understanding nutritional information on food

[DayAfterYesterday]

OK so I've always just looked at calories but i really want to start making healthier choices as I'm carry a lot of fat even at a normal weight especially around my muffin top area. Sooo Im hungry and craving a biscuit looked at the choc biscuits in the cupboard and they have 80 cals, 5 grams of fat and 12g carbs/ sugars and thought no it's not worth it fat and sugars are too high, so I'll have fruit, decided to Google my tangerine and it says 50 cals, 0 fat but 15g sugars! More than the biscuit. Now I remember reading that fat is better than sugars so basically am I wasting my time sacraficing a biscuit for fruit??

Can someone give me an idiots guide to understanding what I should be looking at on labels?

an idiots guide to understanding what I should be looking at on labels

If its a fresh unprocessed food without a label its a GOOD thing

if the label includes all things that you recognise and understand its a fairly good thing

if the label has all sorts of weird long names that mean nothing its a bad thing

fats are essential to a healthy brain

"intrinsic sugars" like those that are an integral part of fruit are linked to essential vitamins and nutrients

"extrinsic sugars" - anything shown on an ingredient list - are not needed in the diet, and are actually best avoided

anything that markets itself as a "low fat food" wil probably have added hidden sugar

any thing that markets itself as a "low sugar food" will probably have sweeteners in it that mess up your insulin system

So to bring food shopping back to utter basics
buy the simplest food you can and you'll start to eat well

What talkinpeace said, eat real food, avoid stuff with chemical ingredient lists.

Fat (if natural/unprocessed) is better than processed fats or processed carbs/sugar, IMO once again this is "eat real food" as close to the natural state it grew in, not processed stuff with added artificial ingredients.

Thank you both so my fruit was definitely better than my biscuit then! I try and avoid diet food as I'd heard about the low fat high sugar thing before and don't use sweeteners either as they don't agree with me although I do drink diet Pepsi, only drink it on the evenings and trying to give that up.

The last few months I've eaten so much sugar (enough to gain 2 stone in weight) i think I'm withdrawing I've never felt so tired.

Cut the sugars/carbs right down and you will be over the worst of the "carb flu" in a few days (cravings should reduce too). If you know sugar is a particular trigger for you overeating (very common), you might want to have a wee look on the low carb threads - I think they are listed in "big, slim, whatever..." On mn home page. Lots of encouraging and helpful stuff.

You can do it !