cutting sugar

24567

Replies

  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    SLLRunner wrote: »
    Why?

    Why? Because products loaded with sugar are also loaded with lots of calories and provide no satiety, that's why. If you are limiting yourself to 1,200 calories, why would you start your morning off with a 300-calorie donut?

    Lots of assumptions here.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,373 MFP Moderator
    Come on guys, lets try not to turn this into a war like usual.

    We need more data from the OP to understand the context of her question.
  • elphie754
    elphie754 Posts: 7,574 Member
    elphie754 wrote: »
    elphie754 wrote: »
    I'm older. When I was a kid, we didn't have sugary treats all the time, they were occasional things, like just for dessert after Sunday dinner or during the holidays. I had come to the point where I was ending every meal with a sweet! That was just ridiculous. The approach when I was a kid was much more moderate. I think that model is much more sane.


    So as I child you only had fruit "occasionally"?

    I believe that she meant sugary treats like candy, cookies and cake, not fruit (which I've never heard referred to as a sugary treat).

    Sugar in fruit is still sugar.
    elphie754 wrote: »
    I'm older. When I was a kid, we didn't have sugary treats all the time, they were occasional things, like just for dessert after Sunday dinner or during the holidays. I had come to the point where I was ending every meal with a sweet! That was just ridiculous. The approach when I was a kid was much more moderate. I think that model is much more sane.


    So as I child you only had fruit "occasionally"?

    I don't consider fruit a "sugary treat", do you?

    Sugar in fruit is still sugar.

    Not sure why people think just because it is fruit the sugar is somehow different.

    Right. Eating strawberries is the same as eating a donut. Just keep believing that.

    I will keep believing it especially since I have lost 50lbs in the past 6 months. I will let the results speak for themselves.
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,943 Member
    SLLRunner wrote: »
    Why?

    Why? Because products loaded with sugar are also loaded with lots of calories and provide no satiety, that's why. If you are limiting yourself to 1,200 calories, why would you start your morning off with a 300-calorie donut?

    If I eat a piece of cake, I feel full for hours. Maybe sugar does not satiate you, but it does some people.

    As for your comment about the donut - why not eat half and save the rest for another day?
  • lynn1982
    lynn1982 Posts: 1,439 Member
    pacullen wrote: »
    How do i start cutting sugar? No idea where to evn start

    If you open your diary, people might be able to suggest from where you can cut your sugar intake. If you're eating cookies as an afternoon snack, or a donut for breakfast (you get the idea), try replacing those with healthier alternatives. If you're concerned about "hidden" sugars in packaged foods - read labels and ingredients lists, make your own versions, etc. And finally, if you're concerned about fruit sugar, unless you are diabetic or pre-diabetic, then this probably shouldn't be much of a concern. Fresh fruit has other nutritional benefits like fiber and vitamins that candy bars or pastries don't have. If you can be more specific about what you're currently eating, then others can give you a bit more guidance.
  • FatFreeFrolicking
    FatFreeFrolicking Posts: 4,252 Member
    Typically you can cut back on sugar by eating less foods like donuts, muffins, cookies, cake, candy, soda, juice, etc.

    At the end of the day, you don't need to worry about sugar unless you have a medical condition like diabetes, insulin resistance, and hypoglycemia.
  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
    elphie754 wrote: »
    elphie754 wrote: »
    I'm older. When I was a kid, we didn't have sugary treats all the time, they were occasional things, like just for dessert after Sunday dinner or during the holidays. I had come to the point where I was ending every meal with a sweet! That was just ridiculous. The approach when I was a kid was much more moderate. I think that model is much more sane.


    So as I child you only had fruit "occasionally"?

    I believe that she meant sugary treats like candy, cookies and cake, not fruit (which I've never heard referred to as a sugary treat).

    Sugar in fruit is still sugar.
    elphie754 wrote: »
    I'm older. When I was a kid, we didn't have sugary treats all the time, they were occasional things, like just for dessert after Sunday dinner or during the holidays. I had come to the point where I was ending every meal with a sweet! That was just ridiculous. The approach when I was a kid was much more moderate. I think that model is much more sane.


