Is watermelon keto? Nutrient profile, and list of keto fruits

A person can eat watermelon as part of a keto diet, as long as they make sure the carbohydrate content fits within their desired macronutrient ratio.

Watermelon is rich in nutrients and can hold a lot of water. For this reason, they are a suitable fruit for maintaining hydration and overall health.

However, as with all fruits, watermelons naturally contain sugars. Therefore, people following a ketogenic diet may worry that eating watermelon could take them out of ketosis, the metabolic process that burns fat instead of carbs.

A ketogenic, or keto, diet is an eating plan containing high amounts of fat, moderate amounts of protein, and very low amounts of carbohydrates.

As sugars are carbohydrates, it is reasonable to assume that watermelons are not keto-friendly.

This article will provide some nutritional information about watermelons and discusses their proper place in a ketogenic diet. It will also list some keto-friendly fruits.

Watermelons contain many different nutrients.

Vitamin C

One cup of diced watermelon provides 21% of a person’s daily requirement of vitamin C. This is an antioxidant that helps the body maintain healthy tissues, blood vessels, and bones. It also assists in forming collagen, healing wounds, and absorbing plant-based iron.

Vitamin A

A cup of diced watermelon also contains around 17% of a person’s daily vitamin A requirement. This helps maintain the immune system and keeps the skin and eyes healthy, among other essential functions.

Lycopene

Red-fleshed watermelons contain high levels of lycopene. This carotenoid antioxidant, which is also in tomatoes and pink grapefruits, gives these fruits their reddish color.

Importantly, lycopene may help protect the body against heart disease and many forms of cancer.

Carbohydrates

According to the Department of Agriculture, those following a keto diet should note that 1 cup of diced watermelon also contains around 11 grams (g) of net carbohydrates.

Net carbohydrates are the carbohydrates the body actually absorbs from a food source. Within foods, they are the total amount of carbohydrates minus the fiber it contains since fiber is an indigestible form of carbohydrate.

One cup of diced watermelon has 11 g of net carbohydrates because it contains 11.6 g of total carbohydrates and around 0.6 g of fiber.

Ketogenic diets heavily restrict the amount of carbohydrates that a person can eat in a day. In a typical ketogenic diet that restricts carbs to 5–10% of total calories, a person who consumes 2,000 calories a day will only eat between 20–50 g of carbohydrates daily.

This means the amount of watermelon a person can eat on a keto diet while staying in ketosis depends on how restrictive their diet is.

For example, 1 cup of diced watermelon would make up more than half of an individual’s daily carbohydrates if they are aiming for only 20 g of carbs per day.

If a person is aiming for around 50 g of carbs per day, then 1 cup of diced watermelon comprises 23. 2% of their daily carbs.

Therefore, there is no conclusive answer to the question of whether watermelon is keto-friendly. A person can eat watermelon and other fruits while staying in a state of ketosis, depending on what else they eat in a day and their daily carbohydrate target.

Whether they remain in ketosis will depend on the macronutrient ratio they are aiming to achieve, as well as what else they want to eat on a given day.

Calories

One cup of diced watermelon contains 46 calories. According to a 2019 study, diets that include fruit with high levels of water and fiber could help a person maintain a moderate weight.

The paper suggests that watermelon can promote a feeling of fullness, which researchers call satiety, as its high water content gives it a low energy density proportionate to its volume when compared with many other fruits.

As many people who follow a keto diet do so for weight loss, the high satiety to volume ratio that watermelon provides makes it additionally beneficial.

The most keto-friendly foods are low in net carbohydrates. Many fruits are high in carbohydrates, including fiber and natural sugars. However, some of the more keto-friendly options include:

• Avocados: Contain around 8.53 g of net carbohydrates per 100 g.
• Tomatoes: Contain around 3.89 g of net carbohydrates per 100 g.
• Blackberries: contain around 9.61 g of net carbohydrates per 100 g
• Strawberries: Contain around 7.68 g of net carbohydrates per 100 g.
• Peaches: Contain around 10.1 g of net carbohydrates per 100 g.

