Video: The MYTH About Sugar And Exercise...
 

Found this interesting...

From a training-performance standpoint I'm sure the man is correct. As far as from a health perspective, he doesn't have a clue. He doesn't know what causes insulin resistance or severe insulin resistance, AKA T2 diabetes, or how to become insulin sensitive again other than exercise more.

I'm not against sugar or carbs though I fear many cyclists are consuming way too much of either in an effort to improve performance.

The only way to know if you are consuming too much is to have your fasted insulin and glucose and triglycerides checked.

Insulin resistance happens when the body needs to use too much insulin too often to regulate blood sugar caused from a diet too high in sugar or high glycemic foods. Just like a drug user will need more over time to accomplish the same high, our body will require more insulin over time to lower blood sugar if too much insulin is needed too often. This process is called insulin resistance, and the severity depends on dose and frequency, just like it would for the drug user. The solution is less dose, less frequently.

Again you are talking about one's overall diet and not for the small amount of time you ride your bike or exercise in other ways.

Sure, I think we all will agree that a diet eating sugary stuff all day long through out your day, seven days a week is bad. However that's not what the EF guy is talking about. He is talking about sugar used while exercising.

So please quit taking this to a broader topic which really isn't in the sub-forum description.If you disagree that sugar consumed while exercising will be used by the body to create energy, then that's okay for you to say. However most evidence suggests that we will use all the sugar we are able to consume while exercising to convert to energy. And that there'll be a deficit in the energy from sugar consumed so we will also be using energy from our bodies energy stores. So if you have something to add about that then add something to that. Perhaps you can convince us that we only need water for exercise at higher performance levels.

But please get off the whole diet kick to make senseless discussions about something the thread is not about.

Sorry, if I didn't understand the rules fully. I thought I was talking about nutrition. Please carry on without me. I thought how to train without dying early might be as important as how to train the hardest.

Straight comments about the video -

1:40+/- - he's wrong. Insulin resistance isn't = not producing enough insulin resulting in high blood sugars. It is = to your organs/muscles becoming resistant to accepting insulin, causing your body to make produce more insulin to overcome the high blood sugars. Until the point where it can no longer "cover" the high blood sugars, resulting in the symptom that we call a disease - diabetes. And in the process you can burn out your pancreas...

1:50+/- It's not only elevated blood sugars that cause health problems over a long timeframe. Elevated insulin levels can also cause long term health concerns. And as we learn more - the insulin related health concerns may become greater than elevated blood sugars.

5:00+/- or so - spot on from what I've learned by heavily tracking my blood sugars during and after exercise. Targeted carbs/sugars, targeted energy intake.

Where we need to be careful - WE don't need as much as the pro's. Nowhere near as much. And that was a mistake I made in my youth - carb loading like I was Lance.

In general - yes sugar/carbs help with performance. And one may never see high BG levels - but they are not measuring insulin levels. And the long term effects need to be accounted for, as the complications arise after 5-10-15+ years for many people. Some will not get the complications, but for those prone to complications - heavy carb loading flat out is not a good thing.

Yes, my T2 symptoms and signs started in my late 20's, when I was a heavy road cyclist. Then the biggie - after stopping my riding, I didn't adjust my diet.

For me the key takeaway would be - targeted carb/sugar intake. And for me that is only when high(er) intensity is on deck.

For me the take away is that if I don't have any issues such as diabetes, then I can use sugar while on the bike riding hard. I don't know what the issues are for those with Type II diabetes. But it seems that many with it can't even agree what to do when riding. Perhaps they haven't figured out that some people ride hard and others ride easy.

So the additional part that I don't think was covered in the video is that If I'm not riding hard on the bike or am off the bike, I should watch what I eat and try to limit added sugar and other carbohydrate containing food that doesn't also bring nutrients with it. Fat, Carbohydrates and Protein are not nutrients in themselves. They are just categories that nutrients are classified as. Some being better than others.

The thing is the video was mostly about using sugar when riding on the bike. Though the two hosts of the show, much like you keep interjecting things that are a concern when sugar is a large part of your entire diet.

When I'm on the bike riding hard, I believe that most all that sugar I consumed while on the bike and shortly after is used up and gone. It became watts I put out or it replaced some of the glycogen stores I burned.

