Anyone else going sugar free in 2015?

OP: you state you have some medical and energy issues. Rather than trying to 'self diagnose/treat', especially using a source that is not credible, have you discussed these issues with your doctor? Not asking what they are as its your business - but has your doctor told you to give up sugar?

im trying fruit and veggies for 21 days .i eat this way as a rule but get out of control on the desert need to get back to not having cookies cake chips and also other problem is just plain over eating them .addicted

mamapeach910 wrote: »

ILiftHeavyAcrylics wrote: »

mamapeach910 wrote: »

GaleHawkins wrote: »

LumberJacck wrote: »

Back in the first half of the year I happened to read online about the Schaub family who went sugar free, and their health and energy improved. I thought I'd try this since I do have a few health and energy issues. I have no idea how long I'll last, but I thought I'd give it a try. Are there any others of you who will do the same?

I did it Oct 2014 because I learned sugar is toxic to my body.

Tried to cut back in Aug-Sept but no luck so I got ticked and when off sugar cold turkey start of Oct.

Thought I was going to die the first two weeks but I was facing a cancer risk if I got on the injections for pain management for my arthritis so the cancer risk drove me to stay off of sugar.

After two weeks the carb cravings just left. My 7-8+ pain level is like 2-3 now on a scale of 1-10. I plan to stay at <50 grams of carbs daily which means no sugar until I die.

Remember I had abused carbs for 40 years and sugar had wrecked my health so breaking my addiction was not easy.

Best of luck and doing it can save you a lot of grief if you plan to live to be old.

Just an off topic aside, the "cancer risk" from Embrel? About .22% Please note the decimal point. As a person who takes a class of the drug you eschewed, I really, really take issue with how casually you spout misinformation about the risks from it AND about how eliminating carbs can miraculously effect inflammatory arthritis. You're probably just not flaring right now. The only KNOWN and proven ways to get results with inflammatory arthritis pain are anti-TNF therapy, NSAIDS and exercise.

So many people with autoimmune and other chronic pain conditions miss this. It's very difficult to pin down what's helping or not even amongst proven medical treatments because the disease itself is cyclical. I could have concluded back in July that sugar was helping my pain because I was baking a lot more and my pain levels were decreasing. It actually had nothing to do with sugar, I was just on a downward trend.

I think it's hard to tell for personal experience that something is "working" for a chronic cyclical condition, but for medicines and exercise? They've been proven by studies to work. Granted, not all medicines will work for all patients, but in general, their efficacy is supported by scientific study, not just correlation backed anecdata.

That's true. What I mean is just that even with treatments we know work in large scale populations they may not work as well for the individual, which is why there are many similar drugs that may vary in effectiveness from person to person. For example I take neurontin and it works for me better than Lyrica. My grandma is the opposite. There's really only a very slight difference between them and they're both proven effective in clinical studies, but one works better for me and the other works better for her. But it can be hard to tell when something is truly helping and when you're just getting better on your own.

I once had a doctor prescribe Cellcept for me, which is a perfectly effective drug and I don't mean to imply that it isn't. I was absolutely convinced that it was not only working, but crucial, because it seemed that any time I came off of it I got worse. But I switched rheumatologists and the new one wanted me to come off of it. I argued and argued with him that it *was* working and that I needed it. But in the end I went off of it and nothing changed. It had just so happened that I started taking it before a natural upswing in my symptoms. Coincidence + placebo effect.

My point was just that if that can happen with things that we *know* work, like well tested pharmaceuticals, it's even more pronounced with things that are fuzzier.

Not a chance. Give up my ice cream? YEAH RIGHT!

Not me.

64138MomToLose wrote: »

hebrewhauler wrote: »

I believe it is wise to avoid REFINED sugar or too much sugar period. There is a reason why we have a type 2 diabetes epidemic.

um...just NO

So, are saying it's fine to just eat loads and loads of refined sugar?

MrM27 wrote: »

ForecasterJason wrote: »

64138MomToLose wrote: »

hebrewhauler wrote: »

I believe it is wise to avoid REFINED sugar or too much sugar period. There is a reason why we have a type 2 diabetes epidemic.

um...just NO

So, are saying it's fine to just eat loads and loads of refined sugar?

Who said loads and loads? What part of moderation don't you seem to understand? Why is it one extreme or the other?

All she posted was 2-3 word blunt responses, which was clearly not enough to explain what she meant. It sounds to me like her "no" includes the point about it being "wise to avoid too much sugar period."

MrM27 wrote: »

ForecasterJason wrote: »

MrM27 wrote: »

ForecasterJason wrote: »

64138MomToLose wrote: »

hebrewhauler wrote: »

I believe it is wise to avoid REFINED sugar or too much sugar period. There is a reason why we have a type 2 diabetes epidemic.

um...just NO

So, are saying it's fine to just eat loads and loads of refined sugar?

Who said loads and loads? What part of moderation don't you seem to understand? Why is it one extreme or the other?

