Sweets daily - effects now and in the future

[ChrisF]

I can't deny that I have sugar cravings, but I've always had a sweet tooth. Would have something sweet on a daily basis since about age 14. However I never put on unnecessary weight (I was actually under weight for a fair amount of time), but from about age 24 (I'm 27 now), I found that I put on a bit of a "boepie" which is purely sugar driven (I am 1.86m tall and weigh on average around 84kg's if I'm not training), if I drop the sugar for 2 weeks I can see a significant drop in "boepie" size. My family has no history of diabetes or other pancreatic diseases.

 

So for me I reckon the weight and the fat percentage is the biggest worry.

 

weight, or as that wait, till you hit the 30's, and then the 40's and your motabalism slows ....

 

 

that "boepie" has a way of catching you off guard .... at least it caught me !!  And I see it in way too many of my friends of my age ....  some manage to stop it in its tracks, I did not ....

[Chingy182]

My take on the matter is that if your diet is on the high GI (Glycemic Index) side then essentially you're living on a semi-constant sugar high. Eventually you come crashing down, causing your body to have another sugar craving to lift itself back up again.

This might not be relevant to you, but might be worth looking at the GI score of the food that you consume on a regular basis.

 

On the other hand your craving could just be conditioned over time, much like the craving for desert after a Sunday roast...

[Long Wheel Base]

I often find when I get home from work(which is often a 30min commute, If its 1hr plus I have a glass of chocolate milk) I crave chocolate or something sweet. If its in the cupboard, I eat it. If not then I chow fruit. So we basically just don't buy the stuff anymore. We do eat very healthy with plenty fruits and veg. On the odd rare occasion we will have some sweets in the house and it doesn't last long. I must also add that I add little to no sugar to my coffee(max 1 spoon or non at all and only 1 to 2 cups a day). When I chow oats, I add honey and not sugar. I am 183cm and weight 68/69 in winter but trim down to 65/66 by the end of the racing season in March.

[dave303e]

I do enjoy chocolate a lot....

 

like a lot, a lot...

 

I raced EA mainly on sweets between dehydrated meals fine, have done 3 now that way I just seem to eat more if I eat sugar when racing, I struggle to eat savoury on the go.

 

This year I went from 3 sugars in coffee in Feb, down to none(am a lot more fussy about coffee now though), weight stayed the same(65kg) and fitness is also much of a muchness. I am also on rations of 1 lindt bar/week but really haven't seen any noticeable difference hey. will go for discovery vitality test tomo and see if anything has changed since last year.

[V12man]

Thank you.

 

Now it makes more sense why my doc always asks if I had any "low" experiences (none for the last 15 months).  No lows, and a good HBA1C reading should then be a good thing.  (?)

Lows or highs - both are bad for you... managing the variability of your BG is the most important thing - as a general rule the lows are dangerous because you can pass out and if not treated then die eventually (or hurt yourself in the fall (I see a lot of these)). High BG on the other hand needs to be VERY high to cause unconciousness (I have never seen this in 28 years of practice - ok a fair amount of confusion and odd behavior as a result of very high BG's (well over 20)) - BUT - and it's a big BUT... high BG causes long term tissue damage - most obviously in the eye and in the small arterioles in fingers and toes - but also less obviously in a a lot of organs.

 

So - again - the average is relatively meaningless - manage the variability around the normal values to as small a range as you can - even if this means your average is slightly up 6 - 6.8, so you can avoid lows that catch you by surprise.

[V12man]

My take on the matter is that if your diet is on the high GI (Glycemic Index) side then essentially you're living on a semi-constant sugar high. Eventually you come crashing down, causing your body to have another sugar craving to lift itself back up again.

 

This might not be relevant to you, but might be worth looking at the GI score of the food that you consume on a regular basis.

 

On the other hand your craving could just be conditioned over time, much like the craving for desert after a Sunday roast...

There is no crash if you are not diabetic or insulin resistant - there is some normal post prandial elevation, but normal people don't "crash" - even if they are significantly under eating/ engaging in extended intense endurance style activity.

 

That said - I agree that high carb (and especially high refined carb diets) diets are probably not the best - I don't think we fully understand all the mechanisms and side effects this has on the body - especially as relate to auto immune and inflammatory (which is an auto immune response) responses - the next 10 or 15 years will will be interesting as the science expands our knowledge base.

[Mongoose!]

Sugar is addictive.

Hallo, my name is Mongoose!. I am addictive to sugar.

......H e l lo  M o n g o o s e !

