How much do you know about food nutrition | Can eating fruit before meals to control appetite help you lose weight? Pay attention to these things to be effective

Eating fruit before meals may be a way to control appetite and blood sugar. If you find it difficult to control your appetite during meals, try eating an apple before meals. Research results suggest that eating apples before meals can help control blood sugar levels and suppress appetite by inducing early insulin activation and increasing GLP-1.

The key to eating fruit before meals is to eat it 30 minutes before the main meal. Many studies have shown that this is the right time for controlling appetite and blood sugar. A few minutes difference is not a big deal, but if it is too early or too late, it may affect the effect.

You don't need to eat a lot of apples before a meal, about 10 to 15 grams of carbohydrates is enough. This is roughly equivalent to 110 to 160 grams of Fuji apples (core-removed weight).

However, eating fruit 30 minutes before a meal, a seemingly safe method for controlling appetite and blood sugar, may not be suitable for everyone and every situation. Before using it, be sure to read the following instructions carefully.

1. When eating fruit before a meal, you must eat it before you feel obviously hungry. If you wait until you are already hungry to eat fruit, the effect will not be so good, and some people may even feel hungrier, which is counterproductive. In other words, you should use fruit to prevent hunger and reduce appetite, rather than eating fruit to fill your stomach after you are hungry and then not being able to eat immediately.

2. After eating fruit before a meal, you can eat as much as you want during the meal to achieve a normal feeling of fullness. Because eating fruit before a meal is to allow the body to automatically reduce appetite and lower the blood sugar response after a meal, you can eat until you feel full during the meal, and do not discount the feeling of fullness on this basis, otherwise it will cause malnutrition.

3. Eating fruit before meals can control appetite, which is not suitable for vegans. Eating fruit before meals can reduce the amount of staple food in the main meal, but it can also easily lead to a decrease in protein intake, so this weight loss strategy is not suitable for vegans. When eating fruit before meals, be sure to consume enough protein-rich foods.

4. Eating fruit before meals is more suitable for dieters with full muscles, good gastrointestinal function, and strong appetite that is difficult to control. This method is not suitable for people with weak muscles, small appetite, and puffy fat.

5. Eating fruit before meals controls food intake and blood sugar, which is not suitable for people who need to gain muscle. Because muscle gain requires an increase in food intake after exercise, and also requires a moderate increase in blood sugar and insulin to support more protein synthesis.

6. Eating fruit before meals and controlling the amount of food intake is not suitable for people who are prone to stomach blockage, bloating, and diarrhea. These people may experience aggravated gastrointestinal discomfort after eating fruit before meals.

7. People who have adverse reactions to certain fruits should also be careful when using this method. Some people are prone to bloating, diarrhea, or even allergies when eating certain fruits. You can consider replacing them with other fruits. For example, people who are uncomfortable eating apples can eat oranges instead, or use other weight loss and sugar control methods.

In short, eating fruit before meals is only one of the optional measures for weight loss and sugar control. Whether it is suitable for you needs comprehensive evaluation. It is good to find some simple and feasible auxiliary measures, but you must pay attention to not causing malnutrition because of weight loss, and not affecting the body's digestion and absorption function and overall health.

(The author Fan Zhihong is a registered nutritionist and professor at the School of Food Science and Engineering, China Agricultural University)

Source: People's Daily Online