Funnily enough, sugar is typically found alongside most grain based foods. It's in breads, cupcakes, etc etc. Ruling out grains consequently get's rid of a large source of sugar. The two are pretty intertwined.
Try removing all grains but keep eating as many raisans and dates as possible. You will loss weight. The type of sugar matters more than just all sugar.
It all ends up as glucose. If you eat glucose, it goes straight into your blood stream as glucose. If you eat fructose, it gets converted into glucose. If you eat starches, the polymers are chopped into simple sugars of glucose and fructose, and the fructose is converted to glucose. Whether you eat glucose directly, or eat other sugars and starches, it all ends up as glucose. The only difference is the workload that you create for your liver.
Sorry, that makes little sense to me. The extra calories burnt in conversion to glucose is not going to be enough to cause weight loss. Any glucose that your body does not immediately consume gets converted to lipids and stored.
Show me the chemistry. Show me how sugar in a raisin is somehow significantly fewer net calories of glucose than just eating the equivalent in refined cane sugar or wheat flour. Sure, it takes a small amount of energy to reduce other sugars to glucose, but I can't see how it can be enough to make a difference in a weight loss diet.
Source? I treat all sugar the same, "to be consumed conservatively." My understanding is that the body processes pretty much all the same. Happy to read more from your sources