By comparison, 100 g of watermelon contains around 7.5 g of net carbohydrates.

The ketogenic diet is gaining in popularity. Recently, many people have become interested in severely limiting their daily intake of carbohydrates, usually with the aim of losing weight.

However, it is worth noting that the ketogenic diet can be quite extreme.

Healthcare professionals initially developed the diet as a treatment for epilepsy in children. The average American diet consists of around 55% carbohydrates, while the Institute of Medicine recommend that 45–65% of daily calories come from carbohydrates for a healthy diet. Many keto plans require a person to limit their daily carbs to 5–10% of their total calories, based on a diet of 2,000 calories a day.

There is also some evidence that ketogenic diets can have unwanted short-term effects. These include:

• dizziness
• nausea
• vomiting
• fatigue
• insomnia
• headache
• constipation
• difficulty exercising

Doctors sometimes refer to these symptoms as “keto flu.” However, they bear no relation to the influenza virus and usually disappear after a few weeks on the diet.

There are also other long-term effects from the diet that may last longer than 2 years, including:

• various vitamin and mineral deficiencies
• fatty liver disease
• kidney stones

Importantly, scientists do not yet know whether keto diets are beneficial for health. This is because dietary science is complex and influenced by many factors. Scientists must conduct long-term studies before drawing conclusions.

Many different factors play into a person’s health. For this reason, it can take a long time for scientists to work out the real effects of a given diet.

Watermelon can be keto-friendly if people eat it in moderation. This rule holds true for many other fruits.

Generally, anyone considering a ketogenic diet should first seek the advice of a doctor, registered dietitian, or both.

This is especially important for people with diabetes, as sudden shifts to a ketogenic diet could cause hypoglycemia.

Is Watermelon Keto? How Much You Can Eat It On The Keto Diet

If you’re on the keto diet, you’ve probably never paid more attention to the macronutrients you consume each day. What you may not know, though, is that the low-carb, high-fat, and moderate protein diet has been around for nearly a century.

“The ketogenic diet was developed by a Mayo Clinic physician, Dr. Wilder, in the 1920s to treat children with severe epilepsy,” explains Tara Schmidt, MEd, LD, lead registered dietitian for the New Mayo Clinic Diet. “While still used in seizure control, the keto diet has also become increasingly popular in the weight loss space.”

You can learn a lot more about the keto diet here, but the TL;DR is that the goal is for the body to use fat instead of carbohydrates for energy, and to form ketones (organic compounds your body uses in place of carbs).

“Although there are a variety of versions of the diet, they are all low in carbohydrates; most often less than 50 grams per day,” explains Schmidt. “Clinically, a percent of total calories or a ratio of fat to protein and carbohydrates is used, as calorie needs (each gram of carbohydrate has four calories) are dependent on age, sex, height, and weight.”

Meet the experts:

Tara Schmidt, MEd, LD, is the lead registered dietitian for the New Mayo Clinic Diet.

Bonnie Taub-Dix, RDN, is the creator of BetterThanDieting.com and author of Read It Before You Eat It: Taking You from Label to Table.

The keto diet consists of around 75 percent fat, moderate protein at around 20 percent and a severely restrictive carbohydrate intake weighing in at around 5 to 10 percent, says Bonnie Taub-Dix, RDN, creator of BetterThanDieting.com and author of Read It Before You Eat It : Taking You from Label to Table. This pretty much means consuming no more than 20 to 50 grams of carbs per day. “Just to put that in perspective, a small fruit provides around 15 grams of carbohydrates, and a cup of cooked pasta around 30 grams,” says Taub-Dix.

FYI: Sugar is a type of carb, but “keto followers strictly slash carb content, without necessarily distinguishing between natural sugars (from fruit) and added sugar (from the sugar bowl),” says Taub-Dix. “They even cut out healthy, valuable carbs, like beans, that don’t contribute added sugar but do contribute a wealth of nutrients. ”

Can you eat fruit on the keto diet at all?

