Were you shocked at how much you were consuming??

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NadNight
NadNight Posts: 794 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I'm terrible at logging and I'm not overweight, I eat how I please so I don't bother with it. However I do know that I eat more sugar than I should. Over the last few days I've logged properly and I'm shocked at the quantity of sugar I'm eating. 114, 147 and 181 g in a day! That's 2 to 3 times MORE than I should have! And before I cut sugar out of my tea I used to be having an extra 50 g a day on top of that. That's mind blowing. And I wonder why I'm always so tired and sluggish....

Anyone else not realise how bad their diet was until they really looked at it?
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Replies

  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    honestly unless you have any specific reason to avoid sugar - you don't need to stress about it significantly - its just the latest diet boogieman
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    there are a whole host of issues that can cause T2D - the nutrition team I work has a exercise physiologist who focuses specifically on diabetes and diseases that affect your metabolism
  • EatLikeAHuman
    EatLikeAHuman Posts: 30 Member
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    When I started MFP I logged my food as I normally ate without judgement. I was absolutely flabbergasted at how much I was actually eating.
  • WonderWoman5304
    WonderWoman5304 Posts: 2 Member
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    I am struggling to eat better. I think I've made a good choice and then when I log it, horrible. Learning is always in progress.
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  • geneticsteacher
    geneticsteacher Posts: 623 Member
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    I was teaching a Nutrition class and required my students to log a week of eating. I decided to join them. We had discussed portion size, nutrient content, etc. I guessed I was eating around 1,800 calories/per day. Turns out I was averaging 2,200 - 2,400 every day.
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,595 Member
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    motivatedmartha wrote: »
    deannalfisher wrote: »
    honestly unless you have any specific reason to avoid sugar - you don't need to stress about it significantly - its just the latest diet boogieman

    Although if your sugar intake is very high your health and future wellbeing may be better served if you get those calories from elsewhere. Type 2 diabetes doesn't just hit the overweight.

    I would say I eat more sugar than most and my grandmother was diabetic (has the skipping a generation rule changed?). I'm also old and have had a lot of time for all that sugar to catch up to me. But, I'm a healthy weight and my last blood tests came back normal.

    So....there. :p
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,742 Member
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    EatLikeAHuman wrote: »
    When I started MFP I logged my food as I normally ate without judgement. I was absolutely flabbergasted at how much I was actually eating.

    Same here, and I found that really there were just a handful of culprits causing it. At least weekly for years, I'd made frozen bean burritos with cheese and a side of Spanish rice & black olives as a meal and ate 2X the portion I should have, which made it equivalent to FOUR MEALS of a size I "should" be eating. Also, lattes, mochas, and 2% milk in big glasses. Just cutting those things was so helpful!

  • midlomel1971
    midlomel1971 Posts: 1,283 Member
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    omg, yes! I sat down once and calculated how many calories I would eat in a normal day and teh grams of sugar. It was shocking. I honestly don't know how I wasn't in a diabetic coma and how it was possible that I wasn't 400 pounds. Honestly, I ate upwards of 3,000 calories a day for years and years.
  • CarvedTones
    CarvedTones Posts: 2,340 Member
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    I am the contrarian. No - I was not at all surprised. I knew I was putting on the feedbag sometimes. I always ate a little too much and sometimes I binged. I wasn't blind to it.
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
    edited May 2018
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    midlomel1971 wrote: »
    omg, yes! I sat down once and calculated how many calories I would eat in a normal day and teh grams of sugar. It was shocking. I honestly don't know how I wasn't in a diabetic coma and how it was possible that I wasn't 400 pounds. Honestly, I ate upwards of 3,000 calories a day for years and years.

    i eat 3000cal on avg a day (5'3", 160lbs) and weight stable - there is nothing wrong with that...

    if you were eating that much and not gaining huge amounts of weight, then its likely you were at/close to a maintenance number
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
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    motivatedmartha wrote: »
    deannalfisher wrote: »
    honestly unless you have any specific reason to avoid sugar - you don't need to stress about it significantly - its just the latest diet boogieman

    Although if your sugar intake is very high your health and future wellbeing may be better served if you get those calories from elsewhere. Type 2 diabetes doesn't just hit the overweight.

