[Krissypants29]

I want to replace it in my coffee and tea. I only have one cup of coffee in the morning and one cup of decaffeinated green tea at night. The only thing is..I tested it out and it takes about 1 tablespoon to make my tea and coffee taste ever so slightly sweet enough to drink...

Over the course of WW I have went from drinking lots of sugar in my coffee to 1 tablespoon..they say that it doesnt take much to sweeten beverages with honey..but I am finding its the opposite.

So question is..do I really want to consume 2 tablespoons of raw honey daily? Which equals 4 points a day? Is this too much to consume? Should I try halving it out?

Thanks guys!

[Krissypants29]

[BreathingSpace]

You could probably gradually decrease that amount. I used to have lots of sugar in my coffee and now I have zero sugar. Took me a while but my tastebuds got used to it. I would try to decrease the honey in your tea, seems like green tea would be something easier than coffee to get used to without sugar (in my opinion).

I wouldn't say 4 points is really "a lot" if you can work it in (i.e., give up something else worth 4 points to make up for it).

[kaplods]

Honey may or may not be any healthier for you than table sugar. Nutrition experts disagree on whether there are any benefits to raw honey over pasteurized honey and to whether there are any benefits to honey over sugar.

Because there are no clear cut answers, whether you want to spend your points (or whatever a person may want to count such as calories or food exchanges) on raw or pasteurized honey, or sugar is entirely a personal choice.

[Krissypants29]

Actually after trying today, it appears that it is hogging my snacks. I usually have 4 points worth of nuts every day..and snack on other free stuff in between. My breakfast is around 4, lunch is 6, and dinner is usually about 8 with no add ons ( butter, cheese etc..) and nuts are 4, that leaves exactly 4 points!! Theres pretty much no room to incorporate this! I can if I give up Coffee, or if I put 1/2 tblsp and that doesnt even taste like anything. Why is it hard to incorporate healthier alternatives in your diet? I am going to have to think of something!

[kaplods]

Originally Posted by Krissypants29

Actually after trying today, it appears that it is hogging my snacks. I usually have 4 points worth of nuts every day..and snack on other free stuff in between. My breakfast is around 4, lunch is 6, and dinner is usually about 8 with no add ons ( butter, cheese etc..) and nuts are 4, that leaves exactly 4 points!! Theres pretty much no room to incorporate this! I can if I give up Coffee, or if I put 1/2 tblsp and that doesnt even taste like anything. Why is it hard to incorporate healthier alternatives in your diet? I am going to have to think of something!

Incorporating healthier alternatives doesn't have to be difficult. There are many far easier and far more beneficial changes you can make to your diet than swapping one very concentrated source of sugar for another (especially since one may at best be only marginally better or might be just as bad). More and more experts are concluding from newer studies that in the body, all sugars may very well be a poor choice in concentrated form. So swapping one for another is at best diluting what amounts to a poison in concentrated form).

That doesn't mean you have to quit cold turkey. By cutting your sugar by a gram or two (a fourth of a tsp) in each cup every couple days, you can reduce your sugar intake just as easily, and may not even notice the difference.

You could also try xylitol (birch sugar) or one of the other fruit sugars or stevia, or even one of the artificial sugar substitutes (which may be the lesser of evils according to many of the reduced carb theorists).

There are a lot of easy ways to change, but you have to experiment and accept the fact that some will fail, but many will succeed.

[Krissypants29]

Originally Posted by kaplods

Incorporating healthier alternatives doesn't have to be difficult. There are many far easier and far more beneficial changes you can make to your diet than swapping one very concentrated source of sugar for another (especially since one may at best be only marginally better or might be just as bad). More and more experts are concluding from newer studies that in the body, all sugars may very well be a poor choice in concentrated form. So swapping one for another is at best diluting what amounts to a poison in concentrated form).

That doesn't mean you have to quit cold turkey. By cutting your sugar by a gram or two (a fourth of a tsp) in each cup every couple days, you can reduce your sugar intake just as easily, and may not even notice the difference.

You could also try xylitol (birch sugar) or one of the other fruit sugars or stevia, or even one of the artificial sugar substitutes (which may be the lesser of evils according to many of the reduced carb theorists).

There are a lot of easy ways to change, but you have to experiment and accept the fact that some will fail, but many will succeed.

Well right now I am at 2 tablespoons a day for sugar! One for my coffee and one for my tea..compared to the loads of sugar I was putting in it before WW!! Is 2 tablespoons still good??

Also I heard that artificial sweeteners is a no no! Thats why I havent used it yet...heard some good things about stevia..I will have to check out the points on that. I was also doing some reading on it and there are some reports that it is bad for you... I would only be using it twice a day...so I dont think I would have to worry.

[kaplods]

Originally Posted by Krissypants29

Well right now I am at 2 tablespoons a day for sugar! One for my coffee and one for my tea..compared to the loads of sugar I was putting in it before WW!! Is 2 tablespoons still good??

Also I heard that artificial sweeteners is a no no! Thats why I havent used it yet...heard some good things about stevia..I will have to check out the points on that. I was also doing some reading on it and there are some reports that it is bad for you... I would only be using it twice a day...so I dont think I would have to worry.

