Sugar its like a poison

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Nobody
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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby Nobody » Sat Jul 02, 2016 10:02 pm

RhapsodyX wrote:Possibly faulty research along the lines of the Australian Paradox Controversy?
Anything is possible, but the link PCRM cites is the USDA which I thought would be fairly reliable due to being linked to produce sales. The records appear to go back to 1970 for sugar.
RhapsodyX wrote:I find it interesting that all of the obvious research in the United States is around consumption of "soda beverages", not overall "added sugar" consumption. Drink consumption might be down, but what about the sugars added to everything else these days : tomato sauce, most baked goods etc. etc. It's pretty hard to find products that *don't* have sugar added unless you make everything from scratch.
Agree.
I suppose soda is easy to make a target, being primarily a discretionary take-away style of food. Also technically being more dangerous due to being a liquid and therefore harder for the body to meter calorie intake.

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby Nobody » Sat Jul 02, 2016 10:07 pm

mikesbytes wrote:That's what I'm discussing, about sugar being added to pretty much everything. When you make those things yourself you most likely to add a lot less sugar or no sugar at all
But we aren't manufacturers trying to get an addictive type of response.

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby big booty » Tue Jul 05, 2016 2:35 pm

Very true nobody. Virtually all processed foods have added sugar content for two reasons. Its very cheap "filler" material and food manufacturers know that it is addictive and hence the likelihood of consuming more than you really want is very high. I was looking for a good vinegar the other day and finally purchased some Mazotti apple cider vinegar. Reading the labels there was one brand that had 55% sugar content. In a vinegar!! The humble tomato sauce, worst I found was 36% the best 16% sugar content.

My wife suffers from the occasional hypoglycaemic episode (we don't know why) and her blood glucose was 1.9mmol/L. She was ready to pass out. Half a glass of OJ and 3 minutes later her BG was 3.9. Got to love how quickly your BG can spike with all these simple carbs. The food pyramid is slowly killing people.

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby johnfordau » Tue Jul 05, 2016 5:57 pm

Ross wrote: So, I've just been diagnosed with T2 diabetes ... used to have 3 or 4 hot milos every day but now restrict HC consumption to after the ride.
Hi Ross .. sorry to hear about your diagnosis. I am also carrying self-inflicted issues .. my arteries in my legs are blocked up which means I can only walk a short distance between my calves feel like lead. I also have a gout problem which I use to take anti inflammatories for but which nearly killed me. So I had to make some serious changes three years ago. Strangely, cycling does not impose restrictions as does walking.

Can I make a couple of responses.

Like you, I have cut out alcohol and again, like you struggle with food selection. I agree .. it is a minefield. And as you have noticed sugar is poured into everything which is in a package .. except fruit and veg. Get into these .. careful of the fruit as it has fructose, another form of sugar, but I consume two large serves of veg a day. I have a large salad at lunch and at large stir fry at tea. Breakfast is bacon, egg, and mushrooms and one slice of white bread toasted. I use butter, ghee, coconut oil and supra fry (Animal) for frying, cooking. I use olive oil, any, and balsamic vinegar on my salad and turmeric and cumin in the stir fry.

Chocolate is generally good if it is at least 80% cocoa but check label.

I drink lots of coffee .. no sugar and I have cereal, muslie and dried fruit .. carefully .. every second day. Once or twice a week I have fish and chips.

I know .. boring .. boring. But I have beaten the gout problem and turfed the medication .. and have done 60 k before breakfast .. at an average of 24 kmh .. which at my age is not too bad. So I have sold the car and I doing my shopping by bike.

I know I too at time I feel tired but I solve this by having a sleep.

The thing is I to listen to my body.

I recently spoke to a vascular specialist in Brisbane and it was decided no operation. But keep cycling. I'll probably die on a bike but it's better than being strung up is a nursing home.

See you on the road somewhere.

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby big booty » Tue Jul 05, 2016 8:54 pm

Hi Ross,

Can I chime in with my 2 cents worth regards your T2D and your diet. With diet you can reverse T2D. Google Jason Fung for diet advice. Obviously you need to cut out sugar and simple carbs. Any grain based product such as bread, pasta, pizza is a no go zone. It will spike your insulin pretty much the same as sugar!! Avoid rice and potatoes, same deal, it will spike insulin. Eat whole fruit in moderation and go for the berry type fruits instead. NEVER dried fruit and fruit juice, avoid it like the plague. Avoid ALL breakfast cereals, they are high sugar content, low fibre (even the ones with added fibre do very little for you) and pure crap. Get most of your carbs from veggies!! I eat 90% of my veggies raw in salads. (No Im not a vegan/vego diehard, I like meat and fish but in moderation, also like my cheese and high fat yogurt). Before every meal take two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. It suppresses insulin spikes caused by carb intake.

