Sugar intake - cofused

castelluzzo99

Okay, so I haven't eaten everything I will eat today, but I have logged what I will eat and what I ate already. I'm about 200 short for the day, so I might have a glass of juice with wheat grass at the end of the day if I feel hungry (otherwise I'll just let it go--I ate way too much yesterday, so I figure it will all average out).

But here's my confusion. The system figured that I need 28 g of sugar per day. Okay, so I had savory oatmeal (no sugar added), a vegan sour cream (no sugar), a banana, and some raw almonds for breakfast. Lunch is a savory tofu-veggie curry-type dish over brown rice. I only eat two meals a day as a general rule. Oh, and I had an energy bar before my exercise before breakfast that was only 130 calories and 7 g of sugar (1/4 of the intake for the day). The tofu dish is apparently what is putting me over the 28 grams, but it doesn't have anything sweet in it, just tomatoes, which aren't really sweet--the rest is all veggies (very healthy, I must say).

So I guess my question is, if I've only had 1 fruit today, and the rest is all veggies and grains and protein, how can my sugar intake be so "high"? Or is that 28 g based on a more refined diet, whereas with the whole food diet I eat can handle more than 28 g of sugar? It's showing 48 grams, and only 7 of those were from the energy bar. The bar is designed to burn fat, and I used coconut oil in the curry, which is supposed to boost the metabolism anyway, so I'm not worried about the extra 5 g of fat that I'm consuming today (the sour cream was based on sunflower seeds--that with the almonds is what makes the oatmeal filling enough to hold me 5-6 hours so that I don't need to snack).

And please, don't give me flack for eating only 2 meals a day. I know what I'm doing. If I eat more meals, I eat too much. I can't just eat a little bit. I need to eat until I'm full, so it's better to get my calories in 2 meals and an energy bar if I need it for exercising before breakfast, but other than that, I can't do it. It's a form of intermittent fasting, eating only during a certain window of time. Evening is when I tend to eat too much (and right before bed, too, when calorie burning is lowest), so it's just better if I don't eat.

Timshel_

I eat tons of fruit, so my sugar is always high. I don't worry that much about it.

TeaBea

I try to keep "added" sugars to a minimum. Natural (fruit) sugars ... I don't worry about .... fruit provides so many nutrients and fiber ... it's good for you.

cwolfman13

The sugar recommendation is based on the American Heart Association's recommendation for ADDED/REFINED sugar. To my knowledge there is no formal recommendation for total sugar.

I don't do high fructose corn syrup and I keep added sugars to a minimum...but I eat quite a bit of fruit so I'm always much higher than 30 grams.

castelluzzo99

So I found this list on another forum, reportedly by the World Health Organization:

1200 calories, 10% = 120 calories = 30.0 g of sugar
1300 calories, 10% = 130 calories = 32.5 g of sugar
1400 calories, 10% = 140 calories = 35.0 g of sugar
1500 calories, 10% = 150 calories = 37.5 g of sugar
1600 calories, 10% = 160 calories = 40.0 g of sugar
1700 calories, 10% = 170 calories = 42.5 g of sugar
1800 calories, 10% = 180 calories = 45.0 g of sugar
1900 calories, 10% = 190 calories = 47.5 g of sugar
2000 calories, 10% = 200 calories = 50.0 g of sugar
2100 calories, 10% = 210 calories = 52.5 g of sugar
2200 calories, 10% = 220 calories = 55.0 g of sugar
2300 calories, 10% = 230 calories = 57.5 g of sugar
2400 calories, 10% = 240 calories = 60.0 g of sugar

That puts me at exactly 1/2 g of sugar over the recommended for today. So that's encouraging! I'm changing the recommendation, and I'm going to try to avoid sweets except once or twice a week (even then, we're talking healthy sweets--not empty junk food!), because I think I'm getting in extra calories that way. I just started MFP today, so this should be an adventure. Hopefully logging my food here will help me, because logging it in a book never helped, plus I had no idea whether I was on target or not.

castelluzzo99

I just changed it from showing sodium on the diary to showing fiber. I eat almost exclusively homemade from-scratch food, so I think my sodium intake is fine (plus I drink way more than the recommended 8 cups of water, even when I'm not breastfeeding, which I am). Anyhow, it recommends 17 grams of fiber for my diet, and my log indicates 41 for the day! I'd say I way more than made up for any supposed extra sugar intake!!!