My fruit addiction is out of control

Soon after I started at Goodyear, I had an onboarding meeting with Laura, our Chief Communications Officer. She gave me great insight into the company, and we talked about our personal and professional backgrounds.

There was, in short, a lot of information exchanged.

But what Laura mainly took away from our conversation was that I eat a lot of apples. At least that's what she mentioned to my boss, Doug.

And I don't blame her. I eat four or five apples a day, and that's virtually every day of my life.

If that were the extent of my fruit consumption, it would be one thing. But it isn't. I also eat a minimum of three bananas every day, along with one or two servings each of whatever other fruit we have in the house...grapes, pears, berries, whatever.

All told, I have a minimum of nine and often as many as 11 pieces/servings of fruit every day. Not occasionally, but every day.

A lot of people who hear that immediately warn me about the ill effects of excessive fruit sugar. Yet my blood glucose levels and A1c are always comfortably within the normal range whenever I have blood work done.

This has been on my mind lately because I recently had a physical with a new health care provider and am enjoying the benefits of a roughly 25-pound weight loss.

I often mention here that I'm a Weight Watchers Lifetime member. The WW system, which is based on a daily allotment of points, has most fruits and vegetables at the zero-point level. That doesn't mean they're "free," in that you're supposed to keep your intake of them at a reasonable level.

My intake is pretty clearly somewhere beyond "reasonable." Yet it's exactly what has allowed me to maintain my weight where I want it to be. I never feel especially hungry because of all the fruit I push down my gullet.

I realize it's too much fruit by almost anyone's standards, but it works for me.

The only drawbacks are the expense and logistical hassles of constantly having to buy fresh fruit. Terry handles much of that work, God bless her, but I find myself making special banana and apple runs to the grocery store all the time.

It's a small price to pay.