    So as I child you only had fruit "occasionally"?

    I don't consider fruit a "sugary treat", do you?

    Sugar in fruit is still sugar.

    Not sure why people think just because it is fruit the sugar is somehow different.

    I said sugary treats. What part of "treat" do you not understand?

    I'm not an anti-sugar person, I'm not sure why you're arguing with me. I'm for moderation in all things.

  • elphie754
    elphie754 Posts: 7,574 Member
    elphie754 wrote: »
    elphie754 wrote: »
    I'm older. When I was a kid, we didn't have sugary treats all the time, they were occasional things, like just for dessert after Sunday dinner or during the holidays. I had come to the point where I was ending every meal with a sweet! That was just ridiculous. The approach when I was a kid was much more moderate. I think that model is much more sane.


    So as I child you only had fruit "occasionally"?

    I believe that she meant sugary treats like candy, cookies and cake, not fruit (which I've never heard referred to as a sugary treat).

    Sugar in fruit is still sugar.
    elphie754 wrote: »
    I'm older. When I was a kid, we didn't have sugary treats all the time, they were occasional things, like just for dessert after Sunday dinner or during the holidays. I had come to the point where I was ending every meal with a sweet! That was just ridiculous. The approach when I was a kid was much more moderate. I think that model is much more sane.


    So as I child you only had fruit "occasionally"?

    I don't consider fruit a "sugary treat", do you?

    Sugar in fruit is still sugar.

    Not sure why people think just because it is fruit the sugar is somehow different.

    I said sugary treats. What part of "treat" do you not understand?

    I'm not an anti-sugar person, I'm not sure why you're arguing with me. I'm for moderation in all things.

    To me, certain fruits are treats since I don't buy them often.
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,943 Member
    elphie754 wrote: »
    elphie754 wrote: »
    elphie754 wrote: »
    I'm older. When I was a kid, we didn't have sugary treats all the time, they were occasional things, like just for dessert after Sunday dinner or during the holidays. I had come to the point where I was ending every meal with a sweet! That was just ridiculous. The approach when I was a kid was much more moderate. I think that model is much more sane.


    So as I child you only had fruit "occasionally"?

    I believe that she meant sugary treats like candy, cookies and cake, not fruit (which I've never heard referred to as a sugary treat).

    Sugar in fruit is still sugar.
    elphie754 wrote: »
    I'm older. When I was a kid, we didn't have sugary treats all the time, they were occasional things, like just for dessert after Sunday dinner or during the holidays. I had come to the point where I was ending every meal with a sweet! That was just ridiculous. The approach when I was a kid was much more moderate. I think that model is much more sane.


    So as I child you only had fruit "occasionally"?

    I don't consider fruit a "sugary treat", do you?

    Sugar in fruit is still sugar.

    Not sure why people think just because it is fruit the sugar is somehow different.

    I said sugary treats. What part of "treat" do you not understand?

    I'm not an anti-sugar person, I'm not sure why you're arguing with me. I'm for moderation in all things.

    To me, certain fruits are treats since I don't buy them often.

    Exactly. Anything can be a treat. I don't buy crab often, but when I did it's a treat.
  • tennisdude2004
    tennisdude2004 Posts: 5,609 Member
    herrspoons wrote: »
    psulemon wrote: »
    Come on guys, lets try not to turn this into a war like usual.

    We need more data from the OP to understand the context of her question.

    Well, fair enough, but you might want to ask who the agent provocateurs are here.

    Well, on a thread where someone is asking for help and suggestions on cutting back on sugar - a decision they have obviously made, maybe the 'agent provocateurs' are the ones hijacking the thread and turning it into a - you don't need to cut out sugar - argument.

