Please explain no added sugar to me?

claireannmurray · August 2021

Can you loose weight on a no added sugar diet only. Ie still eating occasional crisps, etc. Or do you need to combine it with CICO? Wanting to loose around 8kg. Also with no added sugar, when reading labels what gm/per 100gm or % do you keep under.

lynn_glenmont · August 2021

You need to combine it with CICO, that is, you need to consume fewer calories than you use. If you simply replace foods with added sugars with other foods that have equal or more calories, it won't help you lose weight.

I don't worry about added sugar, and I lost weight just fine.

PAV8888 · August 2021

Removing added sugar from your diet may lead you to more filling (for the calories) choices and indirectly lead you to consuming fewer calories.

OR it may not do so, depending on how often and how much added sugar you used to consume and how you replace it.

Your body's energy reserves (mostly stored in the form of fat) will vary in the long term based on your long term caloric balance. The caloric balance is often denoted by CI-CO (calories in vs calories out). However CI-CO is not a diet and calorie counting is just one of the methods that people can use to moderate their calories and achieve the caloric balance that they seek.

MargaretYakoda · August 2021

I am diabetic. My husband is diabetic.

We don’t worry about added sugar.
We count carbohydrates.

There is nothing inherently wrong with sugar
It is not a poison.
And if you have a functioning pancreas and are mostly eating a well balanced diet, you don’t need to worry about it at all.

As Lynn and Pav have mentioned, Calories In/Calories out is the math. The only math. Everything else is just preference.

If you find yourself eating too many sweets, it is wise to reduce the amount. Definitely. And there are lots of tips and tricks to achieve that. In that sense, yes. Avoid added sugars.
You will get to the point where you don’t miss it. Taste buds do evolve after time. I promise.
And yes. You can eat crisps. As long as you eat sensible portions and log it.

Here’s the big secret:
You can eat anything you want, as long as it’s under your calorie budget

Of course, some foods are more satiating than others….

callsitlikeiseeit · August 2021

i have lost over 189 pounds.

i only worry about calories.

ChristopherLimoges · August 2021

CICO is a myth. I.E. Water/Fiber. All those calories will still be delayed in your system if you're not drinking enough water, or even consuming enough fiber, etc.

callsitlikeiseeit · August 2021

i will let my doctor and the 192 pounds (as of this morning) i lost drinking almost no 'actual cups of water' and 'eating what i wanted as long as it fit in my calorie allotment' know that it was all a figment of our imaginations...

i hope they don't tell the remaining 40 or so pounds that i want to lose that its just a big hoax... i mean, i drink water NOW but for the first 170 pound loss i didn't much... maybe that will make it ok for this last bit....

robertw486 · August 2021

CICO is the only proven science that directly impacts weight in humans every. single. time.

Sure, there are variables that impact rates of gain loss, including hydration and fiber intake. But there are loads of other variables as well. All of them have been proven minor as compared to energy balance. It's the primary driving force of all weight changes.

robertw486 · August 2021

The primary driving factor for weight change is energy balance = CICO. There are other factors that will have some overall impact as to speed of loss/gain, how linear it is, etc. But there are no studies showing that energy balance can be denied in a healthy person.

Add sugar if you want, add sodium if you want, add fat if you want, add alcohol if you want. Certainly do any of those within reason and eat an overall healthy and balanced diet meeting nutritional needs, and you can control your weight.

The trick to it all is finding the balance that works for you, keeps you motivated as you move towards your goal, and doesn't leave you hangry while you are doing it.

AnnPT77 · August 2021

No.

Besides, why would a calorie "delay" matter? I know there are circumstances where food exits the digestive system without that food's calories being harvested for use by the body to generate energy. So what? Those calories either don't count as calories in, or they've become a different type of calories out (i.e., they exit as waste rather than being burned as energy). 😉 The amount of non-absorbed calories, in a normal healthy person, isn't enough overall to worry about.

If you're suggesting that it would be a good thing to eat enough fiber and drink enough fluids to have healthy digestive throughput, that would be true.

However, if you're thinking that healthy digestive throughput inherently implies absorbing fewer calories, then I think you're wrong. Think about it: Why would natural selection create humans who, when healthy, absorbed fewer calories? That makes no sense. Natural selection happened primarily during times of food scarcity, not during our current anomalous period of food surplus (in lucky parts of the world). Also, if calories were under-absorbed with healthy digestive throughput, wouldn't that suggest that nutrients would also be under-absorbed from that food? That would be bad, wouldn't it? Calorie absorption and nutrient absorption are are quite bound together, in practice, I believe.

Just because a food may sit longer in a sluggish digestive system, that's not a clear reason why more calories would be absorbed. Besides, there's no way for a body to absorb more calories than are actually in the food in the first place, by delaying digestive transit (or any other method). Slow digestive transit doesn't create energy (calories) from nothing.

