EJ123

Has anyone taken the extreme low sugar/sweetner( sucralose, aspartame, ect)approach when it comes to choosing foods? My friend told me to as a way to greatly help your body to lose fat with an appropriate diet, but I'm curious if any other people have done it too, and if it helps. Im worried about insulin spikes, and I have been reading about the stress it can put your body in. Today Ive had <40g of sugar, which still seems like a lot, but when a soda can have 40something g in a can, I guess I did ok.

Machka 

Many years ago, I decided I needed to lose a few lbs. I made one change and only one change .... I quit drinking pop with sugar, I quit drinking juices with sugar, and I quit putting sugar in my coffee and tea. Nothing I drank had sugar in it. However, I still drank the same amount of liquid as I had been ... it just consisted of diet drinks, water, and black coffee and tea. Meanwhile, I kept eating the same solid foods I had been, and kept exercising the same as I had been.

I lost 5 lbs in a week.

Since then, I rarely drink anything with sugar. I don't see the point. Have a look at this site to see how many calories you're racking up in sugared drinks alone:

https://www.nutritiondata.com/

!!Comatoa$ted

IMO it is a good idea to avoid refined sugar, and foods that have been overly processed. For me, that means avoiding white flour and canned goods.

If it is insulin spikes you are worried about try eating carbs that are slowly digested like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and in addition they are nutrient dense. They keep your blood sugar level and it avoids peaks and troughs, which can make you feel full, but then make you very hungry shortly after.

Try eating a reasonable amount of calories from whole foods and spread it throughout the day, so that your insulin levels do not wildly fluctuate. On days that you want to eat more, exercise more.

Soda and other sweet beverages are an excellent vehicle for delivering glucose into the blood very quickly, add sodium to the mix and glucose is absorbed faster. If you were to eat the same amount of sugar contained in fruits and veg the fibre will slow down the absorption of the sugar and help keep insulin level in check.

If you want to avoid sugar all together you could become a carnivore, then there would be no worries as far as sugar is concerned, but IMO this is a terrible way to loose weight, but it sure is tasty.

Like others have said before on this board, shop the perimeter of your grocery store.

EJ123

Oh ok, that helps a lot.
Would you think if one were to have something with a lot of sugar, lets say greater than 30g in a sitting, taking fiber will help slow the absorption of sugar?

I also meant to say less than forty grams in my original post, and not ">than" heh,

How come fruits are slow to digest? I thought because most of the carbs of fruit are sugar, that they'll be digested quickly. I also read that sometimes sugar can go stright to the bloodstream, without even be digested, or absorbed through the tounge.

aham23

i lost almost 70 pounds in 2006, by counting calories, cycling, and running. i am a big dessert or sweets guy too. i must admit i replaced most of what i ate with a low fat, low calorie substitute. items like fat free yogurt and pudding snacks and ice cream pretty much all come with the fake sugar. i could not really stand the taste of the fake sugar prior, but now it doesnt bother me at all. i also ate a ton of real fruits and veggies too. i totally cut out pop,fast foods and eating out in general. it worked for me. later.

DannoXYZ 

That's because the sugars are locked inside a hard-to-digest fibre matrix. It take while to digest the stuff and free up the sugars.

EJ123

Oh ok thanks.

Roody

Fats and protein also slow the spike of glucose from eating sugary foods. This is referred to as the glycemic index. Sniker bars and ice cream, for example, are fairly low on the glycemic index because they contain fat and/or protein, even though they don't contain much fiber.

However, I'm not aware of scientific evidence that sugar is bad for people with normal metabolisms. Their glucose won't spike because it's well regulated by the body (insulin). If you have risk factors for diabetes or metabolic syndrome, you should be more cautious about intake of sugar and other food with high glycemic index. For Type 2 diabetics, the American Diabetes Association has recommended eating sweets only as an occasional treat, and eating them at the end of a meal that contains protein and fat to slow absorption of the sugar. This advice applies for fruits as well as processed sweets, except that fruit should be eaten on a daily basis.

DannoXYZ 

Yeah, I wouldn't worry too much about sugars, just the actual amounts. I have a piece of fruit at every meal. And veggies as primary component of dinners.

kponds

Also, the sugar in fruit is a special kind of sugar called fructose, which is a unique sugar that interacts in the blood differently and causes very little insulin spike. This, NATURAL fructose, is a completely different animal from "high fructose corn syrup," which is actually mostly raw glucose.

I have lost 170 lbs since winter of 05, by making lots of changes. I consider eliminating added sugar to be one of the most significant, but it wasn't the only one.

LT Intolerant

+ 1

I got back into cycling over the past 3 years after an 8 year absence. In my first year I went from 165 to 155, but I still ate desert, whole milk and yogurt with my cereal in the AM, and things like rice and pasta. As my training intensity/volume increased over the past year I was able to get down to 152-3. I plateaued at this level and it was really frustrating (goal weight is 146).

About a month ago I gave up "processed" deserts (now I eat fruit instead), gave up whole milk and yogurt (only lo-fat), and stopped eating bread, rice and pasta and now only eat vegetables (ok, tons of veggies). Within a month I was down to 148. I feel like I can get to my goal weight now becuase my training volume and intensity will continue to go up as we move into Spring.

I thought I would be starving all the time, but strangely that's not the case. Good luck.

gene r

tbrtbx

Sugar doesn't make you fat.

Denny Koll

Thanks. I was going to give up sugar to lose weight but now I won't have to.