    How about for once trying to keep a sugar thread on track!
  • Acg67
    Acg67 Posts: 12,142 Member
    edited January 2015
    Sugar give us instant energy, but has no nutritional value. It can surge blood sugars very quickly and then drop very quickly.
    Best way to cut down on your sugar is by reducing it gradually. For example if you have 2 teaspoons of sugar in your beverage, drop it by a half teaspoon or 1 teaspoon until you are OK with no sugar with your tea and coffee. This way, you will be able to train your taste buds to less sugar.

    You can have a small treat occasionally, that is fine. I find not having any bought cakes and biscuits in the cupboard stops the temptation to eat them. Have nuts, fruit, carrots, celery with peanut butter.

    Contrary to belief, sugar actually IS the enemy. The type of sugar that you need to avoid is the one in cakes, biscuits, fizzy drinks, fruit juices (OK in moderation) and squashes, sweets, chocolates. The sugars you should try and have less of are sucrose, glucose.

    The sugar in fruit is called fructose and is fine as long as you eat the whole fruit which also gives you vitamins and fibre. Milk sugar is called lactose and some people have an intolerance to this.

    When you go for yogurts, go for the ones with no sugar or ones with 3% or less. Because foods say low fat, this does not mean that it is healthy. Low fat products tend to have too much sugar added to them. Like one of the previous posters mentioned, make your own sauces as most of the ready made meals and sauces are laden with added sugar. You will also know exactly what goes into your meal if you use fresh produce.

    The body does need the right type of fat to keep healthy. Vitamins D, K, E are fat soluble vitamins and require the right type of fat to be absorbed into the body for optimal health. The good fats are in nuts, fish, coconut oil.

    Hope this helps.


    you can't believe that fruit only contains fructose.

    BTW sugar is essential to human life
  • tennisdude2004
    tennisdude2004 Posts: 5,609 Member
    edited January 2015
    Acg67 wrote: »
    Sugar give us instant energy, but has no nutritional value. It can surge blood sugars very quickly and then drop very quickly.
    Best way to cut down on your sugar is by reducing it gradually. For example if you have 2 teaspoons of sugar in your beverage, drop it by a half teaspoon or 1 teaspoon until you are OK with no sugar with your tea and coffee. This way, you will be able to train your taste buds to less sugar.

    You can have a small treat occasionally, that is fine. I find not having any bought cakes and biscuits in the cupboard stops the temptation to eat them. Have nuts, fruit, carrots, celery with peanut butter.

    Contrary to belief, sugar actually IS the enemy. The type of sugar that you need to avoid is the one in cakes, biscuits, fizzy drinks, fruit juices (OK in moderation) and squashes, sweets, chocolates. The sugars you should try and have less of are sucrose, glucose.

    The sugar in fruit is called fructose and is fine as long as you eat the whole fruit which also gives you vitamins and fibre. Milk sugar is called lactose and some people have an intolerance to this.

    When you go for yogurts, go for the ones with no sugar or ones with 3% or less. Because foods say low fat, this does not mean that it is healthy. Low fat products tend to have too much sugar added to them. Like one of the previous posters mentioned, make your own sauces as most of the ready made meals and sauces are laden with added sugar. You will also know exactly what goes into your meal if you use fresh produce.

    The body does need the right type of fat to keep healthy. Vitamins D, K, E are fat soluble vitamins and require the right type of fat to be absorbed into the body for optimal health. The good fats are in nuts, fish, coconut oil.

    Hope this helps.


    you can't believe that fruit only contains fructose.

    BTW sugar is essential to human life

    BTW - Dietary sugar isn't!
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    Acg67 wrote: »
    BTW sugar is essential to human life

    But not dietary sugar.

    http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/DRI/DRI_Energy/265-338.pdf "The lower limit of dietary carbohydrate compatible with life apparently is zero, provided that adequate amounts of protein and fat are con-sumed. "
  • Kalikel
    Kalikel Posts: 9,626 Member
    Drop sugary sodas. Limit juices. Limit or cut ice cream, cake, cookies, candy. That's a good way to start. :) I think this a nice start: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/added-sugar-in-the-diet/

    If you have some special health concern and don't remember what you were told, call the doctor up and ask! If you don't, but just want some idea of what would be a great plan just for you, see if you can get a referral to a dieititan.

