Sugar - possibly the easiest thing to cut back on for weight loss!
Options
Replies
-
lemurcat12 wrote: »Sugar is the hardest thing to cut back on!!
That's subjective.
It's ironic (or not) that the anti-sugar people seem to be the most obsessed with it. Wonder if there's something about making something forbidden fruit that makes it irresistible. Hmm, what a strange, unheard-of idea, don't know what the genesis of it might be.
honest response to this, it is kind of strange to me to see how much less chocolate and candy I eat now that I don't put any restrictions on it and don't view it as something that will make me fat. Although I think it helps that I eat them within my calorie/macro needs. Still have plenty of halloween candy, and I bought a Snickers bar WEEKS ago and still haven't felt like eating it lol.
Yeah, it was kind of a serious point phrased in a jokey way, although I'm not claiming it's the same for everyone. I find that for me it's not terribly hard to not overeat or have sweets around for ages without eating them when I'm not thinking at the back of my head that this is my last opportunity (or last for a while). I never really binged, but in the past I've behaved in a more greedy/immoderate fashion at times that I know was related to that idea.0 -
tennisdude2004 wrote: »
Do you eat a calorie surplus or deficit?
I still fit a serving of chocolate into my deficit daily when I was eating 1500 calories a day. I found that when I was cooking everything from home my meal calorie totals were tiny so I had plenty of wiggle room for reasonable portions of 'junk' that I enjoyed. It made me feel like I wasn't giving anything up.
I do agree that added sugar is one of the places you can cut excess calories and not really miss them, but it's hard to say what is best for anyone but yourself.
0 -
tennisdude2004 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »Lots of threads on the forums have newbies posting topics wanting to reduce their sugar intake to lose weight, which is a good thing - after all a lot, if not most, people on MFP are here to lose weight!
Sadly the original intent and message from the OP gets lost in translation (not through their fault).
It seems as though any want to reduce your sugar intake gets met with 'sugars not the devil' and other mature catch phrases!
The truth is sugar isn't the devil, but then to be fair I'm not sure I've ever seen a thread which claims it is.
So why cut sugar? A large portion of people cutting sugar do it from a position of being over weight, so it stands to reason their calorie intake to calorie burn is out of whack and in a surplus.
As we all know and agree on the only way to lose weight is to eat in a calorie deficit. So those peps currently over weight and eating in a surplus have to cut some calories somewhere and whats the easiest and least important food group to do that with - Sugar.
So whats great about sugar - Nothing!!! Apart from giving the body a quick fix of energy (which it can easily get from more nutrient rich and beneficial food) it offers nothing!
What could be a better thing to cut, to get that calorie surplus into a deficit?
I think the message for newbies looking to reduce their sugar intake is first off - well done for wanting to do something! But also a reminder that they only need to cut enough to get them into the deficit they need.
Within their allotted calories if they've covered their bases with protein and got their micro nutrients dialed in, then if they want to make up the rest of their cals with sugar then do it, log it and enjoy it.
So to coin some phrases used by Alan Aragon, reduce your intake of junk food and limit your foods with empty calories!
The main thing is get into a calorie deficit!
Completely Subjective.
Thanks for stopping by, glad of your input!
How is that paragraph subjective - apart from quick energy what does sugar provide the body in regards to nutrition, or anything else for that matter?
You seem to think that it tasting good doesn't mean anything.
Now tasting good - that's something subjective
0 -
Sugar provides a fast energy source. That's good. There are all kinds of naturally sourced sugar packages wrapped in a fiber and vitamin sandwich - like fruit - that are good.
If you want super-easy to cut for weight loss, go for fat. I like fat, but I portion it out like medicine. That's a hard lesson to get through to a newbie.0 -
tennisdude2004 wrote: »
Do you eat a calorie surplus or deficit?
Deficit. Point was I didn't give up anything.0 -
Liftng4Lis wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »
Do you eat a calorie surplus or deficit?
