[SamAdams76]

This article fails to make a distinction between sugar and high fructose corn syrup, which is a "cheap" alternative to sugar and found in most processed food products today. High fructose corn syrup is nasty stuff and they seem to put it in everthing these days. But whether you are talking about sugar or HFCS, you are talking carbohydrates. This is what is making America fat (our increasingly sedentary lifestyles only making a bad situation worse).

Sugars are almost always found in processed foods in large quantities. Especially foods that are labeled "low-fat." Having lost 44 pounds since April 1, I have started paying much more attention to food labels. I was surprised, for instance, to find high fructose corn syrup as a major ingredient in even my barbeque sauce. As a result, I have eliminated virtually all processed foods from my diet and this has accelerated my weight loss.

But instead of being obsessed with sugars (carbohydrates), our society is obsessed with fats. It is almost amusing to watch, as I have lost my 44 pounds while having all the things that the "fat" police try to warn us about. Eggs, steaks, pork, sardines, dark chicken meat, etc. I eat all that stuff and I don't bother taking the skin off the chicken or trimming the fat from the beef. I especially don't eat "egg whites." Who the heck came up with the idea that you should discard the best part of the egg? I also use butter instead of margarine and plenty of olive oil, also high in fat.

Now my diet is not the Atkins plan but simply a modified version of it. For example, I will still have rice from time to time and I still have my nightly two beers. But I have cut back on carbs drastically and it has made all the difference. I also walk several miles a day for exercise.

[dubyagee]

Fifteen pounds lighter here due to cutting back on carbs. Especially the nasty ones like potatoes and pasta and white bread. Pilates has also helped.

And I love Michelob Ultra! 8 * )

[nutmeg]

read later bump

[cinFLA]

This guy never saw a horse after a sugar cube in a pocket.

"Food without sugar or fat doesn’t have much taste, and "we aren’t horses," noted Robert Keith, a professor of nutrition at Auburn University."

[Servant of the Nine]

This article fails to make a distinction between sugar and high fructose corn syrup, which is a "cheap" alternative to sugar and found in most processed food products today. High fructose corn syrup is nasty stuff and they seem to put it in everthing these days.

High fructose corn syrup has lowered the amount of calories we take as sweets.
An original 6 ounce coke with sugar was 125 calories.
A current 12 ounce can with hfcs is 150 calories, not the 250 it would have been with sugar to maintain the same taste. That is because hfcs is almost twice as "sweet" per calorie as sugar.

The whine about hfcs is just a cop out for not admitting that if we take in more calories than we burn, of any kind, we are gonna get fatter.

So9

[riri]

I am not overweight at all but would love to cut back on my carbs. I have days when I swear I am lucky to get 10 grams of protein and virtually eat all carbs.

As I get older I find that my once vigorous appetite has diminished--but here is the kicker--I tend to get headaches if I don't eat enough. Especially early in the day. So because I am underweight, I tend to eat pretty much whatever sounds appealing to me--just to get something in my bloodstream. 90% of the time it is something carbo...

So what do you eat? Especially, early in the day? I was thinking of getting some of those protein drinks but the only one that doesn't kill you going down is loaded with an artificial sweetener.

[Incorrigible]

Relayed thread:

Farmers' sweet deal makes for fat Americans [Corn syrup vs sugar]

[aruanan]

Is sugar making us fat?

Neither sugar (sucrose, which is glucose and fructose in a 1:1 ratio) nor high fructose corn syrup (which has a greater than 1:1 ratio of fructose) is making us fat. A diet with an energy intake that exceeds an individual's energy output is what makes him fat.

The truth is relatively simple, but that won't stop this thread from being filled with outlandish nonsense. The following can be used to separate fact from nutzoid nutracrap.

Fructose* (a six carbon sugar) enters the glycolytic pathway and is used in exactly the same way as glucose (another isomer of the same molecular formula and known as dextrose, grape sugar, or corn sugar). In fact, glucose is phosphorylated on the 6 carbon to become fructose 6-phosphate. Fructose 6-phosphate is phosphorylated again on the 1 carbon to become fructose 1,6 diphosphate. Dietary fructose (whether it comes from sucrose or from honey or from fruit or from high fructose corn syrup) is phosphorylated on the 1 carbon and then on the 6 carbon, ending up as fructose 1,6-diphosphate, the same as glucose.