Wow talk about a diet that has almost completely shut down proper liver function. No wonder you have no energy if your not running on sugary energy gels. The good news is that if Chris Froome can train on a keto diet you should be able to cope as well. You should be able to get to about 90% of what you used to do running on glucose. The bad news is that it will take 8-10 months for your liver to actually start operating properly again. That's how long it took me. Your liver is designed to convert excess glucose and store it as fat. Your high sugar diet has meant that it never really performed its other function very often at all. That is accessing stored fat and converting it to glucose and ketones. Give yourself 8 months and you'll be close to your current output and all without sugar. Your liver will be cranking by then.

You may suffer from sugar withdrawal for about a month, and feel sluggish and get headaches, that's normal. It gets easy after about a month. I changed my diet as a means of improving my health and losing weight. Went from 92kg to 71kg over the course of a year. All by bloods results have improved. I very rarely eat grain products, and never have anything sugary anymore. I monitor my BG daily. While it wasn't too high it wasnt good, it is now close to rock bottom. It used to be 5.6 - 6.0 mmol/L, its now 4.4 - 4.5mmol/L

I regularly do a water fast one day per week, 36 hour window. Eating mindfully will keep your insulin spikes low. Fasting will however lower your basal insulin levels. At the end of my fast my BG will be about 4.0mmol/L. When I first started fasting it was 60 hours worth and I would just go into ketosis by the end of 60 hours. Plus I would have the associated lethargy and headaches. I now flip into ketosis after 24 hours, no headaches, no lethargy. I measure my ketone levels with a keto meter.

Good luck reversing your T2D, it can be done as long as you eat mindfully. If you rely on medication then your f***ed.

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby uart » Tue Jul 05, 2016 10:59 pm

big booty wrote:Very true nobody. Virtually all processed foods have added sugar content for two reasons. Its very cheap "filler" material and food manufacturers know that it is addictive and hence the likelihood of consuming more than you really want is very high. I was looking for a good vinegar the other day and finally purchased some Mazotti apple cider vinegar. Reading the labels there was one brand that had 55% sugar content. In a vinegar!! The humble tomato sauce, worst I found was 36% the best 16% sugar content.
Hi big booty. I totally agree about the amount of hidden sugar in processed foods, and hence why I avoid processed foods as much as possible (I'm also diabetic).

One thing that is important to remember however, is that the quantity consumed of the food or condiment in question is really the crucial factor here. Your tomato sauce example is a good one to illustrate this. The fountain tomato sauce in my fridge contains 24.6% sugar. Sugar is a very useful preservative in condiments like this. But is it really something to worry about? It takes me about 2 months to consume a single 600mL bottle, so on average that's only about 10 mL per day. This corresponds to about 2.4g of sugar (av) per day, so just under half a teaspoon.

In contrast, many soft drinks contain 25 to 30 teaspoons of sugar per litre, and I've seen people who can polish off 2 or even 3 litres of the stuff per day. That is literally a 200+ fold increase in sugar consumption compared to my meager tomato sauce indulgence, despite it's apparently alarming 25% sugar content.

Hopefully you can see my point here. Sugar has long been used as either a condiment in itself, and as preservative in other condiments. And to be honest I think it is still pretty harmless (more so for non diabetics) in this capacity. It's more the ingress of added sugars (and refined processed starches) into food items that are consumed in large quantities that is the real issue.

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby mikesbytes » Wed Jul 06, 2016 8:34 am

Soft drink has no place in anyone's diet. A rare treat yes and that's about it
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby mikesbytes » Fri Jul 08, 2016 7:33 pm

In regards to the sugar in sauces, do we know what the sugar content was in the historical version of the product and how it compares with the current offering. I.E. has the sugar content been bumped up over time?
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby uart » Fri Jul 08, 2016 9:29 pm

mikesbytes wrote:In regards to the sugar in sauces, do we know what the sugar content was in the historical version of the product and how it compares with the current offering. I.E. has the sugar content been bumped up over time?
That's a good question. I suspect that it probably hasn't changed all that much in the past 50 years or so, that is in the modern "industrial food" era. However if you went back to the 18th or 19th centuries and home prepared sauces, then yes they would have been unlikely to contain a lot of sugar as it was a relative expensive ingredient.

Here for example is a recipe from the 1801. http://www.matsecooks.com/the-origin-of ... st-recipe/
1. Get [the tomatoes] quite ripe on a dry day, squeeze them with your hands till reduced to a pulp, then put half a pound of fine salt to one hundred tomatoes, and boil them for two hours.

