I ate 40 teaspoons of sugar a day. This is what happened (2015)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/healthyeating/11691125/I-ate-40-teaspoons-of-sugar-a-day.-This-is-what-happened.html

by thomyorkie • 9 years ago

55 37 9 years ago

telegraph.co.uk

dabadoo7• 9 years ago

The math does not add up.

40 grams of sugar does not have enough calories for you to gain 3 kilograms in 12 days, or 8.5 kilograms in 21 days.

Moreover, if he ate as much as the average American eats, how is it that the average American has not experienced what he has? The guy almost gained 1 pound a day.

thomyorkie4• 9 years ago

He ate 40 teaspoons which is 160 grams of sugar. Also, perhaps the fact that he went from very little sugar to 160 grams a day caused rapid weight gain. I know for instance that your body changes over time to burn fat more efficiently if you are on a lower carb diet, perhaps the reverse is true as well.

dabadoo7• 9 years ago

Weight gain is impossible without the necessary amount of calories. It is the simple law of conservation of mass/energy.

160 calories * 21 days = 3360 calories. This is enough to gain about 1 pound of weight, not 19.

ryanobjc• 9 years ago

What else did he eat? Sugar will raise your insulin level, which directs more blood sugar to fat cells.

So it's not just a case of calories in calories out.

dabadoo7• 9 years ago

It is a matter of calories in calories out.

He didn't just increase his concentration of fat, he straight up gained 8.5 kilograms of mass.

mping• 9 years ago

Was under the impression he ate food with sugar, hidden sugar as he call it. Plus, he went from no sugar to 40g so it's not not comparable to the avg person

DanBC2• 9 years ago

He completely changed his diet from cooked from scratch to "foods perceived as healthy but which contain hidden sugar". He claims he controlled for fat intake.

It's likely that taking on that much sugar all of a sudden would require him to increase his fluid intake, and so some of the weight may be water.

aidenn0• 9 years ago

The more sugar I eat at one meal, the hungrier I am at the next meal. It's entirely possible that his caloric intake went up by a lot more than the 619kCal per day he got of sugar.

shamaku• 9 years ago

40 grams of sugar? 40 teaspoons is closer to 160+ grams.

swagv1• 9 years ago

I thought bored journalists who did binge or denial experiments on themselves went out of style in 2015. Please don't come back.

relics443• 9 years ago

Ignoring confounding variables, and a sample size of one caused me to discount this "study". While I'm sure sugar consumption is an issue, this escapade seems like more of a capitalist venture than anything else.

GoToRO• 9 years ago

Nobody said it was a study... But if you want to see what effect 40 teaspoons of sugar a day have on yourself then you don't care about anybody else. It's like beeing in a plane that crashes: you don't care that a proper study says that you only have a chance of 1 in 10 milion to die when you are already in a plane that crashes.

DanBC2• 9 years ago

"That Sugar Film" is interesting, and worth a watch. The stuff about dental health in poor parts of America is gruesome.

He's pushing his agenda pretty hard. It's good that it's an obvious bias, but it makes the film a bit exhausting to watch. The "sugar is pure evil" line is relentlessly pushed through the film. That's a shame, because he has some really good points, especially around foods perceived as healthy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Sugar_Film

tomohawk• 9 years ago

I made one change. I avoided any foods with high fructose corn syrup. I wasn't over weight, but doing that one thing had many positive results. I dropped unnecessary belly fat. I had better, more consistent energy throughout the day. Sharper focus. I am no longer interested in cheap desert type stuff - it tastes like crap. When I eat a desert now, I go for something that's really nice, and I really enjoy it.

It's not calories in / calories out. The bodies response to HFC is to open up the gate to converting whatever nutrients you've eaten recently into fat. Eating that little candy from the jar on your co-workers desk after lunch? That's a big deal.

hrodriguez2• 9 years ago

I didn't watch the film or do other research except for reading the article. I just wonder what the effects of a lifetime of bad eating, smoking and who knows what else... did to his body previously. He may have already built-up some medical issues.

Any problems he had previously weren't reported and analysed in the article. A "healthy" diet for 3 years doesn't miraculously erase his past. To suddenly go into a divergent new shock diet without a slow adjustment period could have the body reacting in ways that were unforeseen as a way of protecting itself.

I'm not suggesting, in the least, that 40 teaspoon of a sugar every single day is good for anyone(LOL). It just seems that lots of people in that range would have off days where they hit that high for a day or two... followed by lower sugar intakes for several days (giving the body time to heal or adjust).

It just reminds me of the "Deadly Facts about Water" meme:

https://imgur.com/gallery/hv8sL2J

devoply• 9 years ago

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is today. As for adjusting you don't need a period of adjustment to go from a sugar riddled diet to a non-sugar riddled diet. Or to ease into it. I have never read anything to suggest something like that. You need to do that with exercise because the fat built up in your arteries might break off and clog your heart. Or the arteries are too narrow as it is and exertion might cause problems in you won't get enough blood running properly in your system which could cause other cadiovascular problems.

endentru• 9 years ago

I think hrodriguez meant that it was the shock of going from a ~3 year low-sugar diet to a 40-tablespoon-per-day diet that was responsible for the sudden influx of negative effects, one that might not have been seen if he gradually eased into the high sugar diet.

I ate 40 teaspoons of sugar a day. This is what happened (2015)

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