This tends to be a hot topic on the keto diet since some types aren’t deemed keto-friendly. “The reason why some fruits are permitted, and others are not, is purely on the basis of their carbohydrate content,” says Taub-Dix. “It has nothing to do with their nutritional value.”

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But completely eliminating fruit may come with negative nutrition and health side effects since it can be a good source of fiber and potassium, and also benefits overall gut health.

“Most Americans don’t get enough fiber or potassium [in] their diets as it is,” adds Taub-Dix. “Potassium can support heart health and fiber is essential to support gut health while also stabilizing blood sugar levels.”

And with summer just around the corner, you may be curious if its star fruit, watermelon, is keto-friendly. So can you eat watermelon on keto? We asked dietitians for the 411.

Can you eat watermelon on keto?

To determine if any fruit (or food for that matter) is “allowed” on the keto diet, consider how many carbs are in a reasonable serving. One cup of diced watermelon will provide 11.5 grams of total carbohydrates. So, yes, you can probably eat watermelon on keto, so long as you keep track of how many carbs you’re consuming from it, and how those carbs factor into your total carb intake for the day.

That’s good news since “watermelon’s high-water concentration can play a positive role in hydration, especially in these warmer months,” says Schmidt. “It is also a rich source of the antioxidants lycopene and beta-carotene.” (Lycopene has been linked to reducing risks of heart disease and certain types of cancer.)

FYI: Some proponents of keto will tell you to track “net carbs” (essentially total carbohydrates minus dietary fiber) but that term isn’t used by the Food and Drug Administration or recognized by American Diabetes Association. “The term ‘net carbs’ is a made up marketing term that has no formal regulatory definition,” explains Taub-Dix.

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What other fruits can you eat on keto?

“In order to get more of fruit, dieters could select those which have lower carbs, though portion [size] is key,” says Schmidt.

Here are a few fruits that typically can fit into a keto diet:

• ½ cup watermelon (~6 grams of carbs)
• ½ cup blackberries (~7 grams of carbs)
• 1/2 cup raspberries (~7 grams of carbs)
• 2 apricots (~8 grams of carbs)

What fruits should you avoid on keto?

Certain fruits are harder to fit into the keto diet based on their higher carb content. These include:

• 1 medium banana (27 grams of carbs)
• ½ cup grapes (~14 grams of carbs)
• ½ cup mango (~12 grams of carbs)
• ½ cup pineapple (~11 grams of carbs)

And you should also be mindful of dried or dehydrated fruit. “Pulling out the water means increased concentration of calories and carbs,” adds Schmidt. “A half cup of grapes is 14 grams of carbohydrates, which is the equivalent of only two tablespoons of raisins.”

Emily Shiffer

Emily Shiffer is a former digital web producer for Men’s Health and Prevention, and is currently a freelancer writer specializing in health, weight loss, and fitness. She is currently based in Pennsylvania and loves all things antiques, cilantro, and American history.

get rid of extra pounds with pleasure

The end of summer and the beginning of autumn is the season of watermelons. At this time, you need to strive to eat enough of this useful berry. And if you need to lose weight a little, then a watermelon diet will come to the rescue, which will allow you to simultaneously solve four problems:

• get rid of extra pounds;
• cleanse the body;
• fortified;
• get pleasure from eating a delicious product.

Contents:

• 1 Benefits of watermelon
• 2 How to choose a good watermelon?
• 3 The essence of the diet
• 4 Options
• 5 Contraindications
• 6 Diet reviews

The benefits of watermelon

this fruit of melon culture is extremely useful.

