Is sugar making us fat?

TCPalm.com ^ | July 1, 2003 | Lance Gay and Lee Bowman Scripps

[blackdog]

We are big raw sugar users too. I've never understood the idea that sugar is supposed to look like baking soda.

Half and Half is a product of loonies. It ushered in the idea of light beer. Cream is thick and pours like a milkshake. No sugar in my coffee though. Only espresso and only with cream.

Real eggs produced by healthy chickens have yolks the color of a dark orange sunrise, not yellow.

Apples have spots, grapes are sticky and ripe when you have to fight with the yellow jacket bees for them. Tomatoes must be eaten within minutes of picking them, and as a rule of thumb, the hotter the flame and the shorter the time your food spends over it is how flavor can be found.

Damn I'm getting hungry.

[Shooter 2.5]

I found out about the trans fat a little too late.

[reformed_dem]

I've been on Atkins for just over a week and have lost 8 pounds already. I feel great. The brownies my daughter just baked smell delicious and I am tempted, but I will be strong. ;^)

[muir_redwoods]

Eat less. Eat less of foods that are high in fat and sugar. Eat as much of your food as close to raw as possible, fresh fruit and raw vegetables are perfect. Enjoy meat if you like but watch the fat. Get off your butt and do some real excercise. Hike, don't mosey. Sign up for an aerobic activity, martial arts, callisthenics, running(if you can stand it) but get up and get moving. Drink less alcohol and more water. Believe it or not you can enjoy the effort as well as the results.

[MadelineZapeezda]

Hang in there and resist the urge. I lost 56 pounds on Atkins since 1/24/03. No longer have heartburn......no longer need prevacid.

[ccmay]

I think my grandma was wise to the Atkins diet before Dr. Atkins himself. She always badmouthed refined sugar and refined flour, but she would happily eat every part of a cow including brains and sweetbreads. Lots of fruit and vegetables, a fair amount of eggs, and moderate milk and cream. I don't remember her cooking noodles or pasta even once. She used sweet-n-low or occasionally honey if something had to be sweetened. She also tended to serve pretty small portions. I didn't like eating at her house, but she lived to be 92 and my grandfather to 98, and neither of them died of a heart attack, so must be something to it...

[PoisedWoman]

I try to choose my carbs from glycemic index....high glycemic (starchy) carbs are bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, carrots, etc, low glycemic are all the greenies, berries, etc. Eating a baked potato is exactly like snorting about two cups of sugar. It all turns into exactly the same thing in the body. So no, restricting sugar intake won't work. It's only part of the story.

The Zone diet explains all of this. It's the best I've ever tried. Somehow Atkins didn't work. After following it religiously for three weeks, I felt better than ever, but did not lose one single ounce. Three weeks on the Zone, I'd lost about 8 pounds. Careful selection and balance of carbs, protein, and fats is the key for me.

I fear the lawsuit-happy libs will race to court about sugar and fats, never realizing that carrots, rice, and beets, vegan mainstays, are just as fattening.

[MissAmericanPie]

Sugar isn't fattening. If it is why was I a scrawny little runt all my childhood even though I munched on about five candy bars a day?

What makes a person fat are genes that produce too many fat cells, and a person kicking those fat cells into action by doing too much sitting and eating anything and everything.

[tiamat]

I think it has more to do with sitting on our dead bottoms too much and super-sizing evreything.

Tia

[wafflehouse]

Dieters might be surprised to find there is more sugar in a can of strawberry Slim-Fast diet drink than in a quarter cup of M&M candies, and that low-fat and "healthy choice" breakfast bars with fruit filling have as much sugar as chocolate eclairs

WOW! ill stick with M&Ms and chocolate eclairs..

[Dont Mention the War]

Sugar doesn't make us fat. Fat makes us fat!! The "fat" in foods is a necessary nutrient and is NOT the same thing as "fat" around your waistline. Waistline fat comes from too much sugar and carbs.

[Mr. Jeeves]

I think the worst thing that happened to this country is the idiots who came up with the food pyramid.

Those weren't idiots - it was the Archer Daniels Midland corporation, with help from their paid stooges in Congress. Nothing like getting the government's seal of approval slapped on your entire product line to ramp up sales.

[Mr. Jeeves]

I lost 56 pounds on Atkins since 1/24/03.

Congratulations! I've lost 30 pounds on Atkins since 4/7/03 - got about 15 more to go. It works.

[BonnieJ]

4. Not enough exercise!

[Dont Mention the War]

Sugar isn't fattening. If it is why was I a scrawny little runt all my childhood even though I munched on about five candy bars a day?

You most likely have a high metabolism and got a lot of exercise. The body will burn alcohol for fuel first, then carbs, then body fat. The key to weight stabilization (or loss) is to not eat so many carbs that they get stored as fat instead of being immediately burned for fuel.

And that magic amount of carbs/day is different for each person. For you it might be 200 g/day. For someone else they may only be able to take 75.

[T Minus Four]

Main reason . . . everybody quit tobacco

LOL!!! You're so right! When I quit smoking six years ago, I packed on 20 pounds almost overnight and have yet to shake them, no matter what I eat or don't eat. OK, I was really skinny, and could have used ten of them, and I'm quite fit and carry the extra ten pretty well, but sometimes I fantasize about how much easier it was to smoke than to do step aerobics or Body Pump :-)

[alnick]

Something I've heard about lately is the God Made/Man Made plan. Three or four days of only God Made food followed by one day of man made food. Simple and allows for the occasional treat.

[PoisedWoman]

Good Made/Man Made is excellent plan and catchy, memorable phrase. I hope I'll remember it at cruch time!

Golly, think of the amount of lime I'll have to add to rum-and-coke to bring it into balance. Mutter, mutter.