The pendulum always swings to the extreme

I find it amusing that people are actually skipping fruits in the quest of weight loss because of the evils of fructose. Yes, some fruits are high in fructose i.e. apples but they have soluble and insoluble fiber as well as vitamins and minerals to help in their digestion and slow the release of glucose into the blood stream.

I would think that looking the Glycemic index as well as the Glycemic load is a better way of examining the food that we eat. Anyway, unless you are in a figure competition and trying to find ways to sharpen your physique and fine tune your already low carb diet, getting rid of fruits is an exercise in futility. don't miss the forest for the trees. Fruits are high in anti-oxidants i.e. lutein, revesterol etc which the body needs for immunity, anti-ageing etc.

For my clients, simple strategies and guidelines work fine and have a greater success rate. I believe in giving nutritional guidelines rather than meal plans as plans are hard to follow and is 90% of the time never adhered to.

My guidelines include;
1) Front load your calories - Eat more in the morning, least in the night.
2) Have at least 5 regular meals a day - smaller portions of carbs help to regulate
blood sugar levels
3)minimise your grains i.e. bread, rice, noodles, corn, wheat
4)Fish oils should a staple - from 10 to 15 grams a day of high quality fish oils.If your fish oil does not have a 2:1 ratio of EPA to DHA and make up at least 550mg of EPA DHA, it is most likely of low value.
5)Substitute your grains with vegetables and whole fruits.
6)No fruit juice but vegetable juice is good
7)No soft drinks

You can further break down your individual body type into thyroid dominant, testosterone dominant and insulin dominant.

Thyroid dominant are ectomorphic individuals or what we call the skinnies. They are allowed to have more carbs in their diet as they seem to burn off what they consume quickly.

Testosterone dominant are mesomorphic individuals or what we call the naturally gifted individuals. Think of the arnies out there. A little more carbs is fine for them.

However, for the insulin dominant or endomorphic individuals (pear or apple shaped population), low carb high fat diet works best. The fat should come from fish oils, seeds and nuts, avocadoes, olives. Omega 3 intake should go above 15g. Therefore, i usually recommend liquid fish oils for such individuals where 4 teaspoons would be equivalent to 15g of fish oils.