Sugar

Becky1971

I thought I better check out my sugar intake today and added to my diary, guess I didn't have it added cause I thought I didn't do too bad, except the days that I splurged and had a candy bar or piece of cake. But I got to looking, and my limit for a day is 29, and an apple and a banana equals more than that!! I knew fruit had sugar in it, but wow, just an apple and banana a day puts me over what I should have!! How am I suppose to say no to that. Bananas I have at least one a day because it helps with restless leg syndrome.

I wanted to know if sugar from fruit effects the blood sugar level like regular sugar does. I had noticed that even though I thought my breakfasts were healthy, that I sometimes felt like I was having a sugar rush, or something. Is that possible with fruit? So if people who are diabetic have to stay away from sugar, does that mean they stay away from fruit too? I mean, fruit has pretty much been whats made it all tolerable for me.

JennsLosing

im no expert, but i would say refined sugar and natural sugar from a piece of fruit would be processed differently by your body. i could be wrong though.

helenium

I thought I better check out my sugar intake today and added to my diary, guess I didn't have it added cause I thought I didn't do too bad, except the days that I splurged and had a candy bar or piece of cake. But I got to looking, and my limit for a day is 29, and an apple and a banana equals more than that!! I knew fruit had sugar in it, but wow, just an apple and banana a day puts me over what I should have!! How am I suppose to say no to that. Bananas I have at least one a day because it helps with restless leg syndrome.

I wanted to know if sugar from fruit effects the blood sugar level like regular sugar does. I had noticed that even though I thought my breakfasts were healthy, that I sometimes felt like I was having a sugar rush, or something. Is that possible with fruit? So if people who are diabetic have to stay away from sugar, does that mean they stay away from fruit too? I mean, fruit has pretty much been whats made it all tolerable for me.

Don't worry about going over due to fruit reasons. Fruit's fine. It's the refined sugar which is metabolised too quickly and often ends up in fat adipose tissue! It's annoying, but mentally deduct your fruit sugar from the total - my two pennies at least.

I *believe* that fruit sugar, being fructose, is not so damaging (but still possibly problematic) for those with diabetes. My source is a friend I have with early onset diabetes who said eating fruit for her is not so problematic than eating the same amount of glucose.

ebillie4

I don't know the answer to your question, but I can tell you my 13 year old daughter is diabetic and her doctor told her that fruit is fine for her to eat on a daily basis, it's the stuff that sugar is added to that she needs to stay away from.

nextrightthing

Okay, I haven't read the other replies to this yet but, here is my 2 cents. After I added the sugar count to my dairy I was absolutely shocked to see how high my sugar counts were. Like you my sugar was coming primarily from fruit. BTW this question has been asked several times.......people are shocked to see the sugar counts. I just had my yearly physical and my blood counts were excellent, there were no issues for my sugars at all. I am often or daily way over the sugar counts. I am ignoring them at this point. I think if it grows on a tree or in the ground and isn't processed that those are the things we should be eating. They are full of valuable nutrients and fibre. I think so much better for you to have a piece of fruit than a 100 snack pack without any nutritional value. The fruit is more filling and satisfying too boot.

kje2011

Fruit is a healthy, natural sugar. Sugar from chocolate bars,etc is not.
Diabetes runs in my family. My mom has it (and grandma, 2 uncles and 1 aunt), and she does have to be careful of which fruit she does eat - grapes for example are high in sugar, where as watermelon is a better fruit to eat. But as long as she is eating healthy foods and not junk food, things are pretty good.
This site is excellent to see calories, sodium, sugars etc. of what goes in our bodies! Awesome and helpful.
Keep up the good work

Levedi

My dad is a type 1 diabetic, has been since before I was born. I'm not a doctor, but I'm paraphrasing what his doctor told him. All food breaks down in the digestive process to sugar so that it can be absorbed into the blood stream. Some foods take longer / more work from your digestive system to break down completely. Highly processed sugars or things that are just sugar by themselves break down really fast. Also, some foods have higher levels of sugar than others.

Thus if you eat an apple, you do get sugar, but your body has to burn more calories to digest it AND the sugars enter your blood stream in a slower, steadier dose. This makes it easier for your body to process this sugar as food energy for living (making your heart beat, running your muscles, etc.)

