Going sugar free

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dafman

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#176915 16-Jul-2015 10:19

The butter vs marg thread prompted me to kick start this discussion.

About two months ago I decided to cut sugar from my diet. Why? Without going into too much detail here, the enemy sugar is fructose. Refined sugar is half glucose, half fructose - glucose is easily processed in the blood, fructose cannot be processed in the blood, so is sent to the liver to be dealt with.

Research seems to agree that the human body can only effectively process around five teaspoons of sugar a day. Any excess – particularly fructose, can’t be effectively processed by the liver and is converted to fat.

Evolving thinking is that fat is not necessarily the enemy we have been led to believe. Sugar is potentially worse, and the drive to ‘low fat' processed foods has dramatically driven up the average person’s sugar consumption.

Take this typical ‘low fat’ breakfast – a bowl of Special K, low fat fruit yogurt and a glass of fruit juice. How much sugar in this breakfast alone …

… in excess of 20 teaspoons! That’s way more than your body can effectively process in a day, and you haven’t got out the front door yet to start the day.

If interested, in particular, I would recommend these two recent documentaries (1) Fed Up (2) That Sugar Film.

So what’s my experience two months in? With no other changes to lifestyle at all, I have dropped around 5kg. I gave up sugar for health reasons, not weight loss, but an nice side effect nonetheless.

[Mod edit |Stu| Moved to the correct sub-forum]

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#1345255 16-Jul-2015 10:31

Impressive results. I'd love the weight/health benefits of this, but not sure if I could go sugar free! That said, a reduction in sugar intake would be no bad thing.

I tasted my sons' Cocopops this morning (a treat they have only ever got this and last holidays, I hasten to add) - it was shocking how sweet it was.

I'd imagine one logical place to start is reducing substantially processed foods, especially those where sugar has helped replace fat to get those products to 101% fat-free.

What about your fruit intake? Milk?

And what did you do for substitutes, ie if you took x out of your diet due to high sugar content, what did you replace it with?

sbiddle

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#1345256 16-Jul-2015 10:32

I watched that Sugar film on the plane a few weeks ago. It's certainly something well worth watching.

Stu

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#1345262 16-Jul-2015 10:45

I've avoided sugar (wherever possible) for some time. Along with wheat and dairy. Still drink red wine.

If you cut everything "bad" out completely, you'll be very limited in what you have left to consume.

People often mistake me for an adult because of my age.

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jtan

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#1345264 16-Jul-2015 10:47

I tasted my sons' Cocopops this morning (a treat they have only ever got this and last holidays, I hasten to add) - it was shocking how sweet it was.

It is surprising how much sugar is in cereals, I have been recently looking at the nutritional info on the back of some of cereal packets and many of them have approx. 20-25% sugar in them (look at how many grams of sugar per 100g to get the percentage).. there are a couple of brands that have about 10-15% sugar in them but they are the exceptions rather than the norm..

bazzer

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#1345272 16-Jul-2015 10:56

What about honey?

It's a cool idea, but I love sweet things. I might be addicted to crack. Soft-crack and hard-crack sugar!

doozy

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#1345273 16-Jul-2015 10:56

I've been following a low carb high fat eating plan for about 8 months (better endurance for running was my reason). An interesting side effect was the amount of coffee I drank, used to do around 4-6 cups a day each with 1-2 spoons of sugar. When I cut sugar (cold turkey) I couldn't drink the same amount, dropped down to 1-2 cups and that does me fine, seemed I probably was after the sugar more than the coffee itself maybe.

Anyway, it certainly is an eye opener to see how much sugar goes into things that brand themselves to be 'healthy'.

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jonathan18

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#1345278 16-Jul-2015 11:00

jtan:
I tasted my sons' Cocopops this morning (a treat they have only ever got this and last holidays, I hasten to add) - it was shocking how sweet it was.

It is surprising how much sugar is in cereals, I have been recently looking at the nutritional info on the back of some of cereal packets and many of them have approx. 20-25% sugar in them (look at how many grams of sugar per 100g to get the percentage).. there are a couple of brands that have about 10-15% sugar in them but they are the exceptions rather than the norm..

Totally agree. I've not eaten cereal for breakfast for a few years now; two slices of Vogel's is enough for to get me through the morning.

My kids have porridge three times a week; the other weekdays it's usually Wheatbix with yoghurt and/or fruit - while a post above points out sugar levels from fruit, milk and youghurt add up, I'm happy with their level of sugar intake during these breakfasts, so feel ok about giving them the very occasional treat of such dodgy products as cocopops. I also don't want to give my kids nutritional hang-ups at a young age!

I'm still on the 5/2 diet after two years (though doing it 6/1 now), but still feel something like a reduction in sugar intake would be beneficial. Now, if Whittakers hadn't released that chilli and spiced chocolate, and if icecream didn't taste so darn good, I think I'd be managing this better!

