Sugar Situation?

stephygetsfitt

Hmm so I generally go over my sugar everyday, by about 20 grams. It's currently at 40 I believe per day. It's likely I'll have one serving of natural soda or chocolate per day, yogurt or something not naturally sweet. However I often eat a lot of fruit as well which combined sends my sugar macro through the roof!

What is your take on sugar? I feel like it's hard to find calorie dense foods to meet my calorie per day, without going over in sugar. I'm eating gluten-free and corn-free so my calorie dense food choices mostly come down to fruit and meat.

How much sugar do you guys eat per day? What is recommended/realistic?

SherryTeach

When I joined, I realized right away that I could never stick to the default amount of sugar. So I just upped it in the personalized goals. I try to stay under 60-70 grams and quite a bit of that is fruit. That said, I really don't worry about it very much. I've been at my goal weight for a year and it hasn't affected me any.

Tykk

The American Heart Association recommends no more than 24 g of added sugar per day for women. That means that sugar in fruit doesn't count, for example, because it is a natural part of the fruit, not added.

http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/NutritionCenter/HealthyDietGoals/Sugars-and-Carbohydrates_UCM_303296_Article.jsp

Excess sugar has amazingly bad effects on your body, well beyond being a source of empty calories.

CyberEd312

I don't track sugar, I track overall carbs and instead of sugar I track fiber in its place.... Best of Luck

stephygetsfitt

Thank you all for your advice and experience!

Also CONGRATS to Ed for the amazing weight loss! You're an inspiration to us all!

fruttibiscotti

There is a great video on youtube by Dr Robert Lustig from the University of California called "Sugar, the Bitter Truth". Very good information and the video has over 4 million hits. Enjoy.

honeytgb

I don't track sugar, just overall carbs. (it was some crazy number :noway: so I stopped )
Hard to separately track sugar that's naturally occurring (acceptable sugar - fruits & berries) and those that are added (bad sugar - processed stuff)


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Ian_Stuart

Here is the problem. Carbs beget carbs. Eating a sugary dessert or high carb food spikes your blood insulin level while the sugar is processed, but then you run out of sugar to process and still have high blood insulin levels. This insulin finds nothing for it to bond with, which causes your body to think that you are low on sugar (because in our ancestral environment there weren't such things as cupcakes), which makes you crave sugar so you go in search of something sweet. Basically it is millions of years of evolution insisting that you must be starving because your insulin levels are higher than the available sugars suggest and thereby messing up your diet plans.
It used to be that fat and sugar were rare and our ancestors had to work hard to get them, which burned more calories. Our bodies learned to crave them so that we would be willing to expend the effort to climb that tree and get the sweet fruit, or hunt down the heavier (larger) fat carrying animals. Things like cupcakes and Snickers bars are super-stimuli. They push all of our ancestral craving buttons, but offer none of the nutrition that fat and sugar used to represent (healthy meat and nutritious fruits). One cupcake can be upwards of 500 calories. Do you have any idea how much meat that is? How many apples or oranges?
I tell you all of this because knowing it has helped me to say no to those things. It doesn't fix the cravings, but it gives me a mental anchor to hold on to when those cravings try to pull me into the local bakery.

My suggestion would be to change your macro goals to be higher in protein (at least 1g per lb of bodyweight (2g per kg) and then make your fat and carbs at least a 50/50 split for the remainder of your calories.

Cindyinpg

I don't track sugar, I track overall carbs and instead of sugar I track fiber in its place.... Best of Luck

This. ^ I track fiber instead of sugar.

Tykk

Hard to separately track sugar that's naturally occurring (acceptable sugar - fruits & berries) and those that are added (bad sugar - processed stuff)

The obvious way of course is to avoid eating processed foods, but your point is well taken.