2. Stir them to prevent burning.

3. While hot press them through a fine sieve, with a silver spoon till nought but the skin remains, then add a little mace, 3 nutmegs, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and pepper to taste.

4 .Boil over a slow fire till quite thick, stir all the time.

5. Bottle when cold.

6. One hundred tomatoes will make four or five bottles and keep good for two or three years.
Masses of salt but no sugar. :)

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby mikesbytes » Sat Jul 09, 2016 1:20 pm

That makes sense, the sugar was imported from places like the west indies, where the salt was a local product
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby RhapsodyX » Tue Aug 23, 2016 5:22 pm

mikesbytes wrote:That makes sense, the sugar was imported from places like the west indies, where the salt was a local product
And back when sugar was first being shipped, it was as "cones", and you took pieces off it with "sugar nips". As opposed to today where you just pour it over your food until the top surface is white. :roll:

Anyone (but mainly "older" athletes) who think that sugar doesn't affect them needs to buy a blood glucose monitor and get a sense of reality regarding food. I was pre-diabetic at 400+ km of riding a week, someone I know is borderline type 2 at higher levels of training (both distance and intensity) and is currently trying dietary intervention - which has (currently) killed his performance. Here's hoping he finds a middle-ground between diet and performance and I can start chasing him up hills again. :(

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby mikesbytes » Tue Aug 23, 2016 8:37 pm

RhapsodyX, I didn't know that excess sugar could of had such an effect on a high performance trainer such as yourself. It just goes to show how everything needs to be in balance and performing a huge amount of exercise doesn't give you a get out of jail free card
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby big booty » Tue Aug 23, 2016 9:47 pm

Its not only sugar. Most simple grain based carbs will have the same effect. Bread, pasta, pizza, rice etc. Those staples will spike your BG through the roof. OK I'll qualify it by saying that it spiked my BG response. If you are heading into T2D range then those staples are just poison. If you've been relying on glucose to operate then its going to take months to get your liver working properly again. After I eliminated those staples from my diet and started intermittent fasting it took about 8 months before I got to a stage where I was able to fast with complete ease and my liver was able to access stored fats at a fast enough conversion rate.

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby brawlo » Wed Aug 24, 2016 10:48 am

mikesbytes wrote:RhapsodyX, I didn't know that excess sugar could of had such an effect on a high performance trainer such as yourself. It just goes to show how everything needs to be in balance and performing a huge amount of exercise doesn't give you a get out of jail free card
I remember seeing some years ago a former USA high level school or college track runner that was touring around schools talking to students on the dangers of food consumption and diabetes. Despite his athleticism and workload, he went diabetic and lost his legs from the knee down I think. He went from high level athlete to wheelchair bound due to what he ate!

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby Parker » Wed Aug 24, 2016 11:36 am

I'm not sure if Dr Linda Bacon has been mentioned but she is an excellent source of information http://www.lindabacon.org/

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby big booty » Wed Aug 24, 2016 12:19 pm

Im not sure how a person who has an addictive personality trait and is using food as that outlet can reach an "attuned" eating state rather than dieting as Linda puts it. It would appear that about 70% of the western population is currently not "attuned".

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby mikesbytes » Wed Aug 24, 2016 12:27 pm

Brawlo, loosing your legs due to poor nutrition choices, that's a real shame. It hammers down that at least basic nutritional knowledge [and applying it] is a must in today's society

Dr LInda Bacon - If she became a vegan, she would have to change her surname :) Jokes aside, I'm wary of papers that state that being overweight is healthier than not being overweight, in this case stating longevity

This morning I had a coffee with another member of this forum and when ordering they offered us a doughnut with our coffee for $1, which we both took up. The lure of the nice tasting bargain trumped. Neither of us were actually hungry, so we should of both declined the offer and as I said to him, if they had offered us a piece of fruit for the $1 we would of probably declined
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby Parker » Wed Aug 24, 2016 2:42 pm

big booty wrote:Im not sure how a person who has an addictive personality trait and is using food as that outlet can reach an "attuned" eating state rather than dieting as Linda puts it. It would appear that about 70% of the western population is currently not "attuned".
I wouldn't be surprised if 70% of the western population is not "attuned" at all, can we compare it to drug use when people are feeling low and turn to drugs or alcohol etc. We don't assess our feelings very well, I suspect this would require a great deal of self awareness or discovery of self-awareness.
mikesbytes wrote:This morning I had a coffee with another member of this forum and when ordering they offered us a doughnut with our coffee for $1, which we both took up. The lure of the nice tasting bargain trumped. Neither of us were actually hungry, so we should of both declined the offer and as I said to him, if they had offered us a piece of fruit for the $1 we would of probably declined
I made myself a chocolate cake for one last night, it was great and I had fun making it.