On the other hand, eat a tablespoon of honey or white sugar or a twinkie and your body gets an immediate sugar rush. This means you have a sudden spike in sugar with very little energy expended processing the food to get at the sugar. Your body will use some of the sugar now in your blood stream for living (heart beat, etc) and whatever is leftover as extra sugar energy will be stored in fatty tissue for later. Do this enough and you gain weight.

So...unless you are experiencing a sudden, dangerous drop in blood sugar levels (as diabetics sometimes do) you should generally choose foods that give you energy in slow, steady doses rather than in a rush. Thus an apple is healthier for you than a spoonful of sugar, even if they both have the exact same amount of sugar.

This is the same reason doctors recommend whole grains over refined flour, whole fruit over processed fruit, brown rice over white/instant rice. For example, if we have two people on a 1400 calorie diet and one eats fruit, meat, grains, and the occasional cookie that person will be much healthier than the person who is eating nothing but cake frosting even though they are technically eating the same number of calories. Your over all calorie count still matters, but the amount coming from "sugars" is only really important if you have a tendency to get too much of your daily calories from refined sugars.

Does that help?

Becky1971

My dad is a type 1 diabetic, has been since before I was born. I'm not a doctor, but I'm paraphrasing what his doctor told him. All food breaks down in the digestive process to sugar so that it can be absorbed into the blood stream. Some foods take longer / more work from your digestive system to break down completely. Highly processed sugars or things that are just sugar by themselves break down really fast. Also, some foods have higher levels of sugar than others.

Thus if you eat an apple, you do get sugar, but your body has to burn more calories to digest it AND the sugars enter your blood stream in a slower, steadier dose. This makes it easier for your body to process this sugar as food energy for living (making your heart beat, running your muscles, etc.)

On the other hand, eat a tablespoon of honey or white sugar or a twinkie and your body gets an immediate sugar rush. This means you have a sudden spike in sugar with very little energy expended processing the food to get at the sugar. Your body will use some of the sugar now in your blood stream for living (heart beat, etc) and whatever is leftover as extra sugar energy will be stored in fatty tissue for later. Do this enough and you gain weight.

So...unless you are experiencing a sudden, dangerous drop in blood sugar levels (as diabetics sometimes do) you should generally choose foods that give you energy in slow, steady doses rather than in a rush. Thus an apple is healthier for you than a spoonful of sugar, even if they both have the exact same amount of sugar.

This is the same reason doctors recommend whole grains over refined flour, whole fruit over processed fruit, brown rice over white/instant rice. For example, if we have two people on a 1400 calorie diet and one eats fruit, meat, grains, and the occasional cookie that person will be much healthier than the person who is eating nothing but cake frosting even though they are technically eating the same number of calories. Your over all calorie count still matters, but the amount coming from "sugars" is only really important if you have a tendency to get too much of your daily calories from refined sugars.

Does that help?

YES! This is very helpful, thank you!
Thanks for the other replies too, I'm sorry if it was a repeat, I know sugar has been talked about, I just thought adding how it effects the blood sugar level and what not was not something I had seen yet. And just seeing all the sugar in my diary, just made things different for me regarding what I have read, I understand things better with visual, so it put things in a different perspective for me.

So basically I know now that it's not likely the fruit that is making me feel like a sugar rush when I eat breakfast. I also have a hard time, when I get called into work. ( I sub for teacher assistants and don't get called often) I will eat breakfast at 7 or 7:30, and by 10 I will be feeling very hungry, weak, light headed, nausea and then headache blurriness, and weakness if I don't have a huge breakfast, I have found that having an egg helps, but I have to have 2 or 3 pieces of fruit, yogurt or cheese. (I just learned that light yogurt has sugar in it.) and a rice cake with 1/2 tbsp of peanut butter. And usually lunch isn't till 12 or so cause i have to do recesses first. Then I can run into the same problem for the after noon before getting off at 4. This is what I have experienced repeatedly, and was really bad before losing the weight I have lost.

It just seems like I get to feeling really bad hungry before I should. So just trying to figure out what I need and shouldn't be having.