Are you aware of your sugars?

[JodelleFitzh20]

Its a common mistake...people watch their fat, their carbs, their protein, their fiber, and so on, but many of us fail to pay attention to how many sugars we are consuming. And many even "healthy" foods contain sugars. Ideally you should be consuming no more than between 6-10% of your calories coming from sugar. I've put together examples below of how verry easy it is to consume sugar without even knowing it:

a bowl of oatmeal plain - 1gram of sugar
one cup of skim milk - 12 grams of sugar
1 raw apple - 13 grams of sugar
1 can of fruit in fruit juices - 14 grams of sugar
one plain baked potato - 3grams of sugar

Let's say you ate all the above in one day - you'd be at 40grams of sugar by the end of the day!! And if you eat 1500 calories a day then you'd be over that 6-10%.

Sugar adds calories which if you eat more than you need, you will gain weight. And as we know already, weight gain increases your risk of getting heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure or even some types of cancer. However, if you are underweight, sugar can add extra calories so that you can gain weight. If your body doesn't make enough insulin like a diabetic, then the sugar you eat increases the sugar in your blood to unhealthy levels.

The body breaks down sugar into the sugar you find in your blood (glucose). Unfortunately, there are no vitamins or minerals in sugar and so it is called an "empty" calorie. That is why it is the first food to be eliminated from a weight loss diet.

Just FYI...

[melanalyus]

Just curious, I woulda thought a potato would have more like THIRTY grams of carbs?

Carbs are sugars. I'm aware of them b/c as a pharmacist I help train patients in detecting how much carbs are in their diets. Type 1 diabetics have to use insulin & often their insulin volumes are based on how many "carbs" are in the food they are consuming. A slice of bread has 15 grams!!!!!!!! Amazing!!!

[JodelleFitzh20]

Hi, thanks for your comment - let me clarify - I'm talking about on the nutrition label, paying attention to the amount of sugar listed on the label so that you know what amount of simple sugars you are getting and what added sugars are in whatever it is you are eating. Ideally one should have their carb intake between 45-60% carbs depending upon activity and energy needs, but only 6-10% of that should be sugars listed. Hope that helps!

[story1267]

OK, so, I'm thinking about this and contemplating my labels and I'm confused.

My Haagen-Dazs five coffee flavor has the following:

Total Carbs - 23g
Dietary fiber - 0g
Sugars - 21g

My Goya dark kidney beans have the following:

Total Carbs - 18g
Dietary fiber - 7g
Sugars - 2g

Am I assuming that the sugars are part of the total carbs? That makes sense since I'd expect the ice cream to be all simple sugar and the beans not so much.

I just want to be really clear what I'm keeping track of here!

My handy-dandy ahealthyme.com website tells me I should have 193g of carbs daily with up to 35g of simple carbs as "ok".

Help! Thanks!

[JodelleFitzh20]

Yes, you are right! Sugars are a apart of Total carbs, but alot of people don't read the labels and find out how much ADDED sugar is in them. So your ice cream is mostly processed sugar not from a whole source and way more than you should have in one sitting and your beans are from a whole source and not processed and help you stay within your range. So good job on reading your labels.
Make sure when you read ingredients that if you are eating things with added sugars, that the added sugars are NOT one of the first 3 ingredients listed. If it is you'll know it's mostly bad added sugar and not naturally occuring sugar. Ideally it's best to stick to items that have less than 10 grams of sugar listed on the label under the total carbs. Your body just doesn't need to utitlize much more than that at one sitting unless you are in the middle of a marathon or something. I personally avoid anything with ADDED sugars. There's enough naturally occuring in fresh fruits and veggies and other whole grains that we don't need it from added sources.

[JodelleFitzh20]

also, a good rule of thumb is to always make sure that under total carbs, the fiber is higher than the sugar. Like in a Kashi cereal for example, one box says 12g sugar, and 5g fiber, while another box says 8g fiber and 5g sugar, so the latter would be a better choice.

[story1267]

This is all beginning to make sense. As much as part of me is enjoying figuring out what a healthy day looks like, I can see how folks could just get overwhelmed and toss in the towel.

First, you've got to decide what you want your macros to look like, then your total calories, then doing all that "gazinta" math to see how much of this is in half a cup of that.

But, I'm hoping it'll all be worth it in the end.

[JodelleFitzh20]

The more you know, the more you grow (smaller that is, and smarter). Every body is a scientific experiment and what works for some doesn't necessarily work for others, so you have to LEARN what you're body does well with, and it's a process and not always an easy one. But keep at all the learning and you'll be amazed how worth it will be!

[LisaMarie]

I've been trying to watch my sugars, as an experiment to see if sugar may be aggravating my rheumatoid arthritis. It's SO hard to find foods that don't have added sugar. It's in everything!

[JodelleFitzh20]

Here's a few things that have 0g of sugar (zilch, zero, none) just so you know:
Eggs
Brown Rice
crowder peas
black eyed peas
crimini and some other mushrooms
spinach
kale

And of course meats, like fish chicken and other meats have no sugar unless you add rubs or sauces or marinades.