too much sugar, not enough calories???

Do you net 1200 calories after exercise or just try to eat 1200? If its the latter, you should try to bump that up. 1200 would be your minimum on non-workout days.

With the sugar, MFP is more geared towards added sugars, like refined sugars. If your diet is consisting mainly of sugars from fruits and veggies, you should be fine.

Hey everyone!

I've noticed that on most days I manage to stay under my 1200 daily intake by about 100/200 calories, i'm trying to get as close to 1200 as I can because I know that not consuming enough can be counter productive but it seems to be really easy to go over you recommended daily sugar dose; for example, just having cereal and then a piece of fruit at lunch can make you go over your daily dose of sugar? It seems bizarre to me because people are always saying that you need to eat more fruit and vegetables but I've researched into it and sugar also seems to be one of the main causes for putting on weight or stopping you from losing weight.

Anyway I was just curious to see if anyone else tracked their sugar intake and if people were still losing weight whilst going over their recommended sugar intake?

Unless you're diabetic, prediabetic, hypoglycemic, or otherwise instructed by a medical professional to monitor sugar specifically, you can safely ignore MFP's sugar totals entirely. Sugar's just a carb; you don't need to make it more special than that.

I wouldn't worry about natural sugar so much...... ADDED sugar is another thing.

The problem with foods that have added sugar, they are typically processed foods. Processed foods have so many nutrients, protein, and fiber stripped away ... whole fruit retains its nutrients and fiber.

I don't look at sugar at all .... I changed my settings to watch for fiber instead.

How do you change your settings to watch for fiber instead of sugar?

Food ---> Settings ---> Change whichever drop down you want to

Thank you!

The recommendation for sugar on MFP is based on the American Heart Association's recommendation for ADDED/REFINED sugar because people like to drink 100 ounces of soda and ****. If you eat fruit at all, you're going to go over. I eat all my fruit, but I'm no scaredz of the insulin fairy.

there's a huge difference between fructose and glucose. The sugar in fruit is treated very differently in your body and isn't as bad for you as pure sugar because it comes with vitamins, minerals, fiber, and other nutrients. My suggestion (besides doing some googling and reading about it) is to have 2 servings or so of fruit a day and limit your other sugars.

And it's best, even with fruit, if you eat your sugars with fats and protein to help your body balance the glycemic load.

good luck

oh... and make sure you DO eat at least 1200 calories! stick some avocado or coconut oil in there if you need extra cals for the day

Do wholegrain cereals and wholegrain foods have natural or processed sugars? I've switched almost all white carbs to wholegrain and wholewheat

This is pretty fuzzy ....... I'm not an expert but if I see honey or molasses I'm good. But there is a whole host of "stuff" I don't know... beet juice, cane syrup .... I dunno

I typically look for the grams of sugar on the label first. This is not foolproof (of course) because the raisins in raisin bran have lots of sugar.... natural sugar (Post brand anyway). If your cereal has fruit, expected higher grams of sugar. If your product contains milk..... it will have naturally occuring maltose. I'm sure there are others.

Look at the ingredients list ........ sugars end in "OSE" ....... sucrose is white granulated sugar, high fructose corn syrup is "extracted from corn" .... it's processed, maltose again would be extracted from something (could be dairy) ...... but if it is an "added" ingredient.... they have processed it in some way.

Do wholegrain cereals and wholegrain foods have natural or processed sugars? I've switched almost all white carbs to wholegrain and wholewheat

This is pretty fuzzy ....... I'm not an expert but if I see honey or molasses I'm good. But there is a whole host of "stuff" I don't know... beet juice, cane syrup .... I dunno

I typically look for the grams of sugar on the label first. This is not foolproof (of course) because the raisins in raisin bran have lots of sugar.... natural sugar (Post brand anyway). If your cereal has fruit, expected higher grams of sugar. If your product contains milk..... it will have naturally occuring maltose. I'm sure there are others.

Look at the ingredients list ........ sugars end in "OSE" ....... sucrose is white granulated sugar, high fructose corn syrup is "extracted from corn" .... it's processed, maltose again would be extracted from something (could be dairy) ...... but if it is an "added" ingredient.... they have processed it in some way.

As was discussed earlier today in another thread, honey is processed as well. It's just processed by bees, not humans.

Personally I have a rule not to eat anything that's been previously eaten and vomited up by another creature. Honey falls into that.