6/12/2023 0 Comments Consumption of added sugar doublesNot All Sweeteners Are EqualĬalorically, all varieties of sweeteners are pretty much the same. Set yourself up for success for tapering and rest days by getting your calories on long runs through whole, real foods. The more sugar you eat on long run days, the more cravings you will have to fight on rest days.( Tweet this) If you are watching your weight, you know that on tapering weeks and rest days, you don’t have as much freedom with food as you do on long run days. The narcotic-like effect that sugar has on our bodies can also make tapering and rest days challenging. Both increase the risk for heart disease. It also lowers levels of HDL (good) cholesterol, while increasing triglycerides. A constant intake of sugar forces your pancreas to work overtime, possibly leading to type-2 diabetes down the road. The side effects of too much sugar don’t stop at your vanity pounds. It is easy to stuff yourself silly on chocolate cake but not as easy with carrots. The more you satisfy sugar cravings, the more likely you will be trying to run off a Buddha-belly. “More recently, a research study in France showed that intense sweetness-not just refined sugar, but also artificial sweeteners-surpasses cocaine….” YIKES! Studies suggest that sugar activates the brain in a manner similar to narcotics. So, those Boston Marathoners could have mixed their banana with some peanut butter into dry oats for a longer lasting pre-race snack that would have helped them run both faster and longer with less fatigue! Sugar and Health But what most people don’t know is that whole foods, like fruit and oatmeal, contain a combination of glucose and fructose as well. This is where most endurance nutrition companies claim their product is the best option for you before or during a run. Studies also suggest that exercising muscles can absorb a combination of fructose and glucose almost 40% faster than glucose alone. Consuming the high-Gl foods an hour before a run was causing athletes to experience a sugar crash, while the low-GI foods were carrying the runners farther and faster into the run. A low-GI meal would be an apple with peanut butter or steel-cut oats. In a recent issue of the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sports, researchers found athletes performed significantly faster 45 minutes after eating a low-Gl meal rather than a high-GI meal. Research shows that when a runner consumes high-glycemic (Gl) foods, like white bread, ice cream, or high-sugar energy bars an hour before a run, he or she may become fatigued more quickly. After reading through the rest of this article, you will be able to make a more informed decision when it comes to your nutrition and sugar consumption during training. I believe education is the first key to making better choices. Eating sugar in larger amounts does have its place, i.e., before a marathon, but being a runner doesn’t give us a free ticket to eating all the sugar we want! They needed to make sure they had fuel to run on. Those people were getting ready to run 26.2 miles in blazing hot temperatures. That is 5.5 ounces of sugar! And that was just one pre-marathon snack. Between the bagel, banana, and bar, these runners were eating the equivalent of almost 33 teaspoons of sugar. A large banana will break down to 6 teaspoons of sugar, and the average plain bagel will break down to 15.5 teaspoons of sugar in the body. Runners were walking around with one of these energy bars in one hand and a banana or a bagel, or both, in the other hand. These all added up to 26 g of sugar and 45 g of carbohydrates, which equals 6.5 teaspoons of added sugar and over 11 teaspoons of simple carbohydrates that will soon break down to sugar in the body. In the ingredients there were five different forms of sugar: cane sugar, maltodextrin, fructose, dextrose, and sugar. I found myself with a little time in athlete’s village, while I waited for the Boston Marathon to start, and examined the ingredient list on one of the sponsor’s energy bars. These statistics do not exempt the gel-sports-drink- energy-bar-loving runner. Today, on average, every man, woman, and child consumes 140 pounds of sugar in one year. That is 355 calories from sugar and more than double the amount of sugar a person should have in an entire day. On average, Americans consume more than 22 teaspoons of sugar each day for breakfast.
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