6 ms·

Is fat killing you, or is sugar?

17 points by pablobaz 10y ago

curtis 10y ago
What if it's not simply too much sugar, but rather too much sugar combined with too little exercise?
- DamnYuppie 10y ago
  I don't disagree with your point. Yet I would like to add that I am thinking it is too much processed sugars that are really doing the damage.
- ardit33 10y ago
  Sugar is a major problem as right now it gets pumped in almost every food. It is addictive and people are more likely to re-buy those products. If you think you are avoiding sugar in your diet by avoiding the usual culprit (processed juices, soda, desserts), think again. Now sugar is being injected into everything, processed meat, soups, etc... I just bought some Jerkey at Trader's Joe. Each serving contains 10-11 grams of protein and, 5 or 6 grams of sugar. That's one teaspoon and a half of sugar! A packet, ( a normal snack), has 3-4 servings, and you end up with 5+ teaspoons of sugar that if you didn't look at the nutritional labels you wouldn't know. Normally jerkey shouldn't have any, (or maybe one gram and best). This is just one example, but the pumping of sugar is becoming so pervasive that it is almost impossible to avoid.
  - quacker 10y ago
    I recently checked the sugar content in some Prego pasta sauce. It was something like 50+ grams of sugar in a smaller size jar (depending on the variety of the sauce). When I did the math, the sauce was contributing 25-30 grams of sugar per meal - similar to a can of soda. I found another sauce with 1/3 the sugar content at my grocery store. (And of course, pasta is not the thing to eat if you're looking for low carbs, but the point stands) There has been tons of advertising about the health benefits of cereals, but cereal has tons of sugar. Honey Nut Cheerios have 10g of sugar per serving. Corn flakes have 8g per serving. Frosted Flakes have 11g. Some of the few low sugar varieties are Kix, Cheerios, and Rice Krispies. Even then, the added milk will have 10g of sugar.
- abandonliberty 10y ago
  You can still have skinny diabetics. Likely it's just not sugar, but any easily digested foods that cause insulin spikes and crashes.
- pnw_hazor 10y ago
  Diet to lose body fat, exercise to stay fit. After switching to low-carb (really just dumping bread, pasta, potatoes, cereal, skim milk, sugary stuff) I stopped getting fat and subsequently quit exercising. So I guess lack of fitness is my side-effect of low-carbing it.
LyndsySimon 10y ago
I moved to a ketogenic diet on January 9th of this year. I weighed 318 pounds. As of this morning I weigh 282 pounds. That's 36 pounds lost - 11.3% of my body mass - in 77 days, and I have not yet changed my nearly non-existent exercise habits. My goal is to get 80% of my calories from fat, no more than 20% from protein, and to consume a maximum of 20g of carbs per day. I intend for this to be my diet going forward; this is not something I am doing temporarily to lose weight. I've done a good deal of research on this topic, and my conclusion is that the human body is not equipped to deal with the massive amounts of simple carbohydrates that it gets in today's world.
- thatswrong0 10y ago
  Do you find that you have to put more effort into cooking / eating with the new diet?
  - LyndsySimon 10y ago
    At least initially, absolutely. It completely changed the way my wife and I shopped and we all but stopped eating out. After a month or so it seems to have leveled out. We collected a dozen or so recipes we liked and were easy to make, and we knew what we could and could not get at restaurants. At this point, the net effect is that we spend more money on food, eat at home more often, and often order modified meals at restaurants (e.g. chicken fajitas, but instead of tortillas, rice, and beans we'll just have guacamole).
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - pnw_hazor 10y ago
    It was a major change but not too bad. We put away the bread maker and rice cooker which took some adjustment and we got rid of skim milk and margarine. These days it is rare to find any bread products at our house, pasta and rice are found sometimes since the teenager eats that stuff every now and then. And pizza is fair game the weekend. Though, now it is not uncommon to hear my daughter complain that she has been eating too many carbs. (e.g., during after robotics build sessions where other parents bring food for the team.) Generally you can just add another vegetable side to replace the carb sides. At restaurants you can often substitute a vegetable/salad for the carb-side. Another trick for sustaining healthier diet is not be too orthodox about carbs. For us, weekends are wide-open and occasional weekday cheating is okay too. I also pretty much don't drink beer anymore, just whisky or gin.
Overtonwindow 10y ago
I don't know if it's fat or sugar that's killing us. I lost 50 pounds just eating balanced, healthy, nutritious meals. I reduce my sugar intake but didn't eliminate it. In fact I stuck to my twice weekly energy drinks and occasional candy bars and milkshakes. However my meals were regimented to include protein, vegetables, very rarely bread, rarely cheese, stopped drinking milk, and cooked everything at home from scratch. Less eating out. The only thing I truly eliminated from my diet was packaged foods, and highly processed meals in a box. So no more Cheeseburger Macaroni. So really, maybe, it's not sugar and fat, it may just be the highly processed cheap foods, microwaved stuff, etc.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Is eating out really that bad? Restaurants cook so much better than me. I know fast food is bad, but a salad or steak? Don't make me give up my restaurants!
  - justboxing 10y ago
    > Restaurants cook so much better than me. It depends on what you mean by 'better'. Taste better, or nutritiously better. My friend here in San Francisco runs a Pakistani-"Indian" restaurant on Jackson St, and during Christmas week I helped him out in the kitchen as his staff was thin (just moving food in and out to customers' tables, taking back dishes etc, no cooking) This may not be the case at all restaurants, but I was pretty horrified at how the average restaurant around the corner operates. They put loads of salt, cream and butter in everything. Vegetables and meats are purchased in bulk from restaurant supply stores and are rarely fresh. If a customer didn't like an entree, they'd just make a new one with more salt, cream (if applicable) and butter. They have 4.5 star average reviews on YELP. Always packed on lunch hour and evenings during the week. In his (Owner / my friend's )own words "Anything can be made to taste great if you throw in salt and butter". Some Indian restaurant use oil and a dash of butter even in their Basmati rice!
    - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
      Still, not talking carbs or sugar right? The old 'fats are bad' and 'salt is bad' legend dies hard. They are really our savior if moving from carbs to veg and meat.

