Sugar

3ball

Man oh man, do I need some help. I am doing fairly well with my calorie intake each day, but sugar is always way over. I have a definite sweet tooth, so I'm pretty much in trouble right out of the gate. Chocolate especially. Any suggestions to help rid myself of way too much sugar? Other than the obvious just stop eating it of course.

briquelle

im havin the same prob! i hope people post some suggestions.

aub7

I am in the same boat! I manage to do good on calories, fat, sodium, etc. everyday, but am always way over sugar. Interested in seeing what others have to say!

hendricksonpower

I was just having the same problem. I had to limit my fruit intake and replace a lot of it with fresh veggies. Plus I started to pay more attention to my microwave meals. Its not easy and there is realy no easy answer to give ya. You just have to change what you eat. After a while it will get easier. Probably not much help but if you just look at one thing at a time and where the majority of your sugar comes from it will get easier. Best of luck!

jennlee80

The best way to help the craving is to get rid of it. But that's never easy If chocolate is your craving, try some good quality dark choc. Having an ounce melted over some fresh fruit is always yummy! Staying away from refined sugar is key.

BryanAir

I am usually over on my sugar and it hasn't slowed me down. Although most of my sugar is from fruit which comes with vitamins, minerals, and fiber. I also throw in some 85% - 90% chocolate when I get the craving. If you have a lot of calories a day to work with you are more likely to get the nutrients you need even if you are over on sugar.

GeorgiaPrune

I would try some dark chocolate, but perhaps you could limit yourself to one small individually wrapped piece of dark chocolate a day and then every other day and then every three days. Good luck to you

wnw64

Each day, I am pretty good with staying under my calorie goal. However, I blow my suger goal (how it was calculated I have no idea) out of the water. Right now, I really don't care, becaue I am losing the 2lbs/week that I signed up for. However, my guess is that sooner or later that will level out. I have a sweet tooth & love chocolate! I have curbed my chocolate, but not my need for foods that are either salty or semi-sweet. I have given up candies for the most part, but will not give up fruit. Other than salad greens, tomatoes, corn-on-cob & sweet potatoes, I hate veggies. I also luv juices, but have curbed their sugar by adding water.

My sweet tooth can be perfectly illustrated as follows: I will always take a twisted tea or hard lemonade over a beer, always!!!

Sorry, aint ever gonna change...

auntiebabs

Man oh man, do I need some help. I am doing fairly well with my calorie intake each day, but sugar is always way over. I have a definite sweet tooth, so I'm pretty much in trouble right out of the gate. Chocolate especially. Any suggestions to help rid myself of way too much sugar? Other than the obvious just stop eating it of course.

So you are going over on you sugar, Hmmm?

First of all,
You're eating less, right? And I bet a smaller percentage of the food you eat is sweet treats, snacks and misc. crap. Am I right?
So most likely you doing way better than before you were on MFP.

Okay, now then give yourself credit for improving.

Second, that doesn't get you off the hook for trying to improve, but you don't have to do it all overnight. I find it so much easier to stick with baby steps...

I started by seeing where I could make small changes on things that weren't that important to me.
(Don't even think of taking chocolate out of my diet!!!)
--Reducing quantities where I won't notice it so much
--Swapping out things instead of eliminating them.

Then every couple of weeks I see where I can make another couple of small changes.
If you completely revamp your diet, it's way easy to revert to old ways in times of stress.
If you make a series of small changes, food still offers you some sense of comfort.
sort of a comfort continuum, and after a while the first small changes become habits and will seem comforting in themselves.

You don't have to be perfect you just have to do better. The catch is you just have to keep doing better.

jbucci1186

Are you eating a lot of fruit? That will shoot your sugar through the roof. I honestly eat about 150g of sugar per day, but I'd say 80% of it comes from fruit. I have had many frustrations over this fruit sugar, but from my own experience, my body needs it or I will get very dizzy/blackout upon standing up.

When I first started out, I had NO idea I was eating as much sugar as I was, thanks to MFP, I gradually decreased over a few months period.

Try substituting the foods with higher sugar content for something with the same amount of calories but less sugar. I try not to eat anything with over 7-10g of ADDED sugar per serving. Per my doctor, I completely ignore the sugar in fruit. I had a couple months where I just didn't eat fruit because there was so much sugar in it, and that was not a good idea for me. As I said earlier, I would get really light headed and my vision would tunnel to black, sometimes it would last up to 10 seconds, and it became so frequent that I had to go to the hospital.

Also, and I know this will probably get some negative feedback, but like you, I have a HUGE sweet tooth. I drink several of those Flavored Sparkling Waters (0 cal, sodium, sugar, caffeine) that they sell at Wal-Mart and I also drink a can or two of diet pop every day. I know that some say that the aspartame is bad for you, but I have had no negative side effects from it, and I've been consuming it for over six months now. I actually find it's the caffeine/sodium in the diet pop that screws with me. Anyway, I'm not saying go out and buy artificial sweeteners, but if you're like me and care more about calories/sugar than whether or not it's natural, then it might be a good way to reduce your sugar/calorie intake. I also like to use products that use Stevia instead of sugar in my oatmeal and cream of wheat because it actually comes from a plant, though I think they still use some artificial ingredients if you use things like Truvia. Stevia in the raw actually has <4calories per serving, and I definitely use more than one serving, and I'd just rather not worry about those "trivial" calories adding up.