Deficit. Point was I didn't give up anything.
My point is you don't have to!
Within their allotted calories if they've covered their bases with protein and got their micro nutrients dialed in, then if they want to make up the rest of their cals with sugar then do it, log it and enjoy it.
0 -
Or that energy is somehow unimportant. There's a very specific reason sugar tastes good to us. Because in general, it IS good for us. If it didn't offer us any advantage, we wouldn't taste it, or it would taste bad. For example, cats are carnivores, they don't have taste receptors that detect sugar at all.tennisdude2004 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »Lots of threads on the forums have newbies posting topics wanting to reduce their sugar intake to lose weight, which is a good thing - after all a lot, if not most, people on MFP are here to lose weight!
Sadly the original intent and message from the OP gets lost in translation (not through their fault).
It seems as though any want to reduce your sugar intake gets met with 'sugars not the devil' and other mature catch phrases!
The truth is sugar isn't the devil, but then to be fair I'm not sure I've ever seen a thread which claims it is.
So why cut sugar? A large portion of people cutting sugar do it from a position of being over weight, so it stands to reason their calorie intake to calorie burn is out of whack and in a surplus.
As we all know and agree on the only way to lose weight is to eat in a calorie deficit. So those peps currently over weight and eating in a surplus have to cut some calories somewhere and whats the easiest and least important food group to do that with - Sugar.
So whats great about sugar - Nothing!!! Apart from giving the body a quick fix of energy (which it can easily get from more nutrient rich and beneficial food) it offers nothing!
What could be a better thing to cut, to get that calorie surplus into a deficit?
I think the message for newbies looking to reduce their sugar intake is first off - well done for wanting to do something! But also a reminder that they only need to cut enough to get them into the deficit they need.
Within their allotted calories if they've covered their bases with protein and got their micro nutrients dialed in, then if they want to make up the rest of their cals with sugar then do it, log it and enjoy it.
So to coin some phrases used by Alan Aragon, reduce your intake of junk food and limit your foods with empty calories!
The main thing is get into a calorie deficit!
Completely Subjective.
Thanks for stopping by, glad of your input!
How is that paragraph subjective - apart from quick energy what does sugar provide the body in regards to nutrition, or anything else for that matter?
You seem to think that it tasting good doesn't mean anything.
As for the overall premise of the OP. It's common knowledge. Read the recommendations of everyone that gives out advice. Generally it's hit your protein and fat minimums, and use carbs to fill out the rest. Generally that requires cutting back on carbs, especially for people who are eating low levels of protein and fat, because the deficit has to come from somewhere.
So it's not "cut back on sugar because it doesn't offer anything (because it does, lots of hormonal regulation is based on the behavior of insulin and sugar, anabolic hormones like igf-1 and hgh are regulated by carbs,) but because minimum amounts of protein and fat are required, and those amounts don't change when you want to create a calorie deficit (they are calculated based on body weight, not a percentage of total calories, after all.)0 -
tennisdude2004 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »Lots of threads on the forums have newbies posting topics wanting to reduce their sugar intake to lose weight, which is a good thing - after all a lot, if not most, people on MFP are here to lose weight!
Sadly the original intent and message from the OP gets lost in translation (not through their fault).
It seems as though any want to reduce your sugar intake gets met with 'sugars not the devil' and other mature catch phrases!
The truth is sugar isn't the devil, but then to be fair I'm not sure I've ever seen a thread which claims it is.
So why cut sugar? A large portion of people cutting sugar do it from a position of being over weight, so it stands to reason their calorie intake to calorie burn is out of whack and in a surplus.
As we all know and agree on the only way to lose weight is to eat in a calorie deficit. So those peps currently over weight and eating in a surplus have to cut some calories somewhere and whats the easiest and least important food group to do that with - Sugar.
So whats great about sugar - Nothing!!! Apart from giving the body a quick fix of energy (which it can easily get from more nutrient rich and beneficial food) it offers nothing!