17 points by pablobaz 10y ago

curtis 10y ago

What if it's not simply too much sugar, but rather too much sugar combined with too little exercise?

DamnYuppie 10y ago
I don't disagree with your point. Yet I would like to add that I am thinking it is too much processed sugars that are really doing the damage.
ardit33 10y ago
Sugar is a major problem as right now it gets pumped in almost every food. It is addictive and people are more likely to re-buy those products. If you think you are avoiding sugar in your diet by avoiding the usual culprit (processed juices, soda, desserts), think again. Now sugar is being injected into everything, processed meat, soups, etc... I just bought some Jerkey at Trader's Joe. Each serving contains 10-11 grams of protein and, 5 or 6 grams of sugar. That's one teaspoon and a half of sugar! A packet, ( a normal snack), has 3-4 servings, and you end up with 5+ teaspoons of sugar that if you didn't look at the nutritional labels you wouldn't know. Normally jerkey shouldn't have any, (or maybe one gram and best). This is just one example, but the pumping of sugar is becoming so pervasive that it is almost impossible to avoid.
- quacker 10y ago
  I recently checked the sugar content in some Prego pasta sauce. It was something like 50+ grams of sugar in a smaller size jar (depending on the variety of the sauce). When I did the math, the sauce was contributing 25-30 grams of sugar per meal - similar to a can of soda. I found another sauce with 1/3 the sugar content at my grocery store. (And of course, pasta is not the thing to eat if you're looking for low carbs, but the point stands) There has been tons of advertising about the health benefits of cereals, but cereal has tons of sugar. Honey Nut Cheerios have 10g of sugar per serving. Corn flakes have 8g per serving. Frosted Flakes have 11g. Some of the few low sugar varieties are Kix, Cheerios, and Rice Krispies. Even then, the added milk will have 10g of sugar.
abandonliberty 10y ago
You can still have skinny diabetics. Likely it's just not sugar, but any easily digested foods that cause insulin spikes and crashes.
pnw_hazor 10y ago
Diet to lose body fat, exercise to stay fit. After switching to low-carb (really just dumping bread, pasta, potatoes, cereal, skim milk, sugary stuff) I stopped getting fat and subsequently quit exercising. So I guess lack of fitness is my side-effect of low-carbing it.