    if over consumption of sugar caused diabetes then I should have it by now. I used to consume a LOT of sugar over the years. there were times I would drink a 12 pack of soda in a day if the mood struck me. I was even obese which is what bought me here and never became diabetic or even pre-diabetic. I still am not at 43 years of age. diabetes can also be genetic and caused by a genetic defect as well. not just being overweight. and I became obese due to overeating fruits and veggies because I can eat a lot of those things in one sitting. I can eat 3lbs of cherries or more and not feel full. it caused me to eat over my maintenance therefore I gained weight. I was told fruits and veggies didnt lead to weight gain. boy were they wrong.
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
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    midlomel1971 wrote: »
    omg, yes! I sat down once and calculated how many calories I would eat in a normal day and teh grams of sugar. It was shocking. I honestly don't know how I wasn't in a diabetic coma and how it was possible that I wasn't 400 pounds. Honestly, I ate upwards of 3,000 calories a day for years and years.

    diabetic coma wont happen unless you are diabetic and dont watch your blood glucose and dont treat it properly. diet plays a part too. but if you arent diabetic there will be no diabetic coma.
  • workinonit1956
    workinonit1956 Posts: 1,043 Member
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    This morning I was at the eye doctor picking up my son’s contact lenses and one of the doctors was saying to the other ladies at the desk that “every meal she has made lately has so many calories” and I said to her—it’s a real eye opener when you count calories isn’t it?
    When I started logging I added up a former typical day for me and was flabbergasted. No wonder I was obese.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
    edited May 2018
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    My biggest shock was how many forgotten random bites I used to eat. I wouldn't remember even a fraction of them, but once I logged every single one of them I found I had about 800 calories in random bites alone that don't even register to memory for me. Having to log nibbles throughout the day was so annoying that I found myself cutting down on them significantly just so I don't have to log them.

    I don't recall ever tracking sugar, by my sugar habits haven't changed much. Looking at my reports for the past week, I apparently average 70-80 grams. The food that contributed most to my sugar in the last 90 days is...wait for it... TOMATOES! Now that's a shock.

    ETA: these are the foods that had most grams of sugar in the past 90 days, and this is an under-estimation because I had many days logged elsewhere, not on this app. I ate almost a kilo of sugar from tomatoes. I don't know why this is so amusing to me.
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  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
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    Other than my soda habit, my diet wasn't really that horrible. It was lacking in veg and fruit...maybe one or two servings per day when I started and that was probably the worst aspect of my diet. I gave up my soda habit long before MFP so I don't know how much sugar I was consuming. Other than the sodas, I'm not much into sweet stuff and actually eat very little sugar, most of which comes from fruit and veg.

    Calorie wise I take in about the same now in maintenance as I did when I was overweight, but I'm far more active.
  • HarveysBud
    HarveysBud Posts: 420 Member
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    NadNight wrote: »
    I'm terrible at logging and I'm not overweight, I eat how I please so I don't bother with it. However I do know that I eat more sugar than I should. Over the last few days I've logged properly and I'm shocked at the quantity of sugar I'm eating. 114, 147 and 181 g in a day! That's 2 to 3 times MORE than I should have! And before I cut sugar out of my tea I used to be having an extra 50 g a day on top of that. That's mind blowing. And I wonder why I'm always so tired and sluggish....

    Anyone else not realise how bad their diet was until they really looked at it?

    It's was shocking. I was never a huge eater, but more of a drinker. I was blown when I logged a weekend of shenanigans!
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    Biggster69 wrote: »
    Sounds like its the right thing to eat a ton of sugar. No thanks!

    point me to the EXACT comment in this post where someone said that...please! no one has said go and eat a ton of sugar - just that it shouldn't be demonized...i.e. if you eat a ton of fruit - you are probably going to consume a ton of sugar
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,966 Member
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    No. I wasn't shocked. I really wasn't eating massive amounts more than maintenance. Heck, most days I was eating at maintenance or below. It's just that averaging 100 to 200 kcal below maintenance per day during the week wasn't enough to make up for eating 500 to 1,000 kcals above maintenance on many weekend days, plus full weeks at 500 to 1000 kcal daily surpluses during vacation, so over the years and decades the weight kept creeping up, with the occasional retrenching during a "diet" that would bring some temporary success before the upward trend would recommence.

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