Trying to give up or cut down on Sugar intake

[johannrissik]

What do you eat on rides? Rice cakes? Potatoes? Biltong?

 

Or what do you use for energy on rides? 

 

I'm always looking for alternatives for training rides - races I use the sugary stuff but for slower training rides I use very little sugar/simple carbs.

Water, biltong (chewing can be a mission ..), fatty droe wors, cooked wors, boiled eggs, nuts, and coffee!!  

What do I use for energy? I'm told that being fat adapted I use my body's fat. 

 

One thing I am convinced of is that the sugar water that is sold as energy drink is a no-no.

[Mongoose!]

[Eldron]

I get where you're trying to go with that, but I disagree with the over-simplification. 

 

I think we can all agree that reducing your intake of added processed sugars in one's food should be promoted. 

 

Amen on that. 

 

The other advantage of most of these "new" diets is the move toward less processed food in general. That can only be good for humans.

[johannrissik]

Some clarification,

 

There is no (generally accepted) direct cause of Type 2 Diabetes - you may become diabetic as a result of being overweight, a lifetime of smoking, experiencing periods of high stress, poor diet (saturated fats, refined carbs, refined sugars, etc.), as well as being genetically predisposed to it. You are particularly at risk if you have the type of body fat that hangs off your belly and over your belt, or, apparently, just if you're living in the 21st century. If sugar makes you fat, then that's a problem.

 

Exercise and managing your diet reduce the risk of diabetes, as well as helping you manage the condition if you are already diabetic.

 

If you are Type 2 then your body is not reacting adequately to the insulin being produced by your pancreas - insulin in your blood tells your body to regulate blood sugar levels down, and this mechanism now isn't working as it should (e.g. your body has got too big for the OEM pancreas supplied, or the same insulin concentration isn't having the effect it did previously).

 

The issue you now have is that your body is not able to "fix" the blood sugar spike experienced after you eat a sugary meal. Any periods of high blood sugar do damage to capillary blood vessels, which then lead to damage in the tissues served by these fine vessels - i.e. your kidneys, eyes, fingers/toes, and so on over time. So while sugar is not perhaps a direct cause of diabetes, it does accelerate the damage done by diabetes. And, increasingly, everyone on the planet is at least a little pre-diabetic (50% of US adults are either diabetic or pre-diabetic), so we all need to cut refined sugar.

 

Fibre, low GI, or other complex foods basically slow down the rate that sugar enters the blood stream. So, beneficial, but mostly because they reduce the work your insulin/blood sugar system needs to do. There are also a number of reports of people 'reversing' Type 2 diabetes, largely through weight loss and severe diet restrictions (water and vegetables).

 

Long-winded, but basically look after your weight and avoid the sugar. Go cycling.

 

Saturated fats are not a problem, carbs and sugar are.

Look at where the cutting edge research is.

There are a vast number of T2D reversals happening on low carb diets.

Oh, and be careful of what the average dietician dishes out....

[Eldron]

 

Man I hate meme based non medical science fiction movies like that. 

 

Rather read up on sugar - preferably from sources that have doctors involved and are university publications. These anti vaccer style movies make me cringe.

[Barry Stuart]

I feel sorry for your family, friends, colleagues and anyone within sniffing distance of you. 

 

Oh dude, you'd never catch me on Paleo. YOU CAN TAKE MY FREEDOM BUT YOU'LL NEVER TAKE MY WAFFLES!

 

[Eldron]

Water, biltong (chewing can be a mission ..), fatty droe wors, cooked wors, boiled eggs, nuts, and coffee!!  

What do I use for energy? I'm told that being fat adapted I use my body's fat. 

 

One thing I am convinced of is that the sugar water that is sold as energy drink is a no-no.

 

Interesting... I've tried that approach but I find I just get weaker and weaker and assumed (with some sketchy research) that the body could not metabolise fat as fast as the body could use energy.

 

I'll give it a few test runs - just not on race day. Yet :-)

[Odinson]

Saturated fats are not a problem, carbs and sugar are.

Look at where the cutting edge research is.

There are a vast number of T2D reversals happening on low carb diets.

Oh, and be careful of what the average dietician dishes out....

 

Got some bad news for you. Check that red text at the end. Roll the dice if you want to, but it may not land in your favour. 

 

https://youtu.be/Nujyif7MkMA

 

You can also read up on the sources quoted here: https://nutritionfacts.org/video/what-causes-diabetes/#sources

 

 

After about age 20, we may have all the insulin-producing beta cells we’re ever going to have in our pancreas, and so if we lose them, we may lose them for good. Autopsy studies show that by the time type 2 diabetes is diagnosed, we may have already killed off half of our beta cells.

You can do it right in a Petri dish. Expose human beta cells to fat; they suck it up and then start dying off. A chronic increase in blood fat levels is harmful, as shown by the important effects in pancreatic beta cell lipotoxicity. Fat breakdown products can interfere with the function of these cells, and ultimately lead to their death.

And not just any fat; saturated fat. The predominant fat in olives, nuts, and avocados gives you a tiny bump in death protein 5, but saturated fat really ramps up this contributor to beta cell death. Saturated fats are harmful to beta cells; harmful to the insulin-producing cells in our pancreas. Cholesterol too. The uptake of bad cholesterol, LDL, can cause beta cell death as a result of free radical formation.

So diets rich in saturated fats not only cause obesity and insulin resistance, but the increased levels of circulating free fats in the blood, called NEFAs, non-esterified fatty acids, cause beta cell death and may thus contribute to progressive beta cell loss in type 2 diabetes. And this isn’t just based on test tube studies. If you infuse fat into people’s bloodstream you can directly impair pancreatic beta cell function, and the same when we ingest it.

