Sugar: When is enough ?

[Peppermint Orange]

The science behind that is actually fairly simple...

The aspect of your body chemistry that decides what to do with fat is dictated by insulin production...the higher the glycemic index of the food (meaning, how much it makes your insulin spike) dictates how much your body is going to store fat in the cells.

So if you're eating low carb, you can eat high fat because your body isn't trying to store it, ...and the inverse, if you're eating high carb, it's telling your body to store fat, so you can't be taking as much of it in.

The downsides of the high carb/low fat route (as I see them) are as follows:
1) There are other processes in your body that are fat-dependent (Hair, nails, brain, etc... all rely on fat), and you run the risk of depriving those other processes

2) Taste of the diet (for me at least ), if you're someone like me who likes to eat larger portions, bud doesn't necessarily mind giving up the starches and sugars, then the low carb route is going to seem more tolerable. This one may be more of a personal preference thing for people as they find which scenario is more tolerable, giving up starch & sugar might make some people miserable...portion control might make others more miserable. (I would be in the latter)

I can sympathize. I wish weight loss and achieving good health was a simple item to figure out. The rice diet of all carbs resulting in weight loss is an awkward diet for the low carb community. I've seen some try to explain why the rice diet results in weight loss, despite the high insulin levels that would result from the diet, but haven't seen anything that convinces me. Personally I suspect wheat gluten, but that is my personally belief.

As for good health, that is an individual thing I suppose. The creator of the diet, Dr. Kempner for example lived to the ripe old age of 94. He was in good health toward the end reportedly.

Let me show you a sight. This is Dr. Stephen Guyenet's blog. He is an obesity researcher. He has been vilified by some in the low carb community for saying weight loss and good health is not as simple as the insulin theory. As Dr. Guyenet often mentions, he doesn't believe that sugar consumption is healthy, but equally its intake often does not answer why weight gain happens or why poor health can come about. He is often posting awkward diet instances where high carb diets were eaten and yet weight loss occurred and health improved. He has a funny post about a guy that lived off of potatoes and olive oil for a month and looked great when all done.

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com

I think politically we will see more and more efforts to tax sugar. You see that in the UK. Some low carb sights are openly lobbing for the sugar tax. (I don't know if it has happened in the UK or not yet.) Some low carb sights are upset over the idea of a sugar tax.

In America just yesterday I read in the city of Philadelphia is to tax soda. I hope it results in greater improved health. Personally I have doubts it will. As the mayor mentioned more tax funds are needed and taxing sugars is a way to go about it. Some of the low carb community are concerned fats will eventually be taxed. Fat is still vilified at times. I would guess more "bad" food taxes are to come.

The Soda Tax Craze Hits Philadelphia

http://fortune.com/2016/05/20/the-soda-tax-craze-hits-philadelphia/

And I don't know if you saw it, but apparently it has been in the news quite a bit. Apparently some feel being overweight leads to a longer and healthier life for most. I've seen the arguments against this. They seem more convincing to me. A nice rebuttal can be read on Dr. Guyenet's sight.

"The healthiest weight might actually be 'overweight', massive study finds"

http://www.sciencealert.com/the-healthiest-weight-might-actually-be-overweight-massive-study-finds

 

[bhsmte]

The science behind that is actually fairly simple...

The aspect of your body chemistry that decides what to do with fat is dictated by insulin production...the higher the glycemic index of the food (meaning, how much it makes your insulin spike) dictates how much your body is going to store fat in the cells.

So if you're eating low carb, you can eat high fat because your body isn't trying to store it, ...and the inverse, if you're eating high carb, it's telling your body to store fat, so you can't be taking as much of it in.

The downsides of the high carb/low fat route (as I see them) are as follows:
1) There are other processes in your body that are fat-dependent (Hair, nails, brain, etc... all rely on fat), and you run the risk of depriving those other processes

2) Taste of the diet (for me at least ), if you're someone like me who likes to eat larger portions, bud doesn't necessarily mind giving up the starches and sugars, then the low carb route is going to seem more tolerable. This one may be more of a personal preference thing for people as they find which scenario is more tolerable, giving up starch & sugar might make some people miserable...portion control might make others more miserable. (I would be in the latter)

Agree.

The other piece of this again is a person's fitness level.

