sugar

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cadillaccowboy
cadillaccowboy Posts: 15 Member
in Food and Nutrition
am I really only allowed 25 cal sugar on 1200 cals? I couldnt believe it when my banana has taken up 21 of my total days allowance. Is this right?:cry:

Replies

  • melaniecheeks
    melaniecheeks Posts: 6,349 Member
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    That is the default setting, and it's generally accepted that it's on the low side, particularly for fruit eaters!
  • lookslikeyoda
    lookslikeyoda Posts: 161 Member
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    It depends what works for you. If you change your goals and customize your values you can allow yourself more sugar and maybe cut down on the fat to substitude for the extra sugar. the site will do the math and still give you an average loss per week. Personally, the cutting out sugar works really well for me.
  • MaximalLife
    MaximalLife Posts: 2,447 Member
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    I totally eliminated white sugar from my diet.
    It was not until I started tracking food intake that I realized how much of this poison I was eating.

    That was one of my very first decisions.
  • xo_morgan
    xo_morgan Posts: 298
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    Before i had my daughter i was down to my lowest goal weight ever. i was at 130. & i was on a low sugar/low carb diet. i didnt pay attention to my calories at all. i counted my sugars for everything BUT fruit. In my head i just considered it natural sugar so i allowed myself 15 sugars a day and 60 carbs. without counting my fruits and i lost 10 lbs in 2 months..which wasnt bad for me because i wasnt big at that time to begin with.
    Im trying this counting carbs thing now because ive never done it and want to see if it works just as well..sorry dont mean to be rambling

    Just thought i would put my 2 cents in saying that i never counted my fruit sugars and it still worked excellent for me :flowerforyou:
  • jrodx2
    jrodx2 Posts: 203 Member
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    Everyone is different so I would suggest seeing how your results are going and then adjusting from there. Personally, I have found it to be pretty low for me. A medium apple alone would take up half of my sugars for the day if I stayed with the default setting. I have mine changed to 50g because I eat mostly natural sugars (fruits, stevia extract, ect.) and I usually come in around 40g a day.
  • sb37
    sb37 Posts: 1
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    Sugar is the devil! Although you do have to watch all sugar, white sugar and in particular, high fructose corn syrup are the big ones. Bananas are very high in sugar...apples are a great alternative. Bananas can spike your glycemic counts quickly, which is wonderful if you've just run a 5k, but if you're not running, try changing it up for a less sugary fruit.

    My mother was diabetic and we, together, did a diabetic eating plan during the time she lived with me following a surgery. I learned a lot about sugar and what fruits to stay away from, and even if you are not diabetic (I am not) I think the guidelines are good for all people. The fruits included were apples, nectarines, strawberries and blueberries, pears...I think that's it.

    Some of those choices might leave you with a little more flexibility.
  • tigersword
    tigersword Posts: 8,059 Member
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    Unless you're diabetic, sugar doesn't matter.

    Oh, and for the record, the body doesn't recognize the difference between sugar from an apple, and sugar from a can of soda. Molecularly, it's all the same to your digestive system and body.
  • Beezil
    Beezil Posts: 1,677 Member
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    Sugar is hard to eliminate... not impossible, but very hard. I'm currently trying to cut down on my intake. But I don't count natural sugars against myself nearly as much as added sugar. Like for instance today, I'm up to 112 grams (that's for everything I've pre-planned to eat today.) But most of that is from natural sugars, such as in my milk (organic) yogurt (organic) fruits and vegetables. There are 83 grams of natural sugar total in my foods today - so 112 - 83 = 29. 29 grams total for ADDED sugar isn't so bad really, but natural or not, sugar is sugar. I still need to cut out a lot when it really comes down to it. That's something I'm unfortunately having trouble with, but I am working on it.
  • mrFerris
    mrFerris Posts: 122 Member
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    I steer clear of white sugar but other sugars are ok. You can't get away from most. Fructose in fruit for example, lactose in milk, even carbs, which are either broken down into glucose, fructose and lactose or startches that are broken down into glucose are dealt with by the pancreas as it produces insulin and helps it into the blood stream where it is transported to cells to be used for energy. We need some sugar to function. So I don't worry too much about natural sugars I just control sucrose, the white stuff I used to fill my coffee cup with!
  • cadillaccowboy
    cadillaccowboy Posts: 15 Member
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    thanks everyone for your replies. Gives me a bit more idea on how things should be. I dont take sugar in anything, and I eat cereal without adding extra sugar so it is really just the sugar content in fruit or deserts that bounces it up a bit!:smile:
  • alisonjaneyelland
    alisonjaneyelland Posts: 20 Member
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    Yeh I wondered about this I eat about 3-4 pieces of fruit a day and I'm always over in my sugar :(
  • cydonian
    cydonian Posts: 361 Member
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    Oh, and for the record, the body doesn't recognize the difference between sugar from an apple, and sugar from a can of soda. Molecularly, it's all the same to your digestive system and body.

    If the can of soda is using real sugar, which there aren't many on the market that do if you're in America (they use high fructose corn syrup). The rest of the world is a different story.
  • tigersword
    tigersword Posts: 8,059 Member
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    Doesn't matter. The body also can't tell the difference between high fructose corn syrup and sucrose, since they are just about identical molecularly. People like to demonize HFCS because it sounds scary, but really, sucrose is 50/50 fructose/glucose, while HFCS is about 55/45 fructose/glucose, and from a metabolic standpoint, they are processed and utilized identically.
  • Pebble321
    Pebble321 Posts: 6,554 Member
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    I think MFP has a pretty low sugar allowance - personally I don't get too worried about it.
    I try to make sure that most of my sugar is coming from diary or from fruit because then I know that it is bringing along some fibre or calcium or other good stuff with the sugar. If it's all coming from cookies or chocolate then I consider that is not a very good day!

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