which is worse, fat or sugar?

Hexahedra

Honest answer: look at your macros for the day and act accordingly. If your macros are still short on sugar, then get the low fat one. If your macros are low on fat, then get the low sugar one. Simple.

It's true that your body can function without sugar from food, which is what people in keto diet (or Inuits who eat only animal products) do, but it prefers sugar over anything else for energy. Your brain needs some quantity of glucose and feeds on it by default. The brain only switches to eating mostly ketone bodies when glucose supply is lowered.

mrmagee3

Honest answer: look at your macros for the day and act accordingly. If your macros are still short on sugar, then get the low fat one. If your macros are low on fat, then get the low sugar one. Simple.

It's true that your body can function without sugar from food, which is what people in keto diet (or Inuits who eat only animal products) do, but it prefers sugar over anything else for energy. Your brain needs some quantity of glucose and feeds on it by default. The brain only switches to eating mostly ketone bodies when glucose supply is lowered.

This is a pretty reasonable post. The glucose your body needs in a ketotic state can be suppled by the amount of carbs we do eat, along with gluconeogenesis (protein -> glucose).

We hear people say a lot here that you only need to worry about sugar if you present with a disease (such as T2 Diabetes). I think it's true that people with a disease like that must focus on sugar consumption, I think there are likely benefits to removing sugar from the diets even if you do not present in that disease state. Namely, the things that occur as precursors to those disease (such as insulin resistance) are unlikely to happen to someone who does not routinely imbibe refined carbs and sugar. If one looks at "obesity" as a disease state, then ketogenic diets have been shown to be effective for weight loss.

As with anything, finding something that works for you and sticking with it is likely the most important, regardless of what it is.

ninerbuff

Neither is "worse". The problem is OVER CONSUMPTION.

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

mrmagee3

Neither is "worse". The problem is OVER CONSUMPTION.

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

This always strikes me as a relatively pointless thing to say. Yes, they eat too much.

As an analogy:

A farmer finds a very fertile valley in between two mountains. Idyllic place, great soil, gentle creek, couple of miles away from a dam, in a nice area that gets good rainfall. First year he plants his crops, and the runoff from the snowcap at the top of the mountains causes the creek to grow in size. Turns out, there's a crack in the dam, too -- that combines with the raised creek and the water comes through and ravages his field. Second year, he figures that won't happen again, so he replants. Same thing happens, and he loses all his crops.

So he takes his problem to other farmers, and asks their opinion on what to do to fix his farm.

Some of them say, "hey, maybe you want to divert that creek so it isn't running through your land!"
Others say, "hey, you should probably patch the crack in the dam, that's definitely a problem."

You're standing in the corner, repeating loudly, "you have too much water."

Correct, but not always helpful.

jofjltncb6

If I had to choose, I'd rather eat too little sugar than too little fat.

...but why are we arguing about "or"? Why not just eat sufficient amounts of sugar *and* fat?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOMR0Tzgdao

staceypunk

Sugar is more detrimental to weightloss IMO.

bio01979

If you want neither go with plain fat free greek yogurt and add berries and stevia.

Good idea!

or Xylitol! I actually prefer Xylitol because it tastes more like sugar lol

Hexahedra

As with anything, finding something that works for you and sticking with it is likely the most important, regardless of what it is.

That's right. I believe that most legitimate diet out there (non-gluten, keto/atkins, clean eating, etc.) works for most people disciplined enough to follow it. The key is picking a diet that's the easiest (and most affordable) for you to follow. If you live in an agrarian community where meat is scarce and expensive, then doing keto is extra tough. If you live close to the north pole and derive most of your diet from meat and fish, then keto makes perfect sense.

I personally think keto works, but I'm not going to do it because I'm not willing to give up carb-rich good foods that I love. If I can't picture doing it for the rest of my life, then it's not a program worth following. I'm losing weight and fat just fine with calorie restriction alone, so I'm sticking to this method.

brower47

Neither. They're both delicious and required.