Type 2 diabetes is characterized by defects in both insulin secretion and insulin action, and saturated fat appears to impair both. Researchers showed saturated fat ingestion reduces insulin sensitivity within hours, but these were non-diabetics, so their pancreas should have been able to boost insulin secretion to match. But insulin secretion failed to compensate for insulin resistance in subjects who ingested the saturated fat. This implies the saturated fat impaired beta cell function as well, again within just hours after going into our mouth.

So increased consumption of saturated fats has a powerful short- and long-term effect on insulin action, contributing to the dysfunction and death of pancreatic beta cells in diabetes.

And saturated fat isn’t just toxic to the pancreas. The fats, found predominantly in meat and dairy—chicken and cheese are the two main sources in the American diet—are almost universally toxic, whereas the fats found in olives, nuts, and avocados are not. Saturated fat has been found to be particularly toxic to liver cells in the formation of fatty liver disease. You expose human liver cells to plant fat, and nothing happens. Expose liver cells to animal fat, and a third of them die. This may explain why higher intakes of saturated fat and cholesterol are associated with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

By cutting down on saturated fat consumption we may be able to help interrupt this process. Decreasing saturated fat intake may help bring down the need for all that excess insulin. So either being fat, or eating saturated fat can both cause that excess insulin in the blood. The effect of reducing dietary saturated fat intake on insulin levels is substantial, regardless of how much belly fat we have. And it’s not just that by eating fat we may be more likely to store it as fat. Saturated fats, independently of any role they have of making us fat, may contribute to the development of insulin resistance and all its clinical consequences. After controlling for weight, and alcohol, and smoking, and exercise, and family history, diabetes incidence was significantly associated with the proportion of saturated fat in our blood.

So what causes diabetes? The consumption of too many calories rich in saturated fats. Now just like everyone who smokes doesn’t develop lung cancer; everyone who eats a lot of saturated fat doesn’t develop diabetes—there’s a genetic component.  But just like smoking can be said to cause lung cancer, high-calorie diets rich in saturated fats are currently considered the cause of type 2 diabetes.

[fanievb]

It was easier to quit smoking than sugar

[johannrissik]

Got some bad news for you. Check that red text at the end. Roll the dice if you want to, but it may not land in your favour. 

 

https://youtu.be/Nujyif7MkMA

 

You can also read up on the sources quoted here: https://nutritionfacts.org/video/what-causes-diabetes/#sources

Post me some links to some credible, current research.

 

I don't mind if you think you have bad news for me, not all. 

 

Oh, I don't do video "evidence". A few minutes of digging would probably unearth the source of that clip.

 

Oh, "nutritionfacts.org"...OK, got it.

 

If I may, I'd like to suggest that you look at some of the current, cutting edge research. The old 'Fat is your enemy" is so last century.

[lechatnoir]

aaaand back to the topic at hand....

 

Bonus, you know what eating sugar is like. Why not try going cold turkey? Try 4 weeks. You're in Spain. There are loads of lovely things to eat instead of sugar and sugary things. Give it a bash. See what your body does. Then decide for yourself. Compare to what it feels like now.

 

As you've seen in this (and other) thread(s) there are umpteen opinions, and the discussion can get a bit... interesting. But I'll give you this bit of truth that everyone will agree with - what works for someone else might not work for you, and vice versa.  There's no point in listening to another's experience

 

So go away, give it a whirl and figure out stuff for yourself. You originally posted, so you must have been looking for something. Go and find it is my suggestion. You'll not learn in a better way, just like riding a bike... you gotta experience it for yourself.

 

And then... when you've found your truth... live it, whether it's eating vegan, or even eating vegans  ...

 

whatever it is that you find, it's not a diet, it's a way of life. For the rest of it.... For you... Have fun china!! 

[lechatnoir]

Post me some links to some credible, current research.

 

I don't mind if you think you have bad news for me, not all. 

 

Oh, I don't do video "evidence". A few minutes of digging would probably unearth the source of that clip.

 

Oh, "nutritionfacts.org"...OK, got it.

 

If I may, I'd like to suggest that you look at some of the current, cutting edge research. The old 'Fat is your enemy" is so last century.

 

#meatheals

[V12man]

Apple juice and refined processed sugar water same same (or near as damnit) - how are they different?

They are only the same if you don't understand the difference between fructose, glucose and sucrose.

 

Personally I find it easier to just not buy sweets and high carbs than to not eat them.

 

Learning to read food labels is a small trick with old eyes but it's enlightening when you do start reading them - glucaemic carb content/100g is the number to focus on - so consider that the effective glucose content of foods and you will be able to work out how much carb your intake really is.

 

It's also not always obvious - so tonic water is effectively the same as coke... feel free to check this if you don't believe me ????

[V12man]

V12man - - - help!!

 

 

(Help tog 'n bietjie daar/hier)

Watch this - gives some background...

https://youtu.be/5IYVIdztWWs

 

For the record - I studied under Tim for a while many years ago and have considerable regard for his analytical skills.

 

But this debate and its corresponding opposing debate cover the basics and some history - watching first and I can try fill in some blanks as needed.

[V12man]

Got some bad news for you. Check that red text at the end. Roll the dice if you want to, but it may not land in your favour.

 

https://youtu.be/Nujyif7MkMA

 

You can also read up on the sources quoted here: https://nutritionfacts.org/video/what-causes-diabetes/#sources

I don't know your source but it's not reputable for sure.

 

Diabetes is an auto immune diseases - the exact cause of this is not completely clear but in all likelihood there are multiple contributing causes - and in 25+ years I have never seen a credible source blame saturated fats as a cause of diabetes.

[jcza]

Start worrying when the banters start beating you. In the meantime bring the carbs when racing.