Realistic sugar goal

bareessentials
bareessentials Posts: 18
in Food and Nutrition
Currently my sugar goal is something crazy like 32g which I double just with my morning smoothie.
I've been told before to put my sugar goal up but I don't know what to put it up to? If you do use MFP sugar recommendations then how do you stay below it?

EDIT: all of the sugar in my breakfast is natural sugars from fruit and I think it came to about 77g of sugar

Replies

  • Elle1250
    Elle1250 Posts: 9 Member
    I set my sugar goal at 25 grams per day and use a lot of liquid Stevia in tea, and in lemon water. It's easier for me to be low sugar because I'm doing Atkins with no bread, pasta, citrus fruits, etc. My morning smoothie alone has 20 g, so the rest of the day I concentrate on nothing but fat and protein. I only started tracking a week ago and have lost 3 lbs. Liquid Stevia tastes far better than powdered, and has been an absolute lifesaver for me. I'm terrified of ever becoming diabetic, and at age 63 my blood sugar is 93 and A1C 5.0. I care more about that than losing weight. IMHO lowering daily sugar is the most important thing anyone can do.
  • michikade
    michikade Posts: 313 Member
    Unless you have a medical reason to do so, it isn't 100% necessary to count sugar grams specifically. If you are eating enough protein and healthy fats and letting carbs fall as they may, you'll inherently keep them somewhat low but to me it's far more important to track the three major macros first unless, again, there's a specific medical reason to track something else.

    That said, if you're trying to track sucrose versus fructose, frankly the body's gonna convert all of it to glucose anyway so there's that. Also lactose, maltose, HFCS, etc etc etc. So if you're just trying to cut down on "added sugars," that's a good goal but not necessarily something trackable.
  • BoubouChan
    BoubouChan Posts: 163 Member
    Because there is no way when tracking through MFP to differentiate between naturally occurring sugars and added sugar, I find the sugar limit not so useful.

    To stay under my limit I would have to cut out fruit and milk (lactose counts as sugar) from my diet, which I find kind of silly.

    I do however make a conscious choice to avoid added sugar. I also avoid concentrated sources of "natural sugar", such as fruit juices.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    if you re-run your goals you'll get a higher allowance as the settings changed earlier in the year

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1181259-so-what-s-with-this-sugar-then-revised-faq-jan-2014
  • marissanik
    marissanik Posts: 344 Member
    I include fruit sugar, agave nectar, honey, and maple syrup in my "good sugar" category.

    Personally, my rule of thumb is to consume foods with no more than 5g of sugar per serving when buying ketchup, whey, etc. It is recommended you have no more than 20g of artificial sugar a day. I try to stay around that number and again, the foods listed above are excluded from that number for me.

    If you have no health restrictions that sugar would affect you shouldn't worry too much about it though.
  • barbgb1948
    barbgb1948 Posts: 4 Member
    The recommended sugar goal is no more than 10% of your calories. One gram of sugar = 4 calories.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,166 Member
    barbgb1948 wrote: »
    The recommended sugar goal is no more than 10% of your calories. One gram of sugar = 4 calories.

    That's for added sugar, not total sugar.

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