Daily Sugar Goal....HELP!

newmeat30
newmeat30 Posts: 766 Member
edited September 24 in Food and Nutrition
What is your daily goal for sugar and how close are you to it every day??



MFP has my goal set for 26 grams of sugar a day. I am having the HARDEST time staying anywhere near that goal and I need some help. I am under on calories, carbs, fat, and sodium every day (I worked really hard to be under on sodium) but it seems next to impossible to be under or even close to my goal for sugar. I am usually 20-30 grams higher than my goal every day. It isn't that I'm stuffing my face with candy (sure I have it every once in a while) it just seems that my food in general is higher in sugar than I would have thought.

I would really appreciate any suggestions that you may have on some lower sugar foods that are easy to have on hand.

Thanks so much!

Replies

  • jms023
    jms023 Posts: 37 Member
    I also have a hard time staying under their sugar goal. I think it is unrealistic, however, especially if you eat lots of fruit. I think the sugar should only be counted if it comes from sources of "added sugar," i.e., any food that has sugar added to it artificially (candy, processed foods, etc...). I would be interested in hearing anyone else's take on this, though. I have such a sweet tooth, but I've been turning to fruit to satisfy it and still have lots of trouble staying under the sugar goal for MFP.
  • sourkeys
    sourkeys Posts: 36 Member
    I too have a hard time staying under my sugar. my goal says its 39, one banana was 14, thats almost half of it gone there.
  • ocukor1
    ocukor1 Posts: 66
    I completely ignore sugar from fruits. The sugar in fruits is fructose which is more complex and take some time to digest. The nutrition labeling is misleading in that sense because someone may think that a can of mountain dew is the same as apple. Far from it, the sugar in mountain dew will instantly turn into glucose and spike your blood sugar and insulin to high heavens, and the sugar from an apple will slowly get absorbed without giving you a sugar high.
  • KALMdown
    KALMdown Posts: 211 Member
    Have the same problem, sugar (in all its forms) is in practically EVERYTHING except maybe air.
  • Karon130
    Karon130 Posts: 4
    I find that I do ok with mine most days, but I make sure I am not consuming processed packaged foods. Also, the more you work out, the more points you can earn.
  • edmondblues
    edmondblues Posts: 1
    My cardio dr has me in cardiac therapy which includes utilizing the Pritikin diet. Pritikin is the new gold standard which med ins pays for you to have a nutritionist and for your workout facility if they have physiologists monitoring your workout and training. You primarily eat only foods that come from the earth. Veggies, fruits and non-processed grains such of black red purple rice, unprocessed (steel cut) oats, barley etc. No dairy. No oils. No nuts. (Did you know 1/4 cup of nuts is equivalent to 8 baked potatoes for starch and natural oils?! Crazy huh?). If I have tea or unprocessed shredded wheat and need sugar, I use Truvia or Splendid. Red meat 1x per month, poultry 1x week, fis 2x week and that's it for meat! NO SALT OR SODIUM ADDED TO ANY FOOD EVER!!! I have to eat 3 meals per day and snack 2x per day min, and still have to really work to get to 1200 calories per day!! Even on days when I eat 700 calories per day, or get to 1100-1200 calories for that matter, I go over on sugar every single day. For the person who has days 'when they're good', I suggest your nutrition is probably lacking. You couldn't possibly be eating necessary values of fruits, corn, tomatoes, etc. All of these foods are absolutely essential to your well being!! I have never watched calories because my highest weight ever was 120. When I turned 40 I began having some probs because of my consistent pattern for 20 years of eating only when I was starving. I had a heart attack due to the years of abuse to my body. The meds caused a weight gain of 58 lbs that won't come off since I basically blew away my metabolism. Can't say I don't miss Taco Bueno, but I would do anything to change my eating patterns. My Fitness Pal makes the user feel inadequate every single day with its' unrealistic expectations and inaccurate coding standard for how much sugar a human eating a simile of what dr's say you must eat daily. I follow Pritikin religiously and am vegan who eats a very tiny diet of processed foods (including cow's milk). So it's really odd to see myself go over every day on sugars!!
  • nikki_dw
    nikki_dw Posts: 126 Member
    I have the same issue and most of mine comes from fruit. Today, I ate a cup of grapes and an apple and there it went... plus the sugar that occurs naturally in my other foods.
  • Phoenix_Warrior
    Phoenix_Warrior Posts: 1,633 Member
    My daily goal for sugar is 100g. I never seem to get there :/
  • AprilLizbethWire
    AprilLizbethWire Posts: 38 Member
    I just try to stick with no added sugar/sweetner - except for some honey in my oatmeal or something like that. Read labels and see if there is sugar added to things like your favorite bread or pasta sauce or even salsa. I switched my regular foods to brands that don't add sugar (to me it's weird to have sugar in pasta sauce or salsa any way). I don't have a huge sweet tooth though, so it wasn't super hard for me to give up refined sugars. However I STILL go over on my sugar every single day. Even on the days I don't eat honey! I eat a lot of fruits and veggies, and those (especially fruits) have a lot of sugar in them. I got tired of being in the red every day when I was only getting sugar from healthy sources. So I just removed my sugar counter and replaced it with iron - ha.

    If I was going to eat real sugar, though, along with my fruits and veggies, I would just try and make sure my refined sugar intake (subtract out sugar from fruits and veggies and things like that) was under my suggested grams for the day and leave it at that.
  • RllyGudTweetr
    RllyGudTweetr Posts: 2,019 Member
    Barring specific medical conditions like diabetes or hypoglycemia, there's no reason to track sugar separately from any other carbohydrate. Your body breaks food down into sugar anyway, and cannot tell the difference between processed sugar and sugar from sources like oranges.
  • noisha13
    noisha13 Posts: 2 Member
    I have found using Almond milk in my cereal helps me keep my daily sugars down. Almond milk is zero sugars and milk is about 12. Lots of sugar saved.
    Try 1/2 banana in oatmeal. That really sweetens the oatmeal for me.
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