Sugar Intake

Don't worry about it. The food diary is only a tool for you to use, it can't tell the difference between healthy sugars in fruit and unhealthy sugars in donuts and Coke. If I see that I've gone way over on my sugar, I check to see where it's coming from. If it's from the banana I had for breakfast and the natural yoghurt I had with my lunch, I don't care. If it's from processed food, I make a mental note to be more careful the next day.

it would be nice if there was a tool to differentiate between naturally occurring sugars and the refined ones. although too much natural sugar isn't always good either. i just make a note each day calculating how much sugar is from dairy or fruits.

Sorry to rain on the Good Sugar vs Bad Sugar parade, but Sugar is Sugar. All sugar creates an insulin response and promotes fat storage if its not burned off for energy. Women should try to stay under 24 grams per day. I rearly eat sugar after 1 pm so that I'm sure I burn off the sugar. When I'm doing a 30 day sugar detox I stay under or around 10-20 grams per day.

Sugar IS the enemy!!!

Simple carbohydrates or simple sugars - These carbs are broken down and digested very quickly, but most simple carbs contain refined sugars and very few essential vitamins and minerals. Examples include table sugar, fruit juice, milk, yogurt, honey, molasses, maple syrup and brown sugar.

Complex carbohydrates - the complex carbs take longer to digest and are packed with fiber, vitamins and minerals. Examples include vegetables, whole grain breads, oatmeal, legumes, brown rice and wheat pasta.

Carbohydrates are considered simple or complex based upon their chemical structure. Both types contain four calories per gram, and both are digested into the bloodstream as glucose, which is then used to fuel our bodies for normal daily activity and exercise.

When you eat (or drink) a simple carbohydrate or a simple sugar – whether it is a can of soda, a scoop of fat-free ice cream, or even a glass of orange juice – all of the ingested sugar quickly rushes into your bloodstream. You typically feel a quick rush of energy. Your body then promptly reacts to this sudden spike in blood sugar by calling on the pancreas to produce additional insulin to remove the excess sugar from your blood. And for the moment, you have significantly lower blood sugar as a result of the insulin doing its job, resulting in a sense or feeling of needing more fuel, more energy and more calories. And as you hit that residual low blood sugar, you begin to crave more of the quick-release, simple sugars, and hence you have just initiated the sugar craving cycle.

As this downward cycle continues, your pancreas continues to secrete insulin while it simultaneously reduces its production of another hormone called glucagon. Glucagon production, as it relates to improving your body composition, is very important if your fitness goal is to lose excess body fat. Glucagon is the only hormone that allows stored body fat to be released into the bloodstream to be burned by your muscles as energy. And when the pancreas has to elevate its production of insulin while reducing its supply of glucagon, you are basically locking-in your excess body fat. Therefore, too much simple sugar intake dramatically hinders the process of reducing stored body fat.

For more information go to: http://www.briancalkins.com/simplevscomplexcarb.htm and read his book The Power of Champions.

I have not been able to understand the sugar intake. I am always way over as well. I try to avoid added sugar. MFP has me at an allowance of 27 for sugar. I'm assuming that is 27 grams??? If that applies to only added sugar, than MFP should be able to calculate that in by excluding all natural sugars (or at least 90% of the natural sugars - they might miss an obscure fruit for awhile). Since this would be a fairly easy programming fix, I wonder if we really are only supposed to take in 27 grams of sugar regardless of natural or added? I've been doing some research on it but not really coming up with any good, definitive answers. Can anyone enlighten me?

Sorry to rain on the Good Sugar vs Bad Sugar parade, but Sugar is Sugar. All sugar creates an insulin response and promotes fat storage if its not burned off for energy. Women should try to stay under 24 grams per day. I rearly eat sugar after 1 pm so that I'm sure I burn off the sugar. When I'm doing a 30 day sugar detox I stay under or around 10-20 grams per day.

Sugar IS the enemy!!!

Are we supposed to follow the old guidelines of 1.5 - 2 pieces of fruit, 2-3 servings of vegetables and 2-3 servings of dairy (I'm using the numbers for women....I know that it is slightly higher for men)? I know that there are fruits that are way higher in sugar than others but I find it hard to have a "well balanced" diet and stay within my sugar allowance.

Are we supposed to follow the old guidelines of 1.5 - 2 pieces of fruit, 2-3 servings of vegetables and 2-3 servings of dairy (I'm using the numbers for women....I know that it is slightly higher for men)? I know that there are fruits that are way higher in sugar than others but I find it hard to have a "well balanced" diet and stay within my sugar allowance.

Skip the dairy, and have more fruit. The "old guidelines" come from the USDA, which is short for the United States Department of AGRICULTURE. They suggest you consume more dairy than you need because it is an AGRICULTURAL product. The United States Department of AGRICULTURE is more interested in supporting the AGRICULTURAL industry, than they are in your health, because it is their job. The USDA recommendations have switched up over the years, usually recommending whatever it is that us currently being produced by US farmers, not because it's what's best for human health, because it's what's best for them.