LyndsySimon 10y ago

I moved to a ketogenic diet on January 9th of this year. I weighed 318 pounds. As of this morning I weigh 282 pounds. That's 36 pounds lost - 11.3% of my body mass - in 77 days, and I have not yet changed my nearly non-existent exercise habits. My goal is to get 80% of my calories from fat, no more than 20% from protein, and to consume a maximum of 20g of carbs per day. I intend for this to be my diet going forward; this is not something I am doing temporarily to lose weight. I've done a good deal of research on this topic, and my conclusion is that the human body is not equipped to deal with the massive amounts of simple carbohydrates that it gets in today's world.

thatswrong0 10y ago
Do you find that you have to put more effort into cooking / eating with the new diet?
- LyndsySimon 10y ago
  At least initially, absolutely. It completely changed the way my wife and I shopped and we all but stopped eating out. After a month or so it seems to have leveled out. We collected a dozen or so recipes we liked and were easy to make, and we knew what we could and could not get at restaurants. At this point, the net effect is that we spend more money on food, eat at home more often, and often order modified meals at restaurants (e.g. chicken fajitas, but instead of tortillas, rice, and beans we'll just have guacamole).
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- pnw_hazor 10y ago
  It was a major change but not too bad. We put away the bread maker and rice cooker which took some adjustment and we got rid of skim milk and margarine. These days it is rare to find any bread products at our house, pasta and rice are found sometimes since the teenager eats that stuff every now and then. And pizza is fair game the weekend. Though, now it is not uncommon to hear my daughter complain that she has been eating too many carbs. (e.g., during after robotics build sessions where other parents bring food for the team.) Generally you can just add another vegetable side to replace the carb sides. At restaurants you can often substitute a vegetable/salad for the carb-side. Another trick for sustaining healthier diet is not be too orthodox about carbs. For us, weekends are wide-open and occasional weekday cheating is okay too. I also pretty much don't drink beer anymore, just whisky or gin.

Overtonwindow 10y ago

I don't know if it's fat or sugar that's killing us. I lost 50 pounds just eating balanced, healthy, nutritious meals. I reduce my sugar intake but didn't eliminate it. In fact I stuck to my twice weekly energy drinks and occasional candy bars and milkshakes. However my meals were regimented to include protein, vegetables, very rarely bread, rarely cheese, stopped drinking milk, and cooked everything at home from scratch. Less eating out. The only thing I truly eliminated from my diet was packaged foods, and highly processed meals in a box. So no more Cheeseburger Macaroni. So really, maybe, it's not sugar and fat, it may just be the highly processed cheap foods, microwaved stuff, etc.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Is eating out really that bad? Restaurants cook so much better than me. I know fast food is bad, but a salad or steak? Don't make me give up my restaurants!
- justboxing 10y ago
  > Restaurants cook so much better than me. It depends on what you mean by 'better'. Taste better, or nutritiously better. My friend here in San Francisco runs a Pakistani-"Indian" restaurant on Jackson St, and during Christmas week I helped him out in the kitchen as his staff was thin (just moving food in and out to customers' tables, taking back dishes etc, no cooking) This may not be the case at all restaurants, but I was pretty horrified at how the average restaurant around the corner operates. They put loads of salt, cream and butter in everything. Vegetables and meats are purchased in bulk from restaurant supply stores and are rarely fresh. If a customer didn't like an entree, they'd just make a new one with more salt, cream (if applicable) and butter. They have 4.5 star average reviews on YELP. Always packed on lunch hour and evenings during the week. In his (Owner / my friend's )own words "Anything can be made to taste great if you throw in salt and butter". Some Indian restaurant use oil and a dash of butter even in their Basmati rice!
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    Still, not talking carbs or sugar right? The old 'fats are bad' and 'salt is bad' legend dies hard. They are really our savior if moving from carbs to veg and meat.