QFT

kdeaux1959

All things in moderation but nothing in excess. The "best foods in the world" are problematic if consumed in excess... If you don't believe me, eat 10 gallons of turnip greens at one time and see what happens... (I don't suggest that you do this experiment at work...)

mrmagee3

All things in moderation but nothing in excess. The "best foods in the world" are problematic if consumed in excess... If you don't believe me, eat 10 gallons of turnip greens at one time and see what happens... (I don't suggest that you do this experiment at work...)

I kinda want to know where to source 10 gallons of turnip greens now.

Acg67

"Your body doesn't need sugar for anything"

So who is twisting words, what does that mean exactly, either your body does or does not need sugar.

Given that we're discussing dietary choices, and whether one should intake fat or sugar, a reasonable person would be willing to assume that she was referring to your body not needing external sugar intake, not that your body doesn't require sugar for biological processes.

Or we can be pedantic and just try to play semantic gotcha.

Or we can go on past posting history and a history of posting absurd things, so reason and logic don't always apply when taking in who is making the comment

emc916

both are good.

Exactly

LeanneGoingThin

Your body doesn't need sugar for anything. Most of what you eat is converted into glucose, and sugar is already glucose, hence why it makes your blood sugar spike; your body doesn't need much energy to digest it.

The contradiction.

Though I agree that sugar is probably worse than (good) fats.

LeanneGoingThin

Nothing wrong with sugar either.

Diet wise, you're right.

Health wise.... it's not a bad idea to keep your sugar low.

magerum

Nothing wrong with sugar either.

Diet wise, you're right.

Health wise.... it's not a bad idea to keep your sugar low.

Care to explain why you state health wise it's good to keep it low?

mrmagee3

Nothing wrong with sugar either.

Diet wise, you're right.

Health wise.... it's not a bad idea to keep your sugar low.

Care to explain why you state health wise it's good to keep it low?

Habitually high intakes of carbohydrate are a likely cause of insulin resistance:
http://www.news-medical.net/health/Causes-of-Insulin-Resistance.aspx

Insulin resistance is a cause of high blood sugar.

High blood sugar is connected to all sorts of disease states (CVD, stroke, etc.)

Pretty straightforward link.

cwolfman13

Neither is "worse". The problem is OVER CONSUMPTION.

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

This always strikes me as a relatively pointless thing to say. Yes, they eat too much.

As an analogy:

A farmer finds a very fertile valley in between two mountains. Idyllic place, great soil, gentle creek, couple of miles away from a dam, in a nice area that gets good rainfall. First year he plants his crops, and the runoff from the snowcap at the top of the mountains causes the creek to grow in size. Turns out, there's a crack in the dam, too -- that combines with the raised creek and the water comes through and ravages his field. Second year, he figures that won't happen again, so he replants. Same thing happens, and he loses all his crops.

So he takes his problem to other farmers, and asks their opinion on what to do to fix his farm.

Some of them say, "hey, maybe you want to divert that creek so it isn't running through your land!"
Others say, "hey, you should probably patch the crack in the dam, that's definitely a problem."

You're standing in the corner, repeating loudly, "you have too much water."

Correct, but not always helpful.

I believe the point is that there is nothing inherently evil about either...it's over-consumption that is the problem. How exactly is that not helpful.

magerum

Nothing wrong with sugar either.

Diet wise, you're right.

Health wise.... it's not a bad idea to keep your sugar low.

Care to explain why you state health wise it's good to keep it low?

Habitually high intakes of carbohydrate are a likely cause of insulin resistance:
http://www.news-medical.net/health/Causes-of-Insulin-Resistance.aspx

Insulin resistance is a cause of high blood sugar.

High blood sugar is connected to all sorts of disease states (CVD, stroke, etc.)

Pretty straightforward link.

These are the very first sentences in the link you provided:

There are several levels of insulin resistence causation including diet, cellular, molecular, genetic, and disease.

Diet
Grounds exist for linking insulin resistance to a high-carbohydrate diet. An American study has shown that glucosamine (often prescribed for joint problems) may cause insulin resistance.

Here are the last lines of the article:

This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Insulin resistance" All material adapted used from Wikipedia is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Wikipedia® itself is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

So you referenced a random blog article that essentially only used Wikipedia as it's reference. Bravo.

So why did you say sugar again?

shadus

~for me~ sugar is generally the worse of the two... not because it's more calories, but because it makes me more hungry.