Anyway, I just want to make it clear that I am not saying that artificial sweeteners are healthy, but I also haven't seen enough proof that they're as bad as some people are saying. I think they're good for certain people, especially those trying to take in fewer calories and less sugar. Just don't use them for EVERYTHING. I asked my doctor about aspartame in particular at my physical last week (because I literally drink up to 5 bottles of that flavored water a day) and she told me not to worry about it.

Also, another thing I do if I get a craving for sweets is chew sugar free gum. It has been a life saver for me at times.

I hope that helps and I hope I don't make anyone mad!

norriedawn

Hi,
I too am always over my sugar. I'm borderline diabetic so I've had to cut back my sugar intake. I haven't been able to get below the level on the MFP but I've certainly decreased my intake. I don't know if this is what you are looking for - but maybe it'll help you or someone else. This is what I've done so far to reduce my sugar:

1) No more candies or goodies at work. A lot of people have candy dishes so now mine has no sugar added candies and little boxes of raisins. If I must have something sweet I'll eat one of those. I don't usually like no sugar stuff, but I've found some candies to be okay (Werther's makes a good low sugar/no added sugar candy).

2) I stopped drinking pop. That was REALLY hard for me because I love Pepsi. I also dislike aspartame so most diet colas I can't drink. However recently I tried Coke Zero and found it was pretty good and didn't have a strong aftertaste. If I need to have a pop, I drink this.

3) Drink water. I always have a bottle of water with me.

4) I have to have coffee but I've limited myself to one travel mug a day and only 2 sugars and 2 low fat creams or milk which is much better than the triple triples I drank throughout the day.

5) I switched to soy milk which was an adjustment. I still have the occasional 1/2 cup of milk but mostly I stay with So Nice organic original soy milk. It seemed to have less amount of sugar that some of the other soy milks I found.

6) Try to buy more healthy snacks (read the labels for sugar, fat, calorie content) and keep the snacks quickly accessible both at home and at work. Some snacks that I've switched to: Astro individual yogurts sweetened with splenda, kozy shack no sugar added puddings, hummus snack packs, veggies and dip, and small 60 cal light Cracker Barrel cheese snacks, individual-sized cottage cheese snacks, and fruits (but still keeping an eye on how much I'm having at one sitting so that my sugar doesn't jump too much). I'm still trying to find better snacks, but these have helped a lot.

7) I had to keep all treats out of the house. I went so far as to tell my husband that if he wanted treats he had to hide them, preferably in our detached garage so that I can't easily find or get to them. You can still have a treat if you don't have problems with controlling your intake, but aim for smaller sized packages. They'll still have the sugar but because it's smaller, there will be less of it.

My best suggestion is to look at what you are eating and where the sugar is coming from. From there, eliminate or reduce those that have little to no nutritional value. It's not easy but it is worth the effort. From there you may need to start looking at the serving sizes of those items that have a lot of sugar and start reducing the serving size you are eating. Also, if you are diabetic or pre-diabetic, spreading those sugars out instead of having a huge amount all at once.

I hope this helps! I too would love to hear some suggestions from others on the site.

RangerSteve

Who cares if you're over on your sugar?

Unless you have diabetes running in your family, it's not going to make a difference if you go "over" some magical pre-determined limit on your sugar intake. If you enjoy sweets, eat sweets, otherwise the dietary changes you make will end up driving you crazy. If you like chocolate, eat chocolate. Don't replace it with something like oatmeal if you can't stand it.

Make dietary changes that you can live with for the next 50 years, not something that you will struggle with constantly for the next 6 months before relapsing into bad habit.

Eat your chocolate. If someone says something, just remember......haters gonna hate.

jbucci1186

Who cares if you're over on your sugar?

Unless you have diabetes running in your family, it's not going to make a difference if you go "over" some magical pre-determined limit on your sugar intake. If you enjoy sweets, eat sweets, otherwise the dietary changes you make will end up driving you crazy. If you like chocolate, eat chocolate. Don't replace it with something like oatmeal if you can't stand it.

Make dietary changes that you can live with for the next 50 years, not something that you will struggle with constantly for the next 6 months before relapsing into bad habit.

Eat your chocolate. If someone says something, just remember......haters gonna hate.

i like it/agree.

funfitfoodie

open your food diary. then we can help

wnw64

2 cups of tea, small low-fat vanilla yogurt & small 50cal low-sugar syrup mixed fruit & already over my sugar goal for the day.... Geez!!!! oh well....

jmtp

I know what you mean! One half cup of tea in the morning and one homemade fruit smoothie made with 1.5 peaches, half cup (lowfat) yogurt, and kale and I'm already at almost double my sugar allowance!

RangerSteve

Sugar allowance according to who? It's a magical made up number. Ignore it. If you're losing weight and eating things like <GASP> fruit that put you over your limit then you should keep doing what you're doing.

Sugar calories are 4kcal per gram just like any other carb/protein.