• Watermelon contains a lot of useful minerals and vitamins. For example, just 200 grams of sweet pulp contains magnesium in an amount sufficient to meet the daily requirement for this element.
• The pulp of this berry contains a large amount of folic acid, and this substance helps to normalize the process of fat metabolism, helps to remove “bad cholesterol”, and is extremely beneficial for women’s health.
• Watermelon contains a significant amount of organic iron, so this berry is useful for the prevention of anemia.
• Eating three or four slices of watermelon, we provide our body with a daily requirement of vitamin C. And this is an excellent support for the immune system, which protects us from disease.
• Potassium and calcium contained in watermelon pulp stimulate the cardiovascular system, maintain normal skin, nails and hair.
• The presence of fiber in watermelon perfectly cleanses the intestines, helps to solve various problems with digestion.
• Watermelon has an excellent diuretic effect, while using this berry, the kidneys are cleansed, a large amount of toxins are removed from the body.

How to choose a good watermelon?

To select a ripe fruit, tap on the crust. The sound should be loud enough. Be sure to pay attention to the rest of the stem, it must be dry.

It is recommended to buy watermelons only during their ripening season, despite the fact that they may appear on sale in early summer. The fact is that in order to accelerate the ripening, gourds are fed with a large amount of fertilizers, therefore nitrates may be contained in the pulp of early berries.

To check the safety of fruits, you can arm yourself with a special device – a nitrate meter (it is useful not only for assessing the quality of watermelons, but also for any other fruits and berries).

If such a device is not at hand, you can conduct a simple test at home. You need to take a small piece of watermelon pulp and place it in a bowl of water. If the product is of high quality, then the piece will remain intact. If, after 15 minutes after immersion, the pulp “spreads” in the water, then such a watermelon is unsafe.

The essence of the diet

What is the basis of the watermelon diet for weight loss? The recipe for a slim figure is simple: in fact, it is a mono-diet, the main product of which is, of course, watermelon. The diet menu is very meager, but the diet is well tolerated, the feeling of hunger does not torment those who lose weight.

However, it must be remembered that if during the diet some unpleasant sensations appear: pain in the stomach, intestinal colic, a feeling of weakness, dizziness, etc. , you should immediately stop eating watermelon. So, this weight loss option is not suitable for you personally.

Options

The results of losing weight on watermelon will depend on the option chosen. For those who have never tried to lose weight on watermelons, it’s worth starting with a native unloading day. The rules for unloading are extremely simple; throughout the day, only watermelon and green tea should be on the menu. How much watermelon is there? It is believed that you can eat up to 1 kilogram of pulp (we count without the weight of crusts) for every 10 kilos of your own weight. That is, with a weight of 70 kilos, you can eat up to 7 kilograms of watermelon pulp. In practice, eating such an amount may not work, especially if the weight is large. But there is nothing wrong with that, you need to eat as much as you want. It is not necessary to eat the “norm” through force.

You can spend such a fasting day once a week. And if you need to quickly lose 3-4 kilograms, then you can spend three days in a row. For 3 days, you can make the diet more sparing, that is, add one more product to the diet – whole grain bread. It will be possible to eat no more than 50 grams per day. It is recommended to eat the daily norm not at once, but to divide it into thin slices weighing 10 grams and eat them every 3 hours.

Diet options are available for longer periods. For 7 days of this diet, in addition to the actual watermelons, you will need to prepare other dietary products, so the weekly option will be easier to transfer.

Approximate daily ration:

• In the morning: cottage cheese (150 grams) or a portion of porridge, or a boiled egg, tea.
• At lunchtime: 120-150 grams of boiled chicken, veal or fish meat. Garnish with a vegetable salad dressed with kefir or lemon juice.
• In the evening only watermelon.

It will be possible to eat up to 3 kilograms of watermelon pulp, drink tea without sugar and water during the course. For dinner, it is better to leave no more than 500 grams of watermelon and eat it no earlier than 4 hours before a night’s rest, otherwise the night will be restless due to the diuretic effect.

Salt and salty products should not be consumed throughout the diet. Since salt prevents the removal of fluid and can cause edema.

The effectiveness of this weight loss option is quite high, with a weekly diet, you can lose up to 5 kilograms. And so that the results achieved can be maintained, you need to properly exit the watermelon diet.