There are no absolutes, so try not to think in terms of good or bad. I've done a lot of reading and evaluating the research and the rumors. Luckily I had a significant number of research & methodology classes in college and graduate school while earning my psychology degrees. Since I had no plans to go into research, I didn't think I'd ever use statistics or methodology in "the real world," but at least it has helped me sort through the conflicting weight loss and artificial sweetener issue.

Personally, I am comfortable with my use of artificial sweeteners more than my use of real sugar, though I'm continuing to reduce both. I don't try to be "good" by any definition, I just experiment and see what works for me.

I'm currently giving up undiluted diet soda, and instead drinking Crystal Light with extra water and a splash of diet soda. I'm also cutting off my caffeine use at 2pm rather than my usual 5pm (and my former 9 pm several years ago).

Until eight years ago, I had never gone more than 1.5 years without regaining everything I had lost and then some. From kindergarten on, I dieted my way to nearly 400 lbs, then I decided to only make small changes I could foresee doing forever, even if no weight loss resulted, and I focused first and foremost on not gaining. My losses were slow, but permanent.

I had a health issue setback recently and for a variety of reasons, regained some of my lost weight, but even this is a first for me - getting back on track and losing again BEFORE I regained it all plus extra. I've never before caught myself before I regained more than I lost.

My path isn't the only way, but I do think good/bad thinking tends to do more harm than good, because it leads to thinking of health and weight loss in pass/fail terms, and it's not that simple.

Instead of asking "is 2 tbs of sugar is good" focus on whether it's an improvement (which you've acknowledged that it is) and whether you can and want to do better.

Every body seems to be a little different in regard to the food-health and food-weight connection. You'll have to experiment to see how your body works. Keeping a food and feelings (physical and emotional) will help you find patterns, just expect to repeat an experiment many times before assuming you've found a pattern. Coincidence can make a food seem bad or good when it might be simply Neutral.

Try to be comfortable with not knowing whether your diet is optimal or not, and just focus on making choices you suspect MAY be an improvement, then see how you feel and experiment some more.

As to sweeteners, my favorites are Splenda and xylitol. Xylitol is a processed form of the natural sweetener, birch sugar. It is a fruit sugar, also known as a sugar alcohol. This means it can have a laxative effect which varies from person to person. For me, it reminds me not to go crazy with portions.

I know you'll hear a lot of scary stuff about artificial sweeteners, but much of it is false or greatly exaggerated. It doesn't mean they're healthy, they're just not nearly as dangerous as the worst of the rumors suggest.

[Krissypants29]

Originally Posted by kaplods

There are no absolutes, so try not to think in terms of good or bad. I've done a lot of reading and evaluating the research and the rumors. Luckily I had a significant number of research & methodology classes in college and graduate school while earning my psychology degrees. Since I had no plans to go into research, I didn't think I'd ever use statistics or methodology in "the real world," but at least it has helped me sort through the conflicting weight loss and artificial sweetener issue.

Personally, I am comfortable with my use of artificial sweeteners more than my use of real sugar, though I'm continuing to reduce both. I don't try to be "good" by any definition, I just experiment and see what works for me.

I'm currently giving up undiluted diet soda, and instead drinking Crystal Light with extra water and a splash of diet soda. I'm also cutting off my caffeine use at 2pm rather than my usual 5pm (and my former 9 pm several years ago).

Until eight years ago, I had never gone more than 1.5 years without regaining everything I had lost and then some. From kindergarten on, I dieted my way to nearly 400 lbs, then I decided to only make small changes I could foresee doing forever, even if no weight loss resulted, and I focused first and foremost on not gaining. My losses were slow, but permanent.

I had a health issue setback recently and for a variety of reasons, regained some of my lost weight, but even this is a first for me - getting back on track and losing again BEFORE I regained it all plus extra. I've never before caught myself before I regained more than I lost.

My path isn't the only way, but I do think good/bad thinking tends to do more harm than good, because it leads to thinking of health and weight loss in pass/fail terms, and it's not that simple.

Instead of asking "is 2 tbs of sugar is good" focus on whether it's an improvement (which you've acknowledged that it is) and whether you can and want to do better.

Every body seems to be a little different in regard to the food-health and food-weight connection. You'll have to experiment to see how your body works. Keeping a food and feelings (physical and emotional) will help you find patterns, just expect to repeat an experiment many times before assuming you've found a pattern. Coincidence can make a food seem bad or good when it might be simply Neutral.

Try to be comfortable with not knowing whether your diet is optimal or not, and just focus on making choices you suspect MAY be an improvement, then see how you feel and experiment some more.

As to sweeteners, my favorites are Splenda and xylitol. Xylitol is a processed form of the natural sweetener, birch sugar. It is a fruit sugar, also known as a sugar alcohol. This means it can have a laxative effect which varies from person to person. For me, it reminds me not to go crazy with portions.

I know you'll hear a lot of scary stuff about artificial sweeteners, but much of it is false or greatly exaggerated. It doesn't mean they're healthy, they're just not nearly as dangerous as the worst of the rumors suggest.

Thanks for the input..generally I go on the basis that if a food takes away something in order for it to "be" healthier, it usually adds things that are not healthy to compensate! I havent done much research on artificial sweeteners but in my mind it is almost the same thing as a diet pop! Which technically are not that healthy for you. I will do some more research and if I can completely cut out sugar and find a replacement, than thats great!

Thanks!