sugar

The sugar intake is something I've been struggling with myself too. I still am struggling with it, so I cannot tell you how to solve the problem. But, from advice that I've heard from fitness people, it's simply just proportioning out the high sugar foods you eat. For example, Bananas are great snacks but often high in sugar. So I would spread it out over my breakfast and my mid- snack, along with other foods that are lower in sugar

Hope that helps you a bit.

I don't even bother with the sugar count. I have a very good diet, most days, and simply having a berry and banana smoothie with light coconut milk will put the sugar over. And even when I don't blend the fruit and eat it in raw form, I still go over. I figure as long as I am consuming the sugar from fruit form, and not junk food, than its fine to be somewhat over, keeping in mind the caloric limits of my diet. I also just switched my sodium column to fibre, because I know I don't normally go over sodium but would like to have a high fibre diet and it indicated I was over on fibre!!??? I don't really get it.

I kept an eye on my sugar count until a week ago. It was ALWAYS over 100. The thing is MFP doesn't distinguish between real and fake or added sugar. FAKE and ADDED sugar is what you need to limit. Otherwise just disregard this bloody number. I've switched to monitoring sodium which is the real killer.

If you are going to leave out sugar you might as well not track it. Any way, unless you have a medical reason, you don't really have to track sugar. If you are interested in tracking it even if you don't have a medical reason to, the AHA recommends tracking added sugars and to limit it to 6 teaspoons for women and 9 for men.

ETA: If you are watching your sugar for medical reasons, then all sugars count.

The problem with sugar (sucrose/fructose/glucose, etc.) is the speed with which they are absorbed into the blood stream, putting a strain on the pancreas and leading to type II diabetes. Our muscles use glucose as the primary energy source, so you can't say that sugar is bad for you, unless you qualify the statement with the high blood levels.

Refined/added sugars "tend" to be the kind that absorb quickly. Natural sugars, because they are incorporated into the body of the food (e.g. within the fiber of the vegetable) take longer to be absorbed, and thus are not such a shock to the pancreas.

Thus the street knowledge that natural sugars are better for you than refined sugars. And, thus the guidance to subtract the natural sugars from the MFP count to compare just the refined/added sugars to the daily allowance. This is how I interpret the sugar # at MFP. I also find it near impossible to get below that daily allowance on a regular basis.

Final note....HONEY.....which I love and cook with instead of refined sugars IS absorbed quickly into the blood stream, and thus, while natural......it should be categorized with the refined/added. Yes...raw honey has more than sugar in it (e.g. pollen/vitamins) and so is better.....but not that much better. Also, cane sugar (the actual stalks) is natural but like honey it is absorbed quickly.

I try to minimize refined/added sugar as much as possible....and beyond that......just keep my fingers crossed that that is enough to avoid type II diabetes.

Good luck!

This question comes up a LOT. Really wish there was a sticky for it.

The sugar limit is based on recommendations for ADDED sugars, but MFP doesn't distinguish between natural and added sugars and counts ALL sugars. If you don't have a medical reason to track it, I wouldn't even bother.

Such a GOOD question. I ask my Doctor yesterday because he had refered this app to me. He said at the end of the day when you submit your food plan- if the message states that you will loss weight (weight ZYX) by such and such date then you are fine.