Neither glucose nor fructose is made into fat in the human body. Fat cannot be converted into glucose. The human body makes very, very little fat de novo. The way one gains fat is principally from fat in the diet that is stored in adipose tissue. If you took a sample of all the fats you ate over a year's period and compared their types and relative quantities to the fat in a tissue sample of your adipose tissue, you'd find they were almost exactly the same.

The way you accumulate such fat has to do with your body's storage capacity for the three macro-nutrients (proteins, carbohydrates, and fat) when faced with dietary excess. The body has no real storage form of protein. Protein intake in excess of physiological needs for protein synthesis results in the constituent amino acids being deaminated and catabolized either in the glycolytic or lipolytic pathways depending on the type of amino acid. Carbohydrate intake can be buffered through about three days worth of storage in the form of glycogen, a polymer of glucose molecules. Relative to proteins and carbohydrates, fat has almost unlimited storage capacity.

When ones energy intake exceeds output, the body compensates by prioritizing the catabolism of macronutrients. Proteins have most immediate priority, followed by glucose, followed by fats. If the continued excess of caloric intake threatens to overtax the glycogen storage capacity, the body shifts substrate usage away from fat oxidation (nearly all your resting metabolic rate is accounted for by fat oxidation) and toward glucose oxidation. The result is that energy intake that exceeds energy output is preferentially saved by the storage of dietary fat.


*So any time you have one unit of sucrose, 1/2 of that is fructose. And it is principally the fructose in sugar, not the glucose, that makes it taste sweet. This is why it takes much less fructose to sweeten something to the same degree as it does sucrose. Maltose is two molecules of glucose. Lactose is one molecule of glucose and one of galactose. All hexose dietary sugars (fructose, glucose, and galactose) are eventually converted into fructose 1,6-diphosphate.

[js1138]

I still have my nightly two beers.

Do you make your own?

[scouse]

Just imagine: If Karen Carpenter would have eaten a few Big-Macs or a couple of sugar coated jelly donuts, she might still have been making CDs today.

[Tailback]

I agree, I have been fluctuating between the "Induction phase" of the Atkins diet and a "modified Atkins" where I simply watch the carb content of what I eat. I was only 30 pounds overweight to begin with so my weight loss goals were fairly modest. So far, by going on induction for 2 weeks and then watching what I eat (as far as carbs are concerned) for a month or so, I have lost 20 pounds over the last 5 months. I haven't changed how I exercise over that time period so the weight loss is purely from diet. I also switched from beer to vodka for my daily two afterwork drinks (with sugar free mixer) and started drinking sugar free Pepsi. I generally have lost 10 pounds during the induction phase and maintained my weight afterwards except for my week of vacation when I went back to having a couple beers a day.

[B Knotts]

I note that obesity has exploded since the government abandoned the "food groups" and started promoting the "food pyramid."

[Freebird Forever]

Ever read this book?

Sugar Blues

[Myrddin]

There is a reason to limit egg yolks. Arachidonic acid. It is present in red meats and egg yolks. It is a precursor to a wide range of harmful prostaglandins. The egg white provides you protein without the arachidonic acid.

[GraniteStateConservative]

Yeah, I'm an Atkins believer, too. It's weird that it works, but it does. Plus, I never have to worry abut diabetes.

[GraniteStateConservative]

Rice can easily be put in after you've reached a point where you don't want to lose anymore-- you up your total carbs at that point. Alcohol is friendlier than sugar in the diet, too.

[Xenalyte]

For our Independence Day fireworks-and-hooch extravaganza, Bacon Man procured four pounds of this.

[Rainmist]

My former OB/GYN recommed long ago that I cut all white foods out of my diet because they aren't good for you. White flour, rice, bread, sugar, etc. I never forgot that advice. He was right on the money.

[stboz]

I thought it was beans that made you fa.....huh? Oh! Fat!?!

Never mind.

[luckystarmom]

Actually sugar is not making people fat. Eating too much of anything makes people fat. Also, not exercising is making people (especially kids) fat.

I joined Weight Watchers back in February. I like the plan because as long as you eat 4-5 servings of fruits and vegetables, and drink 6 glasses of water you can eat anything until a certain point value. I still ate things with sugar, but I never ate too much sugar (or fat).

I've lost 15 pounds, and if I lose anymore weight I'll be considered underweight.

I'm trying to teach my kids to eat better, but it is hard. They don't like as many fruits, vegetables, and salads as I do.

[Freee-dame]

bump