What could be a better thing to cut, to get that calorie surplus into a deficit?
I think the message for newbies looking to reduce their sugar intake is first off - well done for wanting to do something! But also a reminder that they only need to cut enough to get them into the deficit they need.
Within their allotted calories if they've covered their bases with protein and got their micro nutrients dialed in, then if they want to make up the rest of their cals with sugar then do it, log it and enjoy it.
So to coin some phrases used by Alan Aragon, reduce your intake of junk food and limit your foods with empty calories!
The main thing is get into a calorie deficit!
Completely Subjective.
Thanks for stopping by, glad of your input!
How is that paragraph subjective - apart from quick energy what does sugar provide the body in regards to nutrition, or anything else for that matter?
You seem to think that it tasting good doesn't mean anything.
Now tasting good - that's something subjective
Well then we both made subjective statements.
Don't we always?
0 -
tigersword wrote: »
Or that energy is somehow unimportant. There's a very specific reason sugar tastes good to us. Because in general, it IS good for us. If it didn't offer us any advantage, we wouldn't taste it, or it would taste bad. For example, cats are carnivores, they don't have taste receptors that detect sugar at all.tennisdude2004 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »Lots of threads on the forums have newbies posting topics wanting to reduce their sugar intake to lose weight, which is a good thing - after all a lot, if not most, people on MFP are here to lose weight!
Sadly the original intent and message from the OP gets lost in translation (not through their fault).
It seems as though any want to reduce your sugar intake gets met with 'sugars not the devil' and other mature catch phrases!
The truth is sugar isn't the devil, but then to be fair I'm not sure I've ever seen a thread which claims it is.
So why cut sugar? A large portion of people cutting sugar do it from a position of being over weight, so it stands to reason their calorie intake to calorie burn is out of whack and in a surplus.
As we all know and agree on the only way to lose weight is to eat in a calorie deficit. So those peps currently over weight and eating in a surplus have to cut some calories somewhere and whats the easiest and least important food group to do that with - Sugar.
So whats great about sugar - Nothing!!! Apart from giving the body a quick fix of energy (which it can easily get from more nutrient rich and beneficial food) it offers nothing!
What could be a better thing to cut, to get that calorie surplus into a deficit?
I think the message for newbies looking to reduce their sugar intake is first off - well done for wanting to do something! But also a reminder that they only need to cut enough to get them into the deficit they need.
Within their allotted calories if they've covered their bases with protein and got their micro nutrients dialed in, then if they want to make up the rest of their cals with sugar then do it, log it and enjoy it.
So to coin some phrases used by Alan Aragon, reduce your intake of junk food and limit your foods with empty calories!
The main thing is get into a calorie deficit!
Completely Subjective.
Thanks for stopping by, glad of your input!
How is that paragraph subjective - apart from quick energy what does sugar provide the body in regards to nutrition, or anything else for that matter?
You seem to think that it tasting good doesn't mean anything.
Apart from a quick source of energy, which i have already eluded to - what does sugar provide the body that other food cannot? simple question.
We are obviously taking simple sugar here - because, whats his face (the blue dude) said in a thread a few days back that it obvious when we take about sugar we are taking about simple sugar and not complex sugars!
0 -
In the past I used to eat like 4 boxes of chocolate in a sitting and had that same mindset ("Oh I am just doing it this ONE time, after this no more!") lol.lemurcat12 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Sugar is the hardest thing to cut back on!!
That's subjective.
It's ironic (or not) that the anti-sugar people seem to be the most obsessed with it. Wonder if there's something about making something forbidden fruit that makes it irresistible. Hmm, what a strange, unheard-of idea, don't know what the genesis of it might be.
honest response to this, it is kind of strange to me to see how much less chocolate and candy I eat now that I don't put any restrictions on it and don't view it as something that will make me fat. Although I think it helps that I eat them within my calorie/macro needs. Still have plenty of halloween candy, and I bought a Snickers bar WEEKS ago and still haven't felt like eating it lol.