For a week or two after the diet, it is necessary to eat mainly dairy and vegetable foods: cereals, vegetable stews, casseroles. Be sure to include low-fat protein foods in the menu. Throughout the day, continue to eat watermelon, in the amount of 1 kilogram of pulp for every 30 kilograms of weight.

Since eating watermelon in large quantities for a long time can get boring, during the period of leaving the diet, you can diversify your menu a little. Watermelon can be used as a base for making fruit salads, added to curd desserts, prepared watermelon-kefir cocktails, etc.

Contraindications

Like most any diet, the watermelon diet has its own contraindications. This weight loss option can not be used during pregnancy and during breastfeeding.

It is strictly forbidden to abuse watermelon with kidney stones. The cleansing and diuretic effect of the diet can lead to stone shift and cause renal colic. For this reason, before going on a diet, you should consult a doctor and, possibly, do an ultrasound of the kidneys. If there are contraindications, you will need to choose another type of weight loss.

Watermelon diet is not recommended for chronic bowel disease. Since when consuming berries in large quantities, symptoms such as colic, heaviness in the abdomen can be observed. Perhaps the formation of edema.

Reviews of the diet

Before you go on any diet, you need to evaluate the benefits and harms of the chosen diet, as well as read the reviews of people who have already tried this technique.

It should be noted that reviews of weight loss on watermelon are very ambiguous. Most people tolerate this diet perfectly, without experiencing a strong feeling of hunger on it and successfully losing kilograms.

But some people speak negatively about the diet, noting a lot of unpleasant side effects. For example, such as bloating, intestinal colic, various digestive disorders.

Such side effects can be caused both by the quality of the watermelon (a berry with a high content of nitrates can cause poisoning) or by the individual reaction of the body. But in any case, feeling bad, you should immediately stop the diet.

The disadvantages of this diet include the scarcity of the diet. Sticking to a strict version of the diet, which uses only watermelon, can not be longer than three days. The fact is that with a longer adherence to a mono-diet, symptoms such as loss of strength, weakness, dizziness can be observed.

A significant disadvantage of losing weight on watermelons is a pronounced seasonality. You can use this berry only during the period of natural ripening, that is, in August-September. In other months of the year, it is not recommended to consume watermelon, although in our time you can buy this melon fruit from the very beginning of summer.

Watermelon diet – “How to get rid of extra pounds by eating a delicious treat 🍉🍉🍉. Is the watermelon diet as effective as they say?”

Hello everyone!

It is quite understandable that the peak of passion for all kinds of diets usually occurs in mid-late spring. The long winter is over, and soon each of us will hide our layered clothes for several months. And a couple of extra pounds will make themselves felt. But the opposite happened to me: after several warm months spent in a relaxed atmosphere, when there is no special physical activity and a lot of delicious food, an excessive roundness of feminine forms appears. Overall, though, I have no complaints. I will soon be 41 years old, my weight ranges from 55-60 kg with a height of 1. 68 m. The extreme limit may seem a little high, but I easily get rid of it, including thanks to my favorite sugary diet.

The photo was taken a year ago – here I am 39 years old. It hasn’t practically changed in a year)

Diet prescription

To be honest, I don’t think at all that the main purpose of the watermelon diet is to get rid of excess weight. One diet will not be enough. If the weight is really far from the norm, then after sitting for 10 days on watermelons, little will change. In this case, you need to completely reconsider your lifestyle, and not for a few weeks, but at least for six months (to see the desired result). Would watermelon help? Definitely yes! But the help of this delicious berry will not be in losing kg, but in ridding the body (namely the kidneys) of toxins and toxins. This is the primary function.

Inside all scarlet, sugar, green velvet caftan

Let’s talk in more detail about the chemical composition of this product. The energy value of 100 grams of watermelon is about 27 kilocalories, which makes it possible to classify it as a dietary fruit. 100 grams of this berry contains approximately 0.6 grams of protein, 5.8 grams of carbohydrates, 0.15 grams of fat. In addition, watermelons have a high water content, namely about 91.4 grams per serving.

