Monitoring Sugar

jlnk
jlnk Posts: 188 Member
in Food and Nutrition
If anyone else out there monitors their sugar intake for a non-medial reason, I'm interested to know if you "count" natural sugars (i.e. from fruit) in your daily intake. Just curious...

If you do, why? If you don't, why not?

Replies

  • EmilyOfTheSun
    EmilyOfTheSun Posts: 1,548 Member
    I'm over on sugar EVERY day from the fruit I eat. hasn't affected my weight loss so far. So as long as it's from a fruit, I don't worry about it...
  • Tonnina
    Tonnina Posts: 979 Member
    I just wanted to watch my sugars this month. I'm not counting the natural sugars because they are so good for you and if I did I'd go over all the time. The FDA recommends 40grams of ADDED sugar, as in not natural sugars found in fruits, ect. So I figured if the FDA says that natural sugars don't count towards the daily amount then why should I count them?
  • RHOyalT
    RHOyalT Posts: 204 Member
    I'm over on sugar EVERY day from the fruit I eat. hasn't affected my weight loss so far. So as long as it's from a fruit, I don't worry about it...

    This is good to know. I am constantly over on my sugar intake and its always because of fruit.
  • tlhorsley
    tlhorsley Posts: 141 Member
    I took the "sugar" category off of my food diary bc it was driving me crazy. My sugar was coming from fruits. I think as long as you don't have a big sweet tooth and most of your sugar is coming from natural foods then I think you are ok.
  • Progman
    Progman Posts: 47 Member
    Yep, most of mine is from fruit too ( a banana will knock off 19 points on your MFP allotted totals alone! ). As long as the bulk of your sugar intake is from 'natural' food items, I see nothing to worry about.

    As Emily already pointed out, it won't affect you if you're trying to lose weight and the other benefits from fruit/veggies is off the scale!

    Kevin
  • Maria_81
    Maria_81 Posts: 152
    I do because I've found that excess sugar adds weight. Plus it throws off other systems in the body which of course isn't good. After watching a Youtube video on the many negative impacts of sugar, I've made it a mission to watch my intake as I do calories and fats
  • Danied13
    Danied13 Posts: 117 Member
    I don't eat that much added sugar, so the sugar in my diet come from fruit. However, it's still sugar. I stopped tracking sugar intake in lieu of total carbs.

    I'm not sure when the idea that you could have as much sugar as you want as long as it came from fruit entered the American consciousness, but I find it to be a dangerous idea. The sugar in fruit is broken down the same way the sugar in cake is. It results in the same spikes in insulin if too much is in your system at one time. We all know that jacked up hormones lead to crazy weight issues.

    I'm not advocating to stop eating fruit, I eat a couple servings every day, but I wish people would look at the chemistry instead of saying "it's okay because it's fruit".
  • blackcoffeeandcherrypie
    blackcoffeeandcherrypie Posts: 486 Member
    I don't count them for two reasons. Firstly because the enemy (imo) is processed sugar, fructose, etc. Humans have always had a little bit of sugar, it's refined sugar that's new to the table, biologically speaking.

    Secondly, I don't count them because it would mean restricting too many foods that are nutritionally beneficial in other ways - my biggest natural sugar source is milk, and I don't plan on giving that up as I want the calcium. Foods which naturally have sugar in them, usually have other health benefits to eating them - even if it's only fibre or vitamin c.

    However I do avoid foods that are naturally high in sugar, like strawberries and bananas, just because I feel so much better when I don't eat high sugar foods - I feel much more stable in terms of energy, emotionally and in terms of food cravings. However a big part of the reason is that I've just lost my sweet tooth - I avoid sugary foods simply because they no longer seem appealing.

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