    Good luck!
  • LeenaGee
    LeenaGee Posts: 749 Member
    herrspoons wrote: »
    psulemon wrote: »
    Come on guys, lets try not to turn this into a war like usual.

    We need more data from the OP to understand the context of her question.

    Well, fair enough, but you might want to ask who the agent provocateurs are here.

    Well, on a thread where someone is asking for help and suggestions on cutting back on sugar - a decision they have obviously made, maybe the 'agent provocateurs' are the ones hijacking the thread and turning it into a - you don't need to cut out sugar - argument.

    How about for once trying to keep a sugar thread on track!

    I agree totally, we should keep the sugar thread on track and answer OP's original question. She wants to cut sugar and has made that decision.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    If OP has read some anti sugar propaganda on the internet and is thus freaking out about being a bit over her sugar goal--perhaps due to some fruit, as is common enough--discussing WHY she's worried about cutting sugar is reasonable.

    We don't have nearly enough information. If the deal is just that she's eating lots of cookies (which she did not say) obviously the answer is eat fewer cookies.

    Generally, the answer, as was covered fully upthread, is that you log, see where your sugar is coming from, and decide if those are foods that you would do better off eating less of. But not everyone, even those who want to lose weight, drink lots of soda or the like.

    Also, presumably she knows the answer is eat less sugar to cut sugar, so there's more to the question that has not been explained. Without that, there's not really any more advice we can give her.
  • GaleHawkins
    GaleHawkins Posts: 8,160 Member
    edited January 2015
    Acg67 wrote: »
    Sugar give us instant energy, but has no nutritional value. It can surge blood sugars very quickly and then drop very quickly.
    Best way to cut down on your sugar is by reducing it gradually. For example if you have 2 teaspoons of sugar in your beverage, drop it by a half teaspoon or 1 teaspoon until you are OK with no sugar with your tea and coffee. This way, you will be able to train your taste buds to less sugar.

    You can have a small treat occasionally, that is fine. I find not having any bought cakes and biscuits in the cupboard stops the temptation to eat them. Have nuts, fruit, carrots, celery with peanut butter.

    Contrary to belief, sugar actually IS the enemy. The type of sugar that you need to avoid is the one in cakes, biscuits, fizzy drinks, fruit juices (OK in moderation) and squashes, sweets, chocolates. The sugars you should try and have less of are sucrose, glucose.

    The sugar in fruit is called fructose and is fine as long as you eat the whole fruit which also gives you vitamins and fibre. Milk sugar is called lactose and some people have an intolerance to this.

    When you go for yogurts, go for the ones with no sugar or ones with 3% or less. Because foods say low fat, this does not mean that it is healthy. Low fat products tend to have too much sugar added to them. Like one of the previous posters mentioned, make your own sauces as most of the ready made meals and sauces are laden with added sugar. You will also know exactly what goes into your meal if you use fresh produce.

    The body does need the right type of fat to keep healthy. Vitamins D, K, E are fat soluble vitamins and require the right type of fat to be absorbed into the body for optimal health. The good fats are in nuts, fish, coconut oil.

    Hope this helps.


    you can't believe that fruit only contains fructose.

    BTW sugar is essential to human life

    Acg67 six months ago I like you were under the false impression that sugar is essential to human life. Medical science clearly shows today that sugar or any other version of carbs are optional for human life vs being required.

    It seems per some research from a NZ conference fructose is a cue that it will soon be winter so the hormones slows down the metabolism, raises the hormone Insulin which is needed to gain weight, increases the appetite so as much fat is gained as possible to make it through the long winter OK.

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=F1afyKN18S0

    Starting at about 23:00 he covers this over the next few minutes. I found the entire video interesting that he presented to a group of his peers.

