Taking Out Sugar from the diet: Observations

[Star]

For the last 10 days I have avoided sugar - no more sugar in my coffee, stopped drinking cola, no more sweet snacks. I have noted that my enery levels have dropped marginally and have stabilised, and I am not getting the energy peaks and troughs I am used to. During the troughs I would crave more sugar, be fatigued and find that concentration levels would drop unless I fed myself more again... 'sugar'. I previosuly did not take the sugar hysteria too seriously but there may be something to it.

 

[taxgenius]

My wife has cut out all sugar and white flour and her migraines disappeared.

 

[Steve Smith]

When I have followed a low carbohydrate way of eating I have found that my energy level and alertness increased greatly.

 

[mgm9128]

Good for you.

 

[7AD]

Nice, I have also cut sugar out of my diet, except for fruits and whatnot where its naturally present.

 

[Gibonius]



Well your body need some sugar eventually when its reserves run out.

This is not true. Your body can produce all the sugar it needs from both dietary fat and stored body fat.

 

[Steve Smith]

^ I agree.

 

[Timbaland]



Well your body need some sugar eventually when its reserves run out. Also frutose (sugar in fruits) is not the same as table sugar.

Nope. The body converts the food you eat and stores it as glycogen. Any additional calories more than you need get stored as fat. All of this stored energy does not need to come from sugar. It can be from protein, carbohydrates, or fat.

 

[hendrix]



This is not true. Your body can produce all the sugar it needs from both dietary fat and stored body fat.

wrong. Fat is not converted into sugar. It is used directly as an energy source - beta oxidation i think it's called

Some tissues (brain), are not good at utilising fat as an energy source, thus you do need a little carbohydrate in your diet.

 

[bbaquiran]

Gluconeogenesis.

 

[hendrix]



Gluconeogenesis.

doesn't happen from fats mate. Only in plants i think.

 

[Gibonius]



wrong. Fat is not converted into sugar. It is used directly as an energy source - beta oxidation i think it's called

Some tissues (brain), are not good at utilising fat as an energy source, thus you do need a little carbohydrate in your diet.

doesn't happen from fats mate. Only in plants i think.

It only happens directly from fats in plants. Everything else would have to run through the citric acid cycle first and then to gluconeogenesis, but that's no problem under normal (fed) metabolic conditions.

 

[hendrix]



It only happens directly from fats in plants. Everything else would have to run through the citric acid cycle first and then to gluconeogenesis, but that's no problem under normal (fed) metabolic conditions.

nope, doesn't happen. Need glyoxylate shunt.

 

[Gibonius]



nope, doesn't happen. Need glyoxylate shunt.

That's under steady state though. If I'm reading the schemes correctly (which would follow what my textbook is saying), you can still get to glucose so long as you have other intermediates available, which you would in a fed state (even without carb intake). You wouldn't be able to generate glucose solely from body fat (starvation conditions), but never meant to imply that was possible.

Might be missing something, never looked at this beyond the textbook level.

 

[indesertum]

even without steady state your body wouldnt create a sugar molecule from ***** acids and then break that down again through glycolysis and tca. the ***** acid molecule would just get broken down into acyl-coa plus substituents which itself would go through tca.