Fruit Sugar question

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Cherriblossom
Cherriblossom Posts: 5
in Health and Weight Loss
My daily intake goals have me set at 24 grams of sugar per day. I love fruit. I ate a banana with my breakfast and now it tells me I only have 2 grams left of sugar for the whole day. I am not sure whether to cut out some of the fruit or if I should just know that bananas are healthy and ignore that part of the daily goal?

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  • JakeBrownVB
    JakeBrownVB Posts: 399 Member
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    my fitness pals macro nutrients are dumb. They set too low protein goals, too low sugar goals, too high carb goals and kinda get fats/sodium ok.

    Ignore ALL of the goals MFP set (except calories) and just get 1g of protein per pound of your bodyweight, eats fruits and veg and anything else that fits your calories.
  • Acg67
    Acg67 Posts: 12,142 Member
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    My daily intake goals have me set at 24 grams of sugar per day. I love fruit. I ate a banana with my breakfast and now it tells me I only have 2 grams left of sugar for the whole day. I am not sure whether to cut out some of the fruit or if I should just know that bananas are healthy and ignore that part of the daily goal?

    Bananas are one of the 5 foods to never eat...
  • Cherriblossom
    Cherriblossom Posts: 5
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    Good to know!! I was so confused! I will do that :)
  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
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    MFP settings seems to match those set by the Institute of Medicine. They are not stupid, but they are meant for the mass population, which includes a lot of people with disease that warrants limiting sugar.

    If you have no reason to limit sugar, then you likely don't need to worry about sugar naturally found in fruits. Personally, when it comes to carbs I worry more about fiber than sugar. I make sure my fiber is high and don't track sugar.
  • patentguru
    patentguru Posts: 312 Member
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    My daily intake goals have me set at 24 grams of sugar per day. I love fruit. I ate a banana with my breakfast and now it tells me I only have 2 grams left of sugar for the whole day. I am not sure whether to cut out some of the fruit or if I should just know that bananas are healthy and ignore that part of the daily goal?

    Bananas are one of the 5 foods to never eat...

    OK I will take the bait. Why not? I eat at least one banana a day.
  • BarackMeLikeAHurricane
    BarackMeLikeAHurricane Posts: 3,400 Member
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    Sugar is just a carb. As long as you're eating enough fats and protein, your carbs/sugar aren't particularly important unless you have a medical issue that requires carbs/sugar to be monitored.

    However, it should be noted that fructose and sucrose can only be stored as liver glycogen and not muscle glycogen. The liver can hold 100-120g glycogen so anything more than that will be converted to triglycerides. As long as you still have a calorie deficit this will even out. Just try to make most of your carbs glucose and not sucrose or fructose. Fructose in particular has been shown to decrease exercise performance, increased likelihood of gastrointestinal distress, and increase perception of exertion.

    Here are some studies:
    http://www.setantacollege.com/wp-content/uploads/Journal_db/the effects of glucose....pdf

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3592616


    As long as you're under your calorie goal, you'll lose weight. Some people find that sugar (even from fruit) causes them to have more sugar/carb cravings so keep that in mind.

    For information on setting your macro target, read this: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/911011-calculating-calorie-macronutrient-needs?page=1#posts-13821336
  • HollieDollieeeex
    HollieDollieeeex Posts: 116 Member
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    My daily intake goals have me set at 24 grams of sugar per day. I love fruit. I ate a banana with my breakfast and now it tells me I only have 2 grams left of sugar for the whole day. I am not sure whether to cut out some of the fruit or if I should just know that bananas are healthy and ignore that part of the daily goal?

    Bananas are one of the 5 foods to never eat...

    OK I will take the bait. Why not? I eat at least one banana a day.

    me too, why is this?
  • saxmaniac
    saxmaniac Posts: 1,133 Member
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    Sugar is a carb.

    There is no reason to limit it separately from carbs, even if you have diabetes, because your body is amazingly adept at turning all carbs into glucose.

    Counting sugar is pointless.
  • RhonndaJ
    RhonndaJ Posts: 1,615 Member
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    My daily intake goals have me set at 24 grams of sugar per day. I love fruit. I ate a banana with my breakfast and now it tells me I only have 2 grams left of sugar for the whole day. I am not sure whether to cut out some of the fruit or if I should just know that bananas are healthy and ignore that part of the daily goal?

    Bananas are one of the 5 foods to never eat...

    OK I will take the bait. Why not? I eat at least one banana a day.

    me too, why is this?

    It isn't. He's having you on.
  • saxmaniac
    saxmaniac Posts: 1,133 Member
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    OK I will take the bait. Why not? I eat at least one banana a day.

    I think it's a common MFP ad, which is obviously incorrect.
  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
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    Sugar is a carb.

    There is no reason to limit it separately from carbs, even if you have diabetes, because your body is amazingly adept at turning all carbs into glucose.

    Counting sugar is pointless.

    I think most any endocrinologist would disagree with the above.
  • saxmaniac
    saxmaniac Posts: 1,133 Member
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    I think most any endocrinologist would disagree with the above.

    Then that endocrinologist should go back to school and learn modern insulin dosing and technology, and not rely on information that's 30 years old and proven obsolete.

    My son has type 1 diabetes and I've been managing it better than most endocrinologists. An endocrinologist has to deal with many other conditions including diabetes, where I live it 24/7. They oversee the care and write prescriptions, but they can't manage it day to day.

    I also have a Dexcom G4 continuous glucose monitor attached to my son (the very latest generation of the technology that was only released a few months ago), I might add, so I can watch the blood-sguar effect of sugars vs. non-sugar carbs in real time... and they are identical.

    Oh, and my wife and I have both worn it ourselves, too. Just to see how it works on non-diabetics.

    Perhaps you should read a book on the topic. I've read about 10 of them. Here's a few off the top of my head:

    Think Like a Pancreas, Gary Scheiner
    Using Insulin, John Walsh
    Pumping Insulin, John Walsh
    Type 1 Diabetes, Ragnar Hanas

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