix well and the refreshing low carb fruit salad is ready.
Low carb fruit smoothies
Fruit smoothies are also a great way to enjoy some fresh fruit. Especially in summer you can simply pack a few fruits (possibly with some crushed ice so that it is extra fresh) in a strong mixer or smoothie maker .
With a good smoothie maker like the AEG Perfect Mix * you can conjure up the most delicious smoothies.
Cooking low carb jam with erythritol
At first glance this may seem a bit ironic, but it is actually possible to cook jam that is extremely low in carbohydrates and sugar without sugar. With a suitable sugar substitute, you can cook really tasty low carb jams.
Bonus: The fruit carbohydrate table for download
Here you get the promised bonus, a list with the nutritional values of over 90 types of fruit, 44 of them with less than 10g of carbohydrates per 100g and 38 with less than 50kcal per 100g.
The table is available for download both in PDF and as an open Excel file, so it can also be freely processed and, for example, sorted. If you would like to use the table or content on your site or similar, I would be happy to receive a reference to our site.
Incidentally, from a botanical point of view, melons are a vegetable because they belong to the pumpkin family. Strictly speaking, rhubarb is not a fruit, but a vegetable. Socially, however, both are counted as fruit. For my list, I have therefore decided to consider fruit from a social point of view for my selection.
Otherwise, for example, the olive would also have to appear in the list because it is a stone fruit and therefore belongs to the same plant genus as peaches and mirabelle plums. But who would want olives in their fruit salad? 😉
Your conclusion: fruit for weight loss is not only allowed but also desired
As you can see, there are quite a few types of fruit that are also very suitable for consumption in a diet. With the types of fruit listed, this does not only apply to your Cheat Day . There is definitely more to be said in favor of eating fruit for weight loss rather than giving it up. Just choose the right fruit and you’ll find it much easier to meet your calorie and carbohydrate goals.
If you do that, then nothing stands in the way of sticking out on a diet and defining your muscles .
