Is ALL sugar bad?

you can turn off sugar on your list of nutrients if it bugs you.

I don't actually know the rationale for the number that's set in MFP - maybe it's a USDA guideline or something.

The sugars from sources other than table sugar will all behave pretty well the same once you've eaten them.

Yeah it is a USDA thing. They recommend we have very little sugar and make no distinction between types of sugars. Off topic but kids are only supposed to have 12 grams of sugar per day. In the schools here they service breakfasts to the kids that contain 3 times that. Not only from juice and fruit but from pop tarts and super donuts which are deemed "healthy" because they "are fortitified with vitamins" so it is no wonder they predict 1/3 of the kids today will have type 2 diabetes in their lifetimes.

You can go over on recommended sugar by eating fruit all day. That alone should tell you that tracking sugar is pretty much worthless. Imo track carbs instead - paying attention to where the sugar comes from. If it's packaged in fibrous fruits it's fine, if it's packaged in a processed candy bar, not so fine. I'm diabetic and even I don't bother tracking sugar.

Exactly. I just turned off my sugar tracker but it was bugging me, too. Now I'm watching my carbs instead.

FYI:

Again they make no distinction between sugars- I think they should.

"

American Heart Association (AHA) recommends how much sugar per day we should take, the recommended daily sugar intake, which is healthy and not harmful for the body, has been developed for men and women. How much sugar per day should we take:

Recommended Daily Sugar Intake for Men: 36 grams or 9 teaspoons
Recommended Daily Sugar Intake for Women: 20 grams or 5 teaspoons
Recommended Daily Sugar Intake for Children: 12 grams or 3 teaspoons

Percentage of how much sugar per day
The USDA sugar guidelines suggest that no more than 8 percent of our daily calories should come from sugar. It means that how much sugar per day we take should not be more than 8 percent.

High Sugar Foods
Using 40 grams as the Daily Value for added sugars might reveal how much sugar per day is ideal for our body. For example, a cup of regular ice cream contains 60 percent of the proposed Daily Value for sugar, a typical cup of fruit-flavored yogurt contains 70 percent, and a 12-ounce soft drink or quarter-cup of pancake syrup contains 100 percent.

High Sugar Diets and Obesity
High sugar diets, or high glycemic index diets, can cause obesity. If you eat a high glycemic food or a high glycemic load meal, will triggers a rapid rise in our blood sugar levels, our pancreas is over-stimulated and releases large amount of insulin. Result? This large quantity of insulin rapidly mops up the excess sugar in our bloodstream causing our blood sugar levels to dip quickly below normal, causing us to feel hungry once more. So even though we may have eaten a high calorie meal, we are induced to feel hungry and eat again within a short time. This process may lead to excessive calorie intake and weight gain, possibly causing obesity."

This from http://www.dailysugarintake.net/how-much-sugar-per-day.html

Calories are the most important number to pay attention to. I once only ate swedish fish candy for 4 days but didn't exceed 900 calories and lost weight. ( this is ****ed up I know) But the point is I wouldn't stress about the sugar amount too much. If you are, many diet books say not to eat any fruit after 12pm so that may help with how much you consume.

Sugar offers no nutritional benefits so eliminate it

Except sugar is necessary in the production of ATP so...yeah. Also, energy source.

I'm in the "fruit is ALWAYS good for you" group. (Unless told otherwise by your doctor, of course.)

Calories are the most important number to pay attention to. I once only ate swedish fish candy for 4 days but didn't exceed 900 calories and lost weight. ( this is ****ed up I know)

Just to expand on this statement: Calories are only the most important number to pay attention to if all you are concerned with is weight loss. If you are concerned with other aspects of health such as cancer prevention and heart health then there are other factors you need to pay attention to.

I had the exact same question!

me too!

i eat one apple and i'm already halfway there - the cap makes me afraid to even eat fruit!

Ok, so Ive been over on my sugar intake pretty much every day, BUT like 95% of it comes from fat free milk and fresh fruit. Very little of it comes from candy or other foods. What Im wondering is: Will this interfere with me losing weight? Should I cut back on my sugar even if its coming from fruits?

No.

It astounds me how much fogginess there is out there on a lot of this stuff.

Sugars, starches, carbs etc are all chemically the same. Your body takes honey, or fruit, and breaks it down into base components the same way it takes a potato and breaks it down into the same base component. Your body needs sugars, most carbohydrates in some form break down into sugars.

Your body uses carbs for energy, it needs them for energy, this is called an anabolic process. If you deprive your body of carbs in an effort to go into ketosis, your body goes catabolic and starts metabolising fat or your own lean mass. Ketosis is popular for fat loss but it is skirting the line of causing serious kidney complications.

So things like fruit, while high in sugars, are not really bad at all. The difference is complex carbs versus simple carbs.

Complex carbs: sweet potatoes, quinoa, cracked wheat, fruit, raw honey

Simple carbs: enriched flours, processed candy, etc

The key guideline is not overdoing your calories...if you need to eat 2000 calories to lose weight, the composition of macro nutrients really does not matter too much. You will still lose. The benefit of complex carb foods is they are typically more filling and nutrient dense (strawberry versus a candy bar etc). Now if you eat 2000 calories of twinkies or chicken versus 2000 calories of balanced complex carbs, healthy fats and proteins, you will experience a whole other world of issues, but that is neither here nor there.

Second this. Also watch your fats more than sugars. Your body produces 3x more usable energy units from a fatty acid than it does from a glucose molecule.

if you have insulin resistance, as many of us do, then most sugars do cause a reaction, and yes we have to limit fruit. Fruit contains a variety of sugars in different proportions. Many fruit are high in sucrose (= table sugar). So I restrict my fruit to low-sugar ones like berries.