Tracking sugar but loving fruit

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  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,411 MFP Moderator
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    elsie6hickman wrote: »
    Rather than cutting sugar, perhaps you should be cutting carbs which turn to sugar in the body. Good fresh fruits for that are peaches, cherries, grapes, oranges, apples, pears. Until my husband was diagnosed with Type 2, and we went to a class that spent 4 hours on food, measuring, weighing and correctly reporting, I was never so aware of the need for healthy sugars, which create energy.

    Just to be clear, your body can and does, convert fats and proteins into glucose. Its through a process called glucenogenesis.

    OP, you are doing a great job. Try not to overly stress on this.
  • missblondi2u
    missblondi2u Posts: 851 Member
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    Psychgrrl wrote: »
    I track fiber instead of sugar. Most people don't get enough fiber and it is important for health. Most of my sugar comes from fruit, so I don't worry too much. Which is good because summer fruit!

    See, most of my sugar did not come from fruit. It came from things like Snickers and Dr. Pepper (of course), but also from salad dressings and peanut butter and other places I didn't even think about. So taking the time to pay attention to my sugar total has proven useful to me.
  • Millicent3015
    Millicent3015 Posts: 374 Member
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    The naturally occurring sugar present in fruit is processed more slowly than added sugar, and releases glucose gradually, which is why you don't get sugar highs from fruit. You're also taking time to eat the whole fruit which has fibre and vitamins. I have 2-3 portions of fruit a day, occasionally 4, and I do look at the total from the Sugar column, but as most of mine comes from naturally occurring sugars I don't get too wound up over it. I'm T2 diabetic so I have to watch my added sugars, but if you don't have any medical issues, aren't on a very low carb diet (where you have fruit and veg low in natural sugars), and just want to lower your added sugars intake, you don't really have to restrict fruit, veg, milk or complex carbs. I wouldn't have too many bananas in a day, as they're high in potassium, but two to three portions of fruit a day, eg a natural handful of grapes, strawberries or cherries/a medium apple, orange or pear/two average size plums or satsumas, should be fine.
  • missblondi2u
    missblondi2u Posts: 851 Member
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    Millicent3015 wrote: »
    if you don't have any medical issues, aren't on a very low carb diet (where you have fruit and veg low in natural sugars), and just want to lower your added sugars intake, you don't really have to restrict fruit, veg, milk or complex carbs.

    I agree with this, but how do you track that added sugar when fruit is part of your diet. You have to take the total sugar number and subtract out all your fruit, which is a pain. If the sugar from fruit isn't something I'm worried about, why not just take that sugar out of the equation by not logging it under sugar?
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,411 MFP Moderator
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    missblondi2u wrote: »
    Millicent3015 wrote: »
    if you don't have any medical issues, aren't on a very low carb diet (where you have fruit and veg low in natural sugars), and just want to lower your added sugars intake, you don't really have to restrict fruit, veg, milk or complex carbs.

    I agree with this, but how do you track that added sugar when fruit is part of your diet. You have to take the total sugar number and subtract out all your fruit, which is a pain. If the sugar from fruit isn't something I'm worried about, why not just take that sugar out of the equation by not logging it under sugar?

    You cant track the difference until the food labels are updated to show the difference.
  • missblondi2u
    missblondi2u Posts: 851 Member
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    psuLemon wrote: »
    You cant track the difference until the food labels are updated to show the difference.

    Well, that's why I, in my original post, my strategy is to log the fruit but delete the sugar in the log entry. That gives me a more useful number to work with.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,411 MFP Moderator
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    missblondi2u wrote: »
    psuLemon wrote: »
    You cant track the difference until the food labels are updated to show the difference.

    Well, that's why I, in my original post, my strategy is to log the fruit but delete the sugar in the log entry. That gives me a more useful number to work with.

    You can create a food category for fruit and another for others. So like a breakfast, lunch, dinner, fruit/veggies, and than treats. Than you can kind of look at the categories.

    Where it gets a little unique is things like flavored Greek yogurts, etc where its a mox of both.
  • missblondi2u
    missblondi2u Posts: 851 Member
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    psuLemon wrote: »
    You can create a food category for fruit and another for others. So like a breakfast, lunch, dinner, fruit/veggies, and than treats. Than you can kind of look at the categories.

    Where it gets a little unique is things like flavored Greek yogurts, etc where its a mox of both.