And I also believe that if dieting is perceived as a kind of punishment for the body for an unbalanced diet, then a stable result cannot be achieved at all. To get rid of toxins and a couple of kg (at best), it is important to learn how to treat the process with pleasure. I really love watermelons, the first few days of the diet for me is just some kind of holiday. In general, since childhood I can eat them in any quantity. From day 4, a small withdrawal begins, and the hand reaches for the refrigerator. It can be difficult to overpower yourself, although the diet seems tasty and not at all strict.

How much watermelon to eat

The watermelon diet, which I try to stick to almost always at the end of summer, is a mono-diet. Although, since my student days, I have retained the habit of eating watermelons with a slice of rye bread (I especially like Borodino bread).

If you follow a mono-diet, then:

Only watermelons should be eaten per day from the following calculation: 1 kg of juicy pulp per 10 kg of body weight.

My weight is about 58 kg now. So I am entitled to 5.8 kg of watermelon pulp per day. To be honest, I do not count to a gram. I do this: for two days I buy myself a watermelon of at least 12 kg. I don’t give my watermelon to my family. Either I eat half of the watermelon myself, and give the other half to my husband and children. And the next day we buy a big watermelon again.

Of course, you can get confused with weighing. But this is with a strict mono-diet. I, again, add a small amount of bread to the diet (4-6 pieces per day). I almost completely exclude water and other liquids on such days (I use water only if necessary to drink a pill or dietary supplement).

The Watermelon Diet is also easy to use because there is no need to calculate calories consumed, perform complex scoring, memorize the calorie or point value of various foods. This does not need to be done because the diet for the entire period of the diet is strictly regulated: watermelon and nothing but watermelon.

You should enter the diet slowly: first, introduce watermelon into the diet during the week. Like any other mono-diet, the watermelon diet is short-lived. I found information that if you eat only watermelon, then the diet can only be followed for 5 days.

It is believed that this time will be enough for the body to get rid of toxins, excess water and unwanted salts.

I add bread to my diet, so I keep the diet for about 8-10 days. This can be done only if the restrictions do not affect well-being.

When to stop the diet

There may be a reaction from the gastrointestinal tract: flatulence and the appearance of heaviness in the abdomen.

Well, it’s easy to guess that people with any kidney pathology should be treated with extreme caution with this diet.

The main indicator that patients with diabetes should be guided by is the glycemic index of watermelon. It is quite high, it ranges from 65 to 70 units.

Thus, the use of watermelon in diabetes mellitus creates a certain risk of a jump in glucose. However, you should not completely abandon this product. It is only necessary to limit the amount of consumed servings.

My results and exit from the diet

4 kg. After the end of the period (5-7-10 days), I do not completely exclude watermelon from my diet. Usually I alternate two food options (day one, day another).

Menu 1:

Breakfast: oatmeal porridge with water, some cheese (you can make a soft cheese sandwich).

Lunch: boiled meat or fish, vegetable salad.

Dinner: watermelon pulp at the rate of 1 kg per 30 kg of weight (I get about 2 kg).

Menu 2:

Breakfast: 300 g watermelon pulp.

After 1-1.5 hours: green tea with a cheese sandwich, or yogurt.

Lunch: 300 g watermelon.

After 1-1.5 hours: soup (preferably in vegetable broth), a piece of boiled meat (100 g).

Dinner: 300 g watermelon.

After 1 hour: vegetable salad.

Delicious watermelon pulp

Meals are monotonous, especially if such recommendations are strictly followed. After a watermelon diet for about 7 days, I follow a similar diet. As a result, the weight is reduced from 60 to 57 kg. I don’t feel any loss of power. On the contrary, this type of nutrition personally increases my efficiency. The body is cleansed of harmful toxins.

I learned about the watermelon diet when I was a student. Then my friend and I liked to sit for a couple of days on a watermelon with brown bread.