If a person is performing a higher level of physical exercise, this is crucial in determining what the body does with the fuel it takes in. High energy expenditure, is going to cause adaptations, to assure energy is stored to maintain that energy expenditure (glycogen) and less fuel will be stored as fat and sugar/carbs will be stored as glycogen vs being stored as fat. The other piece is, a very fit person, burns more fat throughout the day, because of this adaptation that promotes storage of carbs as glycogen.

Again, the more physically active one is, the less important diet becomes. The less physically active, the more important diet becomes.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

"The healthiest weight might actually be 'overweight', massive study finds"

I've actually seen this one (and posted about it in another thread here on CF pertaining to the flaws of the BMI system)

The issue that's present within the "let's use BMI as a barometer of health" mentality is that BMI "buckets" aren't nearly granular enough and therefore when the results are aggregated, it paints a false picture.

Here's a snippet of my post in that other BMI thread:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2223029/

The bands for overweight and obesity in the US, for example, are the product of the 1997 National Institutes for Health task force report on the prevention and treatment of obesity that supposedly links these bands to increased risk of death. However, the study on which the report is based does not support these linkages.5 It found that the death risks for men with a body mass index of 19-21 were the same as those for men who were overweight and obese (29-31).

The say that a BMI of 25-29 is "overweight", and that BMI >=30 is "obese"

The issue is that they've got the buckets all wrong. The actual risks associated with a higher BMI don't kick in until you hit BMI-35 and above. And the study shows that a person with a BMI 30 is no worse off than a person with a BMI of 21.

If you're a male, BMI 25-26.4 is at the bottom of the curve in terms of risks, even though that's considered "overweight" by the officially defined buckets.

Let me show you a sight. This is Dr. Stephen Guyenet's blog. He is an obesity researcher. He has been vilified by some in the low carb community for saying weight loss and good health is not as simple as the insulin theory. As Dr. Guyenet often mentions, he doesn't believe that sugar consumption is healthy, but equally its intake often does not answer why weight gain happens or why poor health can come about.

With the studies by specific doctors, unfortunately there's an abundance of conflicting information out there. Genetics is obviously going to play a huge factor in why some diets work better for some people, and different diets work better for others.

There's probably 30 different well known guys out there with "Dr." in their title that have all have varying approaches. I don't know if we can say whether or not there's one right answer.

I got the idea for the low carb cycling approach I took from Dr. Eades, he makes an appearence in this documentary and kind of gives a high level description of his theory:

Like I said, there's so much conflicting info out there lol.

 

[miss-a]

Complex carbs don't have the same dramatic impact on blood sugar that simple carbs have.

I'm with you on this. The misguided assertion in our culture that one carb is the same as the next is dangerous to health. It's all about the blood sugar and keeping it regulated. Good levels of exercise with a diet rich in complex, high fiber, high nutrient carbs is best for most folks. Simple sugars and refined carbs benefit no one and initiate disease.

 

[miss-a]

I've actually seen this one (and posted about it in another thread here on CF pertaining to the flaws of the BMI system)

The issue that's present within the "let's use BMI as a barometer of health" mentality is that BMI "buckets" aren't nearly granular enough and therefore when the results are aggregated, it paints a false picture.

Here's a snippet of my post in that other BMI thread:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2223029/

The bands for overweight and obesity in the US, for example, are the product of the 1997 National Institutes for Health task force report on the prevention and treatment of obesity that supposedly links these bands to increased risk of death. However, the study on which the report is based does not support these linkages.5 It found that the death risks for men with a body mass index of 19-21 were the same as those for men who were overweight and obese (29-31).

The say that a BMI of 25-29 is "overweight", and that BMI >=30 is "obese"

The issue is that they've got the buckets all wrong. The actual risks associated with a higher BMI don't kick in until you hit BMI-35 and above. And the study shows that a person with a BMI 30 is no worse off than a person with a BMI of 21.

If you're a male, BMI 25-26.4 is at the bottom of the curve in terms of risks, even though that's considered "overweight" by the officially defined buckets.



With the studies by specific doctors, unfortunately there's an abundance of conflicting information out there. Genetics is obviously going to play a huge factor in why some diets work better for some people, and different diets work better for others.

There's probably 30 different well known guys out there with "Dr." in their title that have all have varying approaches. I don't know if we can say whether or not there's one right answer.

I got the idea for the low carb cycling approach I took from Dr. Eades, he makes an appearence in this documentary and kind of gives a high level description of his theory:

Like I said, there's so much conflicting info out there lol.

