Hi,

Thanks for your question.

Sugar is a tricky nutrient to track because there is no way to distinguish between added sugars and those naturally occurring in this like fruit and milk. This is because current UK labelling laws don't require manufacturers to split out these types of sugars in the nutrition panel. But eating sugars from natural sources is not the same as eating lots of added sugars.

At present, the official guideline for sugar intake is only for added sugars - to reduce these from 10% of our total energy, to 5%.

In a perfect world, food packaging should show how much sugar is from natural sources and how much has been added to the product, but unfortunately it doesn't, and the recommended intake on UK food labels is still set for total sugars. The amount is 90g per day based on a 2,000 calorie a day diet - which equates to 18% of daily energy coming from sugar. This is the figure we use for our Well Balanced nutrient guide.

However - I would just highlight that this 90g figure is based on 2,000 calories a day and as you are on a reduced calorie intake, it does make the sugar target more challenging - as 18% of 1,400 calories is 63g total sugar per day. For this reason, it can be quite easy to find you go over your sugar target each day if you're eating lots of fruits and vegetables.

The important thing is not so much how much sugar you're eating in total, but where your sugar is coming from. Looking through your diary you do appear to get much of your sugars from fresh fruits, vegetables or milk products. These are not the sugar sources we are concerned with - even if you are exceeding your target a little. This is because natural sugar sources also contribute lots of beneficial nutrients such as vitamins, fibre and calcium. These can also alter the way the food is broken down in the body and therefore the effect the sugars have on your body, so going over is not be a huge issue in terms of your health and weight loss.

If you do find that this changes and much of your sugar comes from added sources such as cakes, biscuits and desserts for example, then it's a good idea to try and reduce your intake of these foods.

Regarding fibre, this is great to include in our diet and in fact many of us don't reach the recommended amount of 30g per day. I recently wrote a blog post with some tips on how to up your fibre intake, which you might find useful. Here's a link to the post:

http://blog.nutracheck.co.uk/blog/2017/03/07/get-more-fibre-in-your-diet/

I hope this helps to reassure you that your sources of sugar are the most import thing, and as long as these are mostly from healthy sources such as fruit, veg and milk, then you're absolutely fine.

Best wishes

Emma

Nutracheck Nutritionist