EJ123

Oh, well that's a relief then. I read a book last summer that said avoid HFCS, so that's not a problem, hehe.
I just worry about the insulin spike. And sugar rotting teeth=p, but I did read that insulin spikes is practilly telling your body to go out of the burning fat mode. I also try to have low GI foods mainly to keep insuilin down, but I do realize that the GI # on a food can differ significantly to the Insulin Index. I wish foods would keep an insulin # on it.

!!Comatoa$ted

Listen to your body. What foods keep you feeling satisfied the longest, so as not make you feel like you need to rest after eating them, or that you crave what you just ate after soon after eating it? And I don't mean after pigging out? Which foods make you feel good after eating them, but are not ones that lead you to feel almost high on your own chemicals? Ones that you would be able to satiate yourself with, then go out soon after and be active, without feeling groggy, or too rested.

Try eating a sensible amount of calories throughout the day, so called grazing on low GI foods. Your blood sugar levels will remain steady without the severe spikes that causes your body to want to do everything it can to store your energy as fat.

DannoXYZ 

Welll, it's not so simple. It's the excess amounts you have to worry about and it should be balanced with your exercise level. If you're eating 1500+ calories of simple sugars & carbs a day with riding 200-miles/week, you might want to cut back. If you're riding 400-miles+/week, then that same 1500 calories is fine; you're probably taking in that much in energy-drinks & bars alone anyway

So there's no simple black & white, yes/no, all-or-nothing statement you can make about sugars & carbs. It all depends upon how much you're actually eating and how much you're burning off... Which goes back to the axiom about weight-loss: eat less than you burn off (this relates to fats & proteins too).

DannoXYZ 

Nothing wrong with the insulin-spike, it will ALWAYS happen after a meal. You want to monitor how high is the peak of the spike and its duration. For pre-ride meal, during and post-ride recovery, you actually want as high-GI fastest-digesting carbs possible to give the highest insulin-spike possible. This moves glucose from the bloodstream into the muscle cells where you want it.

During exercise, it's simply not possible to digest and absorb as many carb-calories as you burn off; your glucose & insulin levels will always decrease as you ride. It can actually get to too-low levels where elevated levels of glucagon and cortisol will cause muscle catabolism.

The problem with insulin-spikes comes in when you're a sedentary couch potatoe who eats 1500-calories+ of simple-carbs in each meal and sits around watching TV. His insulin-spike will be much higher than yours and will last for hours. This long-term constant bombardment of G4 receptors when the cells are fully packed of glycogen can eventually led to reduced insulin-sensitivity and even diabetes.

So again, "it depends" upon the conditions.

EJ123

Alright, thanks.

EJ123

Oh also, is there any benefit of a low sugar eating style? The past three days Ive had maybe 70g of sugar, and I think that is pretty well, I guess. Foods I try to eat every day include oatmeal, tuna w/ mayo, ham sandwich on sugar free bread, gluten free cookies, and soup.

Machka 

Right ... calories make you fat. More calories than you burn, that is.

Roody

I guess I wouldn't say that sugar is bad, but a lot of other foods are better. I don't think people need to go out of their way to avoid sugar. All the carbs you eat (bread, potatoes, pasta) turn into sugar in your stomach and intestines. Sugar has no nutrients other than sugar itself. That is, no vitamins, protein, fat, minerals, fiber--nothing but simple carbs. The calories in sugar are good for quick energy but good for nothing else. It's better to get most of your calories from foods that come with other nutrients. So most healthy people save sugar for a treat, like maybe once a day. The other bad thing about sugar is that it can rot your teeth so you should probably brush after you eat it.

Just curious--why the gluten free cookies? Are they good? I never tried them. Gluten is a protein found in wheat. It's what makes bread dough stretch when it rises. You're eating gluten in the ham sandwich so you must not be allergic to it.

EJ123

Oh yeah, I was in the "wheat free" isle and was looking for a nice low sugar snack, and happened to stumble upon those cookies. They only have a gram of sugar per 4 cookies and around 140 calories, so I guess it would make a nice snack. The main thing I believe is corn, but they have a peculiar taste, but I dont mind. It's pretty good. But I dont have celiac disease so I guess I don't need them.

allencb

I lost 35lbs one summer by counting calories, cutting out excess fat, and cutting out excessive carbs (breads, pastries, rice, corn, pasta, potatoes, etc). I let myself eat as much fruit and raw or steamed veggies such as brocolli, cauliflower, etc as I wanted. My only exercise was an evening walk with my wife (this was prior to my return to cycling and lifting weights). I've gained nearly 10lbs back (will be 2yrs this summer), but I'm probably healthier since I bike and lift weights regularly.

Chris

ericgu

To lose weight, it helps to manage your hunger, which is related to the amount of sugar in your blood.

When you eat something that is mostly sugar (or refined carbs), your blood sugar spikes, and you get an insulin response. That results in the sugar being pulled out and stored as fat, and the blood sugar drops. And you get hungry effect. This is what leads to the "chinese restaurant effect", where you eat a lot of rice and you're hungry a couple of hours later. The white rice caused a sugar spike, and then your blood sugar dropped.

Note that it's all refined carbs that do this - white flour, white rice, white sugar, potatoes - all of those have a quick effect. If you do a web search on "glycemic index", you'll find some good information, though you also have to note that the calorie density and fiber content matter as well.

To manage the blood sugar level, you want to eat often and eat foods that have a "time-release" effect - those that are digested slowly. And, as others have noted, fat and protein in a mixed food slow down the digestion, as does fiber.

I don't think artificial sweeteners are that great - you still end up with a "sweet tooth".