Sugar Intake - but I love my fruit

According to my MFP suggestions, I am only supposed to have 24 gms of sugar, but most, if not all of this, is taken up and over by my fruit intake!

How accurate are the estimates provided by MFP?

i wonder too, cuz i have a table spoon of Honey in the morning with my yogurt & one at night with my tea..thats 17gms sugars a time, so about 32 a day...but Honey is one of the healthiest foods on the planet so hope its ok

I, personally, would ignore that. I didn't get fat from eating apples and cherries.

Don't worry too much about the fructose sugars from fruit. By that I don't mean go out and eat 30 apples in a day, but don't stress being over in your sugar intake because you had an apple and a banana.

First thing I'd do is advise you to change your macronutrient values in the 'goals' and custom settings - Try to eat at least 1g of protein per lb of lean body mass (Your total weight less the amount of fat on you, find out your body fat percentage then you can work that out), then ensure to get about 50-60g from fats (try for the healthy polyunsaturated from nuts, fish, flaxseed oils etc, and monounsaturated from meats/egg etc), and fill the rest with carbs.
You're better off aiming to hit your macros than worrying about sugar. I go over every day and can consistently lose while on a cut.

Also, the fact it's set to 24g of sugar tells me you've probably got your intake set to 1,200 or less. Don't do that. Set it higher; take off around 20-30% of the calories from your TDEE (or Total Daily Energy Expenditure, which can be calculated on various websites) and that's a healthy weight loss goal of 1b-1.25lb's a week - use google and test out a couple of different sites to get an approximate value.

good call, case. I track carbs, fats and protein, and find I'm happiest at roughly a 40/30/30 balance.

Don't worry too much about the fructose sugars from fruit. By that I don't mean go out and eat 30 apples in a day, but don't stress being over in your sugar intake because you had an apple and a banana.

First thing I'd do is advise you to change your macronutrient values in the 'goals' and custom settings - Try to eat at least 1g of protein per lb of lean body mass (Your total weight less the amount of fat on you, find out your body fat percentage then you can work that out), then ensure to get about 50-60g from fats (try for the healthy polyunsaturated from nuts, fish, flaxseed oils etc, and monounsaturated from meats/egg etc), and fill the rest with carbs.
You're better off aiming to hit your macros than worrying about sugar. I go over every day and can consistently lose while on a cut.

Also, the fact it's set to 24g of sugar tells me you've probably got your intake set to 1,200 or less. Don't do that. Set it higher; take off around 20-30% of the calories from your TDEE (or Total Daily Energy Expenditure, which can be calculated on various websites) and that's a healthy weight loss goal of 1b-1.25lb's a week - use google and test out a couple of different sites to get an approximate value.

You say don't worry about the fructose sugars from fruit, but what about the sucrose, glucose, galactose, maltose, and other sugars in fruit?

How accurate are the estimates provided by MFP?

Pretty crap, IMO. First, the default carb/protein/fat ratio is, while subject to much debate, believed to be less than ideal. Secondly, it scales all nutrients with calories, whereas I've read that protein and fat should be fairly constant, and it's largely the carbs that should scale up with exercise.

According to my MFP suggestions, I am only supposed to have 24 gms of sugar, but most, if not all of this, is taken up and over by my fruit intake!

RDA for women is 90g: http://www.foodcounts.com/recommended-daily-allowances/default.htm
Of which up to around 40g are from refined sources: http://www.annecollins.com/weight-loss/sugar-rda-diet.htm
Although, these figures would be for maintenance, you would naturally reduced them a little for dieting, as well as adjusting for the specifics of your body vs the average, and the amount of exercise you do (vs whatever was considered 'normal' when making the recommendations). Chances are, it would still be fine for you to regularly consume over 24g of sugar.

Sugar isn't bad. Over consumption of sugar is bad. But then, over consumption of anything is bad. Stick to your calories and macros, and don't worry about any sugar, because if you stick to your macros and calories, the sugar takes care of itself.

According to my MFP suggestions, I am only supposed to have 24 gms of sugar, but most, if not all of this, is taken up and over by my fruit intake!

How accurate are the estimates provided by MFP?

Added sugars yes this is accurate. Fruit sugars? No this is NOT accurate. Just sucks that the fruit sugars are included in the added sugars category.

According to my MFP suggestions, I am only supposed to have 24 gms of sugar, but most, if not all of this, is taken up and over by my fruit intake!

How accurate are the estimates provided by MFP?

Added sugars yes this is accurate. Fruit sugars? No this is NOT accurate. Just sucks that the fruit sugars are included in the added sugars category.

MFP doesn't differentiate between fruit sugar and added sugar because the human digestive system doesn't, either. Fruit has fiber and vitamins, but the sugar itself is exactly the same as table sugar to the digestive system.

Disagree. Fructose is a single molecule sugar that gets rearranged to become glucose. Sucrose (table sugar) is a two molecule sugar that is 50% glucose and 50% fructose. So your body has to break down the Sucrose once to get the glucose and then again to convert the fructose into glucose. Lactose (from milk) is the same way, it splits twice as well.

Glucose is your body's "blood sugar" and is required for your body to function. But if you add too many chains of glucose to the blood sugar chain then your insulin levels are going to go up and force some of those glucose stores into muscle and organs to be burned (also pushing fat into fat stores to be burned later). By pushing sugar into the muscles and the organs, we will burn it off; but the body doesn't stop when the excess is burned so we will burn some blood sugar from the required supply causing a DIP in blood sugar which in turn causes us to be hungry again because we need more "fuel".

The goal is to avoid sugars that make our blood sugar to be in excess of the required level. Too much sugar in one sitting is a bad idea. Too little sugar and dietary fat in a person's entire diet will result in protein being used for energy instead of use to repair muscles and to repair cells (not a good idea).

People swear by complex carbs because it "makes your body feel full longer". But what is really going on is complex carbs are sugars with 3 or more chains of sugars attached to it that need to be digested before it can be turned into glucose for the body. So while it is true that your body is going to be "full longer" when the digestion occurs, but rather than digesting proteins and fats, it will be busy converting sugar and pushing steady amounts of sugar in the blood stream. This steady amount COULD be a good thing assuming you didn't eat too much; but steady or not, it will still trigger an insulin response if it goes too far beyond your blood sugar threshold.

The best idea is to eat low glycemic value fruits and veggies (or smaller portions of higher glycemic value ones) so your body gets the energy when it needs it, and not have your blood sugar levels peak. You'll know if it peaked when you start to have physical manifestations of the overdose. Headaches, lethargy, muscle aching, and arthritic pain are only some examples that you overdid it.

I personally can't tolerate starches. My body hates digesting them. So fruit is my best option.