I'd be more interested in hearing about that instead of your mantra in every thread that if one eats sugar they are unhealthy and will die. You might be quite surprised to find out my normal diet is quite low in added sugars.

I agree, sugar during exercise is not a problem for insulin resistance, etc.

But my dentist would like a word.

So I switched from off-the-shelf sports drink to a maltodextrin-based powder mix (Hammer HEED).

It’s actually pretty much impossible to physically consume too much sugar when riding hard. At most I can consume roughly half my calorie burn during a hard ride. Simple carbs are all you can process in that condition.

Obviously it’s a different story when not riding hard. Then I stick to water unless I’m out for more than a couple of hours, in which case I start to eat a little.

Yeah, I think most of us don't need fueling for relatively brief casual rides. For me, the threshold is about 2 1/2 hours, but that depends on ride intensity. For a very casual ride, no problem sticking to water for 3 hours and a little more. For an intense ride, I will want fuel for anything above 2 hours. Maybe not need, but want.

How hard is hard though? And for how long?

I can acknowledge that there is an advantage when I go flat out on a climb after I had a coffee and some simple carbs like bananas, dates, and raw honey (I have improved some PRs by a few seconds), but that effort will typically last 20 minutes max. Even if I had an IV drip of glucose throughout an entire 4-hour ride, I do not think I would be able to keep that intensity for 4 hours straight; during long periods of the ride fat burning would be enough.

In other words, for long (say 100+ km) rides with a pace that is intense to the extent possible (medium to high intensity with some short bursts of energy), I do not really see any significant benefit in consuming sugar (unless one is racing and the seconds / minutes matter I suppose).

The only scenario I see where sugar consumption is necessary, is racing in the TdF or something similar, where one has to be as lean as possible to keep the weight down and also maintain the intensity stupidly high for a whole day and for many days in a row too. But this is not really "exercise" anymore, it is an elaborate form of torture of the body.

I don’t ride in the TdF, but I do ride hard enough and long enough to absolutely need additional carbs to perform well and avoid bonk. That’s pretty much any sub 5 hour century ride for me.

What I find is that the steady intake of carbs during a long, hard ride allows me to finish much stronger. It’s usually really obvious when someone has undersold themselves on ride nutrition when their performance suddenly drops off a cliff toward the end. Seen it many times and been there myself before I understood how to fuel rides properly.

not clear here if you are using "sugar" as a synonym for all carbohydrates. Nearly anybody who rides above 100 km at what, for them, is "intense to the extent possible" will feel better doing it and perform better if they have nutrition intake during the ride.

Full picture, because the hosts kept interjecting...

Supplementing carbs/sugars on the rides are one thing, and yes - the energy will get used.

Off the bike concerns, and they are real, extend beyond "sugars" or added "sugars". Carbs are carbs, and cyclists tend to overdo carb consumption off the bike - or listen to what the pro's are doing... it's not just about sugar. There can be negative health effects from consuming excess carbs - and the coaches are absolutely recommending insane amount of off the bike carbs for the pro's.

The results are not going to be surprising. Many athletes from the early days of carb loading developed T2, as did some of their coaches/doctors that would train along with them. A number of the doctor/coach types from back then quickly changed their tune. Dr Tim Noakes was one of the pioneers of gels/goo's and carb loading. He ended up sick in his 20's, learned why, and now is on the opposite end of the spectrum.

The big picture - anything to the extreme can have negative outcomes. And over fueling our body for optimal cycling performance and power many not be = to healthy.

I do ride hard, relative to my abilities, from time to time. For that I target my fueling. Carbs and sugar consumption is kept low the majority of the time, and I will add carbs for big days on the bike or to fuel intervals. I'm no pro, not even close. My power numbers and speed only matter to me - and are essentially meaningless. I don't need to eat like a pro, elite, semi pro or even a CAT 3/4 for that matter. Most of us don't.

Even for one day on 1/2 of a TDF mountain stage - I needed more carbs than I could consume to finish my goal rides. I completely blew up at hour 5 - total system meltdown climbing the final CAT 2 that I threw in for the heck of it. I was stuffing my face the entire ride and couldn't keep up.

