Sugar problem

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Replies

  • AvsFreak
    AvsFreak Posts: 152 Member
    Just count overall carbs.

    I always have cottage cheese with strawberries, blueberries and other things every night before bed. (check my diary if you want) Sometimes I will even eat cereal for desert. Still lost a ton of weight and I have never counted sugar.

    Stay within your calorie goal (calories in vs calories out) = Success.
  • kmorganlfc
    kmorganlfc Posts: 115 Member
    Unless you have a sugar related problem such as diabetes, eating sugar isn't bad. Fruit is very nutritious and delicious so eat to your hearts content :drinker:

    How does sugar effect diabetes differently than other carbs?

    Honest question


    There's thing called the glycaemic index which places carbs/sugars on a scale of how quickly absorbed they are into the blood stream. Sugar is high on the index, whereas multigrain breads are lower down. The higher the glaecemic index rating, the quicker it will produce a glucose spike. So not all carbs are effectively the same - especially for a person with diabetes as this thing was designed to help those. Saying that, sugar isn't the great evil for diabetics as it was once thought. Eating healthily and not going over your calorific needs is the most important, so you can eat sugar. However, because it's absorbed quickly and quickly burned up, it isn't the best of things to stave off hunger, which brings problems with it as we all know.
  • kmorganlfc
    kmorganlfc Posts: 115 Member
    Unless you have a sugar related problem such as diabetes, eating sugar isn't bad. Fruit is very nutritious and delicious so eat to your hearts content :drinker:

    How does sugar effect diabetes differently than other carbs?

    Honest question
    Sugar builds up in the blood of a type 1 diabetic because it is unable to produce insulin, a hormone needed for sugar uptake and use by the body's cells, tissues and organs. A type 2 diabetic experiences high blood sugar levels because the body either cannot produce a sufficient amount of insulin, or the body cannot make use of the insulin it generates

    Are you sure it builds up in the blood? I thought it got eventually excreted through the urine

    This is probably the least helpful answer in this thread

    Most of the sugar/glucose is excreted through the urine. This is why diabetics need to pee a lot. However, some of the glucose gets trapped inside very fine capiliaries - especially those in the retinas and nerve endings - which can result in some very nasty problems. Also, high levels of glucose in the blood can have an effect of coating the heamoglobin with glucose crystals and thereby reducing the red blood cells ability to transport oxygen - this can lead to high blood pressure and eventually a heart attack. This 'glyceration' of the heamoglobin happens to everyone, but does so at a higher rate for diabetics. But people without diabetes needn't worry about this, as our blood changes every three months or so, and then the process starts all over again. A test called Hba1c measures this rate of glyceration and is a more reliable indicator of the level of type 2 diabetes that someone may be suffering.
  • NinjaJinja
    NinjaJinja Posts: 147 Member
    Ok, I have to chime in about the diabetes and sugar. My mother is a diabetic and insulin dependent. She is require to count CARBS, not the "sugars" on the nutrition label. She doses herself with her pump based on the number of carbs she is eating. It's actually the carb counting that is more important in her situation rather than counting sugar.
  • ShirleeDari
    ShirleeDari Posts: 6
    Sugar does matter - my husband has diabeties but more because of his diet not because he needs to have more insulin. I have been trying to diet for a long time and as I have cut down my sugars and anything white I have lost 3 kilos in a couple of weeks. Stevia is a natural sugar that has no calories and is recommended by DR Oz and nutristionists. Becareful of your carb intake.
  • kmorganlfc
    kmorganlfc Posts: 115 Member
    This is perfectly correct - carbs are the important figures. But if we got all our carbs from just sugar, we'd be very hungry all day which would encourage us to go over on our carbs. So in an indirect sense, sugar isn't good. But diabetes is such a complex illness that what may have a bad effect on one person may be ok for another. :smile:

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