All she posted was 2-3 word blunt responses, which was clearly not enough to explain what she meant. It sounds to me like her "no" includes the point about it being "wise to avoid too much sugar period."

Stop making assumptions. You really need to take a step back and really think about what people are really saying. Not what you think they are saying.

I know, but if she's going to make a claim like that, shouldn't she have explained it better?

ForecasterJason wrote: »

64138MomToLose wrote: »

hebrewhauler wrote: »

I believe it is wise to avoid REFINED sugar or too much sugar period. There is a reason why we have a type 2 diabetes epidemic.

um...just NO

So, are saying it's fine to just eat loads and loads of refined sugar?

It couldn't possibly be that she's refuting the implication that sugar is what causes obesity.

I get that I misinterpreted MomToLose's post, but it still doesn't change the fact that it reads "no" to everything the other poster said.
Yes, I would like to think that it's the notion of sugar causing obesity that she was responding to, but there's clearly a lot of ambiguity in her posts.

ForecasterJason wrote: »

64138MomToLose wrote: »

hebrewhauler wrote: »

I believe it is wise to avoid REFINED sugar or too much sugar period. There is a reason why we have a type 2 diabetes epidemic.

um...just NO

So, are saying it's fine to just eat loads and loads of refined sugar?

Nobody said that.

Nobody.

MrM27 wrote: »

ForecasterJason wrote: »

64138MomToLose wrote: »

hebrewhauler wrote: »

I believe it is wise to avoid REFINED sugar or too much sugar period. There is a reason why we have a type 2 diabetes epidemic.

um...just NO

So, are saying it's fine to just eat loads and loads of refined sugar?

Who said loads and loads? What part of moderation don't you seem to understand? Why is it one extreme or the other?

This is an excellent point because the extreme of eating too much in the first place gets people overweight, and then the extreme of good food/bad fad can keep us there. There is way too much demonizing of some foods, especially sugar. When I got rid of the whole extreme mentality, my relationship with myself and food changed. And, yes, I demonized refined sugar (funny I never demonized fruits or foods sweetened with fruit. )

Now, when I don't eat those cookies or forgo the cake, it's not because they are bad foods, it's simply because I don't want them at that time. There's always another day.

Other times, like when I'm at a party and there are sweets, I eat too much of them, but that is a rare occurrence these days (compared to very often before I changed my perception of food).

Ok, before this continues any further, please, everyone, scroll back to the original comment that was quoted and look at the two responses directly above it from the same user. None of them go into any detail as to what that user meant, so we don't need to waste our time speculating about it, especially when we can watch this:

MrM27 wrote: »

SLLRunner wrote: »

MrM27 wrote: »

ForecasterJason wrote: »

64138MomToLose wrote: »

hebrewhauler wrote: »

I believe it is wise to avoid REFINED sugar or too much sugar period. There is a reason why we have a type 2 diabetes epidemic.

um...just NO

So, are saying it's fine to just eat loads and loads of refined sugar?

Who said loads and loads? What part of moderation don't you seem to understand? Why is it one extreme or the other?

This is an excellent point because the extreme of eating too much in the first place gets people overweight, and then the extreme of good food/bad fad can keep us there. There is way too much demonizing of some foods, especially sugar. When I got rid of the whole extreme mentality, my relationship with myself and food changed. And, yes, I demonized refined sugar (funny I never demonized fruits or foods sweetened with fruit. )

Now, when I don't eat those cookies or forgo the cake, it's not because they are bad foods, it's simply because I don't want them at that time. There's always another day.

Other times, like when I'm at a party and there are sweets, I eat too much of them, but that is a rare occurrence these days (compared to very often before I changed my perception of food).

Jason, tell us what this member actually meant above^^^^^ Not what she really said which is pretty clear.

I do understand SLLRunner's post. I think what I'm seeing is that so much about nutrition that I was brought up on is not being looked at the same way on MFP. It is true that growing up I was taught moderation when it comes to foods, especially sweets. But I'd also always heard that some forms of sugar such as table sugar, HFCS, CS, and other forms of sugar added to some foods are not "healthy". It wasn't that I shouldn't eat any of this at all. But again, moderation. In other words, I was taught that I shouldn't be eating lots of these foods (particularly the ones that also have numerous other added ingredients that are hard to pronounce) because they're "not healthy". I hate to bring it back up again, but as I've indirectly mentioned before, yes I was taught that something like broccoli is "healthy" and a brownie isn't really. Not to the level of sugar being the devil type thing, but you get the picture.

Also, I do know correlation does not equal causation here. But I've often thought about the fact that as I got into my teenage years, I can say that my allergies worsened, and my digestive system became more sensitive. There probably were other factors in play, but I can't ignore the fact that I did eat start eating more refined sugar in my early teens as compared to early childhood.

Maybe you guys can understand why it's not so easy for me to quickly understand the alternate way of looking at this type of stuff.

While you guys were arguing 10 million ppl died from sugar overdose