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby RhapsodyX » Wed Aug 24, 2016 2:55 pm

mikesbytes wrote:RhapsodyX, I didn't know that excess sugar could of had such an effect on a high performance trainer such as yourself. It just goes to show how everything needs to be in balance and performing a huge amount of exercise doesn't give you a get out of jail free card
Simply a case of being told to eat when hungry, and told that if I bonked in a race/ride it was because I wasn't eating enough. But... if your pancreas is a bit old/worn out, and your blood glucose spikes and stays there with ingested simple carbs... you restrict your fat-burning and become a glucose junky - always seeking a fix

These days, as long as I have slowly "carbed up" over the previous days (a little bit of carbs with each meal, ie. 50g of rice or chick peas, the occasional oat cracker), I can put in a solid 3 - 4 hours at intensity without too much trouble.

I had a rest day last Saturday, from Sunday through Tuesday while eating only minimal carbs, it took me just over nine hours of solid riding at pace before I finally bonked. And, being keto adapted, I just kept riding... Fairly fuzzy headed for about fifteen minutes until the liver kicked into action, but still functional.

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby mikesbytes » Wed Aug 24, 2016 8:38 pm

Parker, please save me a slice

Rhapsodyx, I suppose that all depends on your bodies ability to convert stored fat into glycogen for energy consumption. Its much easier for the body to digest sugar than it is to manufacture sugar and hence why energy gels are popular with endurance athletes
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby RhapsodyX » Thu Aug 25, 2016 11:15 am

mikesbytes wrote:Parker, please save me a slice

Rhapsodyx, I suppose that all depends on your bodies ability to convert stored fat into glycogen for energy consumption. Its much easier for the body to digest sugar than it is to manufacture sugar and hence why energy gels are popular with endurance athletes
Gels have their place, but not necessarily at the quantities that everyone assumes is required. Less can be more when it comes to the impact of simple sugars on performance.

And there's no pathway for stored fat -> glucose/glycogen, the mitochondria in the muscle cells can burn fats and ketones in addition to glycogen, the liver can convert free-fatty-acids to ketones, and the liver can convert protein to glucose. I actully have no idea as to the mechanism (protein source) whereby gluconeogenesis in the liver takes over glucose production when blood glucose falls and ketogenesis starts... yet something else for me to read up on. :roll:

Ketogenesis and gluconeogenesis are both rate limited - if you are "keto adapted" and "bonk" (burn through the liver glycogen stores such that blood glucose falls), you can back off and blood glucose will come back up and you can continue. But at reduced power - you can't maintain lactate threshold efforts, there simply isn't enough fuel for that.

From personal experience and from reading the lit, you can improve mitochondria fat/ketone consumption by training in ketosis, to the point where food becomes optional on extreme rides... as long as you stay aerobic. Cyclical ketogenic diets allow you to train both aerobic and anaerobic capabilities, you do high intensity while "carbed up", and long rides at lactate threshold to work the non-glycogen side of the systems.

I'm off to the AG Fondo in Victoria in a few weeks, I've done four equivalent rides (time, relative intensity and climbing) in the last two weeks - two fasted, two after a light breakfast, all of them on water and on two occasions I've had a UCan superstarch bar (190kCal) mid-ride. Compared to my previous experiences of gels and bonking before the finish of events, this is (to me) an absolutely amazing change. Yes, I will be "carbed up" for thsi event, and I'll be consuming starch during - but nothing near the recommended levels put forward by gel suppliers & published literature.

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby Tyrantrum » Tue Oct 11, 2016 4:37 pm

Sugar is essential for providing energy, and the brain works better with it. Just don't eccessively take it in.

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby find_bruce » Tue Oct 11, 2016 5:04 pm

Tyrantrum wrote:Sugar is essential for providing energy, and the brain works better with it. Just don't eccessively take it in.
Choose your sugar. The sugar that is commonly in food is sucrose. The sugar in your blood that is essential for brain activity and life is glucose. Your body is a remarkable system able to process a wide variety of nutrition and convert it to glucose.

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby Comedian » Tue Oct 11, 2016 5:23 pm

I watched that sugar film recently. Very interesting.

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Re: Sugar its like a poison

Postby mikesbytes » Tue Oct 11, 2016 8:03 pm

Comedian wrote:I watched that sugar film recently. Very interesting.
What bounced out at you the most?
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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