[Thor Buttox]

I have said before I drink FAR too much Nesquik chocolate heroin. Luckily my sugar tests are low and I train a lot so I am lighter now than in my early 20's. But I must confess I do dwell on whether I could be much healthier. More worried about the hormones in the milk on my perfect 34C's,TBH

[Bonus]

I can sometimes go hours without eating a sweet or a chocolate . . .

[Wannabe]

V12man, what can cause severe headaches after strenuous exercise?

 

I've cut down on my sugar intake (sweets and chocolates) to almost nothing, but still takes 2 x teaspoons of sugar in my 5 x a day cup of coffee.

I'm using the "low GI" sports drinks, but I almost always suffer from the worst headaches either later in the same day, or the next. I do make sure to hydrate sufficiently, and I eat on longer rides.

 

Edit : I have done a glucose tolerance test a few years back, when I was still binge-ing on sugar and was all normal.

I donate blood, so my sugar levels are checked every 2nd month.

[lechatnoir]

Other type than discovery ones? As those are always pefect

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Go to Pathcare and get an Hba1c test done - essentially a 3month average of your blood sugar. It'll give a good indication of where you're at, as the points where Disco test might be showing good things, where on average it isn't.

 

A good thing to check out is is - http://cycling360media.com/blood-glucose-and-cycling/

 

Guy tells his story of being (IIRC) an elite racer, <5% body fat (had too little skin to fold ie VERY low) and turns out he was T2 diabetic... I found it interesting. YMMV

[stefmeister]

I guess I'm lucky that I don't have a sweet tooth at all. Will also only eat dark chocolate - and a Lindt slab would last a few weeks in my fridge.

Give me bees biltong (with geel vet) and cheese!

 

If I eat sugar (cake and sweets) I crash half an hour later and want to go to sleep.

[stefmeister]

V12man, what can cause severe headaches after strenuous exercise?

 

I've cut down on my sugar intake (sweets and chocolates) to almost nothing, but still takes 2 x teaspoons of sugar in my 5 x a day cup of coffee.

I'm using the "low GI" sports drinks, but I almost always suffer from the worst headaches either later in the same day, or the next. I do make sure to hydrate sufficiently, and I eat on longer rides.

 

Edit : I have done a glucose tolerance test a few years back, when I was still binge-ing on sugar and was all normal.

I donate blood, so my sugar levels are checked every 2nd month.

Add some salt to your energy drink, or drink Slow-mags. Works for me.

[V12man]

V12man, what can cause severe headaches after strenuous exercise?

 

I've cut down on my sugar intake (sweets and chocolates) to almost nothing, but still takes 2 x teaspoons of sugar in my 5 x a day cup of coffee.

I'm using the "low GI" sports drinks, but I almost always suffer from the worst headaches either later in the same day, or the next. I do make sure to hydrate sufficiently, and I eat on longer rides.

 

Edit : I have done a glucose tolerance test a few years back, when I was still binge-ing on sugar and was all normal.

I donate blood, so my sugar levels are checked every 2nd month.

Damn - hard to tell - can you give us more information - time of day, intensity of exercise, duration, weather conditions etc....

 

perhaps some certain amount of dehydration - easy to test:

 

Pee - weigh yourself, go ride, if headache when return, weigh again and subtract from start weight - see if a pattern exists beyond a certain amount of weight loss.

 

Other traditional reasons given are blood pressure changes related to exercise - I am not up to speed on this at all these days - perhaps a note to Jeroen might come up with something that has been better researched in the last 30 years since I finished SS... (TheDoctor)

[V12man]

all my values are testing good (had yet another set of fasting full blood work done last month), lost the excess weight, but darned if the urinary frequency will reduce ..... 

Test more often.... something is off somewhere - has your doc tested you for protein levels in your urine?

 

You might also want to visit a urologist.... pm me if you want a name.

[Wannabe]

V12man.

Does not really matter how late or early, cool or hot, whenever I put in a hard effort of 2hrs plus, I just know I'm gonna suffer.

I tried everything I could think of, including perhaps over hydrating (not likely, easy to measure with water bottles consumed (750ml for every hour, more if it's hot)) 

I looked at my food / calorie intake, adjusted that from fasting to almost over consumption, no difference.

 

I am one of those okes with a very high HR during exercise (from resting of around 50 up to high 180's when going hard, avg of between 155-165 bpm per session) I'm into my 50's already, but I can still maintain efforts in the 180's for extended periods, sometimes going into the 190's when really pushing it. Not sure if this can have an effect, but I doubt, as I went on a slow ride of 2hrs on sat, and still had my headache later in the day.