Anyone else having trouble with sodium and sugar targets?

I hardly ever go over my sodium, but sugar is out of control almost every day. There's so much sugar in everything!

^This x

I don't eat sugar (well, I cannot consume more than 8 grams of sugar per meal), OTHER THAN natural sugar found in fruit. And I go over on sugar every day. So I blow it off.

You know what you're eating. If it's natural (fruit), then don't sweat it. If it's cane sugar or HFCS, then pay attention to it.

Like many other people posting above, sodium isn't a problem, but the natural sugars in my food always put me over. Even my breakfast puts me over sugar goal for the day, and that's usually 8oz of 100% pure orange juice, shredded wheat & semi skimmed milk. I avoid added sugar where possible, but have stopped tracking sugar as it seems futile to track a nutrient I have no hope of bringing under goal.

I don't worry about my sugar targets as the only thing I add sugar to is a little in my porridge each morning, it's not really a concern to me.
My sodium levels I monitor though, personally I think excessive sodium is a greater health risk. I always check the sodium levels on products and will choose the one with the lower level, even if it means more calories because I can just work that off if I need to. I generally keep my levels are somewhere between 1500-1800 by not eating processed foods or keep it very minimal, I have never added salt to anything.

@cpudoc64
as long as potassium and sodium balance, I'm ok too.

I also work to the theory of balancing occasional high sodium levels with potassium.

Although I eat almost all fresh produce there are the occasional food selections that are high in sodium. For instance, miso, I love miso soup and it has many health benefits but it is high in sodium. I balance it out by adding some cauliflower and potato.

It is very important for me to control my sugars, because I am battling Cancer. For those of you who don't know, Cancer feeds directly on sugar. I eliminated ALL refined sugars from my diet several months ago. I don't even use products with sugar listed as an ingredient, such as bread or spaghetti sauce (It is really difficult to find a spaghetti sauce with no added sugar, let me tell you! Even the health food store only had ONE brand that met this criteria!).

I took a Food Diary page from just before I joined My Fitness Pal, and used it to log in various types of Fruits, Vegetables, etc. (Fruits listed under Breakfast, Vegetables listed under Lunch), so I could glance at it to decide what things I can combine in any given day and still stay within my Target for natural sugars. Some fruits are higher in sugars than others. Berries are generally lower in sugars, which is good news for me, because berries also have some potent cancer-fighting molecules of various types. Fruit JUICES are usually quite high in sugars, plus they have the added disadvantage of not providing the roughage or some of the micronutrients in the whole fruit. For vegetables,the root vegetables and squashes seem to be higher in natural sugars. Tomato sauce can be on the high side, but I eat it almost daily, for certain cancer-fighting benefits. So I just have to adjust my other sugars accordingly. I am thinking of going to using the tomato suace every OTHER day to leave room for more fruit, which has its own nutritional benefits, of course.

Right now, what this means to me is very little fruit. I get vitamin C in the tomatoes, so I can pass on orange juice. I will sometimes have a few slices of orange, to get some of its other nutritional benefits without blowing my sugar allotment. It means more cruciferous and leafy vegetables than root vegetables.

I think that a healthy person should probably have a bit more fruit, as long as they are getting plenty of vegetables. But if you REALLY need to watch your sugars, it CAN be done!

So are natural sugars ok ? Fruit and suchlike.