Banana, Coconut 'Bad Fruits' for Weight Loss

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Are you a fan of banana and coconuts while still worrying about your waistline? FOX News reports that you might want to steer clear from these tropical favorites because they are bad fruits that may not help you to lose weight.

The news outlet said that not every plant-based meal is effective in making you shed pounds because some of them are high in sugar and starch.

According to Lauren Slayton, author of "The Little Book of Thin," per FOX News, bananas are full of sugar and starch which may not help you lose weight. Dietitian Cassie also notes that bananas have carbohydrates that turn into sugar. When your sugar level spikes up, you will feel more irritable, have a lack of focus and more food cravings. This, in turn, will make you gain pounds than shed some.

Today also notes that bananas contain resistant starch, which according to Janine Higgins, Ph.D., nutrition research director at the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, is linked to "post-meal fat-burning." Resistant starch cannot be absorbed by the body, which may result to the production of butyrate that hinders your system from burning carbs and instead turning them into fat.

If you cannot totally stay away from eating bananas, the publication suggests choosing greener ones or churning them into a smoothie. Bananas that have turned yellow means that the fruit's starch content has "broken down and is no longer resistant to digestion."

Dietitian Cassie advises not to eat a banana, or any food rich in carbohydrates, alone. These foods should always be paired with a protein to reduce your sugar level from increasing.

Dieters should also avoid coconuts. Maggie Moon, author of "The Elimination Diet Workbook," told FOX News that coconuts have high levels of saturated fat that may spike up cholesterol. Today discusses that  a tablespoon of coconut oil contains 120 calories and has a lot of medium-chain triglycerides. Unlike long-strain variants found in other oils, medium-chain triglycerides are metabolized faster.

Meanwhile, Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., author of "The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth," told Today that medium-chain triglycerides "are rarely stored as fat because the body prefers to use them for energy."

New York Daily News also said that despite being branded as a healthy superfood, coconut is, in fact, "bad for you" whether it's in the form of oil, sugar or milk.

"People are going to see coconut more and more and decide that it’s a really healthy choice. And it’s not. The word ‘coconut’ creates a halo, and people envision something different. I can’t say it doesn't have any nutritional benefits, but it still has calories," New York-based nutritionist Keri Gans said.