I'm having some confusion about sugar intake. Ever since Livestrong.com changed the daily plate and with it the recommendations of various things based on your calorie goals, I've been feeling unsure about my sugar intake. There's not a daily recommended allowance for sugar, but per livestong, "experts advise a maximum of 40g of refined sugar per 2000 calories consumed."
I know that refined sugar is bad. In particular, sucrose. And it seems from what I've read that added sugar = refined sugar. (sorry, I'm kinda working this out as I go, so bear with me here.) So, really my confusion comes down to the livestrong tracking. They're tracking all sugar, including sugar in fruit and milk, which is not bad. (unless you're eating 4000 calories of fruit, but I think you're going to have some other issues if you're doing that...)
I guess, here's my issue: this morning, for example, I had Cheerios with milk and sliced banana. And wham-o my sugar number is already over the limit for the day. The recommended number from livestrong is 25g of sugar for my 1268 calorie goal. From the milk in my cereal and coffee and my medium sized banana, I had 29g of sugar. Should I ignore these sugars? I don't think I should. I think it's probably good to count them. One article I was reading said not to worry about the sugar from milk and fruit. That's all fine and great, but livestrong is counting them. And it really bugs me that my sugar number turns bright red first thing in the morning when I'm not even doing anything wrong. Maybe I should take this up with livestrong? Maybe I shouldn't worry about it? I'm pretty aware of what I eat and I read labels like they're the latest best seller. Does anyone have any thoughts?
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I have the same problem. I was just doing some research and one website I looked at said that lactose is broken down into sucrose and sucralose and then utilized the same as sucrose which is white sugar. So following that logic, sugar is sugar and it should all be counted.
ReplyDeleteI think you should take it up with livestrong (I will too). I had to send them an email awhile ago, and they were pretty quick to respond. Also, I saw that if you pay for livestrong gold you can adjust your nutrient requirements, that way you could set your sugar a little higher and make sure they were all healthy sugars. I really want to do it too because I want to set my cholesterol up a little and my carbs down. I eat an egg in the morning with some cheese and I am over on my cholesterol. :(
I think a banana is one of the highest natural sugar fruits there is. In the past when I've lost significant amount of weight (85 pounds) I ate all the fruit I wanted and it didn't effect me at all the way, say, skittles would. When you are a diabetic you have to keep your carbohydrates to 40 grams per meal, that includes fruit. I would use that as a guideline. Besides, fruit is better than eating candy. It's hard to get facts about sugar in fruit, considering that all diet books contradict each other. Some say eat as much you want, others say limit it because it metabolizes like refined sugar. My personal opinion, whatever that counts for, I think that eating 3 servings of fruit is good and it won't effect your weight in a bad way.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I have found that every person's body is different. Just because Livestrong says that you should have so much of one thing, doesn't mean that it works for everyone. Molly, you should go see the kinesiology Dr. that I went to. He was awesome and very informative about what my body needed. I like to track on Livestrong for my calorie intake, but I don't pay much attention to the percentages of each food. When I'm staying in may calorie goal, I always lose weight. Now if I could just stay within my calories!
That's my 2 cents!
Bananas are very high in sugar, as far as fruit goes. But they are so rich in other things like potassium, that I'm not really all that concerned. If I were diabetic it would be another story, but I'm not. I try to get at least two servings of fruit in a day. And I've been trying to eat fruit when I have a sugar craving instead of candy. Sometimes it actually happens, like yesterday. I was craving something sweet last night, but it was 10pm, there was no candy to be found, and it was snowy out. So I had grapes. There was great internal debate between graham crackers and grapes, but grapes finally won out.
ReplyDeleteCarrie, I've been struggling with staying under my calorie goal, too. It seems like I'm hungry all the time lately. I started exercising more again. I suppose I should probably make better choices about foods that help me feel full longer.
Anyway, I am going to email Livestrong just to see what they say. I'll report back. Thanks for your input, girls. :)