    I like the idea of separating my fruits and veggies, especially to see what percentage of my calories they represent. I would still have to subtract the sugar from my fruit/veg from the total, but it would be easier with them all grouped together. Thanks for the suggestion!
  • teranga79
    teranga79 Posts: 202 Member
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    Was just wondering about this myself. I'm over my mfp sugar target every single day, and a huge chunk of that comes from sugar. I'm not too concerned about it though - some of it also comes from chocolate (every single day - yum!) and I'm not too worried about that either :smile: Have just eaten an amazing bowl of fruit salad and will no doubt be having the same again this evening - how could anyone say no to those colours?!
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    elsie6hickman wrote: »
    collectingblues wrote: »
    elsie6hickman wrote: »
    Rather than cutting sugar, perhaps you should be cutting carbs which turn to sugar in the body. Good fresh fruits for that are peaches, cherries, grapes, oranges, apples, pears. Until my husband was diagnosed with Type 2, and we went to a class that spent 4 hours on food, measuring, weighing and correctly reporting, I was never so aware of the need for healthy sugars, which create energy.

    All carbs turn to sugar. Some just take longer than others. Which they should have covered in your class.

    Yes, they did. But the fruits I mentioned are slow burners and won't spike your blood sugar. I'm not sure where you are coming from. I think my first sentence acknowledged this. What am I not getting?

    OP isn't limiting sugar to control her blood sugar, she's doing it as part of an overall strategy to limit her calories.
  • missblondi2u
    missblondi2u Posts: 851 Member
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    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    My dog ate my sugar today, so that ended up lower than I was expecting. I wanted to enjoy the last of a watermelon and a few strawberries then put the plate down on a low side table and left to answer the door. Came back to an empty plate. Thankfully I hadn't eaten any of it yet. I would have been so peeved if I ate some and didn't know how much to log. Well, at least I know he cares. I pretty sure he cleaned the plate because he didn't want me to eat all that sugar.

    Kidding aside, I see no value in tracking sugar. Whether it's added or naturally occurring, the correlation with weight gain is only because people consume foods that are high in added sugar (and fat) excessively without controlling their calories. For those people, getting less added sugar may (or may not) result in fewer calories. For us calorie counters added sugar is a near meaningless number.

    Everyone knows a candy bar has sugar. Not everyone knows some salad dressings have a couple of grams of sugar, but what does that mean in terms of dieting? Nothing if the dressing is logged and the calories are accounted for.

    You do you, as they say. But for me, limiting my sugar has made it much easier to stick to my calorie budget. I'm hitting my nutrients, enjoying fruits and veggies like never before, and just feeling better overall. And that's not meaningless to me. I can still be "one of us calorie counters" who also eats less sugar. I am not pushing low sugar on anyone, or even asking for anyone's opinion on sugar consumption frankly.

    Cute dog story though.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
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    missblondi2u wrote: »
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    My dog ate my sugar today, so that ended up lower than I was expecting. I wanted to enjoy the last of a watermelon and a few strawberries then put the plate down on a low side table and left to answer the door. Came back to an empty plate. Thankfully I hadn't eaten any of it yet. I would have been so peeved if I ate some and didn't know how much to log. Well, at least I know he cares. I pretty sure he cleaned the plate because he didn't want me to eat all that sugar.

    Kidding aside, I see no value in tracking sugar. Whether it's added or naturally occurring, the correlation with weight gain is only because people consume foods that are high in added sugar (and fat) excessively without controlling their calories. For those people, getting less added sugar may (or may not) result in fewer calories. For us calorie counters added sugar is a near meaningless number.

    Everyone knows a candy bar has sugar. Not everyone knows some salad dressings have a couple of grams of sugar, but what does that mean in terms of dieting? Nothing if the dressing is logged and the calories are accounted for.

    You do you, as they say. But for me, limiting my sugar has made it much easier to stick to my calorie budget. I'm hitting my nutrients, enjoying fruits and veggies like never before, and just feeling better overall. And that's not meaningless to me. I can still be "one of us calorie counters" who also eats less sugar. I am not pushing low sugar on anyone, or even asking for anyone's opinion on sugar consumption frankly.

    Cute dog story though.

    Don't get me wrong, I never said you should eat all the sugar you can get your hands on. Food choices are very important to every individual's satiety. What I'm saying that focusing on foods is much more productive than fussing over added sugar numbers, regardless of how you choose to eat. The number itself is not important.

    Choosing a piece of fruit over a candy bar is a valid choice that makes a real difference for some people. Choosing a salad dressing because it has 1 less gram of sugar than another brand is also a valid choice, but one that makes much less of a difference, if any. If checking every gram of added sugar in every random item becomes bothersome or stressful, it's even detrimental l to the diet. If someone is making things harder for themselves by jumping through hoops to differentiate between existing and added sugar, it's just unnecessary.

    With that said, if it doesn't bother you, keep doing it. I just wanted to put it out there for anyone who feels stressed by this that it's unnecessary.
  • missblondi2u
    missblondi2u Posts: 851 Member
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    I will have to respectfully disagree with the two posts above. I am a data person, so I do see value in tracking numbers, especially to see the changes over time and draw conclusions based on those changes.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    missblondi2u wrote: »
    I will have to respectfully disagree with the two posts above. I am a data person, so I do see value in tracking numbers, especially to see the changes over time and draw conclusions based on those changes.

    I thought you weren't going to track numbers exactly though . . . I thought the point was that you decided not to count the sugar in certain foods.

  • julubeet
    julubeet Posts: 14 Member
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    Psychgrrl wrote: »
    I track fiber instead of sugar. Most people don't get enough fiber and it is important for health. Most of my sugar comes from fruit, so I don't worry too much. Which is good because summer fruit!

    Thanks for sharing this. I have recently come back to fruit. I was doing a paleo diet and fruit was the enemy. Fruit was bad and fat was good. I threw all of that logic out the window. I've not ever had one single fruit binge in my entire lifetime and why I gave fruit up is beyond me now. Fruit has enzymes that vegetables don't have. I was told that there was nothing in fruit that I couldn't get out of a vegetable. I don't believe that anymore.

    The rigidity of a fruitless life was messing with my head. I was told it was alright to eat cheat meals with refined carbs but fruit was the enemy. Stay away from fruit. So I opted to stop those cheat meals and go back to fruit. I don't eat 10 apples in one sitting or bowls of cantaloupe.

    Everything about food was becoming so complicated. It shouldn't have to be that way. Overthinking everything and every food group. I'm not going to eliminate any of them ever again.
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
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    julubeet wrote: »
    Psychgrrl wrote: »
    I track fiber instead of sugar. Most people don't get enough fiber and it is important for health. Most of my sugar comes from fruit, so I don't worry too much. Which is good because summer fruit!

    Thanks for sharing this. I have recently come back to fruit. I was doing a paleo diet and fruit was the enemy. Fruit was bad and fat was good. I threw all of that logic out the window. I've not ever had one single fruit binge in my entire lifetime and why I gave fruit up is beyond me now. Fruit has enzymes that vegetables don't have. I was told that there was nothing in fruit that I couldn't get out of a vegetable. I don't believe that anymore.

    The rigidity of a fruitless life was messing with my head. I was told it was alright to eat cheat meals with refined carbs but fruit was the enemy. Stay away from fruit. So I opted to stop those cheat meals and go back to fruit. I don't eat 10 apples in one sitting or bowls of cantaloupe.

    Everything about food was becoming so complicated. It shouldn't have to be that way. Overthinking everything and every food group. I'm not going to eliminate any of them ever again.

    Welcome to the Flexible Dieting club! It's liberating, isn't it?
  • PaulChasinDreams
    PaulChasinDreams Posts: 439 Member
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    missblondi2u wrote: »
    Greetings! I have been retooling my diet to cut added sugar as much as possible, with a goal of staying under about 20 grams per day. Now that I've found good low sugar substitutes for my bread, salad dressing, etc., and adapted to black coffee, it's actually been easier than I anticipated. Without having to make room for all the sweet treats I used to enjoy daily, like the 300+ calorie Haagen Daz I would eat after dinner, I feel like I can eat so much more food while staying in my calorie budget.

    I've never been much of a fruit eater, but now that my palate is changing I'm starting to crave so many new things, and I'm reaching for the fruit bowl more and more. The tree-ripened peach I had the the other day, for example, was one of the most heavenly things I've ever eaten, but it weighed in at over 9 ounces and had over 20 grams of sugar by itself. I know that eating fruit is good for me, and I don't want to obsess so much over the number in my sugar column that I deprive myself of the nutritional joy that is fruit, but that number is still important to me.

    The solution I've come up with is to edit entries for the fruits I eat by deleting the number in the sugar column. It will still log the carbs, but my sugar total will more accurately reflect added sugar, which is what I'm really interested in. I realize there is also natural sugar in things like nuts and dairy, but I'm less worried about those because the amounts aren't nearly as high as for fruit.

    I'd be interested in people's thoughts on this strategy. Thanks!

    I'm with ya! Love fruit big time. They are one of my favorite foods of all. As part of my WOE I too reduce the amount of sugar I take in. I vary it through out the week but am quite low for sugar intake. On some days I chose to take in my sugars in the way of fruits and or fruits with home made ice cream for treats. When I do consume fruits I eat mostly berries and peaches and nectarines cause we grow them on our property, they are lower in sugar than a lot of other fruits and they taste amazing! Whatever works for you and drops the fat and keeps you healthy is the way to go!!

    Here's an example of some of the sugar concentration levels in some fruits. They aren't all on this list but it's the basics to give you an idea...

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