    In short if we are consuming fructose and it does trigger fat storage and saps our energy so we just want to sleep it makes sense why some of us may be fat. It is outside of the box for sure. We already understand we do not get fat because we eat too much and move to little. It it more like we have low energy so we eat more to gain energy but hormonally being in fat storage mode we can only gain weight for the winter so we just gain more weight and feel more tired since today we never have to face "winter" and the risk of starving like even 100 years ago in some parts of the world.
  • FredDoyle
    FredDoyle Posts: 2,273 Member
    edited January 2015
    Acg67 wrote: »
    Sugar give us instant energy, but has no nutritional value. It can surge blood sugars very quickly and then drop very quickly.
    Best way to cut down on your sugar is by reducing it gradually. For example if you have 2 teaspoons of sugar in your beverage, drop it by a half teaspoon or 1 teaspoon until you are OK with no sugar with your tea and coffee. This way, you will be able to train your taste buds to less sugar.

    You can have a small treat occasionally, that is fine. I find not having any bought cakes and biscuits in the cupboard stops the temptation to eat them. Have nuts, fruit, carrots, celery with peanut butter.

    Contrary to belief, sugar actually IS the enemy. The type of sugar that you need to avoid is the one in cakes, biscuits, fizzy drinks, fruit juices (OK in moderation) and squashes, sweets, chocolates. The sugars you should try and have less of are sucrose, glucose.

    The sugar in fruit is called fructose and is fine as long as you eat the whole fruit which also gives you vitamins and fibre. Milk sugar is called lactose and some people have an intolerance to this.

    When you go for yogurts, go for the ones with no sugar or ones with 3% or less. Because foods say low fat, this does not mean that it is healthy. Low fat products tend to have too much sugar added to them. Like one of the previous posters mentioned, make your own sauces as most of the ready made meals and sauces are laden with added sugar. You will also know exactly what goes into your meal if you use fresh produce.

    The body does need the right type of fat to keep healthy. Vitamins D, K, E are fat soluble vitamins and require the right type of fat to be absorbed into the body for optimal health. The good fats are in nuts, fish, coconut oil.

    Hope this helps.


    you can't believe that fruit only contains fructose.

    BTW sugar is essential to human life

    Acg67 six months ago I like you were under the false impression that sugar is essential to human life. Medical science clearly shows today that sugar or any other version of carbs are optional for human life vs being required.

    It seems per some research from a NZ conference fructose is a cue that it will soon be winter so the hormones slows down the metabolism, raises the hormone Insulin which is needed to gain weight, increases the appetite so as much fat is gained as possible to make it through the long winter OK.

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=F1afyKN18S0

    Starting at about 23:00 he covers this over the next few minutes. I found the entire video interesting that he presented to a group of his peers.

    In short if we are consuming fructose and it does trigger fat storage and saps our energy so we just want to sleep it makes sense why some of us may be fat. It is outside of the box for sure. We already understand we do not get fat because we eat too much and move to little. It it more like we have low energy so we eat more to gain energy but hormonally being in fat storage mode we can only gain weight for the winter so we just gain more weight and feel more tired since today we never have to face "winter" and the risk of starving like even 100 years ago in some parts of the world.

    It seems as if you are saying we're getting ready for hibernation.
  • elphie754
    elphie754 Posts: 7,574 Member
    herrspoons wrote: »
    psulemon wrote: »
    Come on guys, lets try not to turn this into a war like usual.

    We need more data from the OP to understand the context of her question.

    Well, fair enough, but you might want to ask who the agent provocateurs are here.

    Well, on a thread where someone is asking for help and suggestions on cutting back on sugar - a decision they have obviously made, maybe the 'agent provocateurs' are the ones hijacking the thread and turning it into a - you don't need to cut out sugar - argument.

    How about for once trying to keep a sugar thread on track!

    How about for once not making a nutrient evil and cutting things out that don't need to be cut out (unless you have a medical condition)?