Intensity at which carbs are required are relative to your max abilities. If you are riding at 70-80++% of your max, whatever that max may be, you are burning and will need carbs. You may have 45 min to 1 hour of stored carbs (more or less depending on your fitness) for hard efforts - then it all falls apart, you need to supplement at some point.

No, not as a synonym, I was referring to refined sugar, not sugar naturally occurring in food, I should have been more explicit.

When I do a lot of cycling during a day, say about 6 hours, I just increase the volume of the foods I already eat on a regular day, and perhaps increase the carbs a bit with some fruit and honey, I do not see any need to add refined sugar to the mix.

I love how folks get medical advice from internet forums and youtube videos.

:foo:

This strikes me as a non-argument with respect to the OP. The OP didn't say that refined sugar is required or that you should add it. It simply said that refined sugar as a source of fuel on the bike is OK. The guy similarly said that one could get the fuel from maltodextrin, honey, etc. Anything that give you the carbs and is easy to digest is what you need to fuel on the bike. If you prefer to get your carbs some other way, then...whatever.

But the guy in the video says that anything above 2 1/2 or 3 hours of riding would necessitate 60 to 90 gr of sugar per hour. And nobody speaks about fats or proteins either. He also equates maltodextrin to honey as being "just different formats of sugar"; maltodextrin has a glycemic index of at least 110, whereas honey can be as low as 50 (not to mention all its health benefits).

I argue that one should keep his daily diet as usual, basically 3 balanced meals within an 8 or 10-hour span, roughly 1 meal every 4 hours, and increase the volume of these meals according to the caloric needs of the day. For very demanding rides one can push more carbs and fats before the ride.

How do you know that you needed those carbs, and it was not just a matter of fatigue?

For example, I can tell you that tomorrow I plan to go flat out for 8 hours straight, burning at least 1 000 calories per hour, which I plan to take entirely from carbs. So, I will need approximately 2 kg of carbs. Say, at the 4 hour mark I have managed to eat only 500 gr of carbs instead of the 1 kg, and my performance drops significantly after that: is it the lack of 500 gr of carbs or the muscles and the cardiovascular system have been over-trained (or both)?

When he says "sugar", he doesn't mean refined sugar. You are the one adding the modifier "refined". Maltodextrin, honey, These are all sugars or simple carbohydrates that break down to sugars in the digestive system.

And that's right, fats and proteins are of little help giving you energy while on the bike. What you need during the bike ride is blood sugar, coming either from (refined or natural) sugars or simple carbohydrates that break down to sugars easily.

Later, for recovery, one needs protein, but it isn't of any use on the bike.

As to 3 meals, etc., good luck with that if you're going on long hard rides and not fueling on the bike. No matter what your off-bike diet, your muscles only store so much glycogen, and when you run out, you're headed for a bonk.

😂 So if I plan to do a really hard century ride, that’s north of 5000 calories for me, then my best strategy would be to eat a massive breakfast beforehand? Noted.

You're new here. Welcome. I suggest you read some of the older threads in T&N. There's some fairly good information.

Also, some of us have learned a lot by being experienced with these things and reading and learning. But there are others here with professional expertise. If you read deeply enough, you'll figure out who is who.

For a start you are not going to burn 1000 cals per hour for 8 hours straight. The reality is that it is very hard to consume more than 100 g of carbs per hour when riding hard. Pros can train themselves to take up to 150 g/hour, but the average Joe starts to struggle beyond 50 g/hour. It’s easy enough for the first hour or two, but at hour 6 you are doing well if you can still tolerate another 50g.

So you always inevitably end up with a deficit, which eventually catches up with you and you are forced to slow down or bonk. Of course none of this happens if you are not riding hard, in which case you can treat it like an ordinary day and eat whatever you normally eat. I can ride slowly all day on water and the odd snack.

Really? I am not myself an ultradistance rider, but I know plenty of randonneurs and ultradistance people. They don't ride fast - 12 MPH to 15 MPH, usually - but they are doing 400 K or 600 K or Paris-Brest-Paris (1200 K). Every one of them will tell you that they need to eat and eat for those rides.