Yeah, it was kind of a serious point phrased in a jokey way, although I'm not claiming it's the same for everyone. I find that for me it's not terribly hard to not overeat or have sweets around for ages without eating them when I'm not thinking at the back of my head that this is my last opportunity (or last for a while). I never really binged, but in the past I've behaved in a more greedy/immoderate fashion at times that I know was related to that idea.
0 -
While I think your original post was too much of an over-generalization, I think if you took every new person on MFP and had them log their regular intake for a week, without changing anything, a lot of them would find that they eat a lot of extra calories from sugary (non-fruit) foods and it would be easy to start with cutting some of those out. I think a lot of people would find the same to be true about salty/fatty foods like chips, though, too. Those foods are all highly palatable, easy to obtain and don't usually require preparation -- you're not likely to find someone who logs their "normal" intake and finds that they're eating an extra 500 calories per day in carrots, but if you did, they'd lose weight by cutting out the carrots. By the same token, if someone doesn't naturally eat a lot of sugar, cutting it out isn't going to do a d@mn thing for their weight loss. There's nothing magical about sugar, it just tends to be an easy and cheap source of calories.0
-
In the past I used to eat like 4 boxes of chocolate in a sitting and had that same mindset ("Oh I am just doing it this ONE time, after this no more!") lol.lemurcat12 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Sugar is the hardest thing to cut back on!!
That's subjective.
It's ironic (or not) that the anti-sugar people seem to be the most obsessed with it. Wonder if there's something about making something forbidden fruit that makes it irresistible. Hmm, what a strange, unheard-of idea, don't know what the genesis of it might be.
honest response to this, it is kind of strange to me to see how much less chocolate and candy I eat now that I don't put any restrictions on it and don't view it as something that will make me fat. Although I think it helps that I eat them within my calorie/macro needs. Still have plenty of halloween candy, and I bought a Snickers bar WEEKS ago and still haven't felt like eating it lol.
Yeah, it was kind of a serious point phrased in a jokey way, although I'm not claiming it's the same for everyone. I find that for me it's not terribly hard to not overeat or have sweets around for ages without eating them when I'm not thinking at the back of my head that this is my last opportunity (or last for a while). I never really binged, but in the past I've behaved in a more greedy/immoderate fashion at times that I know was related to that idea.
So basically you reduced your calorie intake by cutting back on sugar?
0 -
In the past I used to eat like 4 boxes of chocolate in a sitting and had that same mindset ("Oh I am just doing it this ONE time, after this no more!") lol.lemurcat12 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Sugar is the hardest thing to cut back on!!
That's subjective.
It's ironic (or not) that the anti-sugar people seem to be the most obsessed with it. Wonder if there's something about making something forbidden fruit that makes it irresistible. Hmm, what a strange, unheard-of idea, don't know what the genesis of it might be.
honest response to this, it is kind of strange to me to see how much less chocolate and candy I eat now that I don't put any restrictions on it and don't view it as something that will make me fat. Although I think it helps that I eat them within my calorie/macro needs. Still have plenty of halloween candy, and I bought a Snickers bar WEEKS ago and still haven't felt like eating it lol.
Yeah, it was kind of a serious point phrased in a jokey way, although I'm not claiming it's the same for everyone. I find that for me it's not terribly hard to not overeat or have sweets around for ages without eating them when I'm not thinking at the back of my head that this is my last opportunity (or last for a while). I never really binged, but in the past I've behaved in a more greedy/immoderate fashion at times that I know was related to that idea.
I used to consider a candy bar a serving of chocolate. They last for days or sometimes a week if you eat one serving at a time.
0 -
tennisdude2004 wrote: »My point is you don't have to!
Within their allotted calories if they've covered their bases with protein and got their micro nutrients dialed in, then if they want to make up the rest of their cals with sugar then do it, log it and enjoy it.tennisdude2004 wrote: »So whats great about sugar - Nothing!!! Apart from giving the body a quick fix of energy (which it can easily get from more nutrient rich and beneficial food) it offers nothing!
