Need a Guru's help! What's the impact of sugar?

ryzola · May 2011

Hey all!

Quick question. It's been bugging me so I thought I'd ask on here as there are plenty of nutritional gurus!

Ok, currently, I'm in good physical, lean shape. I keep an eye on what I eat, and I'm pretty consistent. I sometimes calorie count (I'm not a slave to it though), and I tend to hit specific macros, I wont go into too much detail though - unless required.

Anyway, my question is; as an observation, I tend to be going over on my sugar intake. A majority of the time it's from fructose, occasionally, it will be sucrose too. We are talking going over my daily intake by about 20g or so.

Now, my questions in regards to sugar are:

How detrimental to me is this and maintaining my weight? If I train more, I require more fat, would I be right in assuming this ISN'T the same way with sugar. Even the sugar intake pre or post workout wouldn't increase if I'm training more, right?

Also, in regards to calories, I'm sticking to my daily intake, and sometimes have a 500 calorie deficit. If my calories are correct, and even sometimes in deficit, how will the excess sugar effect me? If at all? In the grand scheme of things, does it particularly matter if its from sucrose or fructose?

Any answer, even if generalised, is good with me. I just want a general idea. I know this sounds stupid, but what got me thinking this was that this morning, after a hard workout, I accidentally purchased a non-diet fruit flavoured water drink (OH NOES, END OF THE WORLD!), and it may sound stupid, but after drinking it and realising that this had just pushed me over my sugar intake, for the day, alone - I was kind of irritated.

If anyone could shed any light on this, that would be much appreciated! Can provide further stats if needed

JennLifts · May 2011

http://bankshealth.wordpress.com/brief-post-on-sugar/

LillysGranny · May 2011

I'm not a guru, but what I can tell you is that whereas your body actually NEEDS fat to function properly you don't really need even a gram of sugar, so the idea that the sugar allowance should go up just because your calorie needs go up is flawed from that standpoint. However, I have noticed the same issue -- if I eat plain greek yogurt with a banana I've just about used up all of my sugar for the day and haven't had anything junky at all. Personally, if none of my sugar is the added kind and all the other numbers look good I just don't worry about it.

ChrisWag · May 2011

I am not really a GURU, however I do watch carbs intake, sugar and white flour etc....it is my notice that the more carbs I eat in general, if it is anything other than "fruit" sugars I get FLUFFY...meaning the inches pack on, and rather quickly....sugars of all kids turn to fat eventually....fruit sugars take longer obviously that normal straight sugar or processed flours etc....

While it is not detrimental to eat sugars at all....health wise, within reason....it can cause the fat to come back. The fact that you try to stick to 20g a day is impressive....I typically can't just due to fruit, but sometimes I mentally subtract those just to see where I am at....

The benefit of fruit I think outweighs the risk of adding the "sugars" back in.....

ryzola · May 2011

Yeah I tend to stay clear of sucrose if I can, due to the insulin spike (unless pre or post workout - due to it's beneficial properties; I bodybuild).

I'd be interested to know how detrimental this is to me and my bodyweight.

ryzola · May 2011

Thanks for your input. I appreciate it. What you say makes a lot of sense. Just to correct you though, I don't try to stick to 20g, what I meant was that I tend to EXCEED my limit by 20g. Usually, it is because of fruit (low GI fruit), however, it's not unusual to be from sucrose sometimes too if I'm caught out

I think another factor to take into account is, today, for example - that flavoured water, with the sugar in it, I had post workout, within at least 30 minutes of doing 50 minutes running. As far as I'm aware, my body utilizes that sugar differently, however, I'm not sure if the general outcome is the same.

rachpiper720 · May 2011

Not, a guru, but I have done a ton of research. You body doesn't need carbs especially in the form of sugar; it can do just fine on burning fat- either stored or dietary. If you intake sugar/carbohydrates at any time, your body will preferentially use the sugar as fuel rather than burning any fat. It depends on what you want to get out of your lifting. If you just want to burn the sugar you just drank to maintain your weight, or if you want to lose fat. Here is a good explanation from a documentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNYlIcXynwE

Until I figured this out I was on yo-yo trend in my weight. I thought it was alright to eat everything in moderation. When I cut my sugar out the my diet and reduced my carbohydrates is when I saw and felt a huge difference. I, too, am a lifter. Now that I cut out sugar/carbs, I have way more energy and feel like I am getting stronger much faster.

TrainingWithTonya · May 2011

Depends on what you are doing with your training. If you do a lot of heavy weight training, you train your body to store more glycogen in the muscles. If you do a lot of high intensity exercise, you need more glycogen to fuel the activity. The myth that you don't need sugar is false. Technically, your body can produce glycogen/glucose from stored protein but the breakdown of protein to do so can cause issues with the kidneys. And if you don't consume some sugar to help with shoring up the glycogen stores, then the protein you consume may not be adequate for providing that energy AND repairing and rebuilding the muscles that are being broken down. As for fat usage during exercise, the chemical process of burning fat requires a by-product of glycogen breakdown for fuel, so you can't burn fat until you burn some sugar. One of the main sayings my professors use in the exercise physiology program is "Fat Burns In A Carbohydrate Flame" because they want to promote the intake of carbs to spare protein for muscle growth and repair and to make sure we're getting the most out of our workouts (both in performance and in fat burning).

rachpiper720 · May 2011

It is only when you reduce or deplete the glycogen in the body that the body starts using fat for energy. Until then you are only burning sugar whether stored as glycogen or will be stored as glycogen in the sugar already in your blood. We have stores of glycogen for at more 8 hours in our liver. It takes a few days for normal people to get into ketosis. Unless you are an endurance or high performance athlete running very long distances do you need to worry about adding sugar in. I am sure you get enough from breads/grains/sugar already and don't need to fuel up before a workout. Good luck!

Need a Guru's help! What's the impact of sugar?

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