Until we begin factoring in what we ate to create our BMI, BMI measurements don't necessarily reflect health. My neighbor with cancer has a good BMI measurement, but her health is horrible. So how did we build our body mass. With health building foods and lifestyles or health defeating ones? That's the key factor.

 

[Hetta]

June is my sugar free month ... and although we are 5 days into it, I am yet to go a day without added sugar. It is strange because I thought I was far stronger than this, but I find myself craving sugary foods in a way I hadn't before. Btw, I don't drink soda ever. Nor do I "sugar" anything. Nor do I eat donuts or cakes. But I will sometimes eat chocolate, and I find myself thinking about it non-stop!!

People should watch the documentary "Fed Up." It is available on Hulu or Netflix - I can't remember which. That provides a huge eye-opener about the way that Americans (and it is true for many other western countries) are fed sugar from an early age to set up the addiction. Only one of my kids indulges in soda in that way now, and he is the only one who is overweight! As well as soda, he eats lots of candy, which is fairly typical of many of the kids I come across. He's 24, so I don't know when he will learn how unhealthy his lifestyle is, but he's past the point where he listens to mom (particularly as his wife also drinks soda/eats candy in excess).

I wanted to give up sugar not because I have a weight problem, but just to test out whether I had a problem with it. It seems that I do, even though I eat very healthily and maintain a healthy body weight. I used to be a runner, but joint problems have caused me to switch to walking. I walk around 7 miles every day, and also do cardio in the gym 3-4 times a week. Because of my joint problems, my cardio is restricted. I use weighted ropes, medicine ball and rebounder, weight bands and weight machines. At my age - almost mid-50s - I look mainly to retain my strength and bone mass. Osteoporosis runs in my family, and while I'm sure it will catch me up eventually, I know that it can be held at bay by healthy eating and strength training.

I find the amount of soda that people in the US drink to be very alarming. Everywhere I go, I see people sucking from these HUGE containers. I don't quite understand it, although the documentary explained a lot about it (check out the study on rats and sugar water mentioned in the show). I am so glad I never liked soda very much.

 

[Hetta]

In the "Fed Up" documentary, it mentions several times that there is no % on the consumption of sugar on food packaging. I always read food packages, although we buy very little packaged/processed food (some cereal, canned tuna, that kind of thing). There is no % because the food industry has fought to keep that OFF the packaging. I think I saw that in a couple of years, manufacturers will be forced to add that information. Perhaps people will be shocked then at how much sugar they are eating. Or maybe they won't care.

 

[JAM2b]

Sugar Coated is a good documentary about sugar consumption. It is on Netflix.

http://sugarcoateddoc.com/

 

[JAM2b]

In the "Fed Up" documentary, it mentions several times that there is no % on the consumption of sugar on food packaging. I always read food packages, although we buy very little packaged/processed food (some cereal, canned tuna, that kind of thing). There is no % because the food industry has fought to keep that OFF the packaging. I think I saw that in a couple of years, manufacturers will be forced to add that information. Perhaps people will be shocked then at how much sugar they are eating. Or maybe they won't care.

But it does say how many grams. If people know what a healthy amount of sugar in grams per day is, then that should give them the information they need.

 

[Mountain_Girl406]

Oh, @bhsmte you and I are destined to disagree. I know "fat" ultra-marathoners - quite a few actually. The amount you run makes very little difference. Intensity of one's workout makes a difference. Time spent in the upper, aerobic heart rate ranges makes a difference. Time spent at VO2 Max makes a difference. But, abs are made in the kitchen, not on the treadmill.

The higher one's level of physical activity, the more important diet becomes to maintaining and improving upon one's performance.

Edit: Of course, you also have "skinny fat" people who are relatively lightweight but have a high body fat percentage.

Strong abs are made through exercise, visible abs are made in the kitchen. If your first priority is appearance, as for a bodybuilder, then diet is critical, but if your first priority is making a summit or finishing a hundred mile run, then a wee bit of pudgyness isn't such an issue.

 

[Hetta]

But it does say how many grams. If people know what a healthy amount of sugar in grams per day is, then that should give them the information they need.

And how would they figure this out?

 

[JAM2b]

And how would they figure this out?

by reading the labels and knowing all the different names/kinds of sugars to look for... by reading the amount of total sugars in the nutrition labels... and comparing that to recommended moderate amount by physicians and health organizations

 

[Sheenagh Tucker]

I don't really use sugar. And when it comes to cooking, what's indicated in the recipe I cut down by half.