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xpd

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#1345291 16-Jul-2015 11:14

dafman:

So what’s my experience two months in? With no other changes to lifestyle at all, I have dropped around 5kg. I gave up sugar for health reasons, not weight loss, but an nice side effect nonetheless.

[Mod edit |Stu| Moved to the correct sub-forum]

Do you do regular exercise etc ?

Ive been given heads up by the doc I should cut back on sugars etc and drop some weight. So dropping sugar def sounds like good start :)

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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tdgeek

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#1345293 16-Jul-2015 11:16

Consumer this month covers sugar levels. I was at the doctor recently and they have some kids drinks on the wall, and the sugar in a jar underneath, wow. Even the super cool energy water drinks. I recall Weetbix and porridge is pretty darn good. I have a low fat Kellogs lite muesli-type thing with sultanans and cranberries, no sugar. Can't eat weetbox with no sugar. Coffee is with one brown sugar. It all helps. Cheers for the docos info

macuser

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#1345299 16-Jul-2015 11:20

If we could all eliminate sugar and 80% of simple carbohydrates (white bread, pasta etc) then I'm sure we would all have a far easier time keeping weight and diabetes under control.

Tho carbohydrates make up most of our meals because they're cheap an relatively filling. If only I could afford to eat exclusively meat and veges!

tdgeek

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#1345300 16-Jul-2015 11:26

To add further

Some healthy foods are low fat, but they are high in sugar, thats bad, if not misleading
Many processed foods are full of sugar and /or salt to add flavour, so go natural as much as possible
Exercise at moderate levels holds cholesterol levels (30 minutes a day walking)
Exercise at higher levels, say 30 minutes daily cycling, jogging, swimming helps reduce cholesterol, as the bad stuff is sent from blood and vessels to the liver, and the particles are big, not small when regular exercising, so they can't add to the vessels. Meat and two veg does work, compared to these days of processed foods

doozy

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#1345301 16-Jul-2015 11:26

macuser: If we could all eliminate sugar and 80% of simple carbohydrates (white bread, pasta etc) then I'm sure we would all have a far easier time keeping weight and diabetes under control.

Tho carbohydrates make up most of our meals because they're cheap an relatively filling. If only I could afford to eat exclusively meat and veges!

I honestly thought this would be the case too, cutting carbs would mean an overall increase in spending ... it started out like that to be fair. Have a read of 'What the Fat', using that as a guide got the bill down to under what it was when we were buying carb loaded stuff.

Tarawera Ultra 2015 done, bring on 2016

jonathan18

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#1345303 16-Jul-2015 11:27

macuser: If we could all eliminate sugar and 80% of simple carbohydrates (white bread, pasta etc) then I'm sure we would all have a far easier time keeping weight and diabetes under control.

Tho carbohydrates make up most of our meals because they're cheap an relatively filling. If only I could afford to eat exclusively meat and veges!

The most difficult meal to arrange in such a way (esp if you're a vegetarian like me) is breakfast, ie what's decently filling but also low in carbs and sugar? And easy and quick to prepare? Many people don't have the time to make a cooked breakfast in the weekday mornings, so this cancels out eggs, bacon etc, or the time to make some wondersmoothy with bamboo root and echidna sperm. As it is, I'm happy with my breakfast of Vogel's, even if it is carb-heavy.

tdgeek

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#1345304 16-Jul-2015 11:29

macuser: If we could all eliminate sugar and 80% of simple carbohydrates (white bread, pasta etc) then I'm sure we would all have a far easier time keeping weight and diabetes under control.

Tho carbohydrates make up most of our meals because they're cheap an relatively filling. If only I could afford to eat exclusively meat and veges!

Its ironic, that processed foods are cheaper? At some point they were plain meat and veg, then they were processed, so theorertically the meat and veg should be cheaper as no added production costs

Bit like, why is bottled water more expensive than petrol? Why is coke cheaper than milk? Bizarre

tdgeek

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#1345305 16-Jul-2015 11:32

jonathan18:
macuser: If we could all eliminate sugar and 80% of simple carbohydrates (white bread, pasta etc) then I'm sure we would all have a far easier time keeping weight and diabetes under control.

Tho carbohydrates make up most of our meals because they're cheap an relatively filling. If only I could afford to eat exclusively meat and veges!

The most difficult meal to arrange in such a way (esp if you're a vegetarian like me) is breakfast, ie what's decently filling but also low in carbs and sugar? And easy and quick to prepare? Many people don't have the time to make a cooked breakfast in the weekday mornings, so this cancels out eggs, bacon etc, or the time to make some wondersmoothy with bamboo root and echidna sperm. As it is, I'm happy with my breakfast of Vogel's, even if it is carb-heavy.

Carb heavy or just some carbs? You need carbs for energy, and its sposed to be the most important meal of that day. Slow digestion is the key. Lighter lunch, lightish tea. But exercise is a biggie.

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