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Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

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Re: Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

#21

Post by QAPereo »

kichuku wrote: post #10

I would like to share an anecdote. In March 2016, I was weighing 96 kilograms (211.64 pounds). I made just one change during that time which is to stop having anything with sugar. I continued to take other natural sweeteners like jaggery and honey. The rest of my diet remained the same and my activity level remained the same ( I work in IT as a network engineer in a desk job) In October 2016, I was weighing 72 kilos…

I hear these anecdotes in many forms, and in my experience the real shared causative factor is making a decision to change, and acting on it. I don't know if it matters what that change is, as long as it's healthy and changes the math of caloriesin - caloriesout. In other words, I wonder if it's the decision and willingness to make hard changes, rather than the specific nature of those changes, which is the real active ingredient in weight loss; I suspect so.

Examples:

Started walking.

Started cycling.

Cut out processed foods.

Switched to a specific lifestyle diet.

Took up some kind of sport.

Cut out sugar/went Atkins/Keto/Paleo.

I don't think there's a wrong way to break a series of bad habits and build new ones, and I think the hardest part is deciding to do it, and sticking with it.

Re: Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

#22

Post by GordonS »

smilliken wrote: post #18
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I continued to take other natural sweeteners like jaggery and honey. ...which are also 80+% sugar.

Honey has a lower glycemic index/insulin response than sucrose.

It's a bit better than sugar, yes, and I suppose you would tend to eat less honey than sugar.

Jaggery though... I can't imagine it has a GI much different from sugar?

Re: Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

#24

Post by GordonS »

analog31 wrote: post #20
kichuku wrote: post #10

I would like to share an anecdote. In March 2016, I was weighing 96 kilograms (211.64 pounds). I made just one change during that time which is to stop having anything with sugar. I continued to take other natural sweeteners like jaggery and honey. The rest of my diet remained the same and my activity level remained the same ( I work in IT as a network engineer in a desk job) In October 2016, I was weighing 72 kilos…

Oddly enough, I can share an anecdote too. After a health scare, I decided to change my diet. I didn't think that I was self disciplined enough to count calories, so I arbitrarily eliminated certain things from my diet, most notably butter. My exercise didn't change much: Cycling to work every day. I got a new bike, but it didn't make me go that much faster. Within a few months, I went from 175 to 150 pounds (about 7…

If butter is the only thing you removed from your diet, you must have been eating an incredible amount of it?!

Re: Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

#25

Post by lokerfoi »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #12
lokerfoi wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is he bashing vegetables and fruits? The average US citizen does not eat the recommended minimum amount for fiber. Is he bashing the 3500kcal diet of average US citizen or is he purposefully demonizing a single macronutrient group?

Don’t you see the trend? “Recommended amounts” may be a large part of the issue. Doesn’t the US recommend 325 grams of sugar (carbohydrates) a day?

Fiber has 0 calories, which implies people in the US in general barely eat fruit and vegetables. No one overdosed on fiber. It's quite silly to claim that 2000kcal of legume carbohydrate (more than 300 grams of carbs) will alter my hormones or metabolism in a negative way, so demonizing a macronutrient is bad science.

Re: Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

#26

Post by halotrope »

Siilwyn wrote: post #23

So I wonder... is the effect of sugar on your body permanent, building up over time? Or would stopping the intake of refined sugars restore your system?

The worst effects of excessive Insulin, non alcoholic fatty liver and insulin resistance (which becomes type 2 diabetes after some time) can be reversed pretty easily by cutting sugar, fasting or a diet with extremely low levels of carbohydrates (Ketogenic Diet). Check Dr. Jason Fung and Robert Lustig on youtube. They both have done a great deal of research about the topic and have published very interesting material. I have adopted a very high fat, low carb diet (LCHF) and avoid all sugar for a couple months now and it is absolutely incredible how it changes your body, makes you loose fat and increases overall energy. Gone are these cycles of high and crashing after meals etc. I am absolutely convinced, that we will have a wake up to the toxicity of sugar very similar to that of cigarettes. Especially cancer and sugar seem to have a very strong and under researched relationship.

Re: Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

#27

Post by gtrubetskoy »

GordonS wrote: post #24
analog31 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough, I can share an anecdote too. After a health scare, I decided to change my diet. I didn't think that I was self disciplined enough to count calories, so I arbitrarily eliminated certain things from my diet, most notably butter. My exercise didn't change much: Cycling to work every day. I got a new bike, but it didn't make me go that much faster. Within a few months, I went from 175 to 150 pounds (about 7…

If butter is the only thing you removed from your diet, you must have been eating an incredible amount of it?!

There is _no_ amount of butter (or fat, in general) that you can eat that will make you gain weight, provided there is no sugar in your diet. You will physically not be able to eat more than your body can deal with, this is because fat, unlike sugar, triggers the i-am-full hormones which make food impossible to eat.

Re: Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

#28

Post by y4mi »

GordonS wrote: post #24
analog31 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough, I can share an anecdote too. After a health scare, I decided to change my diet. I didn't think that I was self disciplined enough to count calories, so I arbitrarily eliminated certain things from my diet, most notably butter. My exercise didn't change much: Cycling to work every day. I got a new bike, but it didn't make me go that much faster. Within a few months, I went from 175 to 150 pounds (about 7…

If butter is the only thing you removed from your diet, you must have been eating an incredible amount of it?!

No, butter makes the other stuff more delicious, making you eat just a little more each time.

Re: Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

#29

Post by pimeys »

lolc wrote: post #6
goodells wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds very interesting as another metric (like weight on a scale, as you put it) for someone trying to be conscious about their health. Is this something that a person could do cheaply at home with over-the-counter diabetic testing supplies? Could you be more specific or link to something about a protocol for e.g. measuring the effect of a meal on blood glucose and how to interpret those results?

Testing instruments are widely available and affordable too due to diabetes being such a widespread disease. I've just started using Freestyle Libre[1]. It's quite affordable even though it's not as accurate as blood measurements. It's possible to have one sensor attached for up to two weeks. This should be enough time to assess your body's reaction to carbs. I don't know how you would test for pre-diabetes but to te…

Have you tried to use it with xDrip plus[1] and an NFC capable Android phone? It allows you to calibrate the values using accurate blood glucose values. If you do a bit of research and do the calibrations right, it can be as accurate as the values from a fingerstrip reader.

[1] https://github.com/NightscoutFoundation/xDrip

Re: Sugar alters hormones and metabolism, sets stage for obesity and diabetes

#30

Post by y4mi »

gtrubetskoy wrote: post #27
GordonS wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If butter is the only thing you removed from your diet, you must have been eating an incredible amount of it?!

There is _no_ amount of butter (or fat, in general) that you can eat that will make you gain weight, provided there is no sugar in your diet. You will physically not be able to eat more than your body can deal with, this is because fat, unlike sugar, triggers the i-am-full hormones which make food impossible to eat.

No, that is plain wrong. Calories count, no matter where they are from.

Ketogenic diets might increase your metabolism and reduce your appetite and hunger, which makes weight loss easier, but you'll still gain weight if you eat too many fat calories each day. Even if you cut out carbs entirely.

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