It’s simple, and it’s the same with fats and other types of foods. Go organic/natural, and stay away from processed and refined.

I’m hypoglycemic, which basically means if I don’t eat every 2 hours, I don’t function. I require a near constant source of food to stay healthy and metabolize correctly.

Coffee, Caffieine, Alcohol, or any sort of medication effects me dramatically. Hell.. one cup of coffee would keep me unproductive for an entire day from the crash I get.

There’s 2 things I can say about sugar:

1. It can be very helpful for an _immediate_ boost to bring me back to “normal”. If I’ve gone more then 2.5 or 3 hours without eating, I’ll start to lose focus, feel tired, and get quite moody (symptoms similar to PMS surprisingly enough). If I start to eat something sweet, I’ll notice an increase in functioning before the food has left my mouth.

It blows my mind every time I have to do it, but testing with gum or “0-carb” sugar substitutes have proven to me that you do indeed notice the effects of sugar the instant it’s in your mouth. It’s really just astonishing.

However, after just a few minutes, the helpful effect sugar has on me is lost. Sugar is great for _starting_ the metabolism processes, but it is not great for maintaining energy, which is what I seek to do the most.

Which brings me to the second point:

2. Sugar, when consumed with the proper types of food can be very good for you. Having something sweet along with a high-protein meal can be a good “fix” for me to stave off any crash of my metabolic system. One of the best examples of this is my “Man Chow” mix of chocolates, mixed nuts and pretzels. This mix has helped me prolong my period between meals countless times, and is almost essential for me when I go out for hikes in the woods, bike rides, or other activity where I’ll burn through my energy quicker than normal.

While I can get similar effects from eating grapes or other fruits, the sugars are essentially the same to my body, and it’s much easier to mix everything together into something with a long shelf life.

Finally, avoid overly sweet foods if you can, and don’t get too sucked into the “organic” craze. Don’t spend a ton of extra money to get trendy food. Stick with more “traditional” meals and focus on your exercise. Diet is not the area where most people would benefit from improvements. It’s far easier to change a diet than it is to start an exercise habit, and that’s where most obesity is caused.

The process in which processed sugar is processed is what makes the sugar bad.

1) I like the taste of sugar.

2) Nostalgia – Something like, I really want some zucchini bread that tastes just the way my grandma makes it. And my grandma uses sugar.

3) Convenience – baking with sugar substitutes seems like a nightmare. But maybe it’s worth looking into.

I guess it’s really just like how I’ve always known sunlight is bad for my skin, but I never really cared about wearing sunscreen until I started seeing minor wrinkles around my eyes (and I’m 22, not 50).

Anonymous–
It may not be that sugar in small moderations is that bad, but it 100% isn’t good. Like he said, there is absolutely nothing healthfully beneficial about it.
Also, the cutting out of calories is irrelevant, although they’re cutting their caloric intake that doesn’t mean that they’re eating healthy. If they were eating well then they wouldn’t have to cut their calories and their mood would always be optimal.

Just saying…