What could be a better thing to cut, to get that calorie surplus into a deficit?
Except for I stopped reading right here.0 -
I had a doctor who was convinced that my weight gain was caused by sugary drinks and pops (sodas). After all, you can hide a lot of calories in there! But I had been an (educated) diabetic for years, and my entire day's consumption was half a cup's orange juice in the morning. He pounced on that.
Nope.
No easy fixes here, buddy. I don't care what articles you've read lately!0 -
tigersword wrote: »
Or that energy is somehow unimportant. There's a very specific reason sugar tastes good to us. Because in general, it IS good for us. If it didn't offer us any advantage, we wouldn't taste it, or it would taste bad. For example, cats are carnivores, they don't have taste receptors that detect sugar at all.tennisdude2004 wrote: »tennisdude2004 wrote: »Lots of threads on the forums have newbies posting topics wanting to reduce their sugar intake to lose weight, which is a good thing - after all a lot, if not most, people on MFP are here to lose weight!
Sadly the original intent and message from the OP gets lost in translation (not through their fault).
It seems as though any want to reduce your sugar intake gets met with 'sugars not the devil' and other mature catch phrases!
The truth is sugar isn't the devil, but then to be fair I'm not sure I've ever seen a thread which claims it is.
So why cut sugar? A large portion of people cutting sugar do it from a position of being over weight, so it stands to reason their calorie intake to calorie burn is out of whack and in a surplus.
As we all know and agree on the only way to lose weight is to eat in a calorie deficit. So those peps currently over weight and eating in a surplus have to cut some calories somewhere and whats the easiest and least important food group to do that with - Sugar.
So whats great about sugar - Nothing!!! Apart from giving the body a quick fix of energy (which it can easily get from more nutrient rich and beneficial food) it offers nothing!
What could be a better thing to cut, to get that calorie surplus into a deficit?
I think the message for newbies looking to reduce their sugar intake is first off - well done for wanting to do something! But also a reminder that they only need to cut enough to get them into the deficit they need.
Within their allotted calories if they've covered their bases with protein and got their micro nutrients dialed in, then if they want to make up the rest of their cals with sugar then do it, log it and enjoy it.
So to coin some phrases used by Alan Aragon, reduce your intake of junk food and limit your foods with empty calories!
The main thing is get into a calorie deficit!
Completely Subjective.
Thanks for stopping by, glad of your input!
How is that paragraph subjective - apart from quick energy what does sugar provide the body in regards to nutrition, or anything else for that matter?
You seem to think that it tasting good doesn't mean anything.
As for the overall premise of the OP. It's common knowledge. Read the recommendations of everyone that gives out advice. Generally it's hit your protein and fat minimums, and use carbs to fill out the rest. Generally that requires cutting back on carbs, especially for people who are eating low levels of protein and fat, because the deficit has to come from somewhere.
So it's not "cut back on sugar because it doesn't offer anything (because it does, lots of hormonal regulation is based on the behavior of insulin and sugar, anabolic hormones like igf-1 and hgh are regulated by carbs,) but because minimum amounts of protein and fat are required, and those amounts don't change when you want to create a calorie deficit (they are calculated based on body weight, not a percentage of total calories, after all.)
Insulin is also spiked by protein - but if you cared to re-read my original post I am not suggesting eliminating sugar.
I am suggesting that once you've covered your protein and micro nutrients eat all the damn sugar you want.
I'm just suggesting cutting back on sugar to get you to that deficit - seriously re-read the OP.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 392K Introduce Yourself
- 43.6K Getting Started
- 259.8K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.7K Food and Nutrition
- 47.4K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 403 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.8K Motivation and Support
- 7.9K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.4K MyFitnessPal Information
- 23 News and Announcements
- 999 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.4K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions