Bananas and fruit sugar in general?
OAS5
Posts: 376 Member
I eat three bananas a day sometimes, always one at least but sometimes 2 or 3. Obviously that puts me over on sugar every time with the app. I just ignore that because its natural sugar in fruit with all types of other benefits. I have lost 70 pounds doing things like this but I would like to know what you guys think. Fruit natural sugar good, not good? Going over sugar for the day because of natural sugar bad or not? In general what do you think?
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Replies
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I ignore sugar. If I’m good on calories, protein, fiber and fat, I’m set.21
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I eat two or three a day, too, and had the same worry. Even googled to see if too many bananas were bad for me.
Ultimately I realized it’s all relative. As long as I’m under calorie goal, fruit sugars are probably a darn sight better than those family sized sacks of M&Ms I used to knock off, a sack a day.
Pre-MFP, I loathed bananas. Now they are the food of the gods - when smoothy-fied.13 -
I'd ignore. I keep an eye on added sugar, but otherwise, so long as my protein and fiber are in check, and cals of course, don't care. There's nothing credible suggesting intrinsic sugar should be a concern.11
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Cavallaro65 wrote: »I eat three bananas a day sometimes, always one at least but sometimes 2 or 3. Obviously that puts me over on sugar every time with the app. I just ignore that because its natural sugar in fruit with all types of other benefits. I have lost 70 pounds doing things like this but I would like to know what you guys think. Fruit natural sugar good, not good? Going over sugar for the day because of natural sugar bad or not? In general what do you think?
I wouldn't start second guessing yourself after such a successful loss.
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Cavallaro65 wrote: »I eat three bananas a day sometimes, always one at least but sometimes 2 or 3. Obviously that puts me over on sugar every time with the app. I just ignore that because its natural sugar in fruit with all types of other benefits. I have lost 70 pounds doing things like this but I would like to know what you guys think. Fruit natural sugar good, not good? Going over sugar for the day because of natural sugar bad or not? In general what do you think?
No source of sugar is inherently good or bad, it is all about the context of your overall diet. You have had great success, Congrats! If what you have been eating works for you, if you feel good and have the energy needed to enjoy your life, if all your health markers are good, just keep doing what you are doing.8 -
Thanks guys, appreciate the replies. I agree with all said here. I kinda best myself up just a bit over sugar but I guess based on this I shouldn't. I love bananas by the way. I switched to organic and love them even more.1
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Cavallaro65 wrote: »Thanks guys, appreciate the replies. I agree with all said here. I kinda best myself up just a bit over sugar but I guess based on this I shouldn't. I love bananas by the way. I switched to organic and love them even more.
Sugar is the evil du jour. Don't beat yourself up. Many people ignore it all together. Many of those are T2 diabetics where overall carb totals are more important to track than sugar.8 -
Eating fruit is healthy. Congratulations on losing 70 pounds!!7
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Thank you guys for the replies. I love bananas so I can't give them up, sugar or not.4
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I eat a banana every day. Lost 1/2 my body weight. Everything in moderation and staying within my calorie budget. No food is off limits. I’m on a melon kick right now.
Congratulations on doing so well with your weight loss!5 -
I love bananas also. I often eat about 2 per day. So versatile.1
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There is nothing wrong with sugar as long as you keep within your allotted calories. As you have successfully lost weight, it certainly seems you are doing that. Fruit is very nutritious, and getting fruit is certainly better from a health perspective than not having it.8
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nobody ever got fat from eating fruit. dont stress.
As for the sugar, fruits have inherently more fibre so control your blood sugar levels more effectively.
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Thanks guys, appreciate all the replies and kind words. It's so fun to eat right, wish I had started 10 years ago. I have so much food to choose from that is healthy and tastes amazing. No need to suffer eating bad food Nutrisystem or anything like that.5
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I eat at least one banana every day, it's like a Greek tragedy in my home when I wake up and realize the bananas I had went brown overnight, what with the wailing and profanity.
Plus now that it's summer in my neck of the woods, the cantaloupes and watermelon are cheaper, fresh berries are a barely affordable indulgence, and the first batch of decent looking nectarines just arrived at the grocery, I'll be knee deep in fruit sugar for a couple of months.
I track sugar as a curiosity, but only really notice it if I'm over calories and trying to figure out why.12 -
I love bananas! Unfortunately, my tummy will only allow me one a day. Otherwise I'd eat a bunch a day.1
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Mmm bananas! I eat at least one every day. Lost weight just fine:)0
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I swapped out Sugar and Sodium for Fiber and Iron, as those are more useful for me to track.3
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kshama2001 wrote: »I swapped out Sugar and Sodium for Fiber and Iron, as those are more useful for me to track.
Just did this exact swap myself. Although, now I can see that my iron intake is very low. Guess I'll start working on that!0 -
You only need to worry about the type of sugar if you've got a medical condition that requires you to limit it. For example, I have gout and need to watch my fructose intake. And the sugar in a banana is about half fructose. I still have bananas, just have to make sure I don't have too many. As long as you're not diabetic or gouty, I think you're cool.0
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My dad was told many years ago not to eat too many bananas. Something to do with potassium but I cant remember why.3
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My dad was told many years ago not to eat too many bananas. Something to do with potassium but I cant remember why.
This is not "science" but probably applies
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-342255172 -
Another pain in the butt, possibly the biggest pain the butt is sodium. I go over by a little 5 out of 7 days a week. Probably by 100 or 200. Once in a while on the weekend I'll go over by 1,000 but that is not the norm at all. What do you think about going over on sodium by a few hundred? Horrendous or ah no biggie?0
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Cavallaro65 wrote: »Another pain in the butt, possibly the biggest pain the butt is sodium. I go over by a little 5 out of 7 days a week. Probably by 100 or 200. Once in a while on the weekend I'll go over by 1,000 but that is not the norm at all. What do you think about going over on sodium by a few hundred? Horrendous or ah no biggie?
Unless you have high blood pressure, it doesn't matter. Sodium helps with electrolyte retention and balance. Between that and the bananas, good electrolytes!5 -
My dad was told many years ago not to eat too many bananas. Something to do with potassium but I cant remember why.
This is not "science" but probably applies
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34225517
Well it was a medical professional that told him this, obviously not a very good one if that article is anything to go by. Im wondering if it was something to do with medication he was on.1 -
Cavallaro65 wrote: »Another pain in the butt, possibly the biggest pain the butt is sodium. I go over by a little 5 out of 7 days a week. Probably by 100 or 200. Once in a while on the weekend I'll go over by 1,000 but that is not the norm at all. What do you think about going over on sodium by a few hundred? Horrendous or ah no biggie?
Unless you have high blood pressure, it doesn't matter. Sodium helps with electrolyte retention and balance. Between that and the bananas, good electrolytes!
Excellent thanks, no high blood pressure here thank goodness. Good info, thanks.
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I don't worry about fruit sugar at all (and not even really about sugar in things like chocolate bars and alcohol, as long as I can fit them into my calories!).
In fact I have almost 300g of strawberries to snack on this afternoon with me. I've been doing this for a couple of weeks (English strawberry season is the best!) and have lost weight.3 -
This is crazy I can see now but many times I will just have 1/2 banana because the old Weight Watchers plan used to be to just eat 1/2 because they were to fattening to eat a whole. Sheesh - I will now eat a whole all the time.3
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jrh_this_better_work wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »I swapped out Sugar and Sodium for Fiber and Iron, as those are more useful for me to track.
Just did this exact swap myself. Although, now I can see that my iron intake is very low. Guess I'll start working on that!
Make sure you're using good entries. For user-created entries they may not have bothered with iron. I've seen some user-created entries that just had calories and no other values.
Unfortunately, the "verified" green check marks in the MFP database are used for both user-created entries and admin-created entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database. To find admin entries for whole foods, I get the syntax from the USDA database and paste that into MFP.
Note: any MFP entry that includes "USDA" was user entered.
For packaged foods, I verify the label against what I find in MFP. (Alas, you cannot just scan with your phone and assume what you get is correct.)3
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