Healthy eating vs clean eating vs counting calories.

Why the avoidance of fructose in particular? 

I avoid watermelon because I don't absorb fructose well (resulting in nasty GI symptoms). But, a fully ripened banana has more glucose than fructose. Bananas actually are quite dense on the calorie scale anyway, at least compared to other fruits and veggies. 

Because fructose is what is processed by the body and ends up in your blood, raising triglyceride levels. It's a particular concern of mine because I have high triglycerides at only 27 years of age. (If you don't make changes, high triglycerides becomes pre-diabetes, which then becomes diabetes.)

I don't know that glucose does any harm to the body. I'm not well versed on the glucose front but in all my research and time spent learning good foods vs. bad foods glucose was never an issue I came across. Perhaps I need to do some more reading on that.

ETA: I aim for 25g of sugar a day, bananas have about 9g which makes it really hard to stay under my goal so I don't eat them. I do miss them though!

scrappyoutlaw, I have news for you that you might wish you didn't know.

Glucose also increases triglycerides. Both fructose and glucose increase triglyceride production. Any sugar will. Table sugar is sucrose, which is one molecule of glucose and one molecule of glucose.

Diabetes and hypertriglyceridemia go hand in hand because of the higher levels of glucose in the blood causing higher levels of triglyceride production. It can be a chicken and the egg type situation- which came first?- and that answer will vary by the individual and, in some cases, never be known. For ex, I first had high triglycerides at a similar age. I was in medical school, so mid-20ish. I brought them down by diet alone. They were high again a few years ago and I was started on medication. My cholesterol was also a bit high. With diet and exercise (cardio is important!), they were low enough to go off the medication. Despite lower and lower levels, my hemoglobin A1C has continued to rise to pre-diabetic levels.

I think the best way to lose weight and keep it off permanently (and that's really the key isn't it?) is to find a style of eating that you will stick with. It can't simply be a diet that you will follow for X number of days because once you reach that particular weight and no longer follow that strict diet what will happen? That's right-the weight will come right back on, and usually then some more. Sad, but true.

I've tried for the last 20 years as my weight has gone up and down from size S to XL up and down, and back again due to medication changes, eating styles, and everything else in between.

Finally I decided I'd had enough about 3 years ago. I started by ditching soda first and started drinking water instead, only water and coffee-no way was I giving up coffee!

Next I gave up all fast food and processed foods, as I started shopping for only fresh ingredients, and began cooking more at home, although I still bought things like spaghetti sauce, cereal, and things like that, I paid more attention to the labels and read the ingredients listings. I started reading sites like www.100daysofrealfood.com and learning things like when it's important to buy organic (the dirty dozen list is a list of a dozen fruits and veggies that it's best to buy organic that can be found at this site along with a ton of other helpful info for eating healthy).

The last thing I did was in February 2014 I watched the documentary "Forks and Knives" on Netflix one evening and by the end of it I was so excited and got my DH to watch it the next evening. He finished watching it, turned to me and said, "Let's try it for 28 days". What he was talking about was the 28 Day Challenge-the Forks and Knives Documentary encouraged you to change your diet and make it incredibly healthy-turning your diet into a "Whole Foods Plant Based Diet-basically a vegan diet-no meat, no dairy".  So we did it-for 28 days. And we felt so great we kept on doing it. Now here it is 15 months later. I've lost 18 pounds in those 15 months. Now that might not sound like a lot, but I'm in the middle of menopause and I have hypothyroid. Hypothyroid makes losing weight extremely difficult, and most women in menopause gain 10 pounds. I haven't gained one pound yet.

And I feel literally incredible. We do not count calories. Never have on this diet, never need to at all. We eat dark chocolate, and I have my coffee whenever I want. We have lots of veggies, tofu, fruit, whole grains, all kinds of wholesome goodness and honestly, I don't miss meat one iota. In fact, just thinking about eating meat makes me feel nauseous. I hit my goal weight last week and it felt incredible. I'm in a size 12, medium and it feels so good at the age of 55 to be back in this size again.

I highly encourage everyone to at least watch this documentary for the knowledge you will gain about what our American diet does to our bodies. Highly informative and entertaining. Hey, if my stubborn meat and potatoes husband can give this diet a try and succeed , anyone can.

Debbie in MD.

So I did this 21 day challenge with Steph back in Dec. It has changed my life and my families. Eating clean is SOOO worth it for your body. I don't count calories and as long as I'm following what I eat, I lose weight. I actually did track a few days of my calories and always came at or below by BMR. I also am getting in all my macronutrients, vitamins and minerals. 

I think if you are truly eating clean it's hard to overeat. For instance, for lunch I had a huge salad with 2 oz of spinach, 1 oz mixed greens, tomatoes, 1/2 cup black beans, 1/2 a red bell pepper, onions, and a little dab of hummus (1/2 oz) and topped it with some Bragg's Amino acids with lemon and my whole meal came to less than 200 calories. I'm completely stuffed. I eat probably at least 4 servings of fruits per day also. 

scrappyoutlaw, it's only because you specifically mentioned fructose and made me curious. It is indeed carbohydrates/sugars that you want to keep to an appropriate level in your diet. Best things to help lower triglycerides are diet (lower carb) and cardio.

That said, at your age, if they are still higher than they should be and your diet and exercise are where they should be, you may need to look into genetic causes of increased triglycerides.