CICO, which is the calorie counting equation, isn't "a myth", it's a restatement of a basic, inviolable principle of physics. Energy isn't created or destroyed, but only converted from one form to another. Calorie counting, the weight loss method that most directly exploits that equation, isn't a myth either. There's a good bit of estimation and approximation involved, more than I suspect some people realize, but it can still be a practical weight management method for a wide range of people. Me, for one.

OP, as others have said, if you eat a lot of added sugar now, and change things so you eat less or none, then don't replace those calories with other food intake (crisps or carrot sticks, doesn't matter), *and* doing that means you're eating fewer calories than you burn (by a combination of just being alive, daily life movement, exercise), then you'll lose weight. To lose weight, eat fewer calories than you burn.

To lose a meaningful total amount of weight, make that a sensibly moderate number of calories fewer than you burn, or you'll likely burn out or fail out before reaching goal weight. Losing any meaningful amount of weight is not a quick thing. It takes weeks, months, maybe even years. Best take the loss in a sustainable way, eh?

It's a good idea to get good, well-rounded overall nutrition on average, on a number of calories that lets you reach and stay at a healthy body weight.

If eating too much sugar is the thing that puts you over that calorie level while getting good nutrition, or causes you to get sub-par nutrition in order to stay at sensible calories, then you should eat less added sugar. In other scenarios, unless one is diabetic or something like that, sugar intake is an irrelevant consideration - a distraction from the main points of nutrition and weight management.

springlering62 · August 2021

So what you’re saying then is that those hundred pounds I shed were really just a bad case of constipation?

paperpudding · August 2021

That would be an arguement supporting weight loss is not linear - there are variations like drinking water, fibre etc that mean different amounts of unabsorbed food is in your GI system at different times

I dont think anyone is disputing that.

It doesnt negate CICO being real over time.

callsitlikeiseeit · August 2021

you were constipated. I imagined it.

i mean, we have some serious issues, spring ....

Fuzzipeg · August 2021

Avoiding added sugar will help those with yeast issues. Repeated cystitis.

1calorie is the amount of something required to heat a given amount of water 1 degree! It says nothing of the nutrition a living being might have used from that same one calorie within the body, vit c, b 12 or iodine? How does knowing how much water can be heated one degree by say 1200 calories really help my understanding, or not, of what I eat?

I've probably spent too much time with under 4 year olds!

JBanx256 · August 2021

This is the first I've heard of time-release calories, but whatever you say champ.

ninerbuff · August 2021

Evidence for this by a journal of medicine, nutrition, endocrinology, etc. or are you just spouting off something you heard? Link your source.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

paperpudding · August 2021

Does it really need a source? - seems common sense obvious to me - food in your GI system at any given time will be affected by how much water you drink/ fibre you eat therefore this will mean CICO is not a simple linear equation in real life.

What is often put on the forums as water weight means weight loss is not linear.

This doesnt negate CICO or mean it is a myth of course - just means IRL daily variations affect our total weight

Something nobody was disputing so not sure what point poster was making.

autobahn66 · August 2021

I love this take: there's a fundamental truth to it.

How DO you know what the body is going to do with 1 kcal of sugar, or fat or protein? Is what your body does and my body does with that calorie different? How many of those calories are needed to keep me alive, vs feel good, vs maintain muscle mass, vs add fat?

Except none of that matters: because I don't think we have a better way of measuring the amount of energy in what we eat other than by saying: "I guess I need exactly enough chemical energy to heat 1600ml of water by 1 degree to maintain my weight."

And as AnnPT said: there's a lot of estimation, more than is realised up front. But, outside an advanced lab and technical measurements, the only way to measurably know is to set that calorie goal and activity level and see how things change over the course of a month or two.

Or one could just wing it and eat a bit less: see how things go? But that is throwing the baby out with the bathwater: just because there is some guesswork, doesn't mean it's all guesswork, and individual variability can be accounted for over time by monitoring progress.

The_Movie_Chair · August 2021

Added sugar means you are buying (or eating) processed food. Added sugars include sucrose, dextrose, table sugar, syrups, honey, and sugars from concentrated fruit or vegetable juices.

If you are healthy, you should not have a problem with added sugar. I am not healthy (but prefer to live as I would be) so I watch out for added sugar because I react to it. (I have RA and Celiac Disease and live meds free and almost pain-free.) Sugar in any form or way hurts me -literally.

I agree with CICO. I lost 156 pounds -half of my start weight- in three years. I overate, that's how I got fat. It was that simple.

lemurcat2 · August 2021

Like others have said, CICO is what determines whether you will lose weight. You might find that you are eating in a deficit if you cut out added sugar, but many people probably wouldn't find just that to be enough (I have gained weight at times in my life when eating very little added sugar, bc I mostly don't have a huge sweet tooth).

If I were doing no added sugar, I would interpret that to mean none, period. If I were doing something else, like staying under 5% of total cals from added sugar most days, I'd call it that. There's no need to watch added sugar, but I think it is useful for some to see how much is in the foods they eat and if there is anything surprising about the amount. I didn't find much added sugar in anything I ate that was surprising, but I am very much in favor of reading labels